Shedding a Skin

After a glorious two weeks of gardening and generally unwinding from a really difficult school term - when aren't they difficult she asks herself- I am catching up on my listening to podcasts. I am listening to Jenny Luca being interviewed by the ED Tech Crew and sitting here nodding my head at so many of the things Jenny is saying. She has become a shining light in her blog writing and a must read either for her delightful School's out Friday posts or her increasingly challenging posts on the Web 2.0 world. Jenny writes as she speaks -with a characteristic honesty and very down to earth approach to her reactions to ideas or issues. What I like is that it is an Australian voice and a woman's voice. In this never-ending boy's club that is the Web 2.0 we need women speaking up and being recognized and Jenny is not afraid to speak up and is doing so with great confidence.

Her reactions to the conference experience were very similar to mine at NECC, excitement, being a bit star struck and then ultimately realising that what we as Australians have to offer and what we are doing is really terrific and we should be raising our voice and the flag. I am really looking forward to working with Jenny more this year through our involvement in the PLP network. It is because of Jenny that my school is able to be involved as she convinced the Dept to add a govt school. What a great opportunity for my staff and students.Thanks Jen.

The title of this post relates more to my state of mind which Jenny's podcast and her recent post about a year of change resonated with so strongly. I have been blogging for over a year and trying to sort out what I know and what I understand by the terms school and teaching and education. So much of what I am doing is so exciting and the potential takes my breath away. Yet when I go to school the same old issues are there. How is it possible to create change in an institution that by its definition is about maintaining a kind of status quo, where teachers 'pass on ' their 'knowledge' where students 'learn' what we have to 'teach ' them. In the light of this conflicting set of images, throw in a group of students who are so bored that even when you do step out of the box and try to do something different they reject it- too hard, don't get it' 'why we doin' this?'

So it is spring. Wall street is crashing, there is a drought, money is tight,etcetera.
But I feel like it is time to shed a skin- to stop letting it get on top of me. I have some energy again, we have lots of exciting new things to be engaged with at school - new buildings, new computers, a special grant for new training... I want to step out into the light and start a chorus of people saying 'yes we can ..' Thanks Jen.

It is Right in front of your nose...SEE?

Ok loath as I am to start getting political and ranty - there comes a time. On Friday I had a great email from Dr Craig Smith from Innovations and Excellence at the Dept. letting me know that we were able to be the only govt school to receive funding for the Powerful Learning Programme run by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson. This is a great honour and I am so pleased my school will be able to access this programme and the knowledge it will provide for staff. The funding is fantastic and I have the awesome Jenny Luca to thank for the recommendation.I was so excited about this and I have the holidays to read up about the programme and discuss with others how best to make use of it. Super - love some good news, especially after the excitement of the arrival of our new macs.
I wondered why I have no comments under my new movie after tweeting it a few times to see what folks thought. It was my first real attempt to use iMovie and though very rough and full of poor camera work- because I was so excited I forgot I was filming on several occasions- and I felt I had really started to work it out. But no-one came or those who did , didn't comment. Disappointing I thought oh well.. never mind. But when I think about it it is so tiny in the sea of other peoples achievements and what they are doing. Five laptops in a school of 1200 students - do the math and the techies are having real trouble working out how to add them to the network. Reality check Sue and so I went back to planning how I would make use of them.
Then last night I was chatting to Sue Waters who was bemoaning the inability of twitter to be reliable- a four hour outage- and we chatted about my week. Somewhere in the conversation I mused about the fact that the PLP programme was great but the eternal issue of 'I've run out of Internet money Miss..' would raise its head and she was aghast. Yes our kids have to pay and yes if we do anything substantial eg my use of the amazing Carrot Mob movie (short version below) to discuss optimism and social change and the kids blow all their money on the download and I have students telling they are $7 in the red because of the movie I told them to watch.
YES Susan - THIS is what is stopping adoption of more web 2.0 technology and teaching more than anything else. No the teachers are not slack or luddites, it is just that anytime they stuck their heads out of the sand they failed because the system doesn't allow them to succeed. Students get $2 at the start of the year and they have to top it up all year. Many forget or protest, many parents refuse thinking their child has been playing games or just can't afford it.
I have had conversations with many classroom teachers about this and admin people as well. Our school budget and the plan we have been locked into by the department make it very difficult to change and what might happen if it were made 'free' worries these folk greatly.
So let me know- how does your school fund the internet? Do you students pay a levy? What plan is your school on? I need some solid help here and some suggestions to help change REALLY happen. Thanks to Sue Waters who then posted about this and has made me see what is in front of my nose and really try to do something about it.

The First Bloggers Feast

After much talking and planning and tweeting we had our first Bloggers Feast in Melbourne on May 14th.Those present were Helen Otway, Howard Errey,Lauren O'Grady,Jo McLeay, John Pearce,Jenny Luca, Tony Richards, Al Upton, Pam Arvanitakis and myself.It was like a meeting of old friends as we finally got to meet those who are part of our networks and chat about issues which were surprisingly (or not) very common in our experiences as bloggers in schools. John is about to publish his book, written with Gary Bass- 'The Technology Toolkit, Helen was discussing being an Ultranet coach, Lauren changing work to keep growing her passion for it, Tony was interviewing all present, Jenny recovering from the highs of her SLAV presentation and new twitter follower, Al was talking about the 'Learning by Design'Conference he was attending,Pam and Jo and Howard were chatting with lots of new friends and me- I was playing with my new gadgets and just enjoying the fact that it was all actually happening.
The waiting staff were very amused by this group of strangers with lots of technology and were asking questions about what we were doing. It flew by, and we made plans for a bigger meeting on May 24th after the ICTEV conference at Melb. Grammar.