The Sixth Sense - are we ready?

Having just attended the two-day NSW DET "Connected Learning 2009" conference (and presenting in a session last Wednesday), I'm internalising a lot of new ideas that will need to be interpreted and translated into my daily professional practice.

This year's conference was subtitled "Transforming Learning and Teaching". Colleen Foley and I were pleased we had plenty of school principals at our session! But there was so much information to convey in a 50 minute session of a two-day conference - at which all attendees were giving up two days of their vacation. Which is hardly ideal.

Some of the points raised by the keynote speakers were so important, thought-provoking and challenging. The presentations by Mark Treadwell and Peter Blassina, particularly, were quite mind-blowing. If you haven't seen the TED talk on "The Sixth Sense" by Pattie Maes (MIT Media Lab), as discussed by Peter Blassina at the conference, it's a must-see:
http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html



After that video, we were all feeling more than a little inadequate, and yet incredibly excited by the possibilities. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, here I was thinking my iPhone was pretty clever, and a harbinger of how students of the future would still be needing the help of teacher-librarians to plough through our information world. If "The Sixth Sense" becomes a commercial reality, the learning curve starts anew before the current one is even finished. Are any of us ready for the next paradigm shift?


Outside the Novotel Sydney Hotel, Brighton-le-Sands,
for the Connected Learning conference.

The IWB arrives!

The start of a new school term, and the long-awaited interactive whiteboard (IWB) has arrived!





I had to adjust the layout of the four "news room" clocks, and I now have even more ugly conduit to cover up with green wall paint, but here we are!

Welcome to the 21st century!

Identity crisis

Okay, I'm mad, and it's only a little bit my fault.

I can't prove who I am. Since the infamous events of 9/11 in the USA, I have been unable to send a package overseas through Australia Post. I always have to wait inside the foyer area of licensed clubs, hoping someone will be allowed to "sign me in" to attend teacher-librarian committee meetings or Teachers Federation strike meetings. I must take bills in my name (or, once, my expired passport) to travel interstate by e-ticket.

And I cannot buy an iPhone from the Apple Retail Store in the CBD, where they already had me booked in a week ago for an appointment to do a "personal shop" tomorrow.

Why?

Because I don't have valid photo ID.

I was told last week, when making the booking, that I should bring 100 points worth of ID (birth certificate, credit cards, bills with my home address on them - after a mild panic on finding the birth certificate, which I hadn't seen buying my first mobile phone two years ago, I easily had 100 points worth, but... because I do not drive a car, I can never prove who I am.

One day, I must to get my new passport. I didn't think, when it expired in about 2002, that I'd need a passport again until I was ready to travel overseas again. But... in this day and age, a grown adult who is not a licenced driver, a university student, or sight impaired, can't easily prove who they are. (Hey, don't laugh, I know someone who travelled to New Zealand once with a picture of himself, in a Klingon uniform and goatee, on his international driver's licence! Mmmmm, now there's an idea...)


Have blaster, will travel?

A few years ago, I caused much hilarity when I had to take my passport to Brisbane so I could identify myself at the then-standby counter at the airport. A passport to travel across an Australian border?

A few years later, I tried to buy my first e-ticket to Perth online, but my first choice, Qantas, insisted I needed photo ID to actually have my ticket processed at the check-in. I quickly switched to Virgin's site instead, and its fine print simply said "valid ID"... so I proceeded with the purchase.

Imagine my horror when the invoice printed out and mentioned "photo identification". With only two weeks until I was to travel, I raced off to the post office. Someone had reassured me they did a "proof of ID" card. I joined a long queue, and made my inquiry. No, they laughed and sent me to the DMR (Department of Main Roads).

But I didn't want a driver's license, nor even a learner's permit. The woman at the post office assured me I simply needed a "proof of age" card, such as used by young people in their early 20s who might pass as underage drinkers in a pub. Mmmmm. Well, at age 45 or so, it had been a long time since I could have been accused of underage drinking.

At the DMR, I filled out my form and waited forever on another long queue. Then they laughed hysterically. A proof of age card could only be made for people between the ages of 18 and 26. I had to take my birth certificate into the city, instead, to the office of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and get a birth card.

This was getting ridiculous. I went in on the train the next day, filled out my forms, joined another long queue, and waited for someone to take my photograph. I could even see the camera set up. This was going to be easy, especially when I noticed a sign saying that, for an extra small fee, my finished card could be mailed within 72 hours. Which was good, because I now had less than two weeks till I had to travel and prove ID with a photo, and there was definitely no time left to go the original passport option.

Ah, you knew there was another road block coming, didn't you?

This birth card, unlike all the other services offered by the Births, Deaths and Marriages office, had to be sent the slow way: to the address marked on my other examples of ID, and would take ten working days. Since this card was also going to cost almost as much as a passport, I wondered aloud why people even bothered with a "birth card". It was for people who had to prove ID but had no intention of ever travelling overseas, the woman explained. What was the point, even? If I couldn't get the card before I travelled, why buy one of these cards if I still needed a passport next time I wanted to travel outside Australia?

Eventually, I rang Virgin and explained my plight. I did have Department of Education and Training professional journals with my captioned photographs and editorials in them? There! A new use for Scan! (No, Scan was not "valid photo ID" either, I was told.) virgin explained they'd happily accept two credit cards with my signature on them. Ha! (And the joke ended up being on them; I'd accidentally cut up my new card the night before, and thus picked up my e-ticket boarding pass to Perth on an expired credit card.)

Of course, since that comedy of endless errors, the DMR has changed their rules, and I now can go and apply for a new proof of ID card, which would have a photo on it. (I'm sure I'd need photo ID to apply for one, so I didn't bother.) And then, this morning, I learned I could not buy my iPhone from Apple after all - because I again couldn't prove who I was. 100 points might be 100 points, but one of the items from the prescribed list still has to have a photo on it.

Did I have a shooter's licence?, the woman asked over the phone. For a second there, I thought she was inferring that I'd gotten too frustrated with her, and was planning some kind of ultimate retribution. No, she just meant that shooters' licences had photos on them. Or, for just $23, I could "drop in" to my local DMR and get a learner's permit. Easy!

Here we go again. You know what's really frustrating? The Penrith DMR is so out of the way, you need a car to get there!

You know what else is frustrating? You now have to sit a computer test about road rules to even get a driving permit with a photo on it! Like I'm going to do a crash course in the rules of the road just to get an iPhone tomorrow?

Anyway, to make a long story as long as it ended up being, my existing phone service provider let me have an iPhone today using only my birth certificate. Thus, all the homework I'd done studying various plans, carriers, best deals, etc, was misguided because I still can't really prove who I am. I should have, instead, spent the time applying for a passport. Several months ago. (I won't mention the length of the queue today in Telstra's phone shop. The only reason I was served as early as I was: three people in front of me stormed off in frustration.)

I hadn't bothered doing anything with the passport application yet because my plans to travel to Las Vegas, to see the "Star Trek Experience", ended when they closed that attraction at the end of August. How was I to know that my mobile phone contract would run out at the same time as I was ready to upgrade the iMac into a MacBook Pro?

I'm really going to have to track down that old, expired passport and get the new application form sent off. Dammit. Then I need to use the passport to do some travelling, and give me my money's worth. (What's the name of this blog again?)

Ah sweet irony.

I can see the excuses now: I'd have the money to travel if I didn't have this iPhone bill to pay.

ICT learning curves

I feel like the whole day has been totally consumed by setting up my new tech devices. Thanks to the telephone helpfulness of my iiNet Internet provider, I was able to get the Time Capsule Wi-Fi thingie working properly with the new MacBook Pro. Now I just have to get the new printer talking to it properly, and I must master the art of using a mouse-less keyboard.

I went out walking this morning, on a break between the rain showers, and I took Jack with me for a separate walk this afternoon, again slipping it in between showers. While I was out on my own, I picked up a magazine about iPhones, so I can do some homework before next week, when I go back to collect whatever I end up with next Thursday.

Oh well, I'm off to set all the timepieces forward an hour; Eastern Summer Time - daylight savings - starts at 2am tomorrow!

Shopping for Apples

I'm just home from the Apple Retail Store in the CBD with my new laptop (and next week, I collect my iPhone!).



Well, the bank account wasn't looking too bad and, since I've spent a number of recent days uploading photos to Facebook, I'm hitting the "rolling beachball of death" way too often on my now-antiquated, lampshade-base iMac. I was told it'll be tricky (plus over $500) to get the memory upgraded sufficiently to take the latest operating system upgrade. And even then, no promises.

So... a laptop was becoming an essential requirement. It'll be able to handle all the new capabilities, and the iMac can take up the slack on simpler things. I may even take the even older PowerMac dinosaur into school/work and stick a few games on it for the students - we are a PC-only school. (Ick.)

Simultaneously, my first mobile phone is on its last legs; my original phone plan ran out last month, so I went for a double act today; I have a few days to master the laptop, before I collect the iPhone next week.

I also got a new scanner/printer, and the new-fangled "Time Capsule", which allows care-free full back-ups. Yippee.

When you enter the big Apple Store (in the CBD) intending to buy, they sign you up for "personal shopping" experience. I was booked in for two appointments: the laptop purchase, which I could do immediately, and the iPhone purchase, and I elected to make the iPhone appointment for next Thursday. It would be too bamboozling to buy too much hardware at once!

Now I have time, theoretically, to investigate the various plans available, and to find out how many ID points I'll need, since I don't drive and my passport has expired, and I can never prove who I am - even to post a parcel overseas - these days.

I'll probably buy the iPhone outright, but at the Apple Store they have an upstairs area where all the providers (Telstra, Optus, etc) are available to help you switch into a new plan when you buy the phone.

Beijing, books and bungee-jumping

This term, I'm working with at least seven very enthusiastic groups of Stage 2 students on the New South Wales Department of Education & Training's Beijing Olympic Games & Book Week 2008 rap.

Firstly, as with the other raps which ran this year, I’m promoting the rap blog URL in the school newsletter so that students can show off their group’s rap responses with their families each week.

In case the URL doesn’t make it home, I’m also explicitly modelling a search strategy (ie. how to use Google to find the rap pages) each time the students come for their blogging session. I show them what happens when we type in raps and book raps as search terms (almost 1.5 million hits!) and how the abundance of riches can be reduced by using inverted commas. (ie. “raps and book raps” gives only 5000 possible sites - and, in any case, the NSW DET Raps webpage appears as choice #1).

Also I demonstrate the pathway to get to the blog itself. For the last two raps, many students tried out visiting the rap blog from home, and we received great parental feedback.

Secondly, I brought in a collection of stuffed animal toy mascots (plus others that were already decorating the library). The Bruce Whatley drawing of Tammy the Tortoise (in the Children's Book Council of Australia shortlisted book, The Shaggy Gully Times) is uncannily like a toy tortoise I had at home, especially with the addition of a battery-operated pocket fan strapped to her back.

Now each group is selecting (and often naming) one of the animal “reporters”, who’ll represent them in the upcoming newspaper article rap point. Each one has his or her own “Press card” to get them into Olympic venues. The animal characters (a flying fox, the aforementioned tortoise, a Puffin Books puffin, a Chinese New Year dragon, a large green frog, Selby the taking dog, and my trusty big, black, furry, bungee spider - it's a long story) might prove useful for some f(p)unny photojournalism in the playground. We'll be able to upload the pictures to the Gallery of the rap blog - and they should provide inspiration for some typically Jackie French-esque animal puns.

All about Olive

Yesterday, Australia and the world lost their oldest female blogger: 108 year old Olive Riley.

That's what I call a good example of an "early adopter" of ICT (information communication technologies)!

RIP Olive! Your stories shall live on.

Greedy for blogs

In the last year at work/ie.school, we've formed at least three new professional learning groups that extend beyond our one school and take in other local schools with similar goals and projects. Inevitably, these networks mean even more after-school committee meetings, but the value of the results these groups can produce, means it's usually well work the time invested.

Today, I found myself volunteering to create another blog for the teachers, teacher-librarians and consultants involved in two of the groups - this one a little more in-house in theme, purpose and audience/participants, so I won't be promoting the URL far and wide at this point, although if it takes off it may well find a niche beyond its original brief. It's only very early days yet.

Essentially, it's a blog about our school (and other schools in our learning support group)'s quest to select, purchase and efficiently utilise interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in our school programs. I had suggested to the network that involving ourselves in some group projects would be a great way to support each other, proactively on several learning journeys with the IWBs. Me and my big mouth. (A new wiki activity just wasn't enough!)

As my third blog (fourth if I count helping out with the Wilfrid rap blog last term), I was astounded how quickly I could go to Edublogs, throw together a few pieces of already-created information and have a slick-looking set of posts, attachments, links and models of previous examples in about an hour, with a few hours of after-work tinkering to get the presentation looking user-friendly.

It's empowering!

Synthesis!

On Monday, the staffs of seven schools in our learning community gathered in my school’s assembly hall to hear Jamie McKenzie speaking on the importance of authentic learning in today’s schools.

I first became aware of USA-based Jamie McKenzie (and his online writings in From Now On) when commissioning one of my first articles as editor of the teacher-librarians’ professional journal, Scan. It’s amazing to look at the date on that article and recall that it was in 1998 when Lyn Hay, of Charles Sturt University, provided “An interview with Jamie McKenzie” (for Scan, vol 17, no 2, pp 5-7). Jamie had become a guru among teacher-librarians around the world for his then-current investigations into power learning and imagining the “post modem” school. The printed interview ended up being a prelude to his visit to Sydney, later that year, for a professional development day attended by many teacher-librarians and a few intrigued school principals. Teacher-librarians following Jamie McKenzie’s work found much to bolster their efforts in collaborative teaching, and Jamie has continued to be a great advocate for the work being done by Australia’s teacher-librarians. But how far did his message reach?

A full decade on, some of his emphases have certainly evolved but it was rewarding for me to be back in the teacher-librarian role, and seeing Jamie’s latest messages about questions of import, authentic learning and assessment, the “smart use” of information communication technologies (ICT), quality teaching and learning, and the embracing of complexity, being shared with a room full of attentive teachers, executive staff, teachers’ aides, not just the seven teacher-librarians. It was also pleasing that he, again, complimented Australia’s teacher-librarians for their ongoing proactive role in supporting teachers and students grappling with authentic learning and the smart use of technologies (and he included print books as one “technology”).

More commentary follows on my other blog, where I attempt to synthesise about synthesis!

Booked Inn: heroic adventures in teacher-librarianship

In a challenging fortnight, I gave up three days of my vacation to help develop and test some new ways of presenting Internet-based book raps in schools.

I also spent considerable time doing what felt a bit like a brain data dump of information about blogging, and it really got me thinking about the online facilities that are available to teacher-librarians to share ideas with each other, and excuses to become more comfortable with how Web 2.0 components can be used in education.

Therefore, I commenced another blog, glutton for punishment that I am, called Booked Inn: heroic adventures in teacher-librarianship over on Edublogs (via WordPress). Supposedly, it will be fully accessible in NSW government schools, and I can use it for professional learning and information exchange. (For all its great features, I'm unable to upload anything to my Blogger pages from a work computer due to blocking software.)

I've challenged myself to stay as positive as possible; I've seen lots of professional blog sites and opinion-based web sites where the author (and readers) sink into a quagmire of negativity and constant rage against the system. And I'm definitely a "glass half full" kind of guy.

Wish me luck - and check it out some time (or, indeed, often).

Wonderful wikis

Today I bit the bullet and leaped into the next era of ICT (information communications technology) and taught a dozen Kindergarten students (and myself, slightly one step ahead) how to design a wiki.

Now, I've dabbled in adding and editing an existing wiki (eg. Wikipedia, Memory Alpha, Memory Beta, etc), but this time I had to work out how to design one, and how to help the students to build up a narrative (in fable form, complete with a motto) - and post it to the wiki.

Within a few moments of launch, our fledgling wiki web pages were being looked at by two different Internet surfers in California, USA. Amazing! Young students are simply not scared to (literally) push that newest button in modern technology.

Connect, Collaborate, Create

Today, I was an invited presenter at the 2007 Connected Learning Conference, held at the Novotel, Brighton-Le-Sands. The topic of my brief contribution was book raps, and how they were great examples of connecting, collaborating and creating. I can only guess that my audience included principals, teacher-librarians and computer savvy teachers.

Lots of deja vu moments. Once again, Colleen and I were venturing off for a lengthy car journey to speak at an education conference about ICT (information and communication technologies) and collaborative teaching; one of my first duties at "Scan", in 1998, had been a similar task. The Novotel is also the annual venue of Selwa Anthony's author management conferences, Succeed With Me, so the rooms, decor and even the wicked food offerings were all very familiar. (Bang goes the diet for this week.) There were also lots of well-remembered faces from my time at Ryde State Office of the NSW Department of Education and Training. Most of these people couldn't believe it had been over five years since I was working with them at Ryde, as editor of "Scan" - and neither could I!

The whole day was most rewarding - really great keynote speeches that had everyone both overwhelmed but invigorated about future possibilities in education! - and the pen souvenir I was given, as a presenter, is very cool in its Star Trek inspired plastic tube!

This cold makes me feel funny

Some of my school's Year 3 and 4 students are working with me on an interactive Book Rap, composing and posting emails for other schools to share ideas about selected books. Last week, their progress on some narratives about our school's various playground birds was unexpectedly halted by a visit from poet Steven Herrick, which was apart of National Literacy and Numeracy Week.

Few of our students knew of Herrick's work, but we did have three of his titles in the school library. His visit was an overwhelming success. The Year 4 students had already written their bird stories for the rap and were ready to compose their Wrap Rap-up messages to finalise everything, but we all suddenly realised the potential of applying Herrick's unique style of free verse to such writing as the bird narratives. Therefore, I read a few more Herrick poems to the Years 3/4 classes and, when the Year 3's came in for their catch-up book rapping session, to complete their narratives, I encouraged them to use the option of free verse in their final drafts.

A few groups soon reached a stalemate, having exhausted all of their wonderful brainstormed ideas of two weeks ago. It was not long after recess, so we went out into the playground and waited quietly. Sure enough, in came the pigeons and other birds, one by one, to pck through the students' abandoned leftovers of food! In just a few minutes of observation we were witness to: pigeons' meal time; a young male pigeon's first, tentative attempts at courtship; and the "rules" of avian attack/defence. A few minutes later the huge, glossy black crows had also arrived, swooping down, full of confidence, taking over the new bird bath, and having a great time laying down the law of birdlife. The students quickly noticed the "pecking order" of our school's bird population.

We went back into the library full of renewed inspiration. One group, although they'd written their narrative about pigeons in normal paragraphs (and continued to do so), elected to perform it orally for the other groups as free verse poetry, breaking up the sentences into shorter natural phrasing, a la Steven Herrick. When we typed up their final draft, the new presentation style was retained. I was really thrilled with the result!

Normally I wouldn't share student work online, but the poem already appears elsewhere on a public forum, so I can give you a peek:

PIGEONS AT SCHOOL
by Year 3 students (in the style of Steven Herrick).

The playground is empty,

except for the pigeons.

They go and look

for food

in the rubbish

and eat it.

This is now their territory.

Until lunchtime.

A young male pigeon

strives to impress

a new female.

This will be his first mate.

The other pigeons

peck the ground

and other playground birds, who can’t find food,

follow them.

After their meal of scraps

The pigeons go to the bird bath to relax,

and to decide on the next school to visit.


Once again, raising the bar of expectations caused the students to meet - and surpass it.

I've now put up a display board about the book rap in the library, and one story and one poem have been earmarked for next week's school newsletter. Even though I've been "talking up" this book rap with other teachers at every opportunity, and putting items in the school newsletter, the display board has already caused a few teachers in the other stages to realise that there has been all this amazing creativity going on around them, while they stayed in blissful ignorance. So often, teachers get so caught up with their day-to-day class activities they can manage to miss out hearing of other students' and other teachers' success stories. The display board is going to be a great focal point for identifying examples of successful collaborative teaching, and the use of ICT (information and communication technologies) and cooperative student learning in the school library.

The timing has been excellent! I happened to have my 2007 Teacher Assessment and Review Schedule (TARS) talk today, and I had plenty of positive stuff at my fingertips to talk about (not that I'm usually shy about sharing).

The principal gave me some excellent feedback on my first year back in the library. He especially likes my enthusiasm for children's literature, our school's great improvement in the annual Premier's Reading Challenge (103 additional students made it, making a total of 313 this year!), and how I've made the library extra student-friendly.

A rapping good time

This month at school, I'm working with a little phalanx of six- and seven-year old book rappers in the library. A book rap is a carefully guided discussion about a book by email, designed to teach students about ICT (information and communication technologies).

We had to brainstormed an introductory message to the other classes (all over Australia), edited it and emailed it, and then refreshed our memories with a reading of the featured book, "Possum Magic" by Mem Fox.

Today, with the cooperation of the four home class teachers, we were able to squeeze in an extra session, so we tried to get on top of next week's Rap Point. Highlight of the session, though, was when the library telephone in the office started to ring. I hesitated about answering it, but it would have been annoying to let it keep ringing. I gave an audible sigh and raced off to answer the phone.

Still clustered around the brainstorm sheet, one little voice among the group of students chirped, "Don't worry, Mr McLean, we can handle this..."