Check out this great new free online resume tool. visualCV.com is a great easy way for students to prepare online resumes that look unreal, professional and will really create an impression. They can include examples of their work, videos, portfolio links and other supporting documents which can then be securely shared with potential employers family etc and it’s all free with no ads (not that I’ve seen yet anyway). They can also have different versions for different jobs.
VisualCV has a section specifically for students and caters for those trying to get their first jobs right through to CEO’s
Local Construction teacher Shane Johnston contacted me recently (approximately 3 or 4 weeks ago) regarding developing some courses in Moodle. He had previously used quite a few technologies in his classroom, but was keen to go a bit further.
Shane is now starting to develop teaching resources in the Construction area of our North Coast TAFE Moodle site. Coming to the end end of this two years project, his interest and support has really given me a boost and engaged me to work closer with him to progress our Faculty Moodle space.
Well done Shane, see you at the end of year bash!!
(sorry Paul, I had to put your photo in, it’s such a good one! Alex)
iTunes U is a part of the iTunes Store featuring free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more, that you can enjoy on your iPod, iPhone, Mac or PC. Explore over 75,000 educational audio and video files from top universities, museums and public media organizations from around the world.
You may have noticed some new faces at your campus libraries following the implementation of the new Institute Library Team structure in October:
8 teams of 4 library staff.
With more staff we can now increase service flexibility outside the library walls both physically and virtually. We’re looking forward to liaising more closely with teachers, WeLCs and FeLCs.
We also have specialist library teams and faculty aligned teams. I’m in the Educational specialist team which has identified del.icio.us, Netvibesand rss as useful tools we can introduce to teachers. In 2009 I aim to take my support directly into the teacher offices to help set up del.icio.us on teacher pc’s.
Moving towards providing virtual library services, in 2008 several libraries have already developed campus wikis and blogs – NCTAFE Wikis -NCTAFE Library Blogs
NCTAFE librarians have been using Adobe Connect for meetings and training. Travel time saved has meant F2F customer service could continue with minimal disruption, not to mention the valuable safety and environmental benefits.
With the Don’t be afraid celebration coming up on 11 December I hope you can meet a few librarians there and share 2008 success stories!
Hi, just had my first go in Presenter 7 in Powerpoint)- this is a fantastic tool to create resources with slides, sound and video for students. I am so excitied it worked.
Click on the link to see an interview with one of our CGVE students who had just watched videos from teachertube embedded in our CGVE wiki- these gave her intro information on the Global Warming topic and helped motivate her to get started with further research. The main point she makes is that the info presented this way meant she was not nervous, anxious or negative prior to hearing the data- whereas reading thick wads of text freaks her out befroe she starts.
I also made one with using wikis with youth students. Here are the links.
Writing this now as I know I’ll have so much work to do soon at end of year that I may not get this done. Just want to thank the whole LTT- especially Arabella, who really has been our intrepid leader into unchartered territory for many or of us- didn’t lose a traveller! To Alex and Des who have never lost patience with my silly questions and confused state at times (what’s the URL? Is this a Blog or a wiki?)-their assistance, advice and leadership has blown me away! The things/projects I am now working on are evidence of your success:
Using Share Point like a trooper- helping Gen Ed Faculty with maintaining resources and our Assessment Validation site and process.
Developing a CGVE Moodle site with interactive TaLE activities and many other great web tools and sites to engage students-something I thought only the ‘tech’ people could ever do! Making videos, finding great activities for youth students. Wouldn’t you rather see it in color/movement/interactive than read a #!… 20 page handout on the same thing!?
Starting to run meetings in Adobe with staff to demonstrate software, moodle and have convenient, safe, environmentally sound meetings.
Using iPod & Italk with students and staff- Just today we had evidence of a major breakthrough- one of our very technophobic staff rang to say she was using the iPod for recording assessment tasks with students!! WOW that is fantastic.
Thinking about our youth students-we need to present activities using current technologies but in an educationally sound way. Listened to a great lecture by Baronness Professor Susan Greenfield on her thesis on “People of the Book VsPeople of the Screen’ discussing the differences between we Digital Immigrants & those Digital Natives in the ways it effects learning and more importantly the development of how mental constructs, scaffolding, schemas and brain /thinking formation occur and develop. Made me think that we have a responsibility to engage our students using the technologies, but more importantly to offer this in a critical way- many youth use the technologies in a negative way- we must use them, but in ways which not only engage but EDUCATE, not just the content but the tool itself.
My goal for 2009 is that I actually assist more Gen Ed staff with the myriad skills I have learnt this year- I am feeling confident and ready to move on-just can’t wait to see what is around the corner next year!!!
Also important to remember that variety is the spice of life- we had a systems failure day last week and as a change my students just loved picking up a pen and making notes on paper whilst chatting to the group- didn’t last long but reminded me that too much of anything is wrong- good education offers it all-keep the changes happening.
Alex Miller talks to Donna Guiver about using technologies, like vokis, wiki’s and blog’s to capture learners and engage them in setting goals for their future. In particular low literacy and numeracy students.
I have been using social networking with Community Pharmacy using wikis which have been received well by the industry and workplace trainees aswell as distance students.
Now I have discovered another tool which I am having some amazing results with.
Facebook has allowed me to engaged not only students but also pharmacy publications who also use Facebook. This tool allowed me to connect with people I would not normally be able to connect with. Pharmacy currently has many groups on Facebook and they are used for providing pharmacy assistants with - Product Knowledge, positions vacant, tips and advice, competitions, conferences and Events.
This year I built up a relationship with two pharmacy publications and this has given me the opportunity to contribute to their magazine which have a distribution of 10,000+ nationally. This would not have been possible I believe without the use of Facebook. Facebook also allows students to connect with me in another space. I also use this tool to upload surveys which allows me to get in touch with any Industry needs out there.
Unfortunately this is blocked at TAFE so my use of Facebook is after hours. Facebook has certainly been a great way for me to enagae and collaborate with industry.
Sue Waters over at Challenger TAFE – Perth and a colleague, Jo Hart from O’Connor TAFE are running free PD sessions on Fridays. They are covering a wide range of topics, here are some examples:
Using various features of Elluminate to make live classrooms more interactive (this Friday 14th Nov)
What is a ….. wiki/blog/podcast/digital story etc and how can we use them with students
Using ARED or Hot Potatoes (only one feature at a time)
Using Photofiltre to make images appropriate size etc
Creating Toondoos
The sessions will be in Elluminate (you can download the Quick Reference Guide from our NCTAFE eLearning Kit), 9:00am Perth time (time converter here).
There are more details on Sue’s blog, and you can subscribe to their Google calendar here as well!
In the meantime, here’s an interesting little slideshow;
was the Workforce Development CategoryWinner at this years 2008 TAFE NSW Quality Awards. The Category recognises initiatives in professional development, self-paced learning, human resource development processes, workforce profiling and promotion of teamwork.
Well done to the entire LTT (Learning Technology Team) at North Coast TAFE, NSW. You all deserve a great big pat on the back for your efforts and hard work over the last two years!
The evening was a great success with North Coast receiving two out of the five awards in the major category (Workforce Development and Safety and Environmental Sustainability) and runner up in another award for sdonline (Planning, Processes and Systems). You can read about us in the 2008 Results Newsletter.
I’ve started to put some pictures onto our LTT Flickr site, so be sure to have a look there if you can’t see the slide show playing below…
I have been totally inspired by Adobe Connect, our web conferencing software
Even though there has been a substantial learning investment into getting comfortable with it – once you’re off and running, it’s great. Really!!
The benefits are truly impressive. They include:
being green (reduces car trips, photocopying),
being current (meetings happen in the here and now),
being accessible (most of us have desktops, headsets)
document development process is collaborative (+ organic)
One of the key satisfactions I’ve had as a FeLC is generating interest amongst colleagues to try Adobe Connect. One of the faculty’s part-time teachers, who works with the division of General Practice, agreed to trial it. He was so impressed that he bought his organisation’s general manager into the virtual meeting room to meet me and talk about how useful Adobe Connect is.
This example of creating personal/professional interest in peers, leading to recommendations of facilitating organisational change and adopting cleaner, equitable practices shows the value of the LTT philosophy – don’t be afraid. And how great is that!!
notes from the Moodle Moot 08 e-Learning Conference
The final presentation I attended at the Moodle Moot was presented by a couple of year 12 students. This was an extremely well prepared presentation, for which the two students had made a short movie interviewing other students for their feedback.
Here’s what the students said about Moodle;
Let us customise our environment, we liked having the ability to change the themes ourselves, it engages us, we want more themes! “Finally, some choice for us!”
We love having continuous access to support from our teachers in this environment
We love getting instant feedback from the Moodle quizzes
We sense the resistance from teachers to tackle new technologies and we feel limited by this
Our teachers don’t know enough about the capability of these systems, which frustrates us, let us help!
We like having extended deadlines (that is, we have up until 11.59pm to submit our assessments)
Online exams in Moodle had problems, need back-up plan in case the system crashes
We loved that our extra curriculum activities were accessible from the Moodle front page (e.g. notice boards, sport areas (courses) with timetables, etc. We felt this added value
… and what they said about Social Networking & learning;
We don’t want to use Moodle like a Social Network, we already have the tools for that and we prefer to do that outside of school hours.
We don’t want to communicate with teachers in these spaces, we don’t want them to know too much about us
The tools we use (Facebook and myspace) have features that allow us to choose our audience (friends) and our own privacy levels
We abused the chat functionality, so it got taken away, which was good. It’s back now with strict rules, we don’t bother using it now
… and what they would like to see improved
More customisable layouts
Access to our school files remotely, through this platform
More warnings when there is going to be system downtime/ maintenance
Most of our issues are not with Moodle, they are about the fact that the teachers are not able to use the system to its full capability – skill up!
Lead by example, be competent with engaging us in this environment and create learning networks for us, or we’re disengaged
The final presentation I attended at the Moodle Moot was presented by a couple of year 12 students. This was an extremely well prepared presentation, for which the two students had made a short movie interviewing other students for their feedback.
