Journal
Thursday, November 6th 2008
It been a month since my last entry. That's because our Film Festival premiered last night so now I have some time again. I was probably spending around 4 hours each evening editing video or writing scripts so I'm glad it's over. The response was very positive so it was all worth it.
I booked in today for a conference with Stephen Heppell. I first saw him speak in 1999 at a conference here in Melbourne and I was very impressed. The promotional speel for this conference mentioned the new web 2.0 social networking technologies so I'll be disappointed if he thinks that this is the future of education.
The computer I wrote my last journal on was returned for a refund. The sound card was not installed/recognised so after a week of waiting for it to be repaired I asked for a refund and suggested that they set their computers up properly in future. I bought a new Acer laptop but I'm continuing to work on my trusty old desktop as I have Dreamweaver and everything else I might want on it.
Sunday, November 16th 2008
Although I've still got 500 reports to write for school, I need to discipline myself to work on my research everyday now that the craziness of the Film Festival is over. Since my last journal entry 10 days ago there has been much to keep me thinking:
1/ Last Wednesday was the Stephen Heppell seminar. His job was to inspire people to try new things and utilise technology. He seemed to use his iPhone even more than his laptop for showing new developments. He was good at pointing out obvious discrepancies like YouTube being banned from Victorian schools despite it having great educational potential. If anything, his seminar confirmed my confidence that I'm on the right track because the screen is here to stay part of my focus is on visual learning.
My notes from the Stephen Heppell seminar are listed below in point form:
2/ Last Thursday I spoke with my boss about the idea of presenting the Multimedia workbook idea to the staff at the beginning of next year. She said that she supports this idea so that will really help my progress when I'm given hours, maybe even a whole day to explain how my ideas could work throughout the school.
3/ Last Friday would have been my late daughter, Jessica's 18th Birthday. She was killed in a train accident on May 10th 2008. This was before I'd started keeping a journal so this is my first mention of it. How do I gloss over such an incredible event? I don't. My supervisor's have commented that they didn't expect me to get any work done in the months following the accident. My mind never stops thinking so in spite of the grief, ideas keep coming and somehow I will be a better person through this. I can't change it and nothing I can do will bring her back. That is how I'm able to cope and keep on living.
Sunday, November 23rd 2008
Since last week I have honoured my commitment to work on this research everyday. I have decided to restrict journal entries to once a week as most of my thoughts now are going into the body of the research itself. I've also been working on a Professional development document titled "Digital Integration" which I hope to present to my colleagues at the start of the next school year.
I am also 85% of the way through 500 school reports. This process enabled me to articulate some thoughts about literacy and how words alone are not the best way to communicate. I'll address this in my research in relation to rubrics.
Sunday, November 30th 2008
Today is the last day of Spring. School holidays start in a few weeks so it may take longer to get ethics approvals done. I've haven't finished my end of that yet anyway so it works out well to have everything together near the start of the new year.