My “Early Years Conference” co-presenter, Cath Keane, had prepared eleven of our PowerPoint pages, I’d added my own hyperlinks to the twelfth and last slide, and we only had 50 minutes or so to fill anyway. We also had plenty of time before our session, “Young rappers”, to play on the interactive whiteboard (IWB), test our hyperlinks and cache all our web pages that we were planning to visit. We also knew in advance that we had about twenty people signed up to hear our talk. Everything worked in the rehearsal and off we went to the first keynote event of Day 2 of this conference.

Before we knew it, Cath and I were deep into our presentation on book raps, blogs, wikis and Circle Time. Our only hitch was that our computer connection, which had worked so perfectly in rehearsal, had been lost for the presentation. A tech person came in and got us back online most efficiently, but our live connection to the Wilfrid rap blog (on Edublogs) was no longer working. Luckily, our PowerPoint had lots of frame grabs from the site, and the links to the Departmental website and my school’s wiki pages were still viable, so we carried on regardless. We finished off with a reading of my Kinder students’ “Zebra with spots” fable of 2007, and a walk-through of selected pages from my school’s wiki pages.

I hope our presentation has encouraged more schools to start dabbling in wikis and blogs. It was great to have Michele Hedge in the audience, too!

After lunch, I attended two more workshops, both of which (again) ably demonstrated the amazing array of teaching and learning strategies that interactive whiteboards are bringing to classrooms in the 21st century. I guess that’s the main thing I’m taking from this conference: that most of today’s students are already citizens of the digital world of Web 2.0. The sooner their teachers and parents play catch-up the better. Every presentation I went to was using IWBs as part of their presentation – even my presentation, and today was the first time I’d actually been able to use one! Knowing that a little knowledge is dangerous, I can’t wait to get my hands on an IWB as part of my school library’s facilities and let my imagination run wild. Or wilder.

This conference left its delegates with so much food for thought (and delicious food for the body – the Novotel, Brighton-le-Lands always does well in that regard), great ideas we can start using on Monday (first day back of Term Three), and some wonderful memories of networking with colleagues, old and new. Synthesising all the learning into our daily lives will take time, but I’m glad I gave up two days of my vacation to absorb it all. I’m also grateful for the very handsome, gold-embossed “Presenter” pens, which Cath and I received for doing our workshop.

Roll on Term Three…

Hope to see you all at the next meeting: 11th June at 4.00pm.

The purpose of this blog is to have a space where teachers, teacher-librarians and PSP (Priority Schools Program) consultants and committee members in our professional learning group can share the journey of our forthcoming adventure with interactive whiteboards (often known as IWBs). At the same time, we can become more familiar with blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 tools and ICT (information communication technologies), and gain insights into how to start using them in classrooms and learning spaces.

In the coming weeks and months, many of us will be grappling with preparations to integrate the use of interactive whiteboards into our NSW DET school programs. (Being the Internet, this blog may also end up with interstate and international browsers and contributors.) We know that interactive whiteboards have the potential to allow us to make powerful enhancements to programs and the learning of students, upskilling of teachers and new ways to communicate with our school communities.

I have organised this blog, and a wiki, for us to be involved in as part of our first joint IWB project. (The wiki is based on the picture book, Arthur by Amanda Graham and Donna Gynell, which is the book being used for the upcoming ALIA National Simultaneous Reading Day on Wednesday 21st May at 11.00 am (Term Two, Week 5). The Penrith Reading Project: Books from Birth group, another of the local PSP initiatives, has also been invited to join us for the reading.

I will be soon be showing representatives of the IWB2 PSP group how to access (and add to) the wiki site, and highlight some teaching ideas and interactive TaLe activities (learning objects) to support the book. Even if schools do not have interactive whiteboards available to them yet, the interactive activities can still be used on regular computers, or via projection devices. Please check your email for the memo from our PSP consultant, Michele Hedge.

Michele and I are looking forward to seeing you at the meeting (13th May at 3.30pm) to get our joint projects off and running!

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