The Way Forward

I’ve been meaning to post for the last fortnight or so, but Christmas and the Christmas Day storms got in the way.

I’ve seen a few people joining and a few people continuing their 365 (or 366 in the case of this year’s leap year) photo challenge, so I decided (late, as always) to have a go. You can see the results at 366challenge.

As a result of a few people’s actions (or lack of them), I’m also starting a daily post on modern manners. See modernmanners. Happy to accept contributions if you have them!

Happy New Year to my wonderful PLN!

Over a year ago, I started downloading eBooks for their ease of use; having a library with you when travelling without the weight or awkwardness of a pile of books was brilliant. Having a book in my possession moments after reading a great review was another bonus. Over the time, I’ve used the Kobo, Kindle and iBooks apps, all pretty much without incident.

Until this week.

I’ve been taking my iPad to the gym to read, it’s ideal for using on the treadmill as pages stay open (unlike a traditional book) and there’s a ledge on the treadmill that’s just perfect for it. But upon opening the Kobo app, several of my books had disappeared; including one that I was in the middle of. Kindle to the rescue for the moment and I was able to read something from that app. I went home and looked more deeply into the problem. Kobo issued a statement through the app explaining the problem and how to fix it.

It didn’t work for me. I updated my iOS, updated Kobo app. Reloaded library from website. No deal. The books just wouldn’t load from website to app. After several hours of faffing around, I sent an email to the Kobo help centre. I waited a while, giving Kobo time to reply, seeing that we’re in different timezones. Nothing. I tweeted. Nothing.

Days later, still silence. I retried all of the suggested steps. Still no deal. I went to the settings on the iPad and decided to use an advanced setting “clear all local data”.

Set "clear local data" to on

Upon opening the Kobo app, I needed to sign in and my library was totally empty. It was like I was using the app for the first time. However, once signed in, all of my books started to load. Yes, all of them. This step was not mentioned in any of Kobo help information.

A quick Google search today shows that there are plenty of people around the world having issues with Kobo customer service. My gripe is twofold:

1. You expect to be able to read the books you’ve paid for when you want to.
2. You expect some customer service for items you’ve paid for. I’ve had none.

The other thing that worries me is that as a teacher librarian, we’re pushing on with eBooks in schools and trying to convince the naysayers that they’re the future.

Issues like those I’ve had are not going to win eBooks any fans. And I can just hear the naysayers saying things like “that’d never happen with a real book!” And they’re right. For the public as a whole to take on eBooks as a default requires issues like these to be non-existant. Or fixed quickly.

I certainly won’t be recommending Kobo to anyone, let along buying anymore of their titles. I will stick with the Kindle and iBooks apps though, as I’ve not had any problems with them. It’s a shame as personally I preferred the layout and screen view of Kobo.

Through a nice piece of serendipity, I was able to meet up with the amazing Ian Chia (@ianchia) and the always supportive, always planning, always thinking Hamish Curry (@hamishcurry). These doyens on my PLN were able to visit me at school last week and have a bit of a look around at the physical and virtual spaces we’re working on.

Ian has some incredible projects on the go such as Being Prudence (and he’s an incredible sharer of information, always pointing me – and others – towards items we might find interesting, useful, relevant and stimulating) and there’s an opportunity for my school to work with Ian next year. Our students could work on developing apps for their Q9 program – it would be a perfect fit and the students would certainly find app creation challenging and engaging.

Ian and Hamish hadn’t managed to meet previously, although I know they had been communicating, learning and sharing together for some time. It was exciting to be able to be a catalyst for their meeting and I’m looking forward to my school seeing the power of what Ian has to offer our students.

Meeting the two of them together proved that magic does happen.

On Friday I had the pleasure of attending the annual Dromkeen Librarian’s Award lunch. I was fortunate to win a ticket through the Australian Standing Orders Competition at the recent ASLA 2011 conference.

If you don’t know about the history of Dromkeen, have a look here. It’s a gorgeous old homestead that has been the champion of Australian children’s literature for a long time.

Before the lunch began, I had time to look at the two exhibitions. The amazing originals from Graeme Base’s new book The Jewel Fish of Karnak were on display (and how fascinating to read how Graeme is now using digital technology to draw) as well as those from Nancy Bentley: The First Australian Female Sailor, illustrated by Jacqui Grantford.

It was an honour to sit next to Australian literary legends Glenda Millard and Patricia Mullins on one side and the up-and-coming YA author Kaye Baillie on the other.

This year’s winner was Heather Heraud from Loyola College who has done an incredible amount of voluntary work at Radio 3RPH, broadcasting on children’s and YA literature for 10 years. Congratulations Heather.

The day also included a Q & A session with Rolf Heimann, Greg Holfeld and Brenton McKenna, who discussed their work on graphic novels.

One downer was the mention of the questionable future of Dromkeen. Hopefully there will be a way forward for such an icon in Australian children’s and YA literature.

Congratulations to all involved on a fantastic day! I hope there will be many more to come.

We all know that one of the features of the connected world is the ability to collaborate on projects. Colleagues near and far can now contribute as much and as deeply as those who sit next to you in the staffroom. Collaborating with people you’ve never met requires a certain level of trust.

A control freak like me is often challenged by this idea. Working with people in close proximity easily enables trust via familiarity and responsibility. Working with those you’ve never met, will never meet and those whose identities you’re not really sure of can be scary.

But recently I took the plunge. I’d been promoting the Pottermore wiki I’d developed to assist people navigate their way through the J.K. Rowling Pottermore website. I’d ask people to help me build it. But the crisis point came when two people asked for membership. I didn’t know them. But I took the plunge that they’d only want to join to help collaborate and build the wiki rather than to delete pages or hack the site. I supposed that I could always undo the changes if they were disastrous, but didn’t really want to even contemplate that.

Two months on, all is well. The wiki is still there and in fact it seems that nothing has been added by my two new collaborators. Which is a shame. I was looking forward to seeing their contributions. Oh well, maybe they’re just really busy.

As I was the author of the Bright Ideas blog from 2008-2010, I couldn’t really nominate people for Edublogs awards; however I did appreciate people nominating Bright Ideas in 2009 and 2010 and receiving “first runner up” (second) and “second runner up” (third) in the library blog category in 2009 and 2010 respectively was such a huge honour.

Now I have my own blog, I can nominate who I like. So here goes….

• Best individual blog Slightly addicted to fiction
• Best individual tweeter – Ian Chia – @ianchia
• Best class blog – 2KM and 2KJ Leopold PS
• Best ed tech / resource sharing blog I Learn Technology
• Most influential blog post What do you mean/ What Ed Said
• Best twitter hashtag #tlchat
• Best teacher blog Brave New World
• Best librarian / library blog Lucacept
• Best school administrator blog Principal of Change
• Best educational use of audio / video / visual / podcast EdTechCrew
• Best educational wiki Educational Origami – Andrew Churches
• Best open PD / unConference / webinar series Tech Talk Tuesdays
• Best web tool Twitter
• Lifetime achievement Anne Mirtschin

I have to apologise to lots of other people I would have like to have included, but as there’s only one nomination per category, it’s a difficult job.

I am very pleased and proud to present “Pottermore and school libraries: multiliteracies at work” at the Library 2.011 conference this time tomorrow (7pm AEST).

I’ll be looking at J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore website and how the multi- and transliteracies work hand-in-hand.

The link to my session is here. Kind thanks to Steve Hargadon and the volunteers organisers of this incredible online conference.

The recording link is here. I would have loved to have been able to embed my presentation here, but permission from Pottermore has not yet arrived (they were kind enough to give me permission for the images on my wiki). Rest assured, as soon as permission arrives (I’m sure they’re kind of busy at the moment), I’ll put the presentation up.

A big thanks to my moderator Mardi, for whom my presentation occurred in the middle of the night and to Steve Hargadon, a giant among educators.

Last week I was fortunate enough to visit a neighbouring high school library.

Looking towards the library entrance

Balwyn High School is a government school with over 2000 students.

Large windows allow a light filled library

The library and eCentre is bright and well-designed with lots of inspiring things happening to support learning and teaching.

Impressive branding

It’s always a privilege to learn from other skilled teacher librarians and library staff and this was no exception.

Fiction has its own semi-enclosed area providing a cosy and relaxing environment

Teacher librarian Debbie Mackin has developed an excellent book blog and a number of other online resources for students and teachers.

Non fiction has been judiciously weeded to reveal the best parts of the collection

A big thanks to Debbie and staff for making me feel welcome and letting me learn from them.

A "that's interesting" section has enabled students to find books like the Guinness Book of Records quickly

Sad news today about the passing of Steve Jobs. If you ever doubt that one person, that you, can make a difference, Steve Jobs should be the evidence to show that one person can make a big difference.

For me, he changed my education. I learned to program at high school using a state of the art Apple IIe in 1984. By the time I got to Melbourne Uni, a lab full of lovely (expensive) new Macs made my essay writing easier, more fun and nicely presented. Fast forward to today. Apple products have changed the way many of us communicate and work, share and socialise.

Steve Jobs’ death has made me think about people in my life who really make a difference. There have been a few, but the one that really strikes a chord with me is the brilliant and lovely Kelly Tenkely. If you don’t already know, she’s an educator with boundless creativity, vision, talent, energy and determination. But best of all, for me at least, she’s humble, approachable and just plain nice. I’ve asked her many favours and lots of questions and I haven’t been scared to. Some other geniuses I know feel, to me, unapproachable. Kelly’s isn’t. She’s never too busy to help her PLN, even in the middle of starting her own school, Anastasis Academy.

How amazing is that? How many people do you know who’ve started their own school? I know one. The brilliant and inspiring Kelly Tenkely.

In April, I wrote a post entitled When did going out in public mean you’ve signed your rights away? It was about people surreptitiously taking photos of others and posting them online.

Today’s Age has an article about professional artists and photographers who are making a living from this type of thing. Who’s watching you? discusses the ethics of this type of behaviour, but basically states

Simply by leaving our homes – private only to the extent that Google Earth is limited in its reach below our eaves – we give our permission to be watched.

Do we really? Is the alternative a life of a hermit? What happens to those people (and there are some, believe me) that haven’t even heard of Google Earth, let alone what it does? How can they give permission when they aren’t even fully aware of how their picture can be distributed instantly and globally?

I’m all for taking pictures and sharing them. I loved the instance earlier this year when students took a photo of their bus driver talking on a mobile phone and putting their lives at risk. The evidence in the photo led to actions against the bus driver that would never have happened on hearsay alone. The pictures weren’t published but shown to school and bus authorities.

But I think we need to be morally aware of sharing and publishing photos of people who are unaware of their photo being taken. Or those who refuse permission. We need to have some boundaries in our lives. If we don’t take pictures of ourselves and upload them, why should somebody else make that decision for us?

I’d love to hear your comments.