John H Lee Memorial Award

2008 Mr Westley Field

^{June Wall (ASLA (NSW) President) and Westley Field}

Westley Field, a Churchill Scholarship winner for his work in building community links using digital literacies as a stimulus between Aboriginal students and their elders, is currently Director of Online Learning at Methodist Ladies College (MLC) in Sydney. Westley is also an Apple Distinguished Educator, a Computerworld Honours (Smithsonian) recipient and recipient of the awards for Macromedia Education Leader and Adobe Education Leader

An outstanding innovator, Westley has conceived, initiated and driven a world first global learning environment – Skoolaborate Initiative - which helps students to collaborate on social action projects that benefit those who are less privileged. These projects integrate curriculum and digital technologies into collaborative global actions. In the position of Managing Director of Skoolaborate, he has been unfailing in his desire to make a difference to the lives of students. Through his continual excellence in leadership, he has been able to move organisations, schools, teachers and their students into developing innovative practices using social learning technologies.

Like John H Lee, Westley is a team player and freely shares his thoughts and ideas via two blogs, iThought and Skoolaborate and is currently a contributor to Google’s Infinite Thinking Machine Blog.

Whilst on the 2007-2008 Board for the NSW and Sydney branches of the Australian Council of Educational Leaders, he initiated the ACEL Podcast series, bringing professional learning opportunities in the field of educational leadership to regional areas throughout Australia.

Westley regularly presents locally, nationally and internationally on topics such as Education in virtual worlds, Making 1 to 1 work, Heuristics of implementing e-learning, Educational technology in schools, Connecting students in a Web 2.0 world and Leading in a flat world.

At the time of this award, Westley was negotiating with ASLA (NSW) to begin an action learning project focussed on how libraries work in a virtual world, indicative of his innovative and creative skills and his passion and belief in bringing education and the online world together.

It is through harnessing the power of learning technologies in creative and innovative ways for the greater good of students and teachers that Westley receives this outstanding honour, the John H Lee Memorial Award 2008.

2007 Mrs Judy O'Connell

Described as 'a mini tornado, stirring things up, moving them around and finally settling us all in a new information environment', Judy's enthusiasm and dedication to enhancing learning and teaching through supporting teacher librarians and school libraries have made her a worthy recipient of the 2007 John H Lee Memorial Award. Throughout Judy's career, she has, without fail, worked toward innovative and creative ways in which to enhance the learning environment in which she found herself - as a classroom teacher, teacher librarian, librarian and as a consultant in state, independent and tertiary education and in the private sector. Curiosity drives Judy’s interest in technology. She has made significant impact into developing an innovative Knowledge Portal with huge expansion possibilities for the CEO. As part of this brief, she has organised consortia deals so that all schools in the CEO area can have affordable access to online database subscriptions. Words and tools such as RSS, social bookmarking and podcasting have become part of the teaching strategies for her teacher librarians, thanks to Judy’s focused approach to Web 2.0 technologies. Judy has won international recognition for her blog Heyjude through receiving an international award from Edublogs, a global education-based blogging site. Within the CEO, Judy has aided in the development of BlogEd which has become an effective communication tool between the management and the staff at Parramatta Catholic Education Office.

Judy enthuses fellow teacher librarians to move beyond their comfort zone and use the power of Web technology – innovative and cutting edge tools for learning and teaching today. Thanks to Judy’s vision, 21C learning is alive and well and thriving in the 77 schools that Judy supports. Congratulations Judy!

2006 Mrs Debbie Leatheam & The King's School Centre for Learning & Leadership Teaching Team

Debbie Leatheam was the Head of Information Services at The King’s School, Parramatta from 2004-2006. She lead a team that worked solidly to trial, analyse and implement a variety of ICLT strategies with the sole aim of improving student learning through an array of multi-media at The King’s School.

As Head of Information Services, Debbie initiated the development of digital templates for online formative and summative assessment across the curriculum. Her teaching team developed assessment pieces that incorporated interactive information literacy scaffolds with media, embedding:

• learning objects using Picasa2 and Flashmedia
• online tutorials using Stream Author (includes video grab of teacher lecture, assessment pieces and self-marking)
• Clickview, websites, access to catalogue, databases and more
• use of Wacom tablets as an alternative to scanning maps and images

A process has been developed by which students compile multimedia projects using GIS, Photoshop and Adobe Premiere; Keepad technology has been introduced into class activities; e-forums have been developed for Biblical Ethics classes using .php language powered by Big Pulse; podcasting was introduced as a means of capturing rich discussion on topics of interest for their students. Debbie invites and welcomes teachers from across Australia and internationally to share innovations at The King’s School through observation and demonstrations. In 2005 ,her team as part of the Centre for Learning and Leading, organised a highly successful e-Learning Symposium open to any teacher across education systems throughout Australia.

A true innovator, Debbie with her teaching team, have introduced a range of technologies and applications to enhance teaching and learning at The King's School, exemplifying the principles espoused by John H Lee.

2005 Ms Cheryl Fahey

Cheryl has been employed as a teacher librarian within several primary schools of the Maitland-Newcastle diocesan system since 1993. She is presently employed as a Learning Technologies Support Teacher at the Catholic Schools Office, Maitland-Newcastle. During a period of growth and change within the system and the local area, she exhibited flexibility, generosity, great vision and leadership.

Cheryl’s teaching practice evidences openness to change and a preparedness to be innovative with resources in a variety of media particularly with technology. Cheryl was a key player in the diocesan project to develop the technology infrastructure, supporting professional development activities at system and local level, managing the network, working with staff at all levels of competency in use of ICT, developing online resources and teaching students to use technology in all areas of the curriculum.

Cheryl was the first teacher within the system to trial the student resources of Future Kids. She has since provided inservices and modelled its use during school visits and demonstrations. Cheryl supports teachers in their development and use of online resources on the local intranet and on the Internet. Cheryl’s prime teaching practice is to encourage resource based inquiry learning. Samples of her work can be found on the Libraries Alive website http://mn.catholic.edu.au/librariesalive/

Cheryl has been an active member of the diocesan primary teacher librarian executive. Cheryl was also a member of the diocesan IT committee that planned and developed the diocesan IT policy and infrastructure. She is a leader the in use of Alice for library management and curriculum development. Cheryl has generosity by presentling her work at several conferences.

Cheryl is a worthy recipient of recognition for outstanding service to the teacher librarian profession and to her commitment to use of technology to enhance teaching and learning. She is a true disciple of John H. Lee and the principles that he held dear.

2004 Mrs Wendy Chapman

ASLA (NSW) in consultation with Charles Sturt University is proud to announce the ASLA (NSW) John H Lee Memorial Award winner to Wendy Chapman.

Wendy Chapman is the Teacher Librarian at Wollondilly Public School, Goulburn where she has been a pioneer in the integration of information and communication technologies since the mid-90s. Participating in several bookraps is what started Wendy’s ICT journey, and by 1997 she had coordinated her first bookrap through the Oz-Projects website. In 1999, Wendy coordinated the first NSWDET book rap, where she developed a lot of the Book Rap support information, FAQs and proformas available on the NSWDET School Libraries website. Wendy has developed and coordinated several book raps for students from Stages 1-3 on behalf of teachers and teacher librarians in NSW and beyond, and while coordinating these raps, she has also managed the participation of at least one class, and sometimes more, from her own school. Like other coordinators, Wendy also runs the Teacher Raps concurrently with the student book raps to provide professional support and training to teachers when necessary.

On several occasions, Wendy has liaised closely with the author/illustrator of the focus rap book, in order to increase students’ understanding and realise specific English Learning Outcomes. The opportunity for teachers to discuss issues directly with authors has been an additional feature. In 1997, Wendy was also introduced to the synchronous world of MOOs with a team of academics from Charles Sturt University, and Syracuse and Texas Womans universities from the United States. This led to Wendy’s participation in a synchronous literature-based professional development program which later led to:

• her involvement with Stage 3 classes from her school (along with schools in Victoria and Tasmania) as research participants in a doctoral study exploring students’ interaction in a ‘virtual’ classroom environment using Harvey Daniels’ literature circles model; and
• her leadership as an online workshop host for the Information Services In Schools (ISIS) Online Conferences conducted by Charles Sturt University in 1999 and 2000.

Wendy is always looking for ways to integrate ICT and get her students to interact with students beyond their usual cohort, so throughout the years she has involved different classes in additional online activities including: Travel Buddies through the Oz-Projects website; Quizzard of Oz; Postcards Around Australia; Harmony Day Webquest; and International School Libraries Day where Wollondilly School was the only school in NSW to participate in 2003.

Wendy’s expertise in ICT-based projects has been recognised by her peers through several invitations to present workshops at state conferences and professional development days on such topics as book raps, online projects to achieve learning outcomes, literature circles, communicating in MOO environments, and supporting literacy through technology. She has also worked on a number of NSW DET projects including: co-facilitator of TILT + for New Technologies, New Literacies; online training on the integration of information skills into the PD. H & PE; participating in the virtual conferences run through the DET website on the integration of information skills and collaboration with teachers; and was consulted by the Professional support and Curriculum Directorate in developing a Core Library list in 2003.

In addition, Wendy has been generous in sharing her expertise with other teacher librarians and teachers by writing several articles for the professional journals of SCAN and T & L on such topics as book raps, integrating ICTs, and using online resources to support learning.

Wendy is a dedicated teacher librarian who is actively involved in supporting teachers to incorporate innovative ICT-based programs into their classrooms to enrich students’ learning experiences. The above activities demonstrate Wendy's ability to plan, organise, deliver and evaluate teaching programs, work with a variety of people (both face-to-face and online), and meet deadlines. Since graduating with Distinction from Charles Sturt University with a Graduate Diploma of Education (Teacher Librarianship) in 1994, Wendy has exhibited considerable risk taking and leadership in ICT innovation, and a strong commitment to her profession. Wendy’s work has always been of an exemplary standard, which makes this ‘quiet achiever’ a worthy recipient for this award.

2003 Mrs Jennifer Scheffers

Jenny Scheffers is teacher-librarian at Marayong Public School where she is a much valued member of the school teaching and learning team. She is also a respected DET mentor for teacher-librarians.

Jenny is committed to integrating technology into teaching and learning in collaboration with teachers in her school. She has created an enthusiastic learning climate in her whole school community through, for example, a book rap program, collaboratively working with a number of teachers and involving a range of classes across years and KLAs. Her outstanding successes have been reported in the local media, providing positive coverage of technology in learning at her school, as well as in Scan, highlighting practical approaches to evidence based practice. Jenny has also been an online Rap Coordinator for a number of raps hosted on the Professional Support and Curriculum Directorate web site. For these, Jenny collaborated with a team involving statewide consultants and other teachers in developing support materials including program and planning to meet particular syllabus outcomes.

Jenny graduated with Distinction from Charles Sturt University's Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship) in 1998. She has made presentations at conferences for teachers and teacher-librarians on integrating ICT through book raps which develop ICT skills and information literacy, address syllabus outcomes, and engage students through an inquiry, resource based learning experience. Through her involvement with raps and book raps Jenny has made a significant and creative difference in her school and across the state and beyond. Jenny's enthusiasm for and dedication to her work make her a worthy recipient for this inaugural award.