Continue to work on the ATLC project, reflections and readings

Links to the course co-ordinator's blog: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2971128.htm

Links to his e-resouorces WIKI:
http://e-language.wikispaces.com/

Links to his presentation titled Essential Conversations: 4 Visions of CALL in 2008.
http://e-language.wikispaces.com/file/view/Fukuoka-08-Handout.pdf

I am in Hong Kong for my annual leave. If there is no Internet , no cloud computing, my progress of my learning would be stumbled by not being able to access resources.

Links to useful resources

While doing the project for the ATLC course, I am using the blog as my one stop shop for all links. Today, one of the project leaders put in the link to her publication and that is very useful to see how those papers are related to what we are currently working towards to.
http://www.studentservices.uwa.edu.au/ss/learning/llrs_projects/osj_project/lc_publications.

I showed my blog to two postgraduate stds but amazingly enough that both had no idea of what a blog is about.

ATLC - Emergent Technologies in Education at UWA (contd)

Three sessions gone, two more to go. Lots to learn at each of the sessions and lots of readings, so much that don't know where to start, so basically just discipline myself to do some readings and write some reflections plus work on the project bit by bit.
As the class contains so many staff working from different areas in differnt institutions, it is always interesting to listen to their perspectives, read their reflections.
Technically I picked up a few tips which would help me to input into the project however the gist of the course is not the technical bit but how the web 2.0 tools could be used pedagogically to enhance learning.
Knowing also that the wikispaces used within the class would only be kept for a year, at some stages I would copy and paste my work into this space

ATLC - Emergent Technologies in Education at UWA

• I have started a five day course in S2 titled as in the caption and is available via: http://altc-emergent-technologies.wikispaces.com/. It is a private website but I needed to put it here as down the track I cannot remember.
• The course also requires stds to use twitter which I have not used for ages: http://twitter.com/chanhonghan, the twitter I put in today was also about the course: http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/education/innovative-leadership-project-wins-altc-funding
• The course has got some free material which any public can read and that is available via: http://e-language.wikispaces.com/ and that wikispaces has also got its own WIKI: http://e-language.wikispaces.com/wikis
• It also mentions about free e-learning tools which is at: http://e-language.wikispaces.com/e-tools
• Stds doing the course, staff from project institutions (UWA, ECU & MUrdoch) are welcome to join the ALTC-Viral Network one has to sign-up to join the network and take part in the Networking events. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GNGJVTL,
• There is a ALTC-Viral online community which is a public WIKI for stds to follow: http://www.altc-viral.groupsite.com/main/summary, anyone can sign up to get the e-newsletters

I think I have exhausted most of the links now. The course started 30th July 2010 and there are four more sections for us to explore all the web 2.0 tools that are useful in learning and teaching and the approach has to be coming from a pedagogy way.

ALSR - presentation back at Murdoch Library

Since my return from Hong Kong, it had been really busy. However I really want to share my paper and some good papers from the conference with my colleagues at Murdoch Library. The progress had been very slow as everyday one had got different tasks to fulfil and in no time the day went. I wanted to find a day that would suit a few new librarians to be able to attend as they would benefit more by knowing what we had done regarding '23 Things' in 2006-2009.

On line environment provides an excellent platform for self paced staff development projects such as the content contained in the 23 Things.

Most of the papers and powerpoint have been uploaded to:
http://www.lib.polyu.edu.hk/ALSR2010/Programme.html,
so another advantage to help delegates that attended this conference to consolidate what they had learnt.

ALSR Conference Finished

Before presentation;
The conference officially closed at around 5:45pm on 12th March. Presented the paper from aorund 11:10-11:30 am this very morning. Wanted to start off a story as Paul suggested in his talk, but just no time. Practised two times the night before, both ended up standing at around 28 mins. Not sure where to cut. Dr. Chruchill (HKU)'s keynote speech, covered some of the points I need to say, which I thought that was good. Just before my presentation, Jia Mi from the College of New Jersey, provided a fairly detailed account of the historical changes from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. then I started to get a bit panic thinking if she would cover all the points I need to say. this came as a relief as I could simply focus on the Murdoch scenario. I think the organising committee of arranging the program should be given a big CREDIT. the program provided a coherent flow of the themes plus having the individual flavor added it. It was a good choice of main course and desert! Those two papers allowed me to present my first part of the presentation more easier and quicker as partcipants could enjoy viewing a few images plus putting the faces to the names that Jia mentioned about.

The waiting for the presentation was pretty nerve wrecking as well. Thanks to Jennifer from QUT she taught me to breathe deeply as to relieve the tension and got talking to her was good as she was calm and cheerful.

Presentation
My original plan was to turn each of the pages of the notes and synchrnonised with the ppt so as just to speak what I put down. My overconfidence took over in the third slide that I simply presented the ppt from the top of my head. A dangerous practice if I missed some key points. I managed to clam myself down a bit by moving myself from one side of the theatre to the other. I managed to spot a few audiences to grap some feedback from their facial expression. This made me feel that when I was an audience myself if I could provide a positive facial expression to the presenter would certainly help to boost the confidence of the presenter. Being a P-plated presenter, I needed that. (In Australia, in the first two years after one gets the drivng licence they need to put a plate on the car while driving to signal other drivers on the road.)
I managed to see the time keeper's signal of 5 mins, 3 then 0. I overrun by 1 min or so, but that was fine considering some presenters completely ignore the 0 minute sign and that could have disrupted the schedule. Of couse if ome did not take up the 20 mins then that would even out. The twenty minutes was so so short I could say, you would wonder if they did wind the clock faster or what, it went so quick, the shortest 20 mins in my life. Towards the end I did ask if anyone blog the conference, a complete silence, why? The theme was talking about Web 2.o tools, if you did not set a model for practising, how would the tools be used in your work? I encouraged people to read mine but not sure they could see the blog name during the presentation. [Note, if anyone is reading, it would be nice if you jot down a few lines not just regarding my paper, if you have, I would be much appreciated, but how u feel for the whole conference]

After the presentation
A few delegates that I met in the confernce mentioned that the prenentation went well, so as a few librarians that I had never spoken made an effort to comment on they should also look at doing something like 23 Things program in their libraries. I could not help to reinstate that a case study as such was to let participants know what we did and how we did and what we could do better. As such one can avoid the reinventing of wheels by adopting only the most useful ones. One could not be over ambitious as we all have got our duties to fulfill, I know people in HK all finish work late, seeing the email sent from ALSR, I completely understood the amount of time they had put in for this conference. The adrenaline must be so high for the whole team in the last half of a year. I would like to openly thank the organising committee especailly Anthony Ho, Winnie Chim and Lisa Lam for their assistance and patience with me as I was the one who always did not follow the dealines.

What should I go from here?
As mentioned, the writing of the paper and the presentation has given me the adrenaline to do better in my profession. This is an excellent staff development program for myself, I would think more from the users perspective when it comes to information literacy. I would continue to blog more if I see some comments as to build up that collaboration. Stephen Abram mentioned in our opening of the 23 programs, writing helps to reflect your own learning.

Is writing and presentation an addiction, probably yes, during the times i was struggling with writing the paper (researching, reading) and presentation (learning to embed different tools into ppt and how to present it in a way not to bore the audiences,) I told myself I would not do it again, it has taken the toll of my family time, I have to thank my husband Chris and my daughter Marina. But, i am afraid to say to them, may be I would like to do it again.
Reason 1: Meeting all the nice colleagues from around the world is good as that would help to think how I could do better
Reason 2: most importantly, being someone who is still a HK citizen, I feel strongly and passionately that how I could help more librarians to be able to present a paper in the conference. I am thinking to be able to co-author with author or authors in HK to present one in the next conference. It is an absolute pity that we did not see more papers presented by the librarians themselves , may be it takes time as we are into the fourth year only.
Reason 3:One thing I learnt while researching for the paper was if you don't report, no one knows what you have done. The writing should go to peer-reviewed journal as that would be picked up by the major databases such as SCOPUS.
Reason 4: In the 2007's ALSR, I was sitting there and found quite a few papers mentioned things that we did already or even a while back and we had already gone past that stage, why were they still talking about them. I am sure I could do somehting better

Presenters from China, I am afraid to say, they need to uplift their games a bit, the language barrier was certainly an issue, I understand that myself as I am also an ESL speaker, but if you know your content well, u should be able to engage your audiences better, so please do not just read out from the ppt or notes. But at least, in view of the barriers, they had tried.

Would write some more after I read through some papers

Academic Librarians Conference Hong Kong 2010 -ALSR

I arrived in Hong Kong on 9th March. Only 10 degrees C. quite cold.
Will be presenting a paper on ' Murdoch University Library: a Web 2.o Journey'.
Am still giving a final touch on the presentation and will take it to the Polytechnic University Library just to test if the powerpoint is alright in their tset up.

The reason to write this is to check if the blog search pick this blog up. In the previous ones, i used only ALSR and that got pick up. Today I titled academic librarians hong kong conference and that got picked up by the blog search in no time too. Amazing !
http://blogsearch.google.com/

Now I need to practice the presentation to make it sound interesting and also to make sure i can complete what i want to say within the time limit.

Getting closer and closer - ALSR

Finished cooking 12 meals for my family.
Done the shopping for my mum.
For the presentation, still working on them. VPN to work PC is far too slow.
Decided to work on the slides without screen captures at home and go back to work to get a few more screen shots done
Our library system officer, only a very young girl recently graduated with an IT degree. she helped me to convert fls file from Viddler to wmf file. Then use the window movie maker to edit the clips that I want to be inputted into the powerpoint presentation.
I don't want the presentation to be bored with words as people can read the paper, the key point is they are willing to sacrifice the other session to come to mine so I need to make sure when they leave the session, they could bring something along with them.
I would openly ask to see if there are participants blogging for the conference and how many participants have their blogs or personal webpage etc.
I would ask what they expect from the presentation and note down on their mind and towards the end to see if the presentation fulfil their expectation, if not, I would like to know.
Up to this very moment, I know my family is still wondering why I am doing this, as this has taken such a lot of my time and also the family time, however I feel it is more of a professional development for myself and by the end of the day, I am the one who benefit the most.

Am I there yet? ALSR

Starting to get there, but only yesterday that I needed to send to ALSR committee that one of the citations was wrong as I put a vietnamese author's first name as his last name. They took on board immediately and allowed me to make the changes. I could say the ALSR committee was marvellously hardworking.

They were very accomodating. When I knew that I could not submit the paper on the deadline on 1st Feb. as that coincided with the preparation for the start of the first semester in southern hemisphere. Their reply was 'to take my time' as they understood how busy at the beginning of a semester. I was so thankful.

Following the submission of the paper, I told myself to be more hardworking on the presentation, but again I left them to the last week. There were so much to learn in the powerpoint presentation.

Excellent free screen capturing software Fireshot helped significantly to do the screen shots.
Numerous selection of images could be found on Flicker
Easy downloading of slides from Slideshare, amazingly quick downloading. only drawback, another set of login and password
Last minute surveymonkey to gather students' ideas on emerging technolgies specialist and librarains.
Only drawback, another few sets of login and password.

Another six days I would be on my way to Hong Kong and I hope to give a snapshot of the presentation before leaving Perth.

Long struggle - ALSR

Had been working hard day and night to get the flow of the paper sounds better. Got up at around 5am most of the mornings and stayed back at work until late. Totally underestimated the time needed, if i have ever known that, i might not have done so. The time spent on the paper had taken the toll of the family. Meals were not arranged as usual, more take aways than ever, school work of marina have not been taken care of. went to school without books etc.always thought to thank family is a gesture just because they are your family but did not realise the whole family sacrifice to make the paper happen. moreover, a number of colleagues also put in a few hours to help me out. on the very last day, it was a bit like with the help of God that I came across a reference that i should have used earlier on, anyway it is done and it was submitted on 11th Feb which is 10 days after the deadline. so bad !

Getting towards the deadline- ALSR

It is getting towards the deadline but it does not mean that i am about to complete the paper yet . At the last minute, thought the paper would not be complete if there was not a survey for the staff to voice out their comments. Use surveymonkey and got one done still took more than 2 hours though.

Snail progress -ALSR

Another week of reading and writing, each time when I opened the file and started to read from the first paragraph, I felt that I could add some more info. and this has slowed down my progress. I now learned to go straight to the end where I last stop and start from there.

I felt that I have comitted to a much bigger job that I had forseen, there were such a lot of information out there regarding Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. With the convenice of seamless linking from one article to another reference, from one blog post to the other, some times the time just slipped away so fast that I could imagine.May be I was a slower reader !

I promised the family that I would be back to cook dinner, almost wanted to ring and asked them to get take away but felt that was not fair to them. So thought to finish off and jot a few words of how I was feeling at this stage. Hope I could be more productive tomorrow

ALSR Conference

To observe the deadline for submitting the paper, I have taken a week off from 18th Jan to 22nd Jan. As it coincides with school holiday in WA, I mainly stayed home to do a bit of reading and most of the times doing a few things with my only kid. By late afternoon, aftter I had done my chores, my husband took over the responsibility to look after the little one and I went back to Library to continue with my reading and writing journey.

Too much distraction at home, this includes the opening week of Australian Open.

The weather this week was shockingly hot. We had three consecutive days of over 42 degrees.

Before the x'mas break I used the BONUS and the Document Delivery services to get a nubmer of books as I need to learn more about the background knowledge of 23 Things or Web 2.0 or Library 2.0. And each day I detailed some key points of what I learnt from the books and then checked on references as to read more online open access or journals subscribed by Murdoch.

It is the fifth day since I have started to prepare for the paper. Today I went back to my orginal blog to see what I wrote in 2007 and what I could extract to be put into the conference paper and thought I should detail a few lines to provide an account of this journey of writing up the very conference paper.

Two days altogether I managed to put together around 1500 words.