| Barbara Braxton “Now, just click send!” said Peter, our ICT coach, as we finished the first ever email I had ever written. But it was more than just sending my first email, it was the start of a new career! It was December 1st, 1997 and one of those rare, definitive moments that shape your life. Following a car accident that limited my mobility, I was assigned to my local school as part of my rehabilitation and was having to consider where I was going as it became obvious that my 25 years as a classroom teacher had come to an end. As so much of me was the work I did with my students this was an enormous decision to have to make. Palmerston was a brand new school with a visionary principal who understood the impact ICT and the Internet before many of us even knew the words, and so the school was cabled while it was built and we were among the first primary schools in Australia to have Internet access. John was a devotee of Jamie McKenzie’s teachings and an ICT coach was hired to mentor the staff so we, too, could take advantage of this new medium. He knew that we needed to know what we were doing before we would have the competence or the confidence to integrate it into our programs. Because of that first email, which only went to the teacher in the next room, I started hanging around the library in the hope that someone would email me, and I saw my new career in front of me – this is what I had been put on this planet for! Although I had had a computer at home for over 10 years (starting with a Microbee-in-a-Box in the early 80s), this Internet-thing was a whole new ball game and within a week I had organised a dedicated phone line at home, an ISP and my own email account –I was on my way! Next step was enrolling in the Master of Education in Teacher-Librarianship at Charles Sturt University and over the summer of 97-98 I did the first two units of my new passion. One of the requirements of the course was to join and contribute to OZTL_NET (the listserv for Australian teacher-librarians) and I soon found that this was better than Lindt chocolate! There were people all over the country with a common interest sharing ideas and information – it was like a virtual staffroom and the contributors soon became familiar with each other and friendships were developed. I had contact with the outside world on days that I couldn’t physically get there, and the crucial mental stimulation and the re-growing sense of self-worth contributed so much to my healing process. I was really disappointed on the days that were there were very few messages – I checked them religiously like some check their voicemail – and in that first month I racked up a rather startling telephone bill as I connected so many times. This ‘addiction’ soon led me to subscribe to Oz-teachers, a list for Australian teachers, LM_NET, SLN and SLANZA – the lists for school librarians in the US, the UK and New Zealand. Even though I was still an apprentice teacher-librarian, I found that my classroom experience enabled me to answer many of the questions that were posed and so I became a regular contributor, both to the lists generally and to individuals. I think having a “DownUnder” point of view that was often the opposite to the “UpOver” opinion caught members’ eyes and I soon became tagged as the “Aussie T/L”. My rather irreverent commentary on the Sydney 2000 Olympics on LM_NET captured some imaginations, and since then I have answered many private inquiries from classes, teachers and individual students about life in Australia. (Many of these I hand over to a group of my students to answer as part of their learning journeys, in both ICT and Australian general knowledge. They love it.) But I have received much more than I have ever given from the members of these lists, and this is demonstrated in the programs that I have implemented at Palmerston, including email exchanges, book raps, online author chats and so on. Even offering a response to someone forces me to reflect on what I am saying and why, and so many of the things that I have just ‘done’ over the years have been clarified and I know I am standing on a very sound educational platform. I know the kids are getting the very best I can offer them. My first venture at taking the children out and bringing the world in was joining the Teddy Bear Rap in mid-99, a project which linked Kindergarten – Year 2 students across Australia as we swapped teddies, wrote about them and where they came from and shared our responses to our favourite stories about these lovable creatures. Our brand-new five year olds learned more about Australian geography from that experience than anything else we could have ever done, and it really showed me the potential of the medium with even the youngest children. Throughout 2000 I teamed with Jo Dervan, LMS at Strathmore School in Aberdeen, New Jersey and whilst her students hosted the Olympic mascots., our kindergarten kids looked after Spangles, a teddy in US flag livery. Not only did this spawn a website that the students could share with each other and their relatives, it also gave them the perfect introduction to information literacy. Panic struck towards the end of 1999 when our ICT coach married a staff member and announced they were going to live in Western Australia, because it was assumed that I would take over the reins of our award-winning website. Me? I did not have a clue about creating pages and how they got on to the Internet was a mystery on the scale of the disappearance of the dinosaurs. But with patience, e-x-t-r-e-m-e patience, Pete taught me and my first webpage was one of links to the best Christmas sites on the web. It was used by teachers and librarians around the world, although I am sure 90% of the hits were from me, admiring my cleverness. For the second time in a little more than twelve months, I was hooked. I loved this instant publication in full colour and soon I was creating so many pages, people thought I was an expert! This fascination, my belief in teaching in context, my love of writing curriculum units and the timing preventing us from participating in TheReadIn, led to the birth of Read Around Australia. This is a site that marries the best of Australian literature to the potential of the Internet so students can not only read and appreciate some great stories like Storm-boy but can explore issues raised through linked websites and share their opinions with other schools who are also studying the same book through the registration page. Over 15 000 students participated in activities in 2000. I encourage teachers to create units for the site, and many have gone on to greater things within their schools because of this experience. Last year I offered this opportunity to two Year 4 classes (9-10 year olds) and they created the Tashi Book Rap which involved 36 groups from around Australia discussing this popular series for children, and then later that term, another two classes of the same age created The Great Aussie Bites Book Rap which involved 45 groups all over the continent. Another project which grew from Read Around Australia is the Young Australian Readers Awards which gives students from Kindergarten to Year 12 the opportunity to receive, read and review the latest titles from Australian authors and have these reviews published online. Then in October, students vote for their favourite title. The whole process is done online and enables participation from large city to schools to remote one-teacher schools in the Outback. In May 2000, I received my M.Ed from Charles Sturt University. This course was also done entirely online and, in fact, the first time I set foot on the campus was at the graduation ceremony. Having ‘doffed my toff’ I now felt like a real teacher-librarian and so I joined IASL, and almost immediately was invited to be a judge for the IASL/ Concord School Library Webpage Award , which selects the very best of school library websites each month for consideration for the annual award. This has allowed me to use these sites as models for the Resource Centre section of the Palmerston website which is an integral part of our collection for our own staff and students as well as those of our cluster and anyone else who accesses it. Our school network has continued to grow (by the end of 2002 there will be a 1:2 ratio) and our students now use ICT as readily as their predecessors used pencil and paper. I also became the co-ordinator for International School Libraries Day, in charge of publicising this day around the world and suggesting and co-ordinating activities held in schools, education departments and wherever else people felt the urge to acknowledge the contribution made by school libraries and their staff. From the ashes of the World Trade Centre grew an idea called Growing the Future and as the focus for ISLD 2001, students from around the globe planted trees and shrubs as a symbol of planting hope and growing peace. It is hoped that when the rubble is finally cleared from Ground Zero, an international Children’s Peace Park will be grown using the seeds of the plants that were planted last October 22. In 2000, I contributed a paper about the possibilities and potential of using ICT with kindergarten students to the Information Services in Schools (ISIS) Conference hosted by Charles Sturt University and was then invited to be a marker of the assignments which students had to submit. From this came an invitation to join an e-group of students undertaking the teacher-librarianship course, and I have continued to mentor them for the past 18 months. But what I really like is that now I am completing a Master of Applied Science in Teacher-Librarianship from CSU, just because the subjects are interesting, they are offering me support and advice. As our school motto states, “Together, we learn from each other.” In Term 4 last year, I decided that I would like to spend the summer holidays touring Tasmania so I teamed up with a class of Year 8 students in Hobart, and they each prepared PowerPoint presentations which mapped and costed an itinerary for me! I continue to correspond with one of the students whose whole attitude to school was turned around by this project. Although it has only been four years since I sent that first email, I seemed to have packed more learning into that period than I did in the previous 24 as a classroom teacher. I have heaps of plans for projects including running The Quizzard of Oz, and online quiz competition for Australian students, Maths Around Australia, which will be a sister site to Read Around Australia and a conference for local teacher librarians so they, too, can enjoy the fun and the friendships that the Internet offers. To win this GSN Award, would just be the icing on the cake! Barbara
Braxton
January 2002
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