2020 Vision: An uncommon future for school libraries

Posted on February 16, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

I am attending (and presenting at) the Australian School Library Association (NSW) professional seminar at the State Library of NSW, on Saturday 17th February. Along with me will be two other excellent presenters – Westley Field and Leanne Cameron, who will set the scene for our enquiry into the future of school libraries.

This will be the first of a number of presentations I will make this year on the theme of our ‘uncommon’ future. Though I know that we have many evangelists amongst the global community who present, blog, and otherwise promote the future directions we must take, they are a long way from Australia. So here I am on my soapbox box.

So, welcome to those who are at my session. This post is for you 🙂 as it provides you with the main Del.ici.ous link for the State Library day, as well as a home-base on HeyJude for further reading and exploration of the global debate in this field. You will find my Web 2.0 Toolset at the bottom of the Resources page.

A theme that will run through each of the threads today will be the changing landscape of our digital world – our flat classrooms – and the convergence of technologies and social networking into everyday life providing fsscinating and challenging possibilities for school libraries.

Web 2.0 tools are important, but their impact goes much deeper than their networking ‘novelty’ might suggest. The tools for information seeking, and the spaces for information sharing are also changing and developing. It is important to become familiar with these and to rise to the challenge.

Individuals and organisations alike are finding new and increasingly effective ways of connecting through Web 2.0 technology. Our students are living that connection. This is the human side of this Web 2.0 transformation.

What does Web 2.0 really mean for school libraries? As we create conversations, conections and a Web 2.0 learning community we are opening the door to a better library future.

I am happy to say that this is beginning to happen – and many of my schools are seeking ways to create better learning spaces, better use of Web 2.0, and better ways to collaborate with teachers and promote student learning all the while. Don’t get me wrong – it is a challenge. But my teachers and teacher librarians are responding to the challenge – all in different ways – but all moving forward with curiosity and enthusiasm.

So our libraries and our classrooms need to embrace Web 2.0, and in so doing create new processes and products, leading to new forms of digital pedagogy and digital scholarship.

Let me share Michael’s words (who is a real inspiraton), as he explained how he is using Web 2.0 within our school’s learning management system (CeNet):

I must say this is a really challenging year for me this year, but I’m enjoying it. Here’s a brief snapshot of some of the things I and others have been doing :

webcams for animations, filming/evaluating student work, podcasting important lessons, etc.

wordpress and blogger blogs for tasks which neatly incorporate some online work (eg. posting photos, sound files, website references and research and utilising internet related mutimedia like youtube etc.)

CeNet for online activities, eg. ELFs which enable submission of electronic work

rss feeding for students subscribing to and commenting on other students blogs as well as other web content, eg. SMH or ABC online feeds

online web 2.0 tools for scaffolding, eg. gliffy and read-write-think for timelines, concept maps, etc.

cenet for making electronic material available for all students after hours.

Michael is using blogs with his French class, and subscribes to their blogs with RSS – so all the student work is delivered right to his desktop!

Let me share France’s blogsite, HFS Conversations, that she set up for providing professional discussion for her school staff. An energetic Teacher Librarian, Francis has initiated many projects, but this blog was a nice effort for a staff training session – and will provide a place for ongoing Web 2.0 learning support for the teachers.

Just two examples of many that are emerging – and I love it!

Web 2.0 …. and professional development!

Posted on February 4, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

Last week I had the pleasure of joining the staff of The Kings School on the second day of their professional preparation for the new academic year. The Kings School has a reputation for excellence and innovation in boys education, and their mandate for 2007 to explore and adopt Web 2.0 is impressive. The day before staff had been given some time to explore a number of Web 2.0 tools – just to have a ‘hands-on’ taste of the possibilities. On day two I was given just under an hour to present Web 2.0 – the vision, the purpose, and the value for learning and teaching.

While I have done quite a few similar presentations, each with their own focus and purpose, I found the opportunity to work with my King’s colleagues to be exciting. It makes such a difference when leadership has made a ‘decision’ to support staff in developing Web 2.0 knowledge and skills!

There was a lot of enthusiasm generated, and I know that they will be following up with rolling workshops on various Web 2.0 tools to ensure that staff are confident and able to transform their learning and teaching frameworks. Many thanks to Rob Chandler, Director of Staff Development, for the opportunity to assist Kings in this professional development programme.

Things are ‘afoot’ in my own schools as well. This week I visit with two primary schools with a view to looking at how we can change (develop, innovate) collaborative teaching practises and integration of technologies.

I think 2007 will prove to be a valuable learning experience for many of us! I hope I get lots of invites to do lots of ‘fun’ things this year!

Happy Australia Day – Aus Mac Ed

Posted on January 31, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

We have celebrated Australia Day, 29 January, in style. Google Australia did us proud!

The same aussie day was chosen for launch post of the Aus Mac Ed group blog.

Paul writes:

As promised I’ve been working on a multi-user blog for Australian educators using Macs and iPods (and iPhones). The goal of AusMacEd is to bring our vibrant discussions about the huge potential of Apple based solutions in Australian education out onto the internet in a pro-active and web2.0 manner.

Nice one Paul! 🙂

Come on over, and join the conversation.

Of course, that’s not all there is!

Australia Day also saw the news that Edublogs Award Nomine e DIGITAL CHALKIE will continue in 2007.

If you aren’t familiar with Digital Chalkie, drop over and read a little about its success and enjoy the interesting contributions in this group blog.

Leadership Waves

Posted on January 24, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

A recent post by John Connell Hexagonal Leadership draws our attention to the use of metaphor in making sense of our actions and reactions in our education endeavours. John was responding to Don Ledingham’s Seven Sides of Educational Leadership.

John’s thoughts on the use of metaphor were timely, and made me realise that in my own way I also make use of metaphor to make sense of and to energise my work in ICT and learning. John referred to Greg Whitby’s Distributive Leadership ideas – and with a certain amount of synergy – here I was yesterday presenting Web 2.0 and some introductory material on blogging to Greg’s leadership team – using a metaphor of creating an impressionist painting together, full of light and shade, energy and vibrancy – new and different and contributed to by each member of the team in some way yet to be defined.

Yesterday’s session was about creating those first sweeping brushstrokes – shaping outlines of our new educational vision for 2007.

Monet himself provided a new vision of movement for Western Artists – drawn from tradition and cultures already in existence. His art is based on the use of color, which has to “draw” the motive without resorting to line.

I see our 2007 Web 2.0 initiatives very much in terms of the colour and vibrancy of Monet, and in the shape of the Hokusai wave! We are poised for significant changes.

Our system of schools will launch into a new era of Web 2.0 with the start of the new academic year. Amongst other things, one of our first priorities will be the use of blogging to empower communication, information dissemination, reflection, dialogue, inspiration etc. We have created a network of leadership blogs that will link the emerging energy of ideas and innovation in learning and teaching between all parts of our educational enterprise.

Nothing new to John and the scottish GLOW initiatives – but a great leap forward for us in our group of schools ‘downunder’.

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 19, 2006 by Judy O'Connell

…and Happy New Year.

Phew…. a big year! Glad you could join me in blogging adventures!

I’m off on a Summer break till mid January, reading, relaxing, and antique shopping.

The Wow Factor – Edublog Awards

Posted on December 18, 2006 by Judy O'Connell

Stranger things have happened ……but this morning I was delighted to discover that my fellow bloggers had voted me in as the winner in the Edublog Awards for 2006!

What an outstanding bit of WoW!

Cool Christmas present! 🙂

Of course, I am just a lucky one! amongst so many wonderful colleagues in the blogosphere who have been providing inspiration and support to us all as we dig deeper into the digital possibilities around us.

So …….

…. to all the wonderful bloggers who won in their category, were nominated for a category, or who took part in the voting.

Most important of all – there are many many good educators who are introducing blogging into their classrooms or libraries. You are all…

Apple Conference – Day 3

Posted on December 15, 2006 by Judy O'Connell

Actually I’m exhausted, though not much wiser for three days of conference-going. Day three had its moments – good ones actually. I’ll share some with you!

Great Leadership Workshop led by Westley Field from MLC, Sydney and Keith Anderson, PLC Perth. Thanks for keeping the focus on blended learning, not just e-learning and technology. Both schools have a strong strong link to deep thinking coupled with creativity.

Westley shared Frank Crowther’s ‘Strategic Foundations’ with us as an enabling mechanism for transformation. These are made up of:

School vision – clear, shared and meaningful
Distributed Leadership
Success – promoted
Step-by-step – taking people on the journey

We heard about the PLC approach to strong, blended differentiation.
We heard about an MLC approach to building communication and community. A step-by-step approach has allowed them to reach significant milestons ……and desired outcomes.

Martin Levins of The Armidale School followed with a strongly focussed session where the key message for me was “creativity is the next literacy” (echoing Marco’s message). (Martin has emailed me to let me know that this quote is derived from that insightful and humorous presentation of (Sir) Ken Robinson at the TED conference in Monterey, CA. I highly recommend catching up with the TED talks, if you haven’t checked them out previously.

As Martin says:

Learning is the focus, not ICT
Give laptops to all your teachers, and expect creative work in return from some
Be a progenitor of dialogue
Leaders need to champion good work
Employ good, people-oriented staff

Best response to the teacher who says “I don’t like change!” :

Well, if you don’t like change, you’ll like ‘irrelevant’ even less!

Apple Conference – Day 2 Rocks

Posted on December 13, 2006 by Judy O'Connell

Led off by Greg Whitby, we had several sessions today that genuinely gave us the opportunity to review and reflect, and find some future directions. After asking some hard questions, we were fortunate to have some indepth case-studies, from different parts of Australia, showing how some successes were achieved.

Leadership is about asking intelligent questions. One of the most important questions to consider is what niche schools have in the life our students. The issue is relevancy. Students, as we know from the inspirational presentations of Marco, are finding new ways about going about the learning process. Even in our mainstream schools with mainstream curriculum, students are embracing Web 2.0. So in looking at the future of schooling we can make good use of School 2.0 planning and ideas to challenge and reshape our focus.

We can run with Greg’s framework:

Enhancing student learning outcomes by individualising and integrating learning “learning with each other”

Leading

Building leadership teams and fostering innovation
Demonstrating new ways of learning and modelling good practice.

Supporting

Investing in the appropriate tools for learning
Making schools more inclusive – new models.

Growing

Investing in individual professional growth and learning
Opening the school to the world – the world to the classroom, e.g. learning community’s projects.

Good day for collaborative thinking and learning! for leaders!

Apple Conference – very boring leadership strand!

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Judy O'Connell

I failed to mention that I had registered for the Leadership Strand of ITSC. The conference offers a range of quality strands, and having spoken to some of my colleagues, the overall impression seems to be that there is something worth learning in all the strands so far.

I did have a chat with some good leaders taking part in my strand – a quiet chat – because so far we have not really had anything worth dragging us away from our busy schedules. While I enjoyed Stephanie’s talk – I could just as easily have missed it, as the message was pitched at those who are still coming to understand the changes in our digital world.

Hopefully all those registered for the Leadership Strand are awake to this fact! Nice to see StudyWiz. Nice to meet with other colleagues. Nice to hear some things they are doing in diverse parts of Australia. Seen it before at other conferences. All nice. All good. But as far as ‘leadership’ goes – NOT INSPIRING. NOT CHALLENGING. JUST PLAIN BORING.

I dread boredom – thank goodness for wireless access and the opportunity to multi-thread my own actions and my own learning.

Tomorrow may be better as Greg Whitby will head off the leadership strand tomorrow. His message at the end of the day was to assure us that he will turn our thinking on its head. ……. Not mine – I work with Greg!!

But at least I might have some fun watching some other leaders squirm OR we will actually engage in some really searching dialogue in response to the challenges that he will put before us.

By the way, can you possibly explain to me how come there is no apparent co-ordination of live blogging of the event? How in a Web 2.0 world are there so many people at an Apple Conference taking notes on paper? How is it that there is not an agreed ‘tag’ to identify outputs from the 3-day conference? And tomorrow we are going to ‘discuss’ how to share information?? Why aren’t we bursting with ideas after one day? Why aren’t we sharing our images as we go, by posting on Flickr and using the same shared tag? Why aren’t we sharing with the global network rather than deciding how WE are going to share with each other. Some of these things I would understand for a ‘normal’ conference – but would expect more from Apple. These comments of course only apply to my strand. Perhaps it is the esoteric nature of ‘leadership’ discussions that is the issue.

This is just all ‘so yesterday’! so far. Tommorrow might be the direct opposite. I hope so 🙂

Apple Conference – StudyWiz

Posted on December 12, 2006 by Judy O'Connell

Study Wiz is a virtual learning environment for schools, designed to make e-learning intuitive, and practical for students, teachers and parents.

Stephanie Hamilton asked: “How do I provide flexibility in learning – the sandbox of creativity – when I also want to provide managed secure spaces for our students, with managed and collaborative learning environments?”.

StudyWiz has just been released, and the interface offers a highly intuitive and ‘encouraging’ interface – coupled with a host of Web 2.0 tools for interactive learning. For example, a blogging tool, and a podcasting tool allows the best of e-learning. There is much more. This is an Australian product, being marketed to the world – and a current favourite of Apple.
Pick up a brochure outlining the features of StudyWiz. Even if you are not going to use the product, use the features of StudyWiz to evaluate the directions of your own learning management system.

Stephanie explained that today’s challenge is creating a 21st century learning environment that engages students…and prepares them for life and success in the 21st century. StudyWiz might be another step in the right direction for you. No matter whether you use a product such as this, or use Web 20 online products exculsively – the thing to remember is the multiple needs of the students and the total flexibilty needed.

Cost? Open source? International Standards? SCORM based? (You need to be able to share flexibly).

Can you track how long a student worked on an assignment? Can you track the conversation? Can you capture the dialogue happening? With real data, you have much more powerful ways of creating learning goals and engaging parents in the conversation. This is REAL formative assessment 24/7, in a multi-threaded learning world of our students.

The greatest power of products such as these is for promoting reflection by the teacher. We have to reflect on what it is we are doing, what it is we are asking, and what it is we are explaining!! Our minds all work differently, and until we acknowledge this, we will not make progress in 21st century learning.