Introduction I am a mother of four adult children and have become a grandmother for the first time to a beautiful little girl called Ella Joy. Her photos now fill my new iPod 'bragbook'!  In 2008 I embark on a new challenge as I my role has changed to Head of Information Services at Broughton Anglican College on the outskirts of Campbelltown in NSW. As a lifelong learner wanting to embrace change and make a difference I look forward to keeping professionally up to date and active through this community of action researchers.

2008: 31 January

A new year and a new resolution to stop going in circles and to decide where to begin some action research...

Reflection:

I would really like to follow the progress of my year 7 students (4 classes) as they interact with Web2 tools in an ongoing way with me in a fortnightly lesson loosely called "Information Services". I am planning an Inquiry based unit of work in which they will hopefully learn all the information skills previously taught in 'boring' formal lessons. I want to allow choice of investigation within a set unit of work.... now to decide on the unit of work - with consultation with teachers of course.

The Year 7 teachers also want me to assist them in setting up their research assignments, as I did last year, so that the process of finding and using information has more value than the product.

I have to work out how to question them initially so as to have comparative answers for furture research  

 14 February

Today was "Library Lover's Day"!!! Last year we tentatively held the event and it was such a hit we went "all out" this year to make it a day to promote reading and books. We had hearts and decorations up everywhere, the four of us wore pink and had large heart shaped badges that read "Matchmaker.... let us help you to find your perfect match" I got up on the assembly and announced the event and showed the wrapped book that was one of 50 "blind dates" the student could make. The price of a blind date was a book review for which we supplied a suitably decorated sheet of paper. We also had some displays of "Lonely books" that hadn't been taken home for over 2 years. The response was amazing. The "blind dates" were qued for and all were taken out, quite a few students came for an interview and a "perfect match" to take home and now we await the digital and hard copy reviews for our website and notice board. Sometimes feeling like an idiot in front of the assembly pays off :)

15 February

The CAR-TL chat on Monday was great and helped consolidate some wandering ideas. .... Now a strange coincidence has happened. The Deputy Curriculum told me today he was applying for a grant that was to assist in implementing a change in pedagogical practice in the middle school. He wanted to know if I had ideas for an area in which I would like to work with teachers. I told him I would love to have added 'assistance' to guide the Year 7 teachers to learn about and apply Guided Inquiry to their practice. It looks like with a grant we could get the four teachers release from class for me to assist them in programming and guidance. It would be great if it were enough to send them to a course but I doubt it - probably just have to be me sharing what I am learning!

The exciting thing is that I could research how the teachers go in their application of new theory to practice and what they feel about the whle experience. Of course the students could also take part in a blog of learning as I already had organised. Would I be biting off more than I can chew? I'll sleep on it!

17 February

Spent the best part of the day reading Kuhlthau's Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. I have about 30 post-it notes sticking out the side. I think I'll give it a go and begin by giving the 4 teachers involved some "readings" before we launch into a new approach to research. Two of them did a unit of work with me last year following the Information Process so are well on the way to understanding what is involved. They asked to do it again this year so I am sure they will be willing.

I have decided this wiki will get too long if I blog here so have inserted a link to my Blogger account that I have set up as a diary. I will keep this space to link specific files and documents as my plan unfolds.

 12 May

It looks like I have been taking a rest - but far from it!

I am having an interesting year in that our school has received an AIS grant for “Pedagogical Change” in which I am leading the team of Year 7 teachers to investigate the use of Guided Inquiry in teaching an humanities unit of work in Term 3.

This term I have to ‘teach them’ about Guided Inquiry and we have to prepare the unit of work! Imagine having the gift of time to do this from the AIS grant (which we will use for release time for the 4 teachers) This is actually to take the form of Action Research for AIS so my CARTL project will be simply to share this work here also.I have been asked by the Principal first to present a paper on Guided Inquiry to the Senior Exec meeting next week and then to present this also to the Curriculum Committee and finally to a full staff meeting (P-12)

Last year I presented a paper to the Curriculum Committee about the “Thinking Curriculum” and integrating Bloom’s, Gardner’s etc into the Curriculum so in a sense this follows on from that. 

I have just been asking Lee for some help as she has presented on Guided Inquiry before using a great metaphor of a river.

 30 September

'Guided Inquiry' is well under way with a Year 7 class researching Ancient Egypt and using a wiki for sharing knowledge and resources. It has been an interesting journey for all of us. The wiki format has not been difficult for the students to learn as I have been giving them online lessons all year using "Moodle" so they are used to downloading sheets and uploading them again to share on completion. What the students have found difficult is to formulate a question that takes them deeper than merely finding facts. With guidance this is under way and students will complete their presentation after the holidays, share their work orally then collaboratively write a response to the overall general question posed about the influence of Ancient Egypt on our culture today. Then it will be a rush to finish the report on the task and Guided Inquiry process for the AIS. 

When this is all over I will be thinking more about and planning for next year's Action Research task. I need to take a good look at services the library offers the community and evaluate whether these are really what the community wants and needs or if we can make changes to better serve the community. The students and teachers have never had a 'voice' in this before so it should prove and interesting study.   

15 March

A newish year - new beginnings and more challenges! 

I applied for, and have received an AIS grant to do further research into Guided Inquiry this year. Tomorrow I begin by having one of our Year 7 Humanity teachers released from class for the whole day and we are going to collaborate on how we can integrate an HSIE unit on Ancient Egypt, a Geography Unit on Desserts and of course English and ICTs all into one program with Guided Inquiry as our process .... for Term 3. By the end of the day we hope to have the programme organised and she should be very familiar with Guided Inquiry and how to apply its principles to the unit. I have targeted her as the 'programmer' in the project. On Friday I am taking another of the teachers to the Syba conference to hear Will Richardson speak on Web2.0 and she will become the technology 'expert' for the group of teachers. (She is very keen about this!)

The four teachers involved have access to the Wiki we used for our Guided Inquiry project (with just one class) last year. It was on Ancient Egypt and was a great success in terms of student engagement and also in terms of the strengthening of ICT skills and their use of the Information Process. This year I am looking at the second phase of the Research Cycle - to improve on what we did last year - and with four times the numbers of people involved - Oh dear - will we make it? 

The five of us are already using a wiki I set up for our communication for the project and so they are becomming familiar with how to use a wiki - next the teachers concerned will set up their own class wiki for their unit of work in Term 3.

Although I am enthused about getting started this week - with our school registration this year it is all very hectic.