Reflections

Travelling back home now and this is the first leg of that journey, Cincinnati to Los Angeles, in order to get a connection to Brisbane.

What of the Conference and our visit to St. Ursula’s? The Conference was a very strong affirmation for the way we are proposing to go at BBC. The message was very much that of “this is the way adolescents experience the world and if we want to make the educational experience, let alone the declarative and procedural knowledge, relevant for our students then we need to consider the educational experience that we offer.” Consideration of the educational experience that we offer goes beyond the idea of relevance, it also brings into consideration the question of the potential of a new paradigm, one which makes other things possible which are not in the current situation. In doing this we offer our teachers new opportunities in which to demonstrate their craft. In being able to do this our students are given expanding opportunities to learn and to become creative and innovative.

So what is this paradigm and where does the Tablet PC feature in this. It really centres on the process of learning. The teacher takes the student on a learning journey which in the the first instance is concerned with the affective and cognitive start-up elements. As we lead our students through this journey we rely on intuition and student feedback to get a sense of whether or not they have internalised the journey so far. If we were to leave them alone at any stage some could find their way back, others would be lost. How good would it be if we could, with certainty, know how far in the journey each individual student is. We work on the basis that they are all right behind us, but often times they are strung out along the route we have taken. So at this point any evaluation of learning needs to focus on the communication and auditing of learning. Teachers undertake their craft like any other professional; they have the craft modelled to them; then they practice, internalise and shape it. The extent of the shaping of the craft depends upon the flexibility that is afforded to the teacher. If there was a resource that:

allowed the teacher to save time;

allowed for the development of a methodology that replaces three or four current ones;

allows the teacher to achieve their objective in a smarter way not only by facilitating feedback on where the student is in the learning journey, but also is timely and targeted so that the point at which the student gets ‘lost’ in our journey can be apparent while he is still close to where you are.

.. then some greater flexibility is afforded. Such a resource is the Tablet PC and its key to assisting in all of the above lies in its flexibility.

There is the flexibility of moving around the class while responding to, monitoring, communicating and auditing the learning, simply because the teacher can hold the table in one hand and use the software through the pen in the other. Computer software designed to facilitate the means by which a teacher can communicate and audit learning does not allow this flexibility where the teacher needs to use the key board to operate it. It is necessary to be alongside students in the learning experience because teaching is also about relationships. It is important for teachers to vary their physical proximity to their students, but they also need to be able to operate the software identified as enabling them to communicate to individual students, and audit student learning. 

There is flexibility of the nature of this feedback; it can be recorded via the pen anywhere on the original document, just as we do with the paper submission, but we do not a physical proximity with the student to collect a submission; we do not need to juggle with the multiple pages involved; we do not need the physical proximity involved in order to return feedback; we still have a copy of the original – the student, we have the computer record of submissions and returns.  

There is flexibility and appropriateness in the nature of the response the student can give. He can type if he wishes, but he can also illustrate, annotate, sketch, respond quickly, use colour to code, emphasise, differentiate and highlight. He can customise the graphic organiser to the situation he is operating in. He can be creative in designing this. He can in his personalisation of his learning, individualise it.  He is mapping his learning so that if he needs to he can find his own way back. Notebook technology does not allow this to occur.

There is the flexibility for the student in the way he can interact with the stimulus employed by the teacher, or chosen by himself – any stimulus. We know that interaction with electronic paper can occur, we now know that interaction with visual media is possible – the ability to annotate not only on pictures and images but also on moving images (“videos”).

These flexibilities extend the parameters within which the teacher operates and as such, extends the opportunities to shape their teaching practice. Furthermore, the flexibilities extend to students. Their learning parameters have also been extended, and as such their opportunities to shape their learning is extended.

Matthew has already alluded to the idea that was put to us at the Conference dinner. that idea was that the Tablet PC should not be considered as a tool for learning, rather it is a workshop. There are many things that can come out of the application of the Tablet PC, just like the products from a workshop can vary according to the teaching task objective and the specifications involved. The materials that require crafting, shaping and empowering to be effective in society, the boys, remain the same. The craftsperson working on the materials, the teacher, remains the same; the environment in which this creative activity is ever evolving as are the tools employed. A “Tardis” like environment has been created which is expansive.

In the taxi Matthew and I surmised about another analogy which views the tablet PC as the “new oil” which gives greater capacity to the teaching “machine” and enables it to achieve teaching and learning objectives more efficiency, in less time and with better results.

The visit to St. Ursula’s Academy, was very refreshing. An independent Catholic Girls’  School founded by a society of nuns, which launched into the Tablet PC on the back of a rationale involving, in the main, an outcome that meant the girls would not have to carry heavy bags around the Academy with them. This is true, and is one of the outcomes of the 1:1 environment, but does not differentiate between the Tablet PC and the Notebook in this respect. So St. Ursula’s has discovered the opportunities and benefits of the Tablet PC as they have been using it. We come from a different track but walk together in our objectives.

The staff were good enough to share lunch with us and I was able to ask the questions that need to be asked when evaluating such a direction taken, (some four years ago). The PD was welcomed by staff, but what was also welcomed was the option available to use, or not use the software that was the subject of the PD. as in all situations like this, a process modelled needs to be understood through practice and practice takes time. We would not want to start driving on the road if the instructor went through the theory of driving only, and the driving test did not included a practical! So why should we expect teachers to immediately use software, in all its dimensions, that they are still coming to terms with? Practice, practice, practice is important. Then we can internalise and shape the application. Some of us are quicker learners than others in the context of computer technology. The early internalisers will utilise what they learnt earlier, and they become trailblazers who can advise us of the traps and pitfalls to avoid, show colleagues what can be done, how much the parameters of their practice can be expanded, how they can save time and relace three or four jobs at the expense of employing the Tablet PC. There will be some applications of the software that teachers will take up immediately because of the new paradigm. For example the use of computers means that students have an opportunity to be off task. The monitoring and restriction applications of DyKnow will need to be employed to allow the teacher to be “in control”.

Teachers talked about transferring their…

As with most things in the education world, my space to reflect came to an end, so did my train of thought and it has taken me until October 26th to get back to what I was thinking on October 17th! The momentum of reflection is lost for a while but will be resumed soon!

School visit to St Ursula’s Academy, Cincinnati – warning, long post, red are the killer points if you skim

We spent the day at St Ursula’s Academy in Cincinnati yesterday, hosted by Kym the director of IT and her assistant Margery.  In advance we must thank these wonderful ladies, Adam and all the rest of the staff for their openness, wonderful hospitality and an excellent day.

We did not take photos while at the school, but you can see a lot of the feel and style of the Academy at the website for the school is: http://www.saintursula.org/

The school is a catholic private girls school for students from Freshman (year 9) to Senior (year 12).  Each class (year level) is between 150-170 students, and teaching class size is between 10-28.  The school has a four bell (period) day, each of 90 minutes.  They have a full 1:1 Tablet program, with their first rollout year level currently studying for their final year.

The school uses HP Tablets, supported with Blackboard as their e-learning system with PowerSchool for grade reporting, DyKnow for monitoring and collaboration, Microsoft Journal and OneNote for note taking, digital text books (scanned, PDF, or web portal) for nearly all of their texts, and have a campus wide wireless network that staff and students use.  Each room has a wired projector on a trolley at the front of the room.

Barry and I had a fantastic day at the Academy, with Kym and the rest of the staff we spent time with being incredible hosts.

Student Tablet Training

Our first stop was with Adam, who is both teaching staff and IT staff – a role very similar to one we are discussing at present to have at the College next year.  Adam teaches an IT course that all students take in their first year at the Academy.  His course is about the use of the hardware and software, and prepares students for using IT throughout their schooling and life.  Part of the success of the Tablet program would seem to be this type of course, and we got to see his class in action later in day.  The session we watched was on the use of DyKnow, and it was obvious that the students were comfortable in asking questions and learning both from the teacher and each other in order to solve problems and answer questions they have.  Because Adam is also part of the IT team, he has a technical expertise that allows him to answer questions at a more technical level, both for staff and students. 

As part of their roll out of Tablets each year, the students are given the machine before their summer break.  On the day they are handed out, the students and parents come into the Academy and get the machine, but also get some basic training.

The second training for the students is an optional three week Summer School.  This is a course is designed for students who need a bit of extra help in english, mathematics, science and is all taught in the contact of using the Tablet PC, along with a specific lesson each day on use and utilisation of the Tablet PC.

The third part of the training for students is a half day program just before the start of the school year, where students get specific instruction in the use of Tablet PC preparing them for in class use.

Student Feedback

After speaking with Adam for a while, Kym brought in three seniors (year 12) who use the Tablets – these girls happened to be passing outside and were roped in to come and speak with the “Aussies”.

The girls are great ambassadors for the use of Tablet PC’s, explaining how much they helped them in class.  All the girls said how much it increased their organisation, referring both to how they now filed their notes and materials in a logical and easy to find way, and also how they could come back to notes that give background to their current studies.  One girl gave a specific example of friends referring to their Freshman notes for Biology (year 9) before starting the AP Biology (Year 12) class.  This never happened before the use of Tablets, because the notes simply were thrown away or “filed” in a bedroom “somewhere”!

The girls also spoke of the use of digital textbooks.  I was very interested in the way that they actually liked to have both the digital and the printed copies.  For class time, they like the digital notes, and the ability to copy passages into Journal or OneNote and write notes on and over the top of them.  They also liked the PDF version and the use of PDF Annotator writing directly on the book.  For sessions reading the text, they preferred the print version of the book, and this was typically used at home for study, in conjunction with the notes they took in class.  Notes would then also continue to be written on the Tablet, as a result of reading the text.

I was very amused by one of the girls telling the story of this year, for the first time, getting a loan copy from a class set of a printed text ONLY.  She said something like “it was really weird.  For the first time in four years I wasn’t allowed to write on the book, and it meant I couldn’t write the things I was thinking, my interpretation and my questions over the top of and along side the text.  I really didn’t like it”.  For me this really reinforced the value of the electronic textbook.

I asked them what was their favourite thing about using the Tablets – a question that really stumped them – they really couldn’t put their finger on the “one” best thing, saying it was just so good all round.  Barry then rephrased the question, and asked “What would you do if you were told right now that you have to give them back and not use them any more”.  The girls were literally shocked, and you could see the incredulity on their faces! “No.  Like you can’t” said one girl.  Another said “how long do I have to get my files and my life of it first?”

I think that shows how much a part of their education at St Ursula’s the Tablet PC really is.

We sat in on a Senior Spanish class later in the day, and the teacher gave us an opportunity to speak with the girls here also.  Interestingly, some of the girls are now making college (University) choices based on what level of IT provision, support and use is available.  This is very interesting, as at the WIPTE conference, one of the sessions was about the need for higher education institutions to be ready for the growing expectations of students to have access to technology and computing resources 24/7 through their education.

The girls also spoke, with envy, about the new Tablets and software this years freshman (year 9) have – the new model is lighter, longer battery life (6-7 hours) and has an inbuilt webcam.  They said how much they would like to have a webcam to video things as part of class and project work.  For me, this really reinforced the selection of Tablet we have made at BBC, as we have chosen the machine for both its specifications and reliability.

We also asked about how often things went wrong and what that was like.  The girls were very complimentary on how robust the Tablets were, how fast things were fixed, and said there were never things that went really wrong.  After they left, Adam clarified this, saying they just didn’t remember the problems in the first year, when there were teething problems that impacted the program – he cited examples such as network stability and reliability, which has now been fixed.  I really appreciated this honesty, as I have no doubt any program has issues in the start phase – I know at BBC the pilot group and teacher deployment has not been without significant bugs and issues, but it is as a result of these that we now have a plan that, I think, is robust and ready for a 1:1 deployment.

Staff Training

We next sat down with Margery (I hope I have spelt that correctly) who is the deputy director of IT.  Specifically I spoke with Margery about staff PD and how they go about it. Their model has changed over time, as now after four years the staff are quite familiar with the Tablets.  The days of whole staff PD are pretty much over, and now the training is much more “on demand”.  From what I could gather, there were sessions on various topics run by Adam, Kim and Margery on a regular basis – from DyKnow to Tablet use to OneNote to the use of the inbuilt webcam.  These sessions are really useful for those teachers who want or need to use the programs – but it was clear that the biggest training was from colleagues in department settings sharing practice, and from the students in class for technical issues.  Margery explained how the staff were at first frightened by this, as the locus of control had seeming shifted, however now staff are comfortable with students giving technical assistance – the staff are discipline area and pedagogical experts – there is no concern if a student has technical expertise that can be utilised.

Lunch!

Lunch was excellent – a round table discussion in the Academy’s boardroom, with the Cincinnati local delicacies of Sliders (a German style hotdog/sausage on a bun with Cincinnati chilli and cheese) and Whitecastles (a cheeseburger style things with two patties which are cooked in onion and two slices of cheese).  We were warned that this would result in the need for some kind of antacid – the warning was correct!  But they were good, although probably better if eaten in their “normal setting – 2am after copious quantities of local ale.

Other than the food, the really good thing about this time was the ability to talk with many different teachers and staff at the Academy. A large number just dropped in to say Hi to us, being too busy with classes to stay for the lunch.  Such a friendly group of people.

I got to speak with one of the Mathematics teachers, who specialises in algebra.  She loves OneNote for the ability to easily keep all of her Maths notes in an e-format, with the advantage of being able to write all the mathematical expressions which she could never get to look right using just the keyboard input.  She also used Dyknow for student monitoring and collecting homework – she said this was an absolute time saver, as before she had to either collect each paper, record each students submission (in case she misplaced an individual paper), then grade each, record the grade, and give back the paper.  In the initial digital version, she had to get an email for each student, save these, mark them, save them again, record the result and email them back.  With DyKnow, she now collects the class set with a single button push, she can grade them all as a set, recording each grade, and then with another single button press return them all to the students.  She can also replay the students work if needed to see where they went wrong, and likewise the students can replay her annotations and notes.  She was just so impressed with the amount of time it saves.  She also spoke of the geometry teacher who uses some maths software called “the geometers sketchpad“ which is just amazing apparently – I think I need to have a look at this and share with the Maths Department.

I then spoke with the music teacher who uses some really cool software called Smart Music – www.smartmusic.com This software allows the students to play a piece of music into it using the Tablets inbuilt microphone as many times as they like, and it matches their tone and timing with the sheet music, giving them visual feedback on their accuracy and precision.  When they are happy with their recording, they submit it, and the teacher sees how long they practiced, their accuracy, and can listen to the actual recording, write or record some feedback and send this back to the student.  Again, the time saving was mentioned by the teacher, who said that now classes are more group instruction with the individual feedback being done more as a homework task.

The next teacher was the Spanish teacher, who is really enjoying the use of powerpoint for both presentation of resources with overlayed handwriting for the accents that are so important in the Spanish language, but also the audio recording feature.  This means that the students have access to correct pronunciation at home.  She also liked that students could record audio and send it to her for correction.

I spent a fair bit of time with the new Physics teacher, who has only been at St Ursula’s for six weeks.  He just loves the Tablet, but admitted to only just feeling like his head was above water.  For him, the absolute killer application was colour, and he was amazed at just how much the students enjoyed the handwritten notes in something like OneNote, with the associated use of colour.  We spoke about protocols for colour use and how we both had found that students like consistent use of colour – for example, red might be for an example, blue for a quote from a book or other media, green might be theory, and orange important key points.  The actual colour schema isn’t what matters, rather the consistency of use. It makes me wonder whether we should develop such a schema, and try and teach staff to use it – it would be like the CCE of colour for Tablets…. maybe the TCE (Tablet Colour Elements)?!

Later in the day we got to speak with an English and Scripture teacher who is an absolute advocate of Tablet PCs.  For him he loved the speed of delivery – he said he had recently been looking over his course outlines (for the same, in theory, course) for the past 10 years.  He was amazed at how much faster the content, projects and assessment was being covered, giving him time to explore other issues.  He put this down to the readily available content – once upon a time, when the teacher was the “sage on the stage” they had to give everything to the student – but now everything is readily available – the teacher just needs to point the students in the direction of the content, and can now focus on the higher lever interactions with this content, with the students building new meaning and analysing the information at a much higher level.  I love this – as it is exactly my experience to date with students and technology – access is power, and as a teacher now we have increased resources to get the students to where we need them to be in a faster an more efficient manner.

Class visits

We were then fortunate enough to visit five different classes – a Latin class (how cool – as a scientist, I would love to have taken Latin – way cool!), a SOSE class, a Spanish Class, a Biology class and the Technology training class.

When we got to the Latin class it was a hive of activity with eight or students with whiteboard markers in their hands crawling all over each other to get to the whiteboard where there was a projected image of the teachers facebook page. 

Huh?  Facebook?  The teachers page?  In a class?!

Just recently, Facebook released the ability to translate a page into any language – the exercise was really simple, but so engaging and exciting – the projected page was in Latin, and because it was personal and about the teacher, the students were intensely interested.  Their task was to translate the teachers page, obviously knowing the sections and prompts of facebook, but nevertheless, also having to know and apply their Latin.  I loved the energy and excitement in the room.

We were then shown the students blog portfolios, in which they had used a program to make a video of latin words and their pronunciation.  The teacher once again mentioned the time saving this had for her – no longer did she each week have to spend time with each student listening to pronunciation – now the students practiced this to make the recording, also writing the words – then she gets the final piece to listen to and give feedback on.  This is releasing time for her to do other stuff in class.  I must find the name of the sound software that was used for this.

We were also shown a wiki of work the students had collaborately put together, and another video of the process of making a roman style urn.  This video was a work of art, all done with the Tablet and the website www.paint.net which records the pen strokes as art is made, with the ability to then turn this into a video.

Next stop was the Spanish teachers class – and I have already spoken about her use of powerpoint and sound and pen strokes.  One of the things that I saw here, was the use of DyKnow, which actually allows to the teacher to record both the pen strokes they make on the slide, along with the audio if they wish.  I blogged about this below in the section about Dave Berque and DyKnow Replaying – this can be played back either as a whole presentation, or just for a single slide, and the audio recording can be turned on and off.  This is then stored on the DyKnow server and all students can access this, and replay it as they need.  What a powerful extension of what this teacher is already doing!

At this point the bell rang, and Margery, who was escorting us from class to class, gave us the choice of going down the corridor with the girls or waiting for a bit.  We decided, having survived the BBC class change, we were game!  Whilst the girls were a little jostled with each other, they certainly gave us space and were very polite.  I found that personally, I had to adjust my own behaviour at the first door way – I opened the door, and instinct (training?!) kicked in, and I was holding the door open for the girls.  This works fine at BBC where you only ever have visiting girls or the female members of staff, but in an all girls school at the class change this just doesn’t work!

The next class was the SOSE class where they were learning the history of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict (I actually learned some things here!).  Because we were there at the start of the class, we got to see the whole process of class set up.  What was interesting was how the girls came in, and as a matter of course set up their Tablet in Laptop mode to get into DyKnow and type their username and password.  At this point about half the students turned the machines into Tablet/Slate mode and used the pen – this really showed me the power of choice in modes of use for the tablet – another reason the Tablet is so important in comparison to a laptop.

The teacher was also able to see the attendance automatically on her machine.  On the attendance note, I was very interested to see that each room in the Academy had a sign in/out paper sheet near the door.  If a student had to leave the class to get something, to the office, go to the toilet etc, they just wrote their name, time, destination and signed out.  When they returned, they just signed back in. I think this system is very interesting, as in a fire drill or evacuation, each teacher just takes their class, the clipboard and goes to the assembly point, with the missing students location documented.

The SOSE class was delivered in an interesting way, with the powerpoint that the teacher was using converted into a DyKnow notebook, which the students were using in an offline mode.  The teacher was projecting her actual powerpoint, and filling in answers on the slide with the annotation tool in powerpoint.  I understand the reason for this, as the students then had to actively fill in the missing notes, so engaging with the task.  However, I do feel this could be done more efficiently utilising DyKnow by the teacher – and I think she didn’t know one crucial thing about DyKnow – in DyKnow everything the teacher writes on the slide is also deployed to the students machines with one exception – if you write in purple it only appears on the teacher machine!  In this case, I think the teacher could have used DyKnow to deploy each slide, writing the answers in purple – this would then not appear on the students slides, and they would have to write their own answers – but the whole lesson would then be managed faster and easier by the teacher.

Next stop was a Biology class, where the students were learning about fatty acid and glycerol etherification creating fat.  This was done in a lecture style with the teacher using Journal to give the lecture, drawing and annotating again in multiple colours.  The students notes were so neat, exact and beautiful – I commented to Barry how I wished I could get my senior chemistry class to take notes like that, but we agreed that it is a challenge with boys!  Just as we were leaving, the teacher paused her lesson and said “Don’t go yet, I have to show you this.  See that filing cabinet over there, it holds all my old transparencies, and when you come back next year it will be gone!”.  It turns out she is in the processing of digitising 30 years (yes thirty!) of beautiful, personal and artistic transparencies that have been created by her over her career.  Now she uses them digitally in Journal, and the students complete the notes.  In the past this was done with the students having to first copy the base slide, or the teacher photo copy and hand out the base slide, and only then could the students interact with the information.  Once again the time saving was mentioned!  At this point, one of the girls very proudly stopped us and called us over to show her completed notes of the example the teacher had put up to show us.  The completed version was amazing – the girl had used artistic talent, comprehensive and personal note taking, and compiled a set of notes that I would happily use to learn from personally.  What really struck me here was firstly how fast she had been able to pull up the exact notes that were being discussed, and secondly how proud she was to show them, especially once she realised we were genuinely interested.

At this point we spoke with the girls about OneNote and its differences to Journal.  Because they have the older machines without OneNote, they are forced to use Journal.  When we showed them how the organisation in OneNote is improved with Notebooks, Sections, and Pages they were amazed and genuinely wanted to have it to improve their organisation even more!  When we talked about how cheap external webcams are they also were very amazed, and I think Amazon.com is going to get a few orders over the next few days!

Our final stop was Adams Technology class.  This was a DyKnow how to question and answer session, which I have already talked about.  What I loved here was a strategy he was using utilising the chat facility of DyKnow.  Rather than asking for hands up to answer a question, he would type “Next slide” in the chat, giving a marker in the chat window.  The slide would then be projected, and the students had to answer the question – it was a question about how to do something in dyknow, for example, how do you get back to the My DyKnow tab using a shortcut?  The girls then typed a chat message as their place holder in the answer “que” – Adam then asked, vocally, each girl in order that they had posted in the chat, and the girl, vocally, responded.  If it was right, she scored a point, if wrong it moved to the next girl on the chat list.  I loved this as it integrated the technology of MSN style messaging which the student love, with the kinaesthetic and auditory/vocal processing that occurs in a classroom!

By the way, the answer is the F6 key.

The girls then showed us some videos that they had made as part of learning how to use the webcam in the class.  These were very cool, showing how much the students love playing with the technology – my favourite was a Blair Witch style video shot obviously in the school grounds – nicely done!

Throughout the visit, the girls were consistently eloquent, thoughtful, meta-analytic and open in their answers to our questions.  They were also enamoured in our “Aussie” accent, and often their questions were on the lines of “that’s so cool, can you just talk again”!

Debrief

The last part of the day was a roundtable with Kym and Margery where we got to just share some of the things were are all doing.  They were very impressed with the robustness of the Toshiba Tablet we have, especially the hinges with their side locking pins.  I was also able to share the dymofile software I have been trialling, which using the MFD to scan documents, allows for automatic processing and filing of documents with a barcode label that attaches to the front page of each new document.  The website for this is www.dymofile.com (I think – I’m writing this offline, so I can’t check).  We also presented them with an Australian Flag c/o Michael Johnstone, and a BBC desk clock each as a small appreciation of their amazing openness and hospitality.  I will continue with the hospitality report in another blog post.

The wrap

What an amazing school, and a great bunch of staff.  For me, I cam away with an absolute reinforcing of my belief that Tablet PCs are the next step in education, and that at BBC we are doing the right thing going down this path.  I also have a whole bunch of ideas and strategies that I want to share with the staff at BBC, especially those that really are shown to save time – we are such a time poor profession, that it is a necessity that technology should do for us its intent – that is, make jobs easier and faster to complete. A Tablet PC is not just a tool – as the WIPTE dinner speaker said, it is a workshop full of tools for education that allows us to strip down and retune the pedagogical engine to run faster, more efficiently, and get to the destination faster allowing us to take the longer winding roads – that’s where sports cars should be driven, with the top down and the wind in your hair!

Toshiba M750 Battery life with Slice Battery

Just some quick stats – I have been running my Toshiba M750 with the internal battery as well as the external slice battery for the whole trip.  I am using the BBC Balanced power plan and screen mostly on medium brightness.  The battery life I have got during the trip on the three days I recorded it properly is:

6:33

6:19

6:42

I’m really happy with this, as it means for students, if they come to school with a charged battery, they will make it through the full school day. (8:30 – 3:00 with a 30 minute lunch and morning tea requires 5:30).

I also brought a second internal battery, which I only used once – the first day of the conference.  This gave me around 8 hours (I think, as I didn’t use it fully, nor record the total time that day).

Delayed in Chicago

The trip from Roanoke was long, long, long.  We got to Roanoke early and the plane arrived when it should.  We were actually lined up, with the first person getting their boarding pass scanned, and the pilot came out and spoke to the attendant, who told us all to sit down again.  It turns out that they found bird “remains” near the engine, which indicates a bird strike, forcing a mechanical check and clearance to fly.  Problem is the mechanic had gone home, taking 2.5 hours to come back!  After a 10 minute check all was fine, and we set of for Chicago.

When we got to Chicago, we docked at the furthest gate to the south of the airport, and our outgoing flight was the 2nd furthest gate to the north – about 1.5km!  We power-walked to the gate, but missed the flight and were stuck in Chicago.  United (the airline) gave us meal and hotel vouchers, and at about midnight we checked into the hotel, ordered some dinner and went to sleep.  Three hours later (at 4am) we were up again to go to the airport and catch the 6am flight to Cincinnati.  I managed to sleep on the 45 minute flight, which was much needed!

At Cincinnati we quickly checked into our motel, had a shower and changed, and headed off to our 8:15 meeting at St Ursula's Academy, arriving around 10:30!  Fortunately we managed to send Kym at St Ursula’s an email the night before, so they were very understanding at our lateness, and we managed to avoid a note in our record books.

Pen highlighting tool

This is the link to download the pen highlighting tool for showing where the pen tip is on a projector:

http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/techteach/?q=node/54

Our presentation

The conference has wound up now, and we have five minutes before we check out and go to catch our two flights this evening to go to Cincinnati – so a very brief final blog entry from Virginia Tech.

Our presentation was first up this morning after the keynote, and went very well.  We presented the journey that we have gone on from the initial Wacom bluetooth graphics tablets, to the trial group of teachers with Tablet PC’s, to the staff rollout of Tablet PC’s and then the trial year 7 class.  Specifically we looked at the maths data we have for the year 7 class that has been taught by Michelle, using Tablet PC’s.  Whilst the data is only very preliminary, and there obviously needs to be a lot of work done on the reasons why and how, the class has improved its results more than any other class in year 7, both on internal assessment instruments and external assessment instruments – they are not the best performing class, but their improvement is the highest.  Now this could be because of the teacher, because of the program, because of any number of things – but they are also the Tablet class, and it is a very interesting observation.  What is of most interest to me, is that this finding was reported on multiple occasions over the conference – but we need more longitudinal data to be sure.

The audience was great asking lots of questions, very engaged by the preliminary results – we have made a lot of contacts that are going to be very valuable for the next few years as our data collection and evaluation continues.

Now we’re off the airport – hopefully we will have internet at the next hotel so we can report back on our school visit!

Replaying audio in DyKnow - Dave Berque

Dave talked about the use of the diagrams in DyKnow, with a teacher demoed solution, then student centred response.

The replay feature is really good for the student – it gives them the cues that they need.  Students only replay that which they need. However in the new version has audio recording and replaying.  There are two options – Audio Replay Current Panel (replays all audio on the slide, no matter how many times the panel was written on or come back to).  The second option is Audio Replay Current Panel to End (replays the audio and slide from the current panel until we get to the end).

Dave uses a wireless headset to record his audio.  This can be done for the whole session, or turned on and off as needed.

With a small sample size (10 last year, 14 this year) he evaluated the use of audio replay associated with DyKnow. 

Students really found DyKnow to be useful, and 50% of the class replayed 50% of the recorded session.

He hypothesised that the students who listened most would be the weaker students – this has the potential to “level the playing field” giving the students the time that they need!

One of the feedbacks from students was they loved the replay of class with audio without the pressure of peers.  Others liked to watch them in groups.

Dave also made refresher course for a topic – he reuses this again and again.  There is a technical issue to get this working, email Dave for the details.

Helpful hint – Mic placement is really important – headset mike ensure the mic is where it should be – lapel means you can move away from it… not good!

Keynote 1 day 2 Potential of Tablet Pen Technologies in K-12 Education - Ananda Gunawardena - Carnegie Mellon University

Best theory is often the result of best practices and best practices always leads to the best theory – Donald Knuth

Ananda co wrote the interactive book - Interactive Linear Algebra with MAPLE V.  This was one of the first interactive and adaptive books on the market, focusing on mathematics – he wrote this in 1998.  This book might of interest to the Mathematics department – Chris Blood and Scott Grice could geek out with it I am sure!

The adaptive book is now sold on Kindle.  For those who don’t know, Kindle is the electronic book reader that is sold by Amazon in the US – this is mobile enabled and books are sold just like on iTunes for music, and just come to the reader.  The Kindle is a special technology that is easy on the eyes.  I’d love to play with one, but you can’t get them in Australia :(

Back to the adaptive book…. he is very proud of the idea, but thinks it is too complicated.  His aim is now to create simple and easy to use technology that is easy for the end user.  This was really brought on by the pen technology and Tablet PC’s.  He really feels that it has changed and focused his life.

He runs a Pen computing application group on facebook….

The transition from powerpoint to pen powerpoint was described – this is basically using powerpoint as per normal, with one exception – in the design phase, space is left in the presentation for the pen annotations, workings etc etc.  Then what happens is the powerpoint is used, and the pen is used to annotate and write over the top of the slide.  This gives the benefits of both the pen and the powerpoint.

This is a great step, and one that I personally used.  It also made my move to DyKnow very easy, as the powerpoints are just opened in Dyknow, and then the annotations are made in DyKnow.  Once students have Tablets, this means they get this real time, and all the monitoring, replay, polling features can be used as well.

He mention an application – Physics Illustrator – I need to find out about this! It looks and sounds cool – maybe the Physics guys could get excited by this? http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=56347faf-a639-4f3b-9b87-1487fd4b5a53&displaylang=en

The use of CMU Flash Cards was again mentioned – I wrote about this yesterday – cool stuff!

Another application - Doodle Movie Annotator – allows you to draw over the top of any video!  so cool!  I am sure many teachers will be able to utilise this!  Quote about it “Doodle uses windows Media video (WMV) files. Doodle is intended as a classroom tool where teachers can annotate a video while it is playing or when it is in pause mode. All annotations can be saved, shared and played back later.”

Tablet Math Whiz is another application developed at CMU for practicing maths – aimed at junior school.  It grades the problems and gives teachers feedback - It is a free download…. info is here http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ab/TRETC07/

Making the case for pen computing

• Collaboration
• Keyboard interface is not good for maths
• The cognitive load is extraneous rather than germane
• Recent studies have show that QWERTY keyboards are hard to use for student
• The use of Pen computing is back transferable to paper – keyboard computing is not

Ph.D. thesis to look up – The use of handwriting interfaces in intelligent mathematics tutoring software can yield higher learning gains in students through lower cognitive load than the use of standard typing.

On the horizon – Microsoft courier – a two page “book” tablet PC – looks super super cool!

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2009/09/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet/

Day 1 of Conference

Finally got to reflect on Day 1. The big message here concerns the pedagogy that the tablets can enhance, and returning learning to an active process for students. This to me is one of the reasons why the initiative seemed to have started and is gathering momentum in the Universities. The “Lecture” style of delivery in the Universities is not engaging students. Power point has lost its raison d’etre  - the making of “powerful points”. The overkill of power-point is not per se but how it is used – a point to consider when using DyKnow (Dynamic Knowledge so Matthew tells me).

Matthew has already mentioned the “uncomfortable edge” and Senge talks about the tension that occurs in the change process: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm so it is all resonating.

The Monash University presentation was good, in that it made reference to the fact that in the near future thee will  be students coming out of schools into the universities who are used to working with computers 24/7 in their learning – so the University teachers also need to adapt to that.

Late yesterday the tablet analogy was that of a “workshop” rather than a tool – this to emphasise the collaborate and interactive nature of the resource and its multi-dimensional application.

Good contacts being made here, and it is good to meet people in person who have been helping us so far. Contacts range from DyKnow, Tertiary and High schools who pioneered Tablets in the States.

Today is our joint presentation following our individual ones – a steep learning curve for me with DyKnow – but I now know 100% more about it than I did when I came. Tonight after the conference its  Cincinnati and the chance to visit St.Ursula’s College – one of the early High school pioneers. Breakfast and Day 2 awaits!

Some photos of the general goings on

Just a few photos of the venue and general goings on at the conference (all taken with my phone, so not up to my normal standards!)

Barry preparing for his hands on session…

 

 

Barry during his follow up “hands on” session

 

The little morning tea..

 

And the conference dinner – the speaker was a guest over video conferencing, and a webcam was projecting all of us to him!  I’ll do a post in the morning about the keynote at dinner, it was very interesting – but its time for some sleep – 4 hours a night isn’t cutting it any more!

Poster presentations

There are a large number of poster presentations with very interesting information, ideas and observations – here are a few of the interesting ones!

OrganicPad – for organic Chemistry – obviously of interest to me!

 

Two shots from a poster about professional development.  How professional development is run in schools/universities that have 1:1 programs is one of my information gathering aims for while I am here.

 

A neat piece of free software for highlighting your pen cursor using the Tablet PC

 

One for the Biologists – GenetiGraph – I will have to get Col, Heather, Nigel and Lucas onto this one!

 

 

Finally the sponsors!

Student misconceptions using replay ink in MessageGrid – Pargas, Clemson University

The challenge with a Tablet PC deployment is about using the Tablet in appropriate ways that are of benefit to the pedagogy.

The project started with weekly Wednesday meetings of the “Teaching with Technology” team at the University.  This focus on the pedagogical use of technology.  It started with an instructor who wanted to conduct a grid (table) analysis of music appreciation, in a collaborative setting.  The idea is to have a grid where students can be responsible for an individual cell of the grid that then compiles to a full solution as a class.

The challenge with a Tablet PC deployment is about using the Tablet in appropriate ways that are of benefit to the pedagogy.

The project started with weekly Wednesday meetings of the “Teaching with Technology” team at the University.  This focus on the pedagogical use of technology.  It started with an instructor who wanted to conduct a grid (table) analysis of music appreciation, in a collaborative setting.  The idea is to have a grid where students can be responsible for an individual cell of the grid that then compiles to a full solution as a class.

This has evolved into a tool that has polling, inking, mobile, simple upload/evaluations and submission tools.

The tool as a whole has changed teaching at the University – with increased feedback and interactivity in classes.

They have custom built a lecture hall with “Banquet tables” of 9 students to a round table (3 groups of three).  Three projector screens, controlled from the teachers desk.  Power in the middle with data.  There is a video on youtube with this all shown - “HP Tablet PCs and Classroom Success at Clemson University” – the student produced the whole video:

 

 

Through the use of the Tablets at the university, they have reduced the number of students getting D, E, and F grades by 50%.

The key observations:

• Tablet PCS provide final inked solutions, as well as the intermediate ink stroke sequences.
• The ink strokes once collected can be
  • collected
  • played and replayed
  • tagged and analyzed

The tagging looks very neat – you can put a pre-planned correction at an error at the exact error point.  This means the student gets the feedback of exactly where, how and why they went wrong, and then how to correct this. This is very laborious though!  But, if this can be done, the data can show patterns and links between errors, predicting possible interventions in teaching instruction that the student may need.

The basis of the research and studies being conducted at the University are about seeing how students think!  If we can see a students thought process, compare this to other (previous) students, the can be predictive intervention to ensure student success.

With the replay, even errors in correct solutions can be seen – for example, if the process is not followed as an algorithm, and this could lead to errors down the track.

The replay feature was well accepted by students – a common emerging pedagogical use was student driven - “Sir, can you replay this solution and show me where I went wrong?” and then teachers are able to do this, and in a timely and exact fashion teach the student what they need at the exact moment that they need it!

A teaser for OrganicPad was given – this is a self grading organic chemistry tool for Tablet PCs…. this sounds very very cool (for a chem teacher!)

http://www.clemson.edu/organicpad/ – there are videos and downloads here – I’ll be playing with this!

Tablet PC Instruction improves undergraduate mathematics learning – Carla Romney – Boston University

Why are tablets good for Mathematics instruction?

• Easier to take notes on teachers PowerPoint slides without having to focus on copying from the board
• capturing of mathematical and Greek symbols is hard on computers – easy on Tablets!
• Fewer transcription errors, therefore less confusion
• Peer critiquing/collaborative problem solving and learning.  It doesn’t have to be teacher centred – the teachers way is one way, but there will be multiple ways within the class… why not share these?
• Saves paper and printing costs

Carla spoke about how immediately the resources can be made available to the students.  This has the benefits of ensuring equitable sharing/availability of the resources to students.  Because the class is engaging, interesting, fast paced – the students want to come, and come ready to learn.

The lessons are recorded in full – audio and video – this is made available on the elearning platform 10 minutes after class.

There was concern that students would not come or pay attention in class because everything was going to be made available.  However, attendance improved by 4%.  Also students who were sick were signing into the class and would participate in classes real time! 

Academic grades also improved by an average of 5%, significant at p<0.05, sitting the same exam.  I find this very interesting, given the preliminary results we have at BBC at year 7 are similar to this, and the design used was almost identical.  We all agree that there could be other impacts that are responsible for these improvements, but these are promising results nevertheless.

The student utilised the e-learning website by almost double.  They logged in multiple times per week, compared to previous years when it averaged once per week.  This is outside of class time and student centred – indicating that the students found value in what was available and really used it!

Whilst this is a study of University level courses, the class sizes in this case was similar to secondary.  The students choose to go to class (they don’t have to attend) so all of this needs to be considered – however, all things considered, this is just another data point that supports the use of Tablets.  The pen is the key – it allows easy interaction with the material delivered by the instructor, it is non linear, and coupled with replay stroke by stroke allows a level of data recording by and for students that has all the benefits of pen and paper combined with the power of a computer.

Session 3 - Benefits of Using Tablet Flash Card – YoungJoo Jeong

Studying is frustrating! – reinforcement is important, but time consuming.

Problems with physicals flash cards for learning knowledge (index cards)

• Hassel to create cards, store them
• Loosing cards
• Is not easy to share cards (loose your cards to “friends”)
• Manual sorting of cards
• Can’t easily have statistical data on learning

One solution to this is the Tablet PC Flash Card application – being developed by Carnegie Mellon University.  You can download this from the website: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ab/TRETC08/FlashCards/using%20flashcards.pdf  I did and it works well – just make sure you follow the instructions and place in on C:\ not on the desktop – I ignored that and it broke!  But very quick to put in the right place and it works fine.

The application was demoed – it looks very nice – has self assessment, sharing, all built in.  Thumbnails of cards are there to see. The application has a smart testing algorithm, so less familiar cards are more likely to be asked again to improve learning. 

The Tablet PC Flash card was part of a project at the uni where the students go to real classes and solve a problem they see in class, creating a software application to solve the problem.  What a nice way to develop a solution needed!  This is research based and continuing to be researched. 

The collaborative learning is also really nice, although they acknowledge the “freerider” issue where some students only take, not give…  Not so good!  However, the benefits outweigh the issues, as the sharing of multiple “experts” create more targeted cards covering multiple area.

Ultimately the goal is to create a collaborative online sharing way of using the applications.

The study looked at whether the students learned more by sharing cards or not.  The basic method was students creating flash cards on material that they either a) knew or b) did not know.  These decks were then shared between students in a specific design to check how well the material was covered.  The sharing method was using Google Groups to post the files.

The results showed for review decks that if a student used only their own deck, on 30% of the course material was covered.  Two students was 46%, three students 66%, four students 76%.

For new material, an individual covered 53% of the course, with four users 100% material.

When the reasons for this was examined, 50% of students only created material for the material they thought they would get correct; the other 50% created cards on novel or less understood material. 

This has implications for us teaching students how to study – we need to ensure that they study material they don’t know!  Sharing could be a good strategy to ensure that collaboratively students learn and study more efficiently.  This merging/sharing in an virtual setting is enhanced through tools such as the Tablet PC and online resources/sharing.

Both the teacher and the students found the use of the Tablet PC Flash cards increased engagement, interactivity and collaboration in the class, with increased knowledge results on assessment.

Sidenote: There is a Tablet PC Flash card software available on the staff Tablet PC’s at BBC right now – this is under ALL PROGRAMS under the Microsoft Experience or Microsoft Tablet Education packs.

Random stuff from the day so far…

WIPTE is pronounced Whip-tee

Virginia Tech has 4000 staff and 28,000 students, started 1:1 in 1984; Tablets in 2006

Quote from the Dean of Virginia Tech:

I want Virginia Tech to be at the uncomfortable leading edge

Quote from the main organiser:

for those of you who need your caffeine cold, sweet and fizzy, its in the coke machine

Session 2 – Matts Hands On Session - Chemistry

My hands on session went very well – I had a full room with extras, so that was nice!  They all love Australians over here, so I’m sure the accent was the attraction rather than me…

Whilst my hands on session was publicised as being a Chemistry session, there was only one Chem teacher in the room.  There were also some people with very little knowledge of Tablets, so I had a wide range of experiences to deal with!  What is really nice about running this kind of session is the conversations during and after – we all ended up talking pedagogy and strategies for professional development of staff, rather than the content area itself.

I did the presentation live in DyKnow, running to each of the 22 tablets in the room.  This worked really well, and the quick primer that I ran will be the basis for the PD I am running back at school on the student free day next week.  Its nice to have a trial run here before I do the important people back at school!  In Dyknow I showed basic usage, replay features, how to obtain, grade, and return the student work, how to do instant polls, how you can control the students computer and which programs runs, which websites can be visited and I also showed how you can send a file to the students, and force it to open and run.  This was all taken very well, and the DyKnow representative (Laura) there to help out gave some nice feedback.  I also showed the participants Tablet Flash cards and the software ChemPad, which is specifically for chemistry!  The whole thing was done in the context of a Chemistry lesson, and I taught all people there how to draw and name organic carbon molecules – by the end we had some good drawings from the participants!

Session 1 – Math in your hands – Joshua Holden

Integrating the use of Maple with the collaborative use of wireless tablet PC’s (Maple/maplenet is a computer algebra tool, and the aim was to integrate this with DyKnow)

Would be like to do things in the external software and then send this to the students.  This gives the students a permanent record.  This also means that the students don’t need to know the specifics of the external software from the start.

The school is a laptop school, but has two permanent tablet rooms with DyKnow.  Joshua has found that DyKnow was just a tool that allowed him to do what he has always done, but easier and more efficiently.

The solution used was to use the external software to create java applets and live web pages, and then utilise the file deploy component and embedded webpage in Dyknow to deploy these things to the students.  This means the instructor can push out the content to the students, and the students then interact with this.  This takes away the need to students to “know” the other software, and can instead deal with the lesson/skill being taught.

Java applets can be embedded in DyKnow using the embed live webpage – this is deployed to the students, and the student and the instructor can interact with this – independently – this is a very very cool idea! (I think anyway).  This would mean having a website where the applet is stored, then this is linked to using the URL of the applet.  I think I need to learn how to do this, so I can show people how to do this when I run the DyKnow training at BBC later in the year.

Bandwidth can be an issue for large animations/applets – but if this is stored on the local server, less of an issue.  With the new wireless/internet backbone we are getting at BBC, this should mean only good things!

I also learnt something cool with DyKnow – as an instructor, writing in purple doesn’t show up on the student tablet!  That means you can write an answer without it “wrecking” the students deployed slide…

Josh also said he loved DyKnow because he can fix a typo on the fly with the students – compare this to the “old days” when the copied sheets would go out with a typo and either all have to be corrected, tossed, or the “tour to be sure” the students have actually fixed the mistake!  Now once the instructor fixes it on Dyknow, it is fixed at the same time with the students!

He also said the students take the technology for granted – its what they expect, so its normal.

Keynote 1 – Dr Eileen Lento – Intel K12 Education

Dr Eileen Lento spoke about the fact most students are living in a digital and mobile world, and when they come to the physical school building, this is a disconnect with their “real” world.

Intel have a very interesting PD program which is a mandatory 400 hours per year, scheduled every Friday morning.  This training is technology based and done mostly as coursework in a virtual setting.

Leaning into the 21st century

If the rate of change inside an institution, is less than the rate of change outside that institution, then the end is in sight – Jack Welch, CEO of GE

What does this mean for education?  Are our schools keeping up with the change outside the building?  Or are schools the same as they have always been?

If we look at what is happening outside of schools, technology has progressed at an amazing rate.  Internet traffic is doubling every year.  Web 2.0 is about interaction – technology is not the “geeks” sitting in front of a computer – it is everyone interacting using digital tools and media.  Online gaming brings in eight times the revenue of Hollywood!

Futurists are predicting that 21st grand challenges – solar energy, energy from fusion, access to clean water, enhanced virtual reality and advanced personalised learning. The people and organisations who come up with solutions to these problems are going to be market leaders.  What does that mean for educators in schools (primary, secondary, tertiary), in Australia?

US Policy

Four drivers - Teacher quality, common standards, data driven standards (longitudinal data), and digital text books (and open commons).

In the leading countries, technology is embedded horizontally in the curriculum, it is not an isolated silo.

The question becomes how do we do it differently?

Information in transition

Yesterday –>        to     –>  the future

Print        –>  Broadcast –> Collaborative

This year, household consumption of computer technology was, for the first time, larger than business.  This means homes have more, and newer, technology than business!

What are students saying and doing

The project tomorrow “speak up” survey was described.  This is interesting for me, as I have been following the results of this survey for the last few years.  You can see the yearly results at the project tomorrow website – I’ll post a link later.  What is interesting about this is the data coming from the survey of the students.  Grade three females are wanting more technology, more science, more engagement in schools!  What does this mean for older students?  What about kids in Australia.

Students are also saying they want tools like digital media, personal learning devices, access to IM, email, online content, unlimited internet.  They want to have experiences that involve communicate, collaborate, creativity, productivity, use online learning that is outside the classroom.

Attack of the show – new “TV” the students watch – this “TV” is interactive, with the viewers becoming part of the media, live and real time.  Highly technologically based, with fast pace, comments, reviews all driven by young adults – you can see this at  www.gtv.com

We need to shift the learning paradigm

Moving from Instructor centric, where the teacher is the expert telling the students what to do.

to…

Student centric, surrounded by the instructor, resources that they need, internet, class, real world.

Would it be so bad to listen to and learn from the kids?  Would it be so bad to change the way we teach?

 

Pedagogy

The technological shift will mean some changes in teaching.  Just in time data (real time data) means that teachers can respond to students now, real time.  Misconceptions can be addressed, teachers can vocalise met cognition, modelling this for the students.  With real time data and analysis, a response that used to take weeks can take seconds, and this saves teachers time, energy and ensures that the learning journey that students are taking is efficient and timely.

 

Latest research and design for education targeted machines (from Intel)

Microtouch optimised machines
Micro-mobile devices
Largest screen, smallest form factor (balance)
On screen digital readers
Web cam (or flip camera)
Microphone

This must be tied with data collection and back end systems that allow us to monitor the effects and progress these have!

 

Summary

Education needs to change to develop the skills needed for the 21st century.  These skills are best taught in eLearning environments that include integration of ICT.  Schools worldwide will benefit from this change!

BBC – we found them in Virginia!

Barry and I went downstairs to the bar (it is 11pm Sunday night) and found BBC was already there!  Nice too!

Prodigal Bag comes home

Good news – the errant bag finally shows up today, very ashamed of itself and unable to explain what it was doing in Chicago alone. It will need counselling on my return following a stern talking to. Matthew did note that tags and key ring markers were missing. Probably deserves a Saturday.

Virginia Tech

Today was the day to try and get over the time difference, so after an early start we hit breakfast downstairs.  The buffet was a bargain at $8 per head, so a hit with both of us.  A few plates full and a jug of coffee later and it was time for the walking “tour”.  Virginia Tech is a massive place, coming from the Polytechnic and University backgrounds.  We have timed our visit with the “homecoming” American Football match of the local team “VT” and the how place is abuzz with people all wearing the maroon team shirts/jerseys/etc.  The atmosphere is particularly jubilant as they won the game (unexpectedly) by a large margin.

The hotel we are staying is quite pretty…

It matches the other buildings around – some of them fake stone, and others real.

We even found a cutaway section of what how they build, waterproof, and insulate the modern bessa block version with fake front of the stone buildings.

 

Being autumn (or Fall!) the trees look very pretty – reminding me of the brief time I lived in Adelaide.

     

Squirrels are everywhere – I’ve only ever seen them once before, so to Barry’s amusement I stalked one for a while taking photos.

  

Last one for the day is for Rev Cole!

 

The conference starts tomorrow morning (our time) so this afternoon is time to ensure the presentations we have are ready to go.  Stay tuned for the conference reports!

P.S.  My bag has been delivered to the hotel, but Barry’s is still in Chicago – so at least one of us will look and smell OK for the conference!

24 hour flight

Three planes, 24 hours of travel and two lost bags later, we arrived in Blacksburg, Virginia at 8:00pm Saturday night (local time) having left Brisbane at 11:00 am Saturday morning.  Whilst the first leg (13 hours to LA) was not bad, and I got a fair bit of work done, the flights and transfers after that were hard work – not to mention the large gentleman in front of me who fully reclined his seat!  To top it all off, our bags are still in Chicago but we might see them again one day.  Maybe.  If we are lucky!  Time for some sleep – we’ll do a proper post tomorrow.

We are staying here: Click here for google map