robyn jay

My mother’s creative spirit – her love of verse, theatre, colour, line and texture – touched everyone who knew her in many ways. We are truly blessed.
I will remember her most with a paint brush and well used palette in hand, clothed in skivvy and her favourite paint-stained woolen jumper and pants, with her art group out in the cold winter New England bush.
There was never a time in my childhood when she was not experimenting with one medium or another – pastels, ceramics, copper enamel, oils, sculpture, watercolour. I loved being able to dabble alongside her and my feeble efforts were always given pride of place.
Her confidence and love of experimentation taught me to see inherent beauty in the world around us, to follow my heart and to celebrate and trust in the creative process and the joy it brings our lives.

With fondest memories
Marie Elizabeth Patterson (nee Addison)
2.2.1916 – 6.7.2010

This post has been reproduced from an old blog – inspired by the photo found of my father below at our old woolshed…..

cc licensed flickr photo shared by robynejay

As a kid I loved the sheds on our property. There were heaps.

One housed an ancient truck with a hole in floor, that smelt of aged leather and the threat of spiders. Another which remains a mystery to today had broken windows, rooms filled with dust and old ceramic liquor flasks.

My favourite was our woolshed. The floorboards were worn and the air was always heavy with the smell of lanolin. The verandah was always stained with blood where the sheep dogs meat was cut up, and up one end was an office with a gorgeous old swivel chair which I claimed but has since collapsed from old age. I used to lie in the stalls filled with fleeces, hang around while sweaty shearers did their stuff, and clamber down the sheep shoots out into the pens where there was a huge oak tree. There were always intriguing relics from the shearing season like Bex packets and Post mags – alien items in my daily life.

But my favourite spot was the loft. It was pretty inaccessible but I had a route that required standing on a fence, climbing a wall and squeezing up through a gap.

When my brother sold the farm it felt as if all this had gone for ever.

About 5 years later a TAFE colleague told me the farm had been split into 3 and resold, but to one buyer who bid high to ensure he acquired the lot. Thankfully I asked who it was, not expecting to know….

It was wonderful to hear it was my old school friend and neighbour Ted Williams. I remember a time when we sat up in our old cherry tree staining our faces with huge cherries!

My shed is in good hands.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by glsims99

We all need warm and fuzzy moments in our work to keep us coming back for more and today I had one of those.

The thing I love most about my job at UNSW is getting out in the Faculties in response to calls from teachers with passion who are seeking to do innovation things with, lets say, some of the less structured and more collaborative technologies.

Today I met with an academic from Law and her small clutch of enthusiastic, motivated graduates who are setting up a wikispace for the clinician unit. They are using the platform as a resource and communication hub for refugee advocacy groups and individuals. The space will grow over time as groups of students move through the unit and onto their lives in law. No one in the group had used a wiki previously.

As you can imagine they will be balancing an open forum, varied viewpoints and I suspect at times dissent. There was discussion around roles, access, archives, RSS, notifications, moderation, connections. It was interesting to hear the group calm one student who clearly was being pushed beyond her boundaries around openness.

And with a one hour Q&A, demo and general kick start they’re away. I’ll be looking forward to watching the progress.

I’m doing some design and facilitation work at present on projects that essentially focus on equipping and inspiring teachers to rethink and redesign their practice. It has led me to reread a load of approaches to learning design but also to ponder why it is that we see so little in the way of exemplary contemporary practice.

I think that many (but not all) senior managers and Ministers are genuinely interested in providing ‘quality’ education services. Misguided often its true; outrageously bad decisions are made by incompetent incapable advisors, out of date practices continue or alternatively the latest ‘fad’ wastes inordinate amounts of public monies. But I’m going to be generous and say that its ignorance, and not evil (Mike) that is the cause.

And most teachers too have hearts in the right place. Unfortunately in post-compulsory settings most ‘teachers’ lack education training that allows time to read, revise, connect, deconstruct and reconstruct the models of being a teacher they carry in their minds from their own life experiences. (How some people end up in teaching roles I have no idea – good conditions and reasonable pay I suspect. I watched my sons suffer in the hands of a science teacher who spent each class writing notes on a blackboard for them to transcribe.)

Good teachers are genuinely interested in how people learn. The really dedicated stay in touch with the latest trends, opportunities and theoretical approaches in their own times and by their own means. They are what George Siemens describes as master learners; not only reflecting on what works as a learner in a metacognitive sense, but continually looking at how they can do it better.

“Good teaching may overcome a poor choice of teaching, but technology will never save bad teaching.”

(Tony Bates, 2005)

Good teachers are an inspiration no matter what approach they take;  good teachers armed with effective educational technologies are mighty. Bad teachers are simply a drudge no matter what medium. Tragically education largely reflects the model of 100 years ago. It IS still predominantly something that by and large is DONE to people in courses that run over X weeks…. transmission of ideas happens via hideously bad lectures, readings etc.

So let’s focus on those with potential. A window of opportunity exists if we can capture the good teachers and support them to grow and re-establish momentum. We’ve dangled tools and strategies as carrots until we’re blue in the face but that’s not enough.  What we get in reply is ‘but now what, how do I use these in my teaching?’ For some, models and a kick start are all that’s needed but if your teaching approach is instructivist in nature the best we can achieve is to adjust PDFs to video or the inclusion of quizzes. We give them the tools but not the inspiration and scaffolds to rethink practice. It’s no wonder people cannot see beyond the walls of the LMS – why would you if your world as a teacher is to instruct?

Good friend and mentor Robby Weatherley suggested last week that the pendulum has swung back to a focus on learning design. But we need to think very carefully what that looks like before we turn the clocks back. Too often what WE ourselves provide is instructivist in nature. I’ve seen leading thinkers in contemporary educational thought stand and lecture.

We need to model contemporary learning design in our staff development programs.

We need to acknowledge and what learners (teachers) bring to the environment – their strengths and experiences and passions.

We need to provide the scaffolds for teachers to become independent networked learners beyond their time in staff development programs and under our gaze.
We need to acknowledge their lives and interests and identify areas as launching pads for experimentation and risk taking.

As George Siemens suggests ‘our learning institutions have been created in the spirit of research and openness, yet they have acquired their own neurotic tendencies. Yes we need a dynamic alternative to address our ambiguous, tumultuous personal learning needs and that scares the heck out of most educators.

No it’s not really about resourcing Mike . Some of the very best learning happens in small, community based, lowly resourced programs. It’s about WILL not dollars. And while I agree that stagnant dinosaurs of institutions will and DO lose the innovators its not necessarily to an emerging educational counter-culture -  That has always been present. We are lured to job security and better pay that institutions offer but that’s not where satisfaction lies.

Relationships grow in communities – thats where uniqueness and individuality are valued, cherished and encouraged – within communities of shared values and goals.  Don’t fear the reactive policy measures – they will come and go – thankfully most of us at least in Australia live with freedom and choice. We can opt-out.And we should if it becomes soul destroying.

So in the coming weeks I’ll be working with some excellent minds to play with new designs, and hopefully to give inspirational teachers room to grow and embrace the complex and chaotic beauty of contemporary learning possibilities. I’m looking forward to the challenge.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by radiobrain_

I have unashamedly been an avid FlickR user and advocate for the past 4 years. At this point in time I have 8,357 items and 32,147 views. Paying the annual USD$24.95 is worth every cent for a PRO account that allows me full access and organisational ability. Of my 73 contacts about half are personally known to me. Others .are people I value for their content, photography and design skills. I’ve found FlickR to be secure, spam free and reliable. I use backupify to archive.

I’ve been increasingly interested in how FlickR might be used in educational contexts as a visual portfolio platform. To that end I’ve put in an application for 2010 Flexible Learning Framework for some innovation project funding with the ACE North Coast Community Colleges. We’re keen to target a group of students undertaking the Certificate II in Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Cultural Arts based up at Nimbin.

Now I’m most definitely an “E-portfolio” skeptic  (note the capital E). Instead of equipping learners to capture their learning and progress, and make real connections within authentic professional networks we feel a need to over complicate and formalise platforms and hide them away behind gates along with the blessed LMS. Rhetoric about student ownership and ‘migratable’ content is all very well but how practical is it really? How attractive is that prospect for the learners? How many will do anything but stick a DVD in their drawer?

And how financially within reach are commercial portfolio platforms for community providers and their learner cohort?

So what I hope we can prove if funded is that a free web-based platform such as FlickR can equip individuals to establish and manage a personal online portfolio for their art work. As well as enabling a self managed visual portfolio that is free and easy to use, the course facilitator will have the means to establish course and community Groups for display, assessment and promo. We’ll use local community centre facilities and equipment to support the digitisation of work and by placing images online the learners will be able to connect and communicate with artists and communities way beyond their current community. Students will immediately create and manage a personal portfolio of their artistic work that will extend across and throughout their lives.

Within their free (or if they wish, Pro account) students can upload images (scanned or photographed paintings if necessary) and determine permissions for access and reuse. Each item can be made public or private for example, and assigned an “all rights reserved” or a Creative Commons licence. Tags can be applied – both individual and course related. Each image online can have annotated ‘notes’ or hotspots added to it to highlight and describe specific areas of each piece of work and there’s room for a description of the process or final work, and viewers (peers, teacher, community members or other artists) can comment if given access. Here’s a slideshow example using my recent mosaic table project:

At the course level a FlickR Group can act as a central hub for group activity. Students are made members of the Group and are able to control which of their images are assigned to show up in the Group area.
Teachers can also create FlickR based ‘galleries’ of selected images that could be used to showcase exemplars, or RSS based ‘badges’ or slideshows based on users, groups or specific tags that can be embedded into other course sites, an LMS, blog or wiki etc.

I’ll be redeveloping my existing FLickR in Education guide for their local context;  into a plain English minimal text wiki with screengrabs or short instructional video (housed in FlickR of course) and plenty of scope for discussion, sharing and evolution. Question is, will such a small simple platform be taken seriously and given a chance?

I’ve been asked for my hints and tips on preparing a submission for the 2010 Framework Innovations funding.

All I can do is to note a few things based on my past Framework experience but priorities and requirements change each year so my list is certainly no more than a rough guide to supplement advice from the Framework team.

It’s a pretty painful process to trawl through around 100 applications in a short amount of time. It never ceased to amaze me how organisations (nameless) would send in 10 applications with content and budget pretty much identical! And some of the budgeting was, to be kind, inventive. The selection panel are highly experienced e-learning and project management leaders

So here’s my list…

• Research what has been done before in Framework projects
• Build on from, and acknowledge, past projects
• Describe your current practice and what works well and what doesn’t – fill the gaps and accentuate what works – think of what can be done to make your program better still
• Research other Framework research work, Toolboxes etc – you won’t get funded to replicate
• Narrow your project right down – don’t try to do too much
• Treat your project as a model from which you can extend
• Describe how you will roll out, extend and embed your project
• Describe how your project will survive long term – it must be sustainable
• Have senior management buy-in
• Don’t be a one person show
• Make business partnerships REAL – build on existing relationships rather than establishing new ones
• Involve students – get their input and feedback
• Photograph and document each step – these are really useful for your report•    Don’t be afraid to take risks, make mistakes and ask for help …. early
• Be realistic in your budget – don’t overcharge and don’t make up items – the selection panel reads them carefully and know what things cost
• Make connections with other Framework teams, in and beyond your RTO
• If your RTO is submitting more than one application allow each ‘owner’ their own look and feel – don’t copy/paste unless standard RTO data/info

What else would you add? Leave a comment

Another Australia Day week has come and gone. This year more than ever I simply tried to ignore it but Michael Coghlan’s image deserves some backup.

While it was great to see the show of multiculturalism in Michael’s photostream I’m getting a sense of an increasing proto-nationalist undercurrent in any show of Australian ‘pride’ these days.

The flag flying, tattoo and towel-bearing yobbos, and the ‘If you don’t like it (read – if you don’t like the way we behave towards you) – LEAVE’ sticker messages, are simply a more crass and explicit pronouncement of a much larger groundswell however. The number of apparently intelligent people succumbing to the paranoia and ‘one world government’ conspiracy theories represent another movement I’m finding disturbing.

In Sydney it has reached a point where laws must be enforced to stop all alcohol consumption in and around many public places on Australia Day. It wouldn’t take much for another Cronulla riot scenario to eventuate.

Increased press about finite resources and panic about water may have replaced terrorist fear for now; it seems we’re only happy to be warm and fuzzy about embracing diversity when there’s plenty to go around. But at the same time global warming conspiracy theories and redneck demands to be unaccountable for destruction of private land holdings indicate an unwillingness to act with foresight and adjust personal ways of life. Goodness knows how the old ‘Think global; act local” message would be now misconstrued.

There’s a lot we DO need to celebrate about living in Australia but at present it feels as though we’ve lost our way. How we get back on track is the question I can’t answer.

“Only when the rivers run dry, the trees are all gone and the animals are all dead will humans realize that we can’t eat money…” Unknown.

I’d been pondering the skills and capabilities and attributes I think the contemporary education system needs to support in young people today when I came across the following video thanks to a post from Rod Lucier in his The Clever Sheep blog. I first saw it a couple of years ago but it was good to revisit ….

So what do young people need to effectively operate, and be the change agents, in a world that will see substantial change in their lifetimes ….

In his post – Empathy: An Overlooked 21st Century Skill – Christopher D. Sessums reflects on the same.

He refers to the work of Henry Jenkins et al who in 2006 list …
•    Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving
•    Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
•    Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
•    Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content
•    Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
•    Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
•    Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal
•    Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
•    Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities
•    Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information
•    Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.

and to Tony Wagner’s seven survival skills:
•    Critical thinking and problem solving
•    Collaboration and leading by influence
•    Agility and adaptability
•    Initiative and entrepreneurial-ism
•    Effective oral and written communication
•    Accessing and analyzing information
•    Curiosity and imagination

To these Christopher himself adds empathy.

So, what’s missing?
Here’s my own additions. I’d like to hear what you would add….

• creativity and lateral thinking
• compassion and civility
• perseverance and persistence
• the ability to critique and validate
• the ability to filter and synthesize large amounts of information
• cultural awareness
• resilience
• balance
• risk-taking
• the ability to self-promote and manage a virtual identity/ presence and content

The big question is of course, how well does the current education system acknowledge and focus on these?

I have to share my ‘stars’ for today via Pageflakes ….

Libra – Sep 23 – Oct 22
You’ve just about had it with a certain person — the one who seems to be living for nothing else lately than to aggravate you, in any way possible. The bad news — for them — is that even though you’ve had quite the week, you’ll catch a second wind this morning, and be more than happy to use it to defend yourself. The good news — for you — is that the universe has seen fit to arm you with an amazing array of verbal astrological weapons. Better warn them before you really get going!

and I always thought it was because I was on the cusp of Scorpio.
Watch out!

cc licensed flickr photo shared by thomas.merton

Don’t be a martyr Mike!

Early-adopters, ground-breakers, risk-takers – call them what you will, bu most workplace leaders and innovators I know cannot remember the last time they themselves had any substantial professional development opportunities.

Their ongoing issue is that they are constantly developing the skills and knowledge of others. Typically local events and conferences, and workplace learning strategies are designed for the bulk of employees interests and needs. It is the so called ‘early-adopters’ who run the sessions and inspire the attendees. They also mentor and provide constant informal support within their units and Faculties.

But read my lips!!! – leaders and innovators require exposure to new skills, ideas and technologies too, and they shouldn’t be left to outlay personal funds and time to meet this need.
Unless this happens people like Mike burn out and find a space where motivational interaction and learning occurs. The success of in-house support etc depends on keeping leaders and skilled employees happy and motivated. They need to be actively encouraged to engage online and they need to be supported to identify and attend at least one inspirational event each year. The trickle-down benefits of flying a person to an international event are significant.
Yes we are FAR better off now with online connections and events, but there’s nothing quite like actually physically mixing with and conversing with like minded innovators.
Mike captures the loss beautifully when he says “It’s the feeling that I’m missing out on the excitement, the creative energy, the showmanship, the passion and the fun – missing out on the incredible aire of enthusiastic jubilation that makes for an incredible collaborative learning environment.”

cc licensed flickr photo shared by deserttrumpet