Backyard

Over the last few weeks I have pushed myself to really use the iPad as my only computing device and am interested to reflect on the thoughts it has brought up within me. I was overseas as part of WYD11 and then at an ICT Conference in Melbourne so had plenty of opportunities to use it for blogging, photos, Twitter etc.

I promised that I would reflect on my experience of taking only an iPad on an overseas trip – this fits into a longer stream of thought about accessing data etc. while overseas that I have been ruminating on for some years. I was, on very short notice, seconded onto the WYD Pilgrimage to Spain recently and decided that I would only take an iPad rather than a laptop or netbook as I have done in the past.

From WYD Madrid 2011

May I begin with a disclaimer – I make no pretensions to be any sort of iPad guru! I have used one for a year or so but have often said that I often prefer my macbook (and am indeed typing on the macbook now as I find the iPad keyboard, with its many suggestions, alternatives and annoying need to switch for numbers etc. quite a pain when trying to write something of more  length like this and I’m to “ikey” to shell out for an external iPad keyboard when the laptop is right here!). I see the iPad as a seriously cool device and a real gamebreaker and glimpse of the future but find the need to look for workarounds for things I do so easily elsewhere a touch tiring – it was a bit like that when MS first went from DOS to Windows! Some of us still miss dir/w etc.! Must be my age or perhaps just exponentional RSI! I must admit though, lying in bed and streaming video to the iPad is luxurious in the xtreme!!!

The other thing I would like to acknowledge is the power of the network! I am finding the EdTechCrew podcasts a really efficient way to be kept up to date and a regular challenge to try something new. Their interview with the redoubtable Judy O’Connell (who I’ll catch up with ftf in Melbourne this week) was a most helpful insight into how to efficiently use the iPad. Hence Good Reader, Evernote, Osfoora and Posterous (thanks @jessmcculloch from an older EdTech Crew podcast for making me revisit Posterous) became my daily bread! We all know that none of us will ever have any legacy on tech (although I never ceased to be amused at some people’s need to “know stuff” about the new rather than be content to simply search and share like the rest of us!! – reminds me of Bertrand Russell “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”).

For my simple life the issues for me when travelling have always been about keeping in touch and managing my photos. I used to need at least a netbook so that I  could back up my photos to a USB – the fear that the camera  would be stolen is always great. This time I just used the iPad as my camera and uploaded the photos to Picasa using WebAlbums. This meant that I didn’t have hi res photos (probably coming in iPad7 so that Apple can keep us upgrading!!) but it certainly did the job and it was really great to have ready access to the photos for an email or for the blog. With the camera dongle I could have backed up my photos easily too had I had a camera.

Keeping in touch (provided you can find wi-fi) is really easy with the iPad. The internet, Skype and mail are just there and it is a real winner on this front! I don’t know how much it would run out at but I would seriously consider having a 3G iPad and buying an International sim like eKit. We were supplied with eKit mobiles and the ability to ring home whenever made the timezone issues trivial. I would certainly look into that if I had a 3G machine.

The big thing was no wires and good battery life. I could prepare my blog posts in Evernote (even on the bus) and simply upload them at the next wi-fi station – no more creating a specific time to “do the blogging”. It was also obviously much easier to carry around. No Flash was an issue (bloody minded Apple!) e.g. I found it impossible to edit blog posts once I had posted them but for most things it doesn’t matter. My Gmail account wouldn’t load in Spain (I think it was something to do with the locality but I don’t know) I could still get to it in the browser though but with limited capabilty.

All in all taking just the iPad was fine – but practice before you go!!!

ps What does it say about me that I do most of my blogging on this page when I am sick in bed?? Spanish(?) flu this time ……

I’m actually blogging on the run (I usually use my blog for “considered” thought but I am right in the middle of something really exciting and with great potential so I want a “stream of consciousness” that is longer than Twitter!!)

I am sitting in a great after school session run by Tony Ryan for over 100 teachers  from our Inner West schools (mainly), we have Teachmeet tomorrow night. I have been struck by the possibility of combining both of these things.

Teachmeet lets us show each other things in short grabs and this is essential for capturing the enthusiasm and the joy that lives in our teachers! I am wondering about getting a teacher to “teach” a lesson (or even a part of a lesson) in the Teachmeet context. Could (e.g.) a Teachmeet consist of half showing “things” in the traditional Teachmeet fashion but some volunteers could actually “teach” the others as a class??

I need to develop this but I didn’t want to lose it!!

Look, I have meant to get back to this for ages .. my excuse is that it has been a busier year than others seem to have been but, Hey!, I know I have all the time there is…
In the last eight days I have been to three conferences: Technology in K-12 at Redfern; ICTEV Conference at Melbourne Grammar and the Hawker-Brownlow “Teaching for Learning” Conference at Caulfield Racecourse. all work and no play I hear you chorus!!! Actually it’s four if I include the great Teachmeet last night!!!

At the moment my head is spinning and I realy feel the need for some space to try to

• remember what I have heard and experienced
• make some sense of it
• and (hardest of all ) actually use the good learnings in my work.

Simon Crook has described the Teachmeet in a better fashion than I could have! It was great fun and terrific learning with a lively community of passionate teachers. The next one is at Domremy on Thursday July 21st> You’d be mad to miss it!!!

The K-12 Technology in Education Conference at Redfern filled me with lots of hope! We might finally be growing a decent eLearning Conference in Sydney!!!!! Those of you who are forced to listen to me “rabbit on” will be familiar with my lament that it has been so long since we went to anything really good around elearning without getting on a plane! (Teachmeet & The Randwick Showcase excepted!!) We have taken teachers and school leaders to Cairns, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Canberra and Christchurch and it costs a fortune!!! Our system alone has around 4500 staff so the possibility of taking significant numbers of teachers to a worthwhile event is tiny!!

While no conference changes the world, we can all identify with the excitement, challenge, enthusiasm, regeneration and energy that comes from hearing about and seeing good people do good things. Often, though, the listeners are the already converted. If we are going to bring about whole-school change the classroom teachers have to be inspired!! At uLearn, in Christchurch (for my money the best conference going round in our hemisphere) I sat next to a Primary School Principal, from just up the road, who had 17 of his 25 staff there – a great change agent start??

This year’s show at Redfern was a long way from perfect obviously but it had:

• Endorsement from three Principals’ associations
  • I remember when they didn’t even talk to each other!
• High calibre Keynote speakers.
  • I’m still singing Alan November’s praises!
• Great trade support.
  • One of ours won an iPad!!

The organisers are obviously a professional bunch with connections us mugs would only dream about and they have already booked next year’s conference into the Sydney Convention Centre May 30-June 1 2012. While I wait in trepidation to see how the wireless copes with 1000 devices – I have $20 that says it will fall over under pressure, confirming my claim that Australia does not have a venue really capable of supporting a big conference wirelessly (uLearn puts up a temporary wireless network that easily supports 1000 devices) …. we’ll see!!! Roll on the NBN!!

Let’s see how it grows!! We can only hope!!!

Well after mucking around for a while I finally decided to put in an application for the Sydney Google Teacher Academy coming up this year. I don’t make any claims that the video is much good (and I concur with Chris that one minute is really difficult!) but I thought it would do me good to make myself apply. We’ll see have it goes!

Well it has been a long time between drinks on this blog and this one isn’t really about work but is a way of getting me to shake the cobwebs loose and get back into things. We are just finishing the long Summer break here in Oz and I go back to work in a few days. We stayed in Sydney for these holidays and did lots of Sydney Festival things so I thought I would at least list them for my own benefit (so I can remember them for the Christmas letter at the end of the year!) and just make something of a record. I don’t usually use this blog for this stuff and generally only blog like this when we are travelling but … exceptions make rules!!

We started the year off with a stay at Rydges in North Sydney – which will seem a hoot to you … why pay to stay in your own city?? We have found that living somewhere else breaks your usual mentality and as it was only ten minutes by bus to the House it gave us a different focus and besides the view was better than at home!!!

Our first foray was “A Life in Three Acts” at the Wharf followed by “The King’s Speech” movie, the next night,  at the Dendy. Both were very good. For Festival Opening Night we simply set up in the Domain and enjoyed the shows. We actually enjoyed the tribute to Ruby Hunter more than Emmy-Lou but it was still good fun! Back to the “House” the next night to see “Love, Loss and What I Wore” – a sort of “chic play” with magic from Magda & Amanda and pretty good from the others!

Back home after some lovely wanderings and meals in Kirribilli and Milson’s Point and immediately back in for the Kronos Quartet and its eclectic mix – preceeded by a lovely Festival “special” mealdeal at the swish Swissotel.

In again on the train for Saturday night in the Domain for “Los Lobos” this time. This was a terrific night with the whole crowd dancing!

Wed next was the “Giacomo Variations” with Malkovich. This much-anticipated show was the “lemon” of the festival unfortunately and Mick was first to tweet that the emperor had no clothes – we felt sorry for the cast! The next night was “Inception” at the St. George Open Air Cinema – this was another magic night (despite the rain!). We would really recommend a night here for a “summer treat” – well organized and great fun, food and views! Friday night meant Parramatta Park for a great night with the ACO and SDC. With the full moon thrown in to complement a lovely evening this made for a top show! Saturday back into the Domain for the Sydney Symphony with John Bell the essential ingredient to the Shakespearean theme – an oldie but still a very goodie with fireworks and cannons de rigeur!!!

That almost has us up to date and I don’t think I have forgotten anything?! Opera tonight – Madame Butterfly – and again next week – Carmen – with the Domain again this Saturday for Opera in the Park (with a foretaste of Carmen). There will be an interlude of theatre with “Bigger Than Jesus” at the Wharf this Thursday – we are looking forward to that as it has great reviews and we listened to Margaret Throsby interviewing Rick Miller recently.

From Day to Day Stuff

And if we don’t weaken there is the Flood Relief Concert on Sat the 5th!

Gotta luv Summer in the City!!!!!!!

Well here I am back at work and the wonderful uLearn 10 conference in Christchurch has come and gone. I actually thought I would post from the conference (I did once but something went wrong!) but I was too busy at sessions and talking with people to actually tend to my blog!! – an aside – How crazy it is that hotels still see Wi-Fi as an expensive “extra”, for which none of us will pay, rather than just like the electricity in the light bulbs in the room. The consequence is that, when you have time to be reflective you don’t have access to the net so unless you get yourself organized and prepare everything to upload when back at the conference you end up like me!!

All of us

The conference was great and is so well documented elsewhere. My Colleague Chris did a great job and certainly left parts of my ailing brain free during the Keynotes!!The highlights for me were (again) the amazing organization and focus. As Tony Blair (not really one of my heroes) said in 1996 “Education, Education & Education” – I find myself constantly challenged to look at how I teach and develop my effectiveness as a teacher and to think about what teaching is!! To do this amongst so many people committed to making schools a better place is quite a buzz. As Stephen Hepple said at the end: “This is one of the best eLearning Conferences anywhere” (he should know!!) – it is far and away the best I have ever been to!

I am wrestling with what I have taken away and what I will do with it but, as I often say to my colleagues: “Don’t beat yourself up about it just get on with it!!”

Our photos are on Picasa and my Delicious are under uLearn10 and if you search Twitter for #ulearn10 you’ll see some of the chat.

Now to put some of it into practice!!!

Jumping aboard the Emirates flight tomorrow morning heading off to the uLearn 2010 conference in Christchurch.

We are taking a big group for Sydney CEO and loking forward to having fun and learning lots!!

I’m starting the sessions off with the Pecha Kucha onthe Tues afternoon!

On Wednesday I’m heading for the Showcase Session first (CC Old Boys Theatre) and then catching Tony Ryan (Digital Pedagogy in James Hay) for the second one!

Phew! It is is good to be able to type here -I’m using the Mac (it must be Flash cause I couldn’t do this on the iPad – now I know that is probably just me, and a million of you know how to do it already so tell me!) as I thought I would add my two-penneth worth to the iPad experience.

Here’s the pdf  Ipad reflections

Above is a mindmap (via iThoughtsHD via Andrew Churches, thanks – I also now have Doodle Buddy for Mr. 4.5, my grandson) of some of my reactions.

My main response is to quote Bob Dylan: “Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?” (It is worth listening to “The Times they are a’Changing” again too!) This device is definitely a huge step and the sign of things to come. It really moves the experience forward and has all the hallmarks of the 60′s (even though I know most of you weren’t there!) -

• there are the zealots who are absolutely certain it is more important than a cure for cancer and who don’t care if it drops off wireless, has complicated connectivity, or is obviously the Version 1.0 of an expensive stable of devices  ,,, this is the future and it must be good!
• there are those just do not want to change again! They feel pretty cool with their wireless laptop, iPhone and blog and just  roll their eyes when confronted with Dropbox, Good Reader and “the Cloud” – “Why do I need to learn a new way to get a pdf to my work computer?”
• There are those who just haven’t a clue that anything has changed and couldn’t care less. Dylan again:
  • • Your old road is rapidly agin’.
      Please get out of the new one
      If you can’t lend your hand
      For the times they are a-changin’.

I am not going to say where I fit but I would encourage you all to get your hands on one (mine was given to me by work!!!) and dedicate some time to actually learning to use it. That means using your PLC and learning from others – I am lucky that it is holidays and cold and wet so I have been able to get some time.

In many ways the jury is still out for me about its impact in schools where the bandwidth is poor and there are still laptops not being used at anywhere near their full potential. (I’m talking short term because in the long term it will obviously make a big change). I am conscious of the already huge chasm around effective PD for the average teacher and conscious that Apple couldn’t care less about the widening digital divide – they are a company who make and sell stuff!

When I see the “natural” way that Mr. 4.5 learns how to navigate and use drawing tools, games, puzzles, images and “books” I simply know it is “a lay-down misere”. This is the future. (He quickly learnt how to “stuff up” Pop’s app screens too – once shown, readily remembered! A bit like walking ….).

If I get time I might even post about our new TV which talks directly to the Internet, no other computer involved- the times they are a’changin!!