Homework for Tristan!

On Monday night, I will be attending the fifth and final night of "Build Your Online Profile", a course presented by author/filmmaker Tristan Bancks, at the Sydney Writers' Centre in Milson's Point.

And we have homework! We are to present "a plan for our online future", by answering three key questions in five minutes.

1. Where do you want your online profile to be? Show us the kind of profile that you want to establish and why. If you like you can show us examples of people/companies who are already there now.

2. How will you get there? Priorities? And when?

3. How have your plans changed or developed since the beginning of the course?








An evolution of my web presence.

My strengths/interests are teacher-librarianship and TV historian. Both present opportunities for imparting knowledge and skills to others, but my current online presence is fragmented across many small sites. My recent 365 Photos project reminded me of the importance of established routines for blogging, to keep things current and fresh, and to bring browsers in for return visits. Site Meter indicates that Google Images searches of photographic material on the World Wide Web continues to be an important drawcard to blogs.

However, since starting this course, I have already:

* Bought a domain name, www.number96.tv.

* Revitalized my Twitter page - and added "Facebook" and "Twitter" buttons to my blog.

* Designed an "umbrella" webpage that will unite all my random web presences.

* Finally signed up as a channel owner on Youtube.

* Created a user profile for Creative Commons music at ccMixter.

* Created my first book trailer on Keynote, added a soundtrack from a Creative Commons site, exported it as a video podcast via iWeb, uploaded it to MobileMe and promoted it on Facebook, Twitter, Yammer, two teacher-librarian listservs and the NSW DET book rap being held to celebrate Book Week 2010.

I still need to:

* Create and upload the umbrella webpage for www.number96.tv. (Time frame: immediately.)

But, as a result of this course, I will also...

* Brainstorm with Andrew Mercado(?) and begin to create a series of podcast fan commentaries for episodes of "Number 96" which could be hosted on iTunes? (Time frame: next twelve months?)

* Create more book trailers to export as video podcasts. Students to be involved in the productions. Closer ties with a range of children's writers and illustrators. A renewed focus for collaborative teaching and learning with Web 2.0 in our (almost completed) school library. (Time frame: next twelve months?)

* Complete new, unrelated, picture book project - which is currently needing to transfer from my brain to paper. Exploit the online possibilities that will arise with publication and promotion of book. (Time frame: ASAP.)


"Mr Chicken goes to Paris" book trailer

Presenting...

Seminar aftermath - returning from a day on the Central Coast.

Today I had a very restful and scenic train ride to Gosford Station, to attend a teacher-librarians' gathering at Brisbania Public School. I was presenting a session on wikis, blogs and Web 2.0.

Many thanks to the organisers and attendees for making me feel so welcome. It's always fun to share innovative educational strategies with others and even more rewarding to get feedback that one's work has already been inspiring others!

And thanks also for the gift, which doubled as the subject of today's "365 Photos" project, winning out even over glimpses of the majestic Hawesbury River.

In the picture

The ISLA group of teacher-librarians has posted some photos of the professional development day I was asked to speak at in Shellharbour last October. I was particularly chuffed by this line on their blog site:

"Many Illawarra teacher librarians are now busy planning and creating wikis thanks to the inspirational Ian McLean."

I look forward to seeing what they get up to!


Ian draws the winning raffle (er, guessing competition) ticket.
Also pictured, from left, are ISLA committee members, Margaret Cooper
and Celia Owen.

More learning, growing and achieving

Unlike the last conference I was asked to speak at, I went into today's events without that heavy weight of responsibility and impending disaster. I mean, if I could fill an hour on my own last time, how much easier would it be this time? We knew our material back-to-front, if necessary. The most difficult aspect would surely be, what bits do I leave out?

My co-presenter, Cath Keane, had prepared eleven of our PowerPoint pages, I'd added my own hyperlinks to the twelfth and last slide, and we only had 50 minutes or so to fill anyway. We also had plenty of time before our session, "Young rappers", to play on the interactive whiteboard (IWB), test our hyperlinks and cache all our web pages that we were planning to visit. We also knew in advance that we had about twenty people signed up to hear our talk. Everything worked in the rehearsal and off we went to the first keynote event of Day 2 of this Early Years Conference.

Clinical psychologist, Lyn Worsley, presented her fascinating session on "The resilience doughnut: the secret of strong kids" and, while she probably didn't say anything terribly new, especially to a ballroom filled with teachers who already had solid backgrounds in early childhood education, the strength of her approach was the clear answer of "where to know?" that one could glean after having used her clever, simple analytical tool for gauging the resilience of a particular student. Wonderful!

Before we knew it, Cath and I were deep into our presentation on book raps, blogs, wikis and Circle Time. Our only hitch was that our computer connection, which had worked so perfectly in rehearsal, had been lost for the presentation. A tech person came in and got us back online most efficiently, but our live connection to the Wilfrid rap blog (on Edublogs) was no longer working. Luckily, our PowerPoint had lots of frame grabs from the site, and the links to the Departmental website and my school's wiki pages were still viable, so we carried on regardless. We finished off with a reading of my Kinder students' "Zebra with spots" fable of 2007, and a walk-through of selected pages from my school's wiki pages. I hope our presentation has encouraged more schools to start dabbling in wikis and blogs.

It all seemed to go very well, but a highlight for me was that two attendees hung back at the end to (re)introduce themselves. It was none other than Warren and Kathy, two of my colleagues from my teachers college days! They'd noticed each other in the audience of my workshop session - I'm not sure at what point they realised that I was also from the same year - but morning tea turned out to be a mini-reunion of the Class of '79 of the Guild Teachers College. We swapped anecdotes about the good ol' days and pocket histories of our lives. It was the first time we'd seen each other since Graduation Day in 1980 - very exciting, and great to know that they are doing so well in their own teaching careers. (I can see a bigger reunion coming up in the next few months! I hope.)

Next up was Peter Gould, Manager, Mathematics at NSW DET - and one of the people I worked with on numerous occasions back in my Scan editor days. Peter's keynote was "From ABC to 123: what counts in early numeracy" and - despite some frustrating glitches with the movie clip elements of his presentation - it was an invaluable reminder of the essential differences in the ways young children learn to be numerate as opposed to literate.

After lunch, I attended two more workshops, both of which (again) ably demonstrated the amazing array of teaching and learning strategies that interactive whiteboards are bringing to classrooms in the 21st century. I guess that's the main thing I'm taking from this conference: that most of today's students are already citizens of the digital world of Web 2.0. The sooner their teachers and parents play catch-up the better. Every presentation I went to was using IWBs as part of their presentation - even my presentation, and today was the first time I'd actually been able to use one! Knowing that a little knowledge is dangerous, I can't wait to get my hands on an IWB as part of my school library's facilities and let my imagination run wild. Or wilder.

This conference left its delegates with so much food for thought (and delicious food for the body - the Novotel, Brighton-le-Lands always does well in that regard), great ideas we can start using on Monday (first day back of Term Three), and some wonderful memories of networking with colleagues, old and new. Synthesising all the learning into our daily lives will take time, but I'm glad I gave up two days of my vacation to absorb it all. I'm also grateful for the very handsome, gold-embossed "Presenter" pens, which Cath and I received for doing our workshop.

Roll on Term Three...

School libraries leading learning: Day 2

The alarm clock was again set to go off at 6:00 am and, of course, I was awake - wide awake - at 4:20 am. Ross Todd's advice from yesterday was still ringing through my brain.

Nothing to do except turn on my computer, dig through all my hand-scrawled notes from Circle Time evaluations of last year’s Kindergarten wiki fables project, and add them to the new wiki page I intended to use in my presentation today.

Of course, now that I'm home I realise exactly which bits of my material I should have used yesterday (my ten-minute segment of a 70-minute panel), when the captive audience was huge. I also should have started off the panel talk on the Saturday with a reading of my favourite student-written fable. But I'd been so focused on using it to kick off my tutorial today (a one-hour session), which was in a comparatively tiny room, and a much smaller group. Sigh...

Why is it always so clear the day after the event?

School libraries leading learning: Day 1

I set the alarm for 6.00am this morning, fully intending to swing past the school, on my way to the railway station to attend the first day of School Libraries Leading Learning, the NSW State Conference of ASLA and the Department of Education and Training.

To my horror, it was still pitch dark outside. Little Jack looked at me, quite bewildered, and wanted to refuse the only chance he’d have to relieve himself, and I eventually decided to phone in the last-minute instructions to my replacement in the school library. By sheer luck, it wasn’t a heavy teaching load day; much of her day was to be spent policing the preview browsing of the annual Book Fair, which starts in earnest next week.

Follow the link above to find out how the day went.

Back on track with Sassy

Yesterday Selwa Anthony, Australian literary agent extraordinaire, held her annual all-day seminar and gala dinner for her ever-growing network of amazing authors. Once again at the Novatel Hotel in Brighton-le-Sands, Succeed, It's Great in 2008 was as stimulating as the first one I attended (way back in November 1993, Succeed Some More in '94.) The seminars take their title from a little self-help book, "Succeed With Me", which Selwa once wrote with Jimmy Thomson - and it's now available in audio by Bolinda Audio; we received a freebie in our goodie bag upon arrival!

Despite the fact that, so far, I haven't earned Selwa any percentages, she keeps inviting me back. These seminars have certainly directed me into numerous opportunities over the years but so far nothing commercial enough that would earn Selwa her percentage. Yet. Selwa continues to have faith in me, but i always feel quite humble in the talented company of Selwa's network.

The first speaker yesterday was a no-show. The poor person ended up booking a flight and heading to Brighton in Melbourne instead of Brighton-le-Sands, Sydney. So compere, Mark Macleod, brought on stage Selwa's young assistant, Selina, for an insight into a day in the life of being Selwa's assistant. It was a great impromptu session, and it also meant that Mark could offer up what he called "one-minute spots", over the course of the day, to anyone wanting to share something special to the rest of the network.

A few people availed themselves of the opportunity and, in the morning tea break, I was boasting to author/journalist Sue Williams about my Kindergarten students' recent work writing fables on the World Wide Web via a wiki. Sue's eyes lit up and she said, "Go and tell Mark you'll do a one minute spot! If anything, you'll also get to show off that fabulous jacket" *

The next thing I knew, I was sharing my young students' work - from memory! - with the likes of Tara Moss, Kim Wilkins (now also writing as Kimberley Freeman), Ian Irvine and so many other Australian literary luminaries. It was a highly energizing experience, and it made sooooooo twitchy to get to the keyboard. Maybe there'll be a chance for a much longer session at the next seminar?

And now, back to the drawing board.

* Oh - I must mention my new jacket, as seen in the picture of me with Selwa (above). I bought it on my recent trip to Perth (not usually a place where one thinks of buying a jacket, but I couldn't leave it in that shop in Northbridge. It was way too cool!). As well as the upraised silver "Superman" logo on the front, it has a larger one on the back. It picked up compliments all day and night, including a most enthusiastic accolade from first-night red carpet denizen/veteran, Susie Elleman. Someone came up to me later and whispered, "Wow! Susie likes your jacket! That's great, getting compliments from celebrities." But then we wondered... Poor Susie is annually castigated by the media for her poor clothing choices every Logies Award night, and her outfits and hairstyles are the stuff of Logies legend! So is it, in fact, good to get a high rating for my dress sense from her? ;)

Last night's Sassy presenter was the very sassy Dinah Lee. As I always say, it was a great day and night, and a highlight of my year every November. Maybe by next November I'll have a book of my own on the way.

Sunday's magic number: 90.3 - much better! A two kilo drop at last. You know, after the last few weeks' disappointment, I could actually feel the weight disappearing this week, as I cut out almost everything yummy I hold dear (the late night snacking especially). It is gratifying that I was able to eat my way through two gigantic meals yesterday at the seminar (and the Sassy Awards' banquet) and still wake up two kilos lighter than last Sunday, to smile about it this morning. Yay me!

And I should point out that I first met my "Fat Free Forever" dieting gurus, Dianne Barker Wilson and former "Gladiator" Geoff Barker, via the "Succeed With Me" seminars.

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.