Screenr

Here’s a great article on the tool and what it can do from the Rapid eLearning Blog.

Just thought I’d share this article containing come good tips on how to make great tutorials capturing what’s on your screen and more…

• The right applications
• Setting the screen resolution
• The right equipment
• Create a script
• Export to the right format
• Finishing Touches

Converting learning material that you have developed for your learners into MP3 Audio is a great way to reach busy trainees and offer students more flexible ways to learn.

Some of our trainees work day and night and try to fit their study into their busy schedule. A lot of them are on the road, traveling from site to site so why not use that time to learn? Converting text books, manuals, or other eBooks into Audio makes this possible.

* Note, be sure to check the copyright information of any text you are converting to audio. For more Copyright info, check out the copyright resrouce sites listed on the eLearning Kit.

Here are some tools that can help you achieve this;

First you need a free Text to Speech (TTS) Program

As of today, you can add video clips to your Animoto videos! Watch a few sample videos and find out more here – http://animoto.com/video

You won’t believe how good your vids can look. Using video clips in your Animoto videos couldn’t be easier! There’s no need for a complex video editor! Just follow these three steps:

1. Upload clips from your camera or phone (iPhone anyone??), or use some from our collection (thanks to iStockphoto and Getty Images).
2. Choose your highlights. You can choose highlights of up to 10 seconds each, though we recommend using only 3-5 seconds as that works best within the flow of an Animoto video.
3. Create the rest of your video as normal, and you’re done.

The slideshow below shows you how to use Animoto;

Supporting Colleagues

To reinforce and refresh my own learning I’ve started to roll out sessions with my colleagues especially in Retail, Community Pharmacy & Personal services.

This year I have had demand from colleagues who previously weren’t engaged are now asking me for help.  Which is fantastic because they knew where to go to for help.

Adobe Connect has been engaging my Community Pharmacy colleagues who are looking at viable ways to deliver workplace training especially in distance locations.

In Retail my colleagues are asking for help with: online resources, wikis, how to do powerpoint and use a data projector for face to face delivery to engage their students.

Personal services have asked me to help them establish units on Moodle.

This year has certainly started off to be a year of action!

Supporting Industry

Another exciting moment I had recently was being approached by a pharmacy. The business wanted to establish how they could learn to use technology because they would like to run instore health promotions in store.

After assessing their needs I was able to match a unit of competency to the desired training and incorporate it into Cert IV in Community Pharmacy traineeship for the senior staff member.  The unit is called ‘Select an eBusiness Model’. Initially, I put together a presentation of how they could use moviemaker as a stepping stone and to build their confidence in this area.  Last week they were so impressed, they can’t wait for me to show the trainee how to do this and then apply her learning to the pharmacy, they believe that both the business and the community will benefit from this.

It is so rewarding to share my learning from The Learning Technologies Team to our customers.

Being apart of this amazing team has given me so much knowledge which now I can share confidently with my colleagues and customers.

Thought this site had great material for engaging students and teachers in discussions around children’s rights, use of the media and cartoons to get a message across, text types etc. It is the UNICEF site: cartoons for children’s rights

http://www.unicef.org/crcartoons/

Each cartoon listing is illustrated with a still image from the original animation, and has the following information:

• Number and theme of the cartoon
• Which Article of the Child Rights Convention the cartoon is based on, originating country, production house, and credits.
• Links to online clips, if available for that cartoon.

When you click to watch them online a box comes up asking you for a username and password for the unicef site – just click ‘cancel’. Then another box will come up asking for your DET username and password – enter these. The cartoons need to be played on Realplayer which comes on all the institute computers however if you have not opened it before you will need to register.

Call me if you have any problems and please pass this to staff who might be interested.

Cheers

Kate

I got my hands on an e-beam for the Gen Ed section at Great Lakes – how great are they! Teachers who where very ambivalent about technology were immediately engage, especially when shown all the fantastic Activstudio flipcharts that are out there that they can use.

One of the stumbling blocks for a lot of Gen Ed teachers is the literacy level of a lot of our students. Teachers don’t feel that giving computer activities to students helps when they are reluctant readers and writers. Flipcharts are colourful, interactive resources that you can use with the whole class. And if you have an e-beam you can direct everything from the whiteboard. Check out the Activstudio flipchart resources at http://www.prometheanplanet.com/ (You need a flipchart reader – download from TaLE www.tale.edu.au)

Cheers

Kate (WeLC, Great Lakes and Taree)

I know Linda Johnston uses Second Life for her beauty therapy students and possibly there are others out there that use it as well so, I thought this paper might make interesting (holiday) reading.

It was presented at the 2008 Annual ASCILITE (Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education ) conference.

Here’s the abstract to give you an idea of what it’s all about…

Regulation, governance and harms stemming from the use of virtual worlds and other Massive Multi Media Online Role Playing Games (MMMORPGs) in higher education, are poorly understood and under-researched issues. Second Life, developed by Linden Labs, provides users with a series of generic ‘terms of service’ and codes of conduct, yet place the bulk of responsibility on individual users or groups to report misbehaviour or develop their own behavioural codes, enforcement procedures and punishments suited to their particular needs. There is no guidebook to assist users in the processes of risk identification and management. As such, the various benefits of MMMORPG technologies could be offset by the risks to users and user-groups from a range of possible harms, including the impact of actual or perceived violence within teaching and learning settings.

While cautioning against the direct translation of real-world regulatory principles into the governance of virtual worlds, this paper suggests theoretical and practical guidance on these issues can be taken from recent criminological developments. Using Lawrence Lessig’s (1999) landmark work on cyber-regulation as a starting point, this paper examines the literature on video-game violence to illustrate the need for educators show awareness of both real and perceived risks in virtual worlds as a core element of an emerging educational pedagogy. We identify how the multiple roles of the virtual-world educator become useful in framing this pedagogy to improve student learning, to dispel myths about the risks of immersive technologies and advocate for their adoption and acceptance in the educational community.

Here’s the paper!

cheers,

Neal

The second day of the Moodle e-Learning Conference, MoodleMoot, attended by Tracy Young and myself, was brilliantly kicked off by a Keynote from Professor Erica McWilliam, Assistant Dean (Research), Faculty of Education, QUT.

I took so many notes during this session, SOME of which I’ll share at the bottom of this post, but I strongly encourage you to have a look at the attached presentation.

Special thanks to Erica for giving me permission to share her wonderful presentation with you.

Here’s a taste of the brilliant presentation from Erica:

1703 Complaints
Students can no longer prepare bark to
calculate problems. They rely instead on
expensive slate. What will they do when the
slate breaks?

1815 Complaints
Students depend too much on paper instead
of slate. What will they do when we run out of
paper?

1917 Complaints
Students depend too much on ink. They
can’t sharpen a pencil with a knife anymore.

1928 Complaints
Students depend too much on store bought
ink. They don’t know how to make their own.
What happens when they run out?

1955 Complaints
Teachers refuse to accept papers written with
ballpoint pens. A fountain pen is the only
acceptable instrument!

1960 Complaints
Take away students’ slide rules and they no
longer have the skills to solve a problem!

1980 Complaints
Can students even function today without a
calculator?

2000 Complaints
Students are totally dependent on their
computers. What will they do when there is a
blackout?

2040 Complaints
They have given me a mixed class of
humans, hybrids and transhumanists. How
do I deal with the various learning styles?

2023 Complaints
They have implanted the
Library of Congress in their heads. What are
we supposed to teach them now?

Are you interested?

Then check out the presentation from this session, and stay tuned for my next blog post, which will include some great notes from this session about leadership, creative problem solving, team work and diversification, teaching and learning and much more…

I have been using vokis on wikis with our youth General Education students in our CGVE (Cert II in General & Education -year 10) and LLNP (Language, Literacy & Numeracy Program) courses. Both groups are very keen. Initially the Fun Factor was major but the more the students do the more benefits I see they are getting from these activities.

I have set up a wiki for each group in www.wetpaint.com this is a commercial site, but after you have set up the wiki you can email them to have the advertising removed (you will see this has happened on the LLNP wiki & will happen soon on the CGVE wiki).

High student benefits and engagement

The students value having their own site that they can access from home to show their parents and friends what they’re doing at TAFE. They just love vokis, they provide great experience in drafting scripts to record, choosing their visual image, clothing, hair etc to present themselves. By listening to the recordings and self evaluating their speech, they are able to express themselves in a safe, non-threatening way.

I have seen lots of development in students from creating vokis- it was a great way to get students in CGVE to choose the topic for their major projects (an integrated assessment task involving 6 units). The students had to introduce the topic and explain why they chose it- each student seemed to take ownership of the topic because they had to think, then write a very short script, record, evaluate, listen & see others viewing their work on the wiki.

We also have vokis introducing the students and staff. On the wiki we’ve created slide shows made in www.slide.com, signs made in www.flamingtext.com, we’ve started using the discussion area and created a suggestions page. Soon we will be loading samples of work. The CGVE students are keen to upload some vokis they made recently about the lack of accommodation for youth in our area which support their letter writing activity on this topic.

More Information

I have attached a table outlining the benefits of using wikis and vokis with Gen Ed students and the instructions on Making Voki’s are on the Institute e-Learning Kit. There are some instructions on flaming text and inserting them into your wiki here.

Please feel free to go and look at our wikis www.llnp.wetpaint.com and www.cgve08.wetpaint.com

Hope you enjoy these resources. If you would like some assistance with using wikis and vokis, or ideas for use with your students please email me or ring on ext 50640.

I have used my iPOD to record conversations I have with trainees when I visit their workplace. The trainees love it because I send them the audio file later and they can listen to the conversation and it reminds them of what theyneed to do before the next time I visit. Really cool!!!

Using the iPod for Interviews

I have also used the iPOD to interview a teacher about her experience with technology in the classroom. Just by showing her what’s possible. She went on to try using a video camera when assessing students. First, she made the recording, then created a little movie which she forwarded to her students for self assessment. The teacher loved it and said she would use it again.

JISC InfoNet UK have just launched a really good Info Kit on e-Portfolios. The site explores good practice in the use of e-portfolios as a support to learning, and the infoKit on e-Portfolios covers the main drivers, purposes, processes, perspectives and issues around e-portfolio use. The soundbites and video stories from students are also worth a visit. What’s an e-Portfolio?

“These resources not only provide a valuable synthesis of information about e-portfolios, but also shed light on why e-portfolios are becoming the subject of increasing attention in all educational sectors and may even turn out to be the tools of choice for 21st century learners. The resources illustrate e-portfolio use at the very heart of student learning, capable of supporting more informed and effective progression onto the next stage of education, into employment and through a range of opportunities for learning across a lifetime.” JISC InfoNet

Make sure you check out the Effective Practice with e-Portfolios’ publication and the ‘Role of e-Portfolio’s in assessment practices’.