Schools Information Officer, EdNA Online,

Category 1 Recognition within own institution - Is the applicant respected as a leader and innovator in their own institution?

Work with Students

Kerrie's main contact with students these days is through askedna, an email service maintained by EdNA Online to answer questions from the public. Each month there are some enquiries from school students.
However, much of her work at EdNA Online involves the selection of websites suitable for students to use: quality websites related to the Australian curriculum, that provide quality information in a safe environment for students.
Kerrie has also been responsible in the EdNA Project for identifying gaps in existing services and initiating some services which have students as their audience: e.g. Competitions for Schools is a noticeboard that attempts to acts as a register for competitions Australian schools or their students may enter. The Opportunities section of the edna-for-schools newsletter contains similar information on a fortnightly basis.

Work with colleagues

Kerrie began work for Education.au limited, the government agency which manages the EdNA Online project, at the end of 2000. She is on secondment from SA DECS. Kerrie holds the position of Schools Information Officer.Kerrie is held in high regard at Education.au limited. Her position as a member of the CEGSA committee has enabled her not only to involve CEGSA members in EdNA projects but also to provide EdNA Online with some authoritative feedback. Education.au limited has been generous in its willingness for Kerrie to be involved in CEGSA and ACCE activities.
She has been able to blend her work with her extra-curricular interests such as her voluntary work with CEGSA and participation in committees such as conference committees for ACEC2004 and ACS2003.The position of Schools Information Officer was newly created in 2000. Through Kerrie's work, the profile of EdNA Online has been raised considerably in the school education sector Australia wide. The resource collection that EdNA Online provides for the school sector has expanded considerably.
Kerrie instigated and authors the edna-for-schools newsletter, a fortnightly email newsletter, and online web page now catering for over 3,000 subscribers and several thousand hits a month. In addition the monthly Early Childhood News, aimed at those dealing with children 0-8 years, is emailed to more than 2,500 subscribers.Kerrie's first theme page was the Christmas page created for Christmas 2000. Since then nearly 80 theme pages have been created. These theme pages provide customised entry points into the EdNA Online database for teachers.
Kerrie has initiated a number of projects including the Calendar for Australian Schools, a wall calendar now distributed to every school in Australia that shows days, weeks, and months that schools might like to celebrate. The wall calendar is supported by an online one that refers users to definitive web sites that support the calendar dates.Within the EdNA Online team, Kerrie plays an active part in many sub-committees, re-engineering the EdNA web site, developing collaborative work space tools, maintaining the EdNA Online list serv which enables email lists for over 600 groups, a large proportion of them being from the school sector.In 2003 Kerrie was a member of the South Australian Premier's Software Awards committee and she is a continuing member of the Asia EdNet Steering Committee