TL Under Construction

I’m  between semesters of study and this is a perfect time to widen my repertoire of Web 2.0 gadgets.

Here are a couple I’ve been ‘playing’ with that seem worth further investigation and use.

Amaztype is a typographic book search. Enter in a keyword and Amazon.com will find and display books on that topic in the shape of your entered keyword. Hover your mouse over the books to view details of them. Click on one to be transported to its entry on Amazon.com. The application seems to keep stacking the books up without end so don’t wait for it to finish. I generated the Seuss photo below taking a print screen once the books filled all the gaps in the letters then opened  and cropped it in my Paint program. (click on the photo, it’ll give you a much clearer look).

I then took it to another great web application Block Poster to blow it up for the wall in our library (I did Seuss across four A4 sheets). The resolution is a bit low but When you stand back, it looks alright.

I haven’t used Block Poster on any high resolution pictures yet but am thinking about giving some photos of students working in the library a go. Photos to follow!

Wow! Life sometimes pushes our best intentions over the edge and between work, study and family, I admit to having had to give up a lot of life’s pleasures just to regain some footing and that’s included writing here. But I’m really looking forward to being back on my blog and ready to continue writing about this curious voyage I’ve undertaken to become a TL, a darn good TL.

A short summary of the past few months in my TL life –

After a marathon run of fifteen meetings, the decision-making working party finally worked through the process to a chosen solution which involves a re-working of the management system and splitting the management into educational and business sections. Like many other schools they have chosen to look for a business manager to handle some of the myriad of tasks that need doing as well as many other changes. My job as a facilitator to the group finished a fortnight ago and I have put the group in contact with some professional change facilitators to help them formulate a 5 year strategic plan which is what Step 6– Implementation of the Decision Making process will involve for them.

Implementation is of course the most challenging of the steps in the process – the time for talk is finished and the doing must happen. In an initial meeting with the two change facilitators, they emphasised to me that the solution the group chose involved changing the school’s culture not just implementing innovations, changing the way we do things not just what we do. It really harkened back to the main message in Michael Fullan’s books.

In the more hands-on sphere of this TL we had the building that held the little library at our school demolished to make way for a new set of classrooms and the library moved into a portable. The whole process was very poorly timed – no notification as to when the demolition would happen until two weeks before the demolition. School did not hire movers or allow for any over-time so … let’s just say summer holidays were most welcome!

I managed to throw a few photos up on flickr.

The portable was meant to be a temporary home for the library for the next two to three years. That is until our Prime Minister, Mr Rudd announced the Building the Education Revolution (BER) plan. While our school opted not to apply for major funding for a new library (they went for a multi-purpose building), they did apply and receive the renovation/capital works grant to ‘do up’ one of the existing buildings to house the library permanently. This will mean another move in December, hopefully at a more leisurely pace.

I’ve continued to push for Web 2.0 integration into our school and have had the pleasure of being the first to acquire an IWB thanks to a bargain on E-bay! A small demo model came up for auction and I was able to ’snipe’ it for just over $300 – bargain! It arrived and was installed by a most obliging husband (Thanks, BH!). All this happened just in time for my first collaborative project with the Year 5/6 teacher. The class has embarked on the IASL’s wonderful GiggleIT project.

So,things are really starting to bubble along. Exciting times ahead!

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Photo from: Marc Shandro’s Flickr photostream