Category Archives: Presentations

blogging, Presentations, Professional Development

The thinking behind the evolution of blogging – 4 case studies (ALIA seminar)

Leave a comment

Last Saturday, with barely a whisper for a voice (laryngitis), I presented ‘Blogging: My story’ at an ALIA conference, along with Catherine Ryan (Westbourne Grammar), Karen Malbon (Penleigh and Essendon Grammar) and keynote speaker, Kelly Gardiner, Online Learning Manager, State Library Victoria. It was a privilege to join these people, and to hear what they had to say. Kelly, thank you for settling my nerves with your lovely, relaxed, conversational manner. It was a privilege and pleasure also to meet and chat to everyone who came – on a Saturday! And I have to  mention how beautifully organised the day was – with lovely pastries from a special place in (I think) Seddon. Thanks to ALIA people (Anne Girolami and Karen Marston – as well as Catherine Ryan; I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone, and if so, sorry) and in particular to Anne who saved my voice by regrouping people so that I gave two instead of three workshops. I hope that Kelly’s talk will be available somewhere soon because I’d like to revisit it.

Here’s the visual presentation for my workshop. It doesn’t cover everything I spoke about but it gives you an idea. I wanted to focus on my own story in terms of 4 different school blogs I talked about, so it was more about reflection/evaluation and evolution of my use of blogging in four different contexts.

 

Presentations, Professional Development

Exploring ways teachers and students can use Pinterest

8 Comments

First day back at school term 2 is a curriculum day for us at Melbourne High School. The theme is ‘knowing highly able students and ourselves’. Apart from set keynotes we have the choice of running sessions and also selecting to attend others’ sessions. Mihaela Brysha (Head of the Visual and Performing Arts faculty) and I will be running a workshop about Pinterest. I’m sharing the presentation slides here.

I’ve been banging on about Pinterest for so long, you’d think I had shares in the company. For example, here, here, here, and here. Some of the earlier slides I’ve re-used from earlier presentations.

Pinterest is often overlooked by educators because it looks like a bit of fun with no substance. The power of Pinterest lies in the ability to find people who have curated the stuff you want. And then see who they are following. Although it’s an image-based platform – and that’s what makes it a preference for those who prefer visual collections – it’s also a good way to collect text-based things online as long as you can attach them to a picture. I use Pinterest and Diigo equally, sometimes saving the same thing to both. Diigo is more sophistocated in its options, allowing keyword searches, but also collaborative annotation. I just haven’t had much success selling it to teachers. When I want to share a collection of online resources with teachers, I often use Pinterest because it’s easy to see the contents at a glance. Of course, now everyone needs an account before they can even view what’s on Pinterest.
Meanwhile I find it difficult to comprehend that most teachers and students are happy either saving things to folders on their computers and therefore needing a USB, or going through their history. Come on people, there are much better ways to do that! And easier ways to share.
Presentations, Uncategorized

How do you view the library? (It’s a matter of perception) – presentation to Curriculum Committee

1 Comment

This week I did a 10 minute presentation to the Curriculum Committee. Our involvement with the faculties varies so it’s always a good idea to remind faculty heads about how teacher librarians can support them and work with them. I’ve summarised the gist of the message with each slide.

[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”presentation/d/1vBfoFox8bz0aT85NOsy3sR5m03jMyI1bUBKHEMy8VIw/embed” query=”start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000″ width=”960″ height=”569″ /]

Slide 1: How do you view the library; it’s a matter of perception

Think about what the library means to you as faculty head.

Slide 2: The library is more than just books

We are physical, virtual, events, ubiquitous information, skills training

Slide 3: We do not live in Library Land

We are not a free-floating entity

We are part of mechanism that drives the teaching and learning in the school, and if not, we are of no real significance.

Slide 4: We are part of the whole production

We work with you to develop programs and projects, we resource and teach collaboratively.

Whatever works for you, we are flexible.

Slide 5: Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

This has been a year of change.

There have been so many changes for us.

Slide 6: New culture: the quiet library

Changed culture in the library – respect for quiet study, time out.

First time this year, we hope that there will be an ongoing acceptance of the way things are.

It’s been good, we’ve been surprised to see how many students prefer to come to a disciplined space and study, even with the choice not to come.

Slide 7: We look forward to next year

New entrance and open space for chilling and reading.

New discussion rooms including development of collection for teachers’ reading, both recreational and professional.

More flexibility – 3 or even 4 discussion rooms

We would like to see classes come in and use the physical collection

and so that we can be involved in their research/writing processes.

We need to think about organising our spaces to cater for the whole school and not just VCE.

Slide 8: Changes to the way we work

Changes in TL roles: taking responsibility for certain faculties

 Getting to know you and your subject area and needs in a deeper way

Continuing our collaboration with you – talking about what you need, coming to your faculty meetings, supporting you with resources, teaching the skills your students need – critical evaluation of resources including the glut of information available to them, becoming lifelong learners, skills they will take with them into university and beyond.

Slide 9: What we’ve been doing

We’ve been working with faculties to support teachers and students

If you haven’t seen us, please come and see us about what we can do for you and with you.

Slide 10: If we don’t have what you need, we can create it

Have you seen the revised library website homepage – easier navigation

We can tailor-make guides – for example Art project and English Language or Vis Com.

Slide 11:

We help you embed skills, for example, this is what they might incorporate:

Digital Citizenship

eg copyright and plagiarism, web evaluation, citation and referencing,

research skills (tab from Library Home)

Slide 12: Our Facebook page

Like it!

Slide 13: Our blog

Follow it!

Slide 14: Pinterest – Playing with new ways of curating online resources

My Pinterest boards

Boards can be

subject related, for a specific project (eg This sporting life), subject-related extras to dip into (eg History – images, videos), technical tutorials (eg Google),

Pinterest links of interest:

book trailers

YA book reviews

Supporting and creating curriculum –

Text based resources eg Death of a Salesman

Thematic studies: Banned books

English – Issues

Art – Pattern: Islamic

Digital Citizenship – Digital literacies

Slide 15 – Make time to talk to us

Please make a time with us to talk about how we can support you in your teaching or support your students

to create digital resources on the platform of your choice.

 

Presentations, Uncategorized

Welcome to your library – teachers

7 Comments

Welcome to your library teachers

 

On Tuesday I’ve been asked to give a very short talk about the library at the staff meeting. It will be my first talk to staff since I’ve been acting head of library at MHS. I’m very nervous about speaking to the staff at my own school, more so than if I were speaking to a group of people outside the school, but I need to get over it.

Basically, I want to let teachers know about the change of culture for VCE private study. Previously the library was home to an enormous number of students who had no other space, and the noise was often out of control. Even though I was initially unsure about insisting on a silent library, favouring discussion and collaborative study, I had to respect the principal’s directive, and believe him when he said that students were complaining they couldn’t study in the noisy spaces. This year students have a choice between the silent library and the ‘dining hall’ (sounds much more posh than it is) where they can work collaboratively or just relax. We’ve all been flabbergasted that most of the students still choose the library despite our strict rules for silent study. Who knew? Of course, carpet and air conditioning have something to do with this, but we are seeing so many students knuckling down to serious study.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time on a presentation which is just a visual prompt for my brief talk. I hope teachers will look at the slides instead of me! Our main focus this year is to work more closely with teachers to create rich resources, create curriculum/assignments and teach collaboratively. We hope to forge relationships and become a vital part of teaching and learning at the school. We’ve divided faculties amongst the teacher librarians, and I hope that the TLs take ownership of their areas of expertise, and that they enjoy their new roles.

I hope you can make sense of the visual prompts in the presentation. My talk will be brief and I plan to speak very plainly; I’ve consciously avoided educational jargon. Today I read an article by Daniel Pink, “My challenge to you: only speak like a human at work” which confirmed what I’ve believed – that if you can’t say it simply and sincerely, you’ll lose your audience, or at least you won’t have much of an impact.

Sorry I wasn’t able to embed the presentation, so you’ll have to download it via the link at the top of the post. Not sure why I can’t – maybe it’s Chrome?

Presentations

Tech Talk Tuesdays – Chatting about Google Teacher Academy experience

Leave a comment

There’s a first time for everything. Recently Glenda Morris and I were asked by Anne Mirtschin to talk about our experiences at the Google Teacher Academy in Sydney on Tech Talk Tuesdays.  Normally I would have been very nervous about speaking in front of an audience but the fact that Anne was running the show was very comforting, and there’s something to be said for talking to an unseen audience in the comfort of your own home with your slippers on, holding onto a cup of hot coffee  and your dog asleep next to you. I knew that Glenda felt the same way that I did, and presenting together was actually a lot of fun. I recommend it.

Happily, we had the company of people from  USA, NZ and Malaysia, as well as Australians. I hope I haven’t missed anyone – I have to say, trying to construct comprehensible sentences on the spot was challenging enough, and I found that, unless Glenda was speaking, I wasn’t able to keep up with the chat and questions, so luckily Anne had all that under control.

Our intention was not to present a detailed account of Google apps but to share our experiences, provide some ‘inside information’ about the Google space and agenda, and pull out a few examples of Google apps which had resonated with us.

Here is the slide presentation and you can listen to the archived recording of the session here.

[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”viewer” query=”a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=false&embedded=true&srcid=12T82-uT2ja8RhLYYh79nrv8V2Tpn0IjiFzR073wYeWk&hl=en” width=”800″ height=”560″ /]

Sorry about the two blank slides; not sure why the pictures are not showing.

Education, Presentations, Social learning, Social media, Teacher librarians, Uncategorized

Making learning personal and social – Presentation at SLAV conference

4 Comments

Last Friday I had the privilege of sharing some of what I’ve been doing with blogging at my schools at the SLAV conference, Celebrations! An eye for literacy. I believe SLAV hosts the most informative and inspiring conferences, deepening our understandings and broadening our horizons.

Unfortunately we were running late with this session, and at least half of my presentation had to be cut. I wasn’t able to fully develop my presentation of the topic:

Social networking: giving students an online voice. In this session you will explore the initiatives of threeschool libraries and the use of social networking to buildcommunities of readers. What worked – and why it’s worth having a go.

That’s why I’ve embedded my slideshow and accompanying text in case anyone is interested in the complete presentation.

[vodpod id=Video.4904357&w=425&h=350&fv=]

Here is the link to the accompanying text.

The educators in my session were inspiring in their presentations – Tricia Sweeney and Michael Jongen (Our Lady of Mercy College, Heidelberg) talked about Twitter and Facebook to engage students, and Rachel Fidock (Mooroopna Secondary College) talked about Google Lit Trips.

Thanks to SLAV for the opportunity to share some of my work with teachers and students. Like the others, I was incredibly nervous but ended up enjoying the experience. Sharing of ideas and experiences is very satisfying.

My slideshow is also embedded in my wiki.