I have no time to write a blog post..but I must register my contribution to Ada Lovelace Day – something new in my repertoire!

March 24th is Ada Lovelace Day – and since I figure it is just past the 24th in some parts of the world, I am not too late! Ada Lovelace Day is a great chance to  honour women who excel in technology environments. For me this is important as I know what a ‘bashing’ we can get for our views and inputs at times 🙂

Ada was clearly a wonderful innovator, and visionary thinker. I am sure there are many many of them in the world, though it’s magic when you know someone personally.

Janet Clarey has a fabulous list in her post Role Models in Educational Technology on Ada Lovelace Day. I found some new people for my PLN.

But wait – what about my special mentions? People who have had a significant impact in my life?  I am going to stick to Australian women – next year – the world!

The person I encountered via the intrawebs, and then met in real life, and who  inspired me to think big and go virtual was of course our very own Jo Kay (aka Jokay Wollongong).  Founder of Jokaydia, she is a design, educational technology and virtual worlds magic woman who we could never do without.  Thanks to her we have the wonderful Islands of Jokaydia, which provides us heaven ‘in world’ for all our professional fun and learning needs. Click here to teleport to the jokaydia Landing Point (SLurl).

Not long after I encountered Jo Kay in my learning journey, I also had the good fortune and injection of inspiration from another Australian researcher who specialises in Digital Identity and Virtual Worlds.

For her day job, Angela Thomas (aka Anya Ixchel) is a senior lecturer in English and Arts Education and her research interests include digital cultures, new media literacies, multimodal semiotics and digital narratives. Don’t think she stops there! Check out her books, her research, her developing virtual projects – and if you are lucky catch her for a little virtual shopping or second life experimentation.  You really should visit Angela’s Virtual Macbeth project too!

But alongside these wonderful women, I have also come across a host of others that have also greatly inspired me. I would love to share pictures for all of them with you. Not going to happen!

So here are their names and links to their work. They are no less important to me, and I count them all as friends and  sources of inspiration. Thank you to you all!

Kathryn Greenhill at Librarians Matter, superb  emerging technologies librarian

Frances Manning at HFS Conversations beating the drum at her school

Marita Thomson whose  StoryLines I love!

Kerry Johnson, that inspiring new Australian at Neotenous Tech 🙂

Julie Lindsay, that wonderful Australian abroad  at E-Learning Journeys

Danielle Miller, CEO of  Enlighten Education, creating shiny girls at the ButterFly Effect.

Suzette Boyd,  of  Scotch College, who has inspired  the best every library website I know!