Tribute to Marie Jasinski 2 March 1956 – 21 January 2008

1. Tribute to Marie Jasinski2 March 1956 – 21 January 2008 Friday 25 January 5:00 – 6:00 pm EDT Online in Elluminate

2. Notes • The full recording of this tribute is available online at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2008-01-24.2113.M.1DEB2B49D6DCD56794529973BC6CD8.vcr • What follows is an edited summary in text and images of what took place online in text chat, audio and whiteboard. Approximate times are stated on some slides.

3. People in attendance From the mainland and overseas • Jyothi Jotharam, ACT • Albert Ip, NSW • Annelieske Noteboom • Bron Stuckey • Carole McCulloch, Vic • Chris Sutton, Qld • Jenny Dodd, ACT • Leone Wheeler, Vic • Leura Cathcart, Qld • Lilian Austin, Vic • Lu Butler, Vic • Lyn Ambrose, Qld • Marg Aspin, Vic • Margaret Granger, SA • Michael Chalk, Vic • Nancy White, USA • Vicki Marchant, NSW • From Hobart • Bruce Enting, SA • Frankie Forsyth, Tas • Janine Bowes, Tas • Jo Murray, Tas • Maret Staron, NSW • Richard and Tina Wallace, SA • Robby Weatherley, NSW • Inability to attend • Andrew Hamilton, Vic • Ann Davenport, SA • Cathy Baxter, ACT • Marie Weatherford, Qld • Sam Meredith • Sandra Robinson, WA • Sandra Wills, NSW, NSW • Colleagues at Marie’s funeral and unable to attend online • Elisabeth Todd, Tas • Graeme Kirkwood, Tas • Jennifer Dunbabbin, Tas • Peter Higgs, Tas

4. Tributes from those unable to attend “Unfortunately I can't attend today but will be there in spirit. Marie has been a great inspiration to so many people and I will always carry a part her of with me ...especially in my work.” Sandra Robinson, WA “ I am sorry to hear the news and feel for the family and of course all FLL members particularly those that were close to Marie. Unfortunately I cannot attend today either, but my thoughts will be there.” Andrew Hamilton, Vic “I received the message about Marie too late to join her farewell. Is there a record of it? I am so sad – she was such a dynamo.” Sandra Wills, NSW

5. People in Hobart reflected on the funeral service 0:00 - 0:32 Frankie Forsyth “It was very moving and the family and Robby spoke beautifully. Marie's 80 year old Mum did the most magnificent job and Marty exceptional too.” 3:05 - 3:45 “Hi everyone it's Jo Murray here. It was an amazing service. It was totally run by the family, there was nobody from the funeral home involved at all and it was just flawless. You couldn’t imagine anything more personal and more touching and it was really really good to be part of.”

6. Robby Weatherly 1:10 - 2:58 “Hi it's Robby here and I think this is the first time I have actually hooked up in about 13 months so it’s feeling a bit strange but sort of lovely and I guess now that Marie's funeral is over it is lovely to be among these people here in Tasmania who were very special and of course everybody in this online community was very special to Marie. Just in relation to the funeral itself, it was so beautiful towards the end, Marty had put together this amazing PowerPoint of photos of Marie and her family and her friends and every one captured Marie with that beautiful smile and you could almost hear her laughing with her arms open. There was probably about 3 minutes of it. And one of Marie's favourite songs which she used to sing to Marty from time to time, very badly as Stephen Downes put on his website - the song she used to sing to Marty was a Carpenter's song called “Close to You", and that was just so beautiful playing in the background as we saw all these beautiful photos of Marie doing all sorts of activities and being with people who were very very special to her. It was just very very nice. So it's lovely to be talking to you, and I was surprised that this was happening so I came round to Janine's.”

7. Maret Staron 3:45 - 5:00 “Hi everyone, it's Maret here, everyone's really described it beautifully - the service and the eulogies. Tributes to Marie who will be so deeply missed. What was beautiful was Marty's tribute about how Marie's spirit and Marie will live on in all of us really, everyone she touched. It was so beautiful to have the opportunity to be down here and to be part of that service and have the reminder through those photos of that spirit of Marie. I really don't think I can say anything more. It is just very very hard to put our feelings into words so I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.”

8. Janine Bowes 5:30 - 6:15 “I guess this is really for all of you to share your thoughts about Marie. I can say that Robby spoke at the service about Marie's professional life but as Marty said, her professional and personal life were really interwoven. Robby did us proud and told some stories which possibly made no sense to some of the audience but we understood!”

9. Bruce Enting 24:37 – 24:43 “Hi folks it's Bruce Enting here from South Australia. I recognise quite a few names there. I was actually travelling round Tasmania when I got the news on Wednesday so I stayed on so I feel like I am here on behalf of a whole lot of Marie's friends and colleagues all over Australia and particularly from South Australia. Richard and Tina Wallace are here as well too so we are part of the South Australian team here celebrating her life. It's a sad day but more about a celebration of a fantastic creative person so we are going to have a drink to Marie.”

10. Richard Wallace 25:41 - 26:40 “Hi everyone it's Richard Wallace from South Australia here. We just had a wonderful funeral for Marie that really reflected her positive attitude and the way that everyone thought very highly of her. It was very personal and numerous people spoke about her life and that was just lovely. As Bruce said, we were down here, and I'm sure there were lots of people in South Australia who were wanting to be down here to say their goodbyes to Marie we can certainly catch up with you and pass on those regards and we'll catch you later.”

11. Photos from the service Lyn Ambrose: Love the photos from today - thank you Vicki M: Robby and Maret with Marty? Jenny Dodd: G8 one of Marty, Maret and Robby! Nancy White: Yup, for sure michael chalk: Now those look like real funeral / wake photos .. brings it home a little; sadness .. Vicki M: does, doesn't it Michael

12. Carol McCulloch – photostory of Marie and Marty’s wedding Carol shared this link to the photostory she assembled from her photos http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=6fe1ba349237464ae0ee

13. Photos shared People commented later that while Marie was always taking photos of others, often there were not many of her.

14. Lillian Austin remembers 6:45 - 7.27 “I actually first remember Marie at one of the Net*Working conferences in Adelaide and I'd been sitting in a lot of sessions with talking heads. She ran her session with cardboard boxes. We all had to write things on cardboard boxes - something about learning styles and we had a lot of fun and a lot of laughter. I always remember Marie's presentations as really energetic and fun.”

15. Carole McCulloch 7:46 - 9:45 “You've reminded me Lillian of some of the other antics that I've seen Marie get up to with groups of people. The one that sprang to mind was on a boat over in Adelaide as part of some conference or some project and what we had to do was write on pieces of paper shaped like a fish and then find someone else who wrote something similar. I don't remember it all but it was such a hoot because there we were sailing on a boat on a river and doing our e-learning stuff with fish? And well, that was just Marie's style. I do remember her well with a lot of projects. Another one I 'll mention is a New Practices project with Janet McMillan and a few other people like Clint Smith and myself. When we got together as a project team the first thing we had to do was a role play and it was the funniest thing. That's the main thing I remember about the project after all this time. She certainly had a unique way of engaging.”

16. Bronwyn Stuckey 12:45 - 13:25 “Bronwyn Stuckey here. I didn't know Marie as well as the rest of you but I certainly was aquainted with working with her online and I remember having a phone conversation with her when she was in New York visiting and working with Prensky and other luminaries and how excited she was by learning and I think that is my big take away from her was her excitement for continually learning.”

17. Jenny Dodd 15:05 - 16:15 “It's Jenny here. One of the things I think about Marie that I was able to experience and I guess a lot of people experienced as well because of the roles we did, was how many people were introduced into innovative work through Marie. It was absolutely unbelievable how many people would contact me and say "Ah well, I was talking to Marie Jasinski..." or "I saw something about Marie Jasinski..." and it was the stuff that Marie did that just personalised so much of who she was and took her to other people and her ability for others to engage with her spirit, her enthusiasm, her commitment. All of those things that came through Marie and her love of working with other people. I reckon for us, that was so pivotal. There was no one really like Marie with that ability to infect and inspire and engage through our whole network we’ve had and we will miss here so enormously.”

18. Nancy White read a poem “It's called The Peaceful Sage and it reminded me of how present Marie was every time whether it was in an email, or a Skype conversation or a face to face which I finally got to have with Marie in October 2006.” The Peaceful Sage Let not a person revive the past Or on the future build his hopes; For the past has been left behind And the future has not been reached. Instead with insight let him see Each presently arisen state; Let him know that and be sure of it, Invincibly, unshakeably. Today the effort must be made; Tomorrow Death may come, who knows? No bargain with Mortality Can keep him and his hordes away. But one who dwells thus ardently, Relentlessly, by day, by night It is he, the Peaceful Sage has said, Who has one fortunate attachment. --Lomasakangiyabhaddekaratta Sutta, in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, trans. By Bhikkhu Bodhi “I probably referred more people to Marie than anyone else I can think of.”

19. Break the Safe • michael chalk: ... we had such a good day when Marie led us through the "Break the Safe" experience • Margaret Granger: Yes, we had several sessions at some our Regional Campuses - staff loved them! • Carole McCulloch: Break the Safe really taught us how to work as a team at the beginning of a new project

20. Carole asked Michael Clark to talk about Break the Safe “Thanks Carole. It was such a remarkable day. I don't think I have experienced anyone leading a whole day of activities in that way ever. I don’t know if anyone else has had the experience of playing the Break the Safe game. In essence she would take a whole room of people through playing a game. Break the Safe is a collaborative game for team building and Marie led us through brilliantly. The way she would talk people through their experiences between sessions was just hilarious. I had the feeling she would have run it through a few times. What I loved was that her reflections were always different to what you'd expect, quite a remarkably different perspective.“ More pictures http://flickr.com/photos/learnscope/page186/

21. Carole continued.. “…….and all the time we were playing the game in groups in round tables, Marie was taking photos of us enjoying it, and taking videos, and ringing a bell and changing focus and telling us "be ready I am going to surprise you" and certainly we were always surprised but we learnt so much from that. That is another fond memory that I will take and yeah Michael when I look back, I haven't got so many photos of her… I'm hoping you've got some.”

22. Lu Butler 27:40 - 28:40 (at home with 5 yo grandson on her knee which makes talking difficult!) “Marie certainly helped me out when I was having to do an induction for new staff about the AQTF and trying to make it less boring was a wonderful thing indeed. Most of all I remember the encouragement she gave me when applying for Flexible Learning Leader. It took me two years to get there and she certainly inspired me to keep going and I am happy to be here among other people to share some wonderful memories of Marie.”

23. Chris Sutton As a mentor, Marie was such a perfect example - the wise friend who held up a mirror to you and allowed you to make wiser decisions and resolve your issues yourself. I learnt from her so much that has helped me in helping others.

24. Poem from Chris Sutton She is Gone By Anonymous You can shed tears that she is gone or you can smile because she has lived. You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back or you can open your eyes and see all she's left. Your heart can be empty because you can't see her or you can be full of the love you shared. You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday. You can remember her and only that she's gone or you can cherish her memory and let it live on. You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back or you can do what she'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

25. Lyn and Bron reflect • Lyn Ambrose: Marie came to Southbank Institute as a guest speaker for one of our Teaching and Learning Conferences - about 400 teachers in the audience and she made the AQTF fun with a great game she had created. She also threw a bear around the room for people to write words on with the word bear in them and made a surprise presentation to me from her in front of all our teachers. I was so embarrassed at that. • BronStuckey: There was just such a positive energy about Marie - never flagging and totally infectious!!!

26. From Albert Ip Here are some videos of Marie talking about role play from UoW web site: http://www.learningdesigns.uow.edu.au/guides/info/G1/more/C3Cliplist.htm#xtm

27. Raising a glass to Marie • yes Nancy let's similarly raise a glass to her • Nancy White: Indeed • Nancy White: I am going to go downstairs and get a glass of our best whiskey • Chris Sutton: I beat you to it Nancy!!! • BronStuckey: Ok getting my vino to toast • Nancy White: When we were together in Adelaide in 10/06, we were laughing because we both took more pictures of our food than of each other.

28. Food as a recurring theme… Albert Ip: food seems to be a fav subject. Marie later told me that she like to tell a joke "Everything on 4 feet, with the back up, is edible, except table and chair'

29. Story behind Marg singing the blues in the Alcazar - 1997 32:25 - 34:06 “Hi now can you here me - please, click on your little happy smiles - oh good. The song was about a connection. In fact a very large truck hit the main electricity pole and communications devices outside NMIT and as a result everything in the TAFE went down and we lost absolutely everything including all our online students. The blues song - you actually have to click along (I won't be able to hear you) or do whatever you like and it goes like this……………..”

30. Marg sings the blues Connection Blues Well, since my connection left me, I been feeling bad, oh yeah 800 students down and I'm feeling real mad, oh yeah Oh you Internet you, Oh you done me wrong, oh wrong Oh you Internet you, Oh you done me wrong Leone Wheeler 2: I remember the song.... Nancy White: yeah Nancy White: oh yeah Nancy White: oh wrong Nancy White: oh wrong! Lyn Ambrose: Hope you've got a drink in your hand Marg!! Lyn Ambrose: Yea Albert Ip: wooooowwww Carole McCulloch: wow that was great Marg Lyn Ambrose: Go girl! Leone Wheeler: I enjoyed that song and remember Marie as inspirational

31. Marie the great persuader Marg Aspin shared another insight about Marie: Marie had this incredible ability to convince people to do things. One time, very early in the piece around 1999 or even 1997, Marie invited me into the Qantas Club lounge when we were flying back from Sydney or somewhere. We were sitting there and she was having a rather nice large spirit which comes with the Qantas Club membership, naturally. I said "How come you, at Douglas Mawson Institute of TAFE have a Qantas Club membership? and she said "Oh well, it's is quite simple, I had deep vein thrombosis sometime time back so I convinced the CEO that I really needed to put my feet up somewhere whenever I was flying or I might have a problem." So she managed to wheedle out of him a Qantas Club Membership - so how's that?

32. Remembering Sister Marie Psychic and the Spitting Camel Carole: “I always remember Sister Marie Psychic from Net*Working 99” Marg: “I really liked Spitty the Camel with the Camel spit analysis that she was doing. I was a bit worried when she was wandering around Net*Working 99 at the Carlton Crest Hotel as one half of Spitty the camel with the thought that something might be done to all sorts of people who were there.”

33. Sister Marie Psychic Carole McCulloch: Thanks Albert, that's a fabulous picture of Sister Marie Psychic Lilian Austin: Shows her sense of fun Lyn Ambrose: LOL re Sister Marie Vicki M: hi everyone, ah yes, remember sister Marie Chris Sutton: Love that photo!!! Carole McCulloch: do we have a pic of spitty? Lyn Ambrose: Yes the Camel was hilarious

34. Spitty the camel – her official photos online Camel drool Camel love Camel spit

35. Camel Spit analysis Subtleties of Camel Therapy:Camel DROOL is not to be confused with the other forms of camel therapy. To quote from the camel himself: I'll let you into the subtleties of spitting: SLIMING: is reserved for spit analysis - bright green - it looks like bile which you see ejected in the Alcazar back blocks after a REALLY BAD hangover following a night on the moonshine. I won't say who!!! I'd be out of a job. SLAGGING: is reserved for your enemies - muddy brown - it looks like diluted sewage and smells like it too. I'm a legend for my slag! DRIBBLING: is what happens when you're hungry - almost opaque with a green tinge - good for emulsifying cud. DROOLING: for special occasions and an expression of endearment - a sea blue in colour - very rare. MEDITATIONS FOR PSYCHICS WHO DO TOO MUCH, July 27th 1997 SISTER MARIE, SUPERPSYCHICWatch out for the camel - it slimes the head who feeds it.WHAT? NEVER!

36. also featuring in the Alcazar Psychic Chook Therapy http://www.ruprecht.com/psychictest.html#Top ..often used by Sister Marie to cure people Su Shi (far left) challenged everyone to sing Abba songs

37. Chatting about the Net*Working conferences Lyn Ambrose: 1999 Conference was when I first met Marie Nancy White: What year was the first NetWorking online held? Carole McCulloch: Yes, me too Lyn. I remember Marie first telling us about 'early adopters' - I thought they were some sort of aliens. Ed: The Net*Working conferences began in 1997 in Adelaide, South Australia, 19-21 Nov 1997, and on the Internet 30 Oct -12 Dec

38. Thiagi and Lucy visited recently Hello everyone, it's Robbie here. I just thought that you might be interested in knowing that on Christmas Day Thiagi and Lucy his wife arrived in Hobart to spend some time with Marie and during Christmas and New Year they actually took a road trip in a part of Tasmania, just a day trip and I saw a photo of it, and they had, you know, a kayak on top of the car and a bicycle on the back of the car. Anyway, Thiagi spent some time here with Marie and I think we all know how close they were, not only professionally but as friends. So, Thiagi left on New Years Day and just a couple of days later Marie got very very sick so the surprise for Thiagi and Lucy was quite enormous and they couldn't be here today but we felt them in spirit as we felt all of these people who have part of this elearning community right from the very start and all joined along the way. It is so precious to have all of these people around and to know that you are thinking about Marie and here in spirit and just even doing something very very special, that's lovely. [42:05 - 43:45] Photo from Marty and Marie’s blog – day trip to Russell Falls http://marchron.blogspot.com/2007/12/december-update.html

39. Marg Aspin recalls Converge 44:16 - 46:00 “Somebody has probably already mentioned Converge not last year but the year before just before Marie found out she was not well. She and Marty did an outrageous thing at our elearning conference here in Vic. They were racing around, Marty was wearing these pants that were pulled up under his armpits practically, with white socks and they were racing around with lollies throwing them around the auditorium. We had the privilege of event-managing that Converge and my young staff were amazed at this incredible couple (who were not 25) scooting around and throwing lollies and acting like real dags and they were very very sad when I told them earlier this week and we have a nice little tribute in our office - a photo from the Design Planet blog. It's good that that has had an effect further down the track as well.”

40. …and so do others • michael chalk: yes Marg that was a hilarious sketch !! 'eminem from the future' ? • Jyothi: Yes, I remember the DON'T RETIRE BUT REWIRE • Nancy White: Hey, I remember that too! In Melbourne! • michael chalk: they pulled a whole lot of Old, out-of-date gadgets from their suitcases

41. Janine Bowes “In the blog posting that I have done as my personal tribute to Marie I decided to put a few more links in to some of her past work and as it turned out it became a chronological list. I realised last night that there were a few years missing so I Googled her name for those years and I put in a few things that I knew about. I think it tells a really interesting story - it starts in 1997 and goes through to 2007 and every single one of those pieces of work is still relevant and pertinent today and I have probably only scratched the surface with the things I've picked up but it's pretty amazing stuff. Many were done in collaboration with others of course, but she has been such a driving force.” http://jbowes.edublogs.org/2008/01/22/vale-marie/

42. Carole McCulloch - 48:20 “It's really great to look back through what Marie has contributed. I put a very quick thing in the Wollemi wikispace and what I did was Googled Marie's name and it went on for pages and pages and pages. I thought that was quite interesting and of course the latest one that I am engaged with is her latest piece of research which I am still working on with people on how to make the best use of it. “ http://wollemi.wikispaces.com/Memories+of+Marie

43. Leone Wheeler recalls I remember Marie when I first got into flexible learning at RMIT. She came to RMIT and observed my work and then wrote about it... Certainly like many of you she inspired me to carry on.... Have been out of things for a while and enjoying hearing all the stories... inspires me to carry on .

44. Albert Ip shared some of his notes Here is what I wrote on 14 Sep 2004 after meeting with Marie f2f; “ Marie Jasinski and I spent a whole day together yesterday. Our discussion covered a wide range of subjects. Just before lunch, we were on the subject on e-learning models. Marie said her elearning model is like free-ranging chicken. A safe environment (free of fox e.g.) and food are provided. However, the chicken has to search for the food - as contrast to battery hens. We were on our way to a Chinese restaurant, so I added that another elearning model is like "yum cha". We can provide the learners with a large range of dim sums and let the learners have a taste of a board range of choices. Diversity was the keyword in my mind. Roni joined us after lunch. As we were recapturing our discussion, Roni improved on the yum cha model, pointing out that there should be a main course. Finally, all three of use was happy with the following model: Warm-up using an email game such as wormhole. This will give the players a taste of what will come and acts as a learner supported design. This is also as a vision development. Then the main development stage is a full scale Fablusi role play. The game goals of players are to ensure that their wormhole world will be the dominant outcome. So there is a natural competition between the two teams and this will help in tactic development. After the debrief, de-role and so on, there will be a cool down game based on half-life for consolidation.” http://elearningrandomwalk.blogspot.com/2004/09/e-learning-models.html

45. Vicki Marchant reflects Vicki M: there will be so many things to remind us and keep Marie alive - she's left us with some great work, great memories and most of all lots of laughs and fun times - I'm remembering nw99, FAMe, online games, dressing up for role plays, chocolate, chaos and complexity, Thiagi, brilliant research, turning things upside down ... thanks Marie.

46. Time to go • Lilian Austin: I have to go now. Thanks for a great chance to honour Marie • Nancy White: I'm going to have to go (whiskey falling asleep at keyboard still late thursday night here) - I feel priveledged to spend this time with all of you remembering Marie. • Chris Sutton: Goodnight Nancy - sleep well. • Leura Cathcart: I am going to get a drink now so goodbye everyone, thanks for organising this, it has been amazing. • JennyDodd: I have to go too - good bye all and goodbye our colleague and friend, Marie. • Carole McCulloch: yep • Chris Sutton: I too will sadly and quietly creep away. Thank you all. Bye, sassy Marie - your spirit will be with us always. • Lyn Ambrose: Marie would have loved our doing this • Leone Wheeler 2: I appreciate this opportunity as well. Thank you to the organisers. It has been helpful to me. • Lyn Ambrose: Keep well and safe everyone and focus only on the important things - people • Leone Wheeler 2: I have to go now. thank you • Albert Ip: thanx for organising this event....

47. Time to go cont… • Carole McCulloch: cheers • Marg Aspin: cheers to Marie who I think would have got a real hoot out of celebrating her life online • Albert Ip: cheers and bye missing Marie • Vicki M: this is a unique event for a unique person • Carole McCulloch: Goodbye to a friend - we loved you Marie. • Lyn Ambrose: Rest in peace • Marg Aspin: thanks - a lovely tribute • BronStuckey: bye all - thank you for the chance to remember • Lyn Ambrose: Thank you for giving me the ability to farewell Marie and celebrate her wonderful life • michael chalk: thanks for organising this cyber-wake. Much appreciated. • Carole McCulloch: let's all raise our glasses to Marie • michael chalk: to Marie, sorely missed. • Lu Butler: thank you and Marie will always be a part of each of our journey. Cheers • Lyn Ambrose: Thank you for your help and friendship Marie • Vicki M: cheers!

48. Goodbye grafitti

49. The Hobart contingent Frankie, with Richard and Bruce’s help, worked out how to use the webcam on her brand new computer and appshare to the session “Vicki M: wonderful, thanks Frankie - beaut to see you all there and making us feel more a part of it”

50. Cancer research At Marie’s funeral there was provision for donations to the Menzies Centre for cancer research http://www.menzies.utas.edu.au/pdf/Donation.pdf