Fresh air

Fresh air, originally uploaded by Cheryl @ TAFE.

This is my beautiful old girl Sophie. I am currently in the process of testing blogging a photo from Flickr. I want my students to do this for an assignment task. Seems easy enough!

Web 2.0 Showcase TSoF (21/9/06)

Wikis - Graham Wegner

"Wiki are simple websites that can be edited from within your internet browser. Knowledge of applications like FrontPage and Dreamweaver are no longer needed to create a purposeful website. Wikis also allow for multiple authors and maintain a history of every page change so errors are easily reversed. With high quality sites like Wikispaces, PBWiki and WetPaint offering free accounts, an education based project is quick and easy to get up and running. Add the fact that multimedia like images, audio and video can be embedded and this powerful tool is ready to make a big impact in education."

Note that some wikis will remove adds for educators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
http://danarichardson.pbwiki.com/
http://mylu.wikispaces.com/
http://pbl2006.wikispaces.com/
http://www.wikispaces.com/
http://webloggedlinks.pbwiki.com/
http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/cegsa2006/cegsa2006
http://www.wetpaint.com/
http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/umlaut.html

Blogging - Al Upton

"Blogs (web logs - great for online collaboration) are easy to establish and maintain.More than that, they engage and motivate ... they excite! Professional learning takes on a new meaning. Student learning becomes personally relevant with r-12 cross-curricula applicability. Bloggers record, publish and share their learning online. They read and contribute to other learners locally and globally. Connection, networking and reflection within learning are paramount in 21st Century online education. In a session of 'just-in-time’ learning (for ‘tomorrows lesson’); witness examples, management tools and strategies that promise to respect existing commitments and limitations."

Al said to feel free to contact him.

http://alupton.wordpress.com/
http://alupton.wordpress.com/resources/web2-showcase/

Podcasts, Flickr & Mashups - Mike Seyfang

"A recent Pew study shows that 57% of teens create/share some form of digital content. This segment will take you on a whirlwind tour of some of the things they are up to. Podcasts - what are they, how to 'catch' them, listen to them and create them. Flickr - what is it, how to find images, how to upload images and why its called 'social software'. Finally we will play a couple of 'mash-ups' that show how stories can be told using a new kind of literacy."

Mike was creating a podcast of his talk and was going to load it up when he got home. I am not sure on which of his blogs it was going to be though.

http://bloglines.com/public/mseyfang
http://edublogs.org//
http://flickr.com//
http://wholesalemeatmusic.com//
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/btn/
http://mseyfang.edublogs.org/2006/09/18/net2blazer-demo-script-draft/

Social Bookmarking - Yvonne Murtagh

"The most popular of the social bookmarking services, del.icio.us, is an amazingly simple but powerful tool that makes your old Favorites (or similar) bookmarks look decidedly old fashioned! Using a simple interface, del.icio.us, allows you to bookmark sites and tag them with key words for easy retrieval. However, the power of social bookmarking comes to the fore with its powerful collaborative features, accessing what others are tagging, sharing your bookmarks or tags and comments with the global community or a local group/team/cluster and tracking a particular tag in real time. The ability to create a network of trusted peers significantly enriches the experience. Start your own del.icio.us account and have your own digital library, accessible from any internet-connected computer."

Mentioned RMIT guide for podcasting and sixteen ways of thinking in web 2.0? Maybe some of her links. Advised us to make sure we make a note about what the article is about when you post it. Yvonne also commented about del.icio.us tags being embedded into a blog - must check this out, look into RSS and aggregator. She also suggested watching for conferences (links in deli.icio.us).

http://del.icio.us/vonnie?settagview=cloud

Personal start pages - Graham Wegner

"It can be tricky keeping track of all of your Web 2.0 applications spread across the internet – that’s when a personal StartPage comes in. Sporting names like SuprGlu, Protopage and PageFlakes, these portals enable the user to “house” all of their online connections in the one place. Using RSS feeds and URL shortcuts, your StartPage can be customised to your own taste, include searches for relevant information and can be as private or public as you wish. So, keep all of your web accounts and links in one place and sign up today for your own personal StartPage."

Personal start pages pull together everything you are using on the internet. They become your own one stop shop. Examples are PageFlakes, Net Vibes, Protopage, Web Wag (only 3 weeks old!), Super Glue (more blog like/aggregator, eg, Plunkers e-learning).

Could be used to create a class page for a topic, get students to decide what it is going to be. For example Graeme created one on oceans (see pageflakes link below). "Here is my sample IWB page on the topic of THE OCEAN. There is a Flickr feed with the key words ocean, sea, underwater, fish, a del.icio.us feed on the tag seas, a Google News feed on oceans and 2 PubSub web search feeds on Sea Life and Oceans (no results coming through at time of compilation)."

http://plunkers.suprglu.com/
http://www.netvibes.com/
http://www.pageflakes.com/wegner.graham.ashx
http://www.webwag.com/

Where to from here? - Deanne Bullen

"The Times They Are A-Changin’ – the alphabet, written script, the printing press, the ball point pen, film and television, the computer, the internet, Web 1.0, Web 2.0…. Each technological development has influenced literacy and literacy practices. The conclusion to the Web 2.0 showcase provides a brief overview of how new technologies rely on both old and new skills and understandings."

The following text is reproduced from the handout supplied by Deanne Bullen:

The challenge of new literacies

Assisting learners to be creative, critical and constructive viewers and producers of the Read/Write Web who can use information dynamically to construct their own understandings and perspectives that is informed by audience and identity.

How do we do it

• Keep focus on the learning not the technology
• Incorporate and model collaborative learning into the classroom
• Make sure learning is student-centred
• Make sure we are teaching students about critical literacy skills
• Connect students globally.

Features of blogs to assist with teaching and assessing in the classroom:

Blogs:

• are often centred around a theme using the authors own voice
• use persuasive writing as a key element
• invite conversation with others
• use the skill of summarising
• get right to the point
• use associated links
• often connect to other blogs
• borrow on the words of others
• are a mix of personal opinion and summary of other people’s work

Teachers who have used blogs in the classroom note that they:

• provide a trail that show a trail of knowledge built over time
• show a record of links, commentaries and analysis of a subject

Examples of how other teachers are using Web 2.0:

• Using blogs to post questions for experts in an area being studied
• Creating a wiki in an area of study to gather knowledge: e.g. Planet Math http://planetmath.org/ teachers compiling information about known mathematical concepts, with experts and others adding their thoughts
• Creating collaborative stories with each contributor adding to the story
• Posting reports and sharing data from around the world to research a problem
• Students podcasting, e.g. ESL Student podcasts http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/Student_Projects/
• The South African government has begun putting its entire high school curriculum online as a Wiki http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/South_African_Curriculum
• Collaborative projects - The Museum of Museums – collecting links to the sites of any museum from around the world, from the worlds largest to the most obscure http://www.museumlink.com/

What are the actions educators can take:

• Create communities of practice
• Become connectors of information
• Model collaboration with students
• Guide students to become readers and creators who engage in critical literacy practices
  - what are possible meaning of the text
  - what do I already know how does this information relate to it
  - how does this information relate to other information
  - what alternative are there and where do I find it
  - who can I talk to about the information
  - what voices are silent
  - what actions should/can/will I take.(Modified from Freebody and Luke 1990)
• Understand that the pace of advancement is rapid and unforeseeable.

The Barriers

• Access to computers
• Professional

Deanne also handed up some brochures from www.educause.edu/eli, eg, 7 things you should know about videoblogging, 7 things you should know about wikis.

NB: Text above in italic describing the speakers topics reproduced from TSoF site.

LearnScope Start-up Workshop 7 (22/9/06)

Chat about chat

We all reflected on our experiences with the chat session we had with Michael Coglan. Everyone really enjoyed the chat and I think we were all suprised at how valuable an experience it was. I think the other suprising thing was how quickly the time went. I naturally was the only idiot that wrote down the rules! :-) Still, I thought they were very good rules and set up the expectations for everyone. Now, if only I hadn't put them in a safe place ... from memory they were as follows:

• don't worry about spelling mistakes
• when Michael typed something in CAPITAL LETTERS we all had to shut up
• have fun!

Michael was very organised and had a definite structure to the exercises:

1. Complete this sentence (brainstorm): ......
2. Next exercise - a shor t answer question for everyone......
3. So the next , and perhaps obvious question (for everyone) is......
4. Does anyone have a specific issue or question about .......... they’d like to ask the group? (time was spent here discussing everybody's individual questions)
5. De Bono's six hat exercise (see http://cispom.boisestate.edu/murli/cps/sixhats.html) where we were all assigned one colour and had to respond to a statement Michael posed to the group
6. Debriefing on six hat exercise
7. One word feedback on chat experience
8. Goodbyes - they take so long, you never quite know when to log out in case somebody is still typing something.

Only problems we had with the chat was sometimes the screen would freeze in Moodle. I ended up going to both scheduled chats because my screen kept freezing the first time around and I couldn't type anything. Sean bless his heart was typing text I had sms'd him. :-)

Digital Stories

John and I showed our digital stories. John's digital story went through the steps people had to go through to get their security license. I thought it was really well thought out and was very clever putting in photos of the actual places you needed to go. This would be very helpful for people.

Interactive Ochre

Marlene showed us this sensational new toolbox. It is really spectacular - oh how I would have loved to work on that project!!!!!!! We also saw a digital story presentation from Jeff Hunter who was the project manager. I would love to get this toolbox just to show the IT students what is possible.

Exploring Web 2.0 Technologies

We got into groups of two and then each group picked out a slip of paper from a bag Elena had. On the slip of paper was a web 2.0 technology for us to explore in our groups. After we had finished we all had a couple of minutes to present the technology we had investigated. Sylvia and I explored Writely - http://www.writely.com which is a web word processor that allows you to create, publish and store documents - it is like a cross between a word processor, blog and wiki.

Protopage

Protopage is a personal start up page that can be used to collate your favourite things on the web. Marlene demonstrated it and then each of the groups had to add a sticky note describing the web 2.0 tool we explored - http://www.protopage.com/learnscope. For homework we have to find another tool and to add it to page 2. This will be very useful to refer back to.

Podcasting

This is the third time I have seen Sean's presentation and I STILL want a bloody Mac and to create beautiful presentations and video podcasts of my own!!!!

Moblogging

Marlene demonstrated how to moblog by taking a photo and then sending it to her moblog. Amazing stuff, so fast. Requires 3G phone capabilities. Would be very useful for students who are out on a field trip, for example, find a OH&S risk etc. Costs $1.00 per photo to send. Marlene uses it to post photos when she is away on holidays and not near a computer to download her photos. Very clever!

LearnScope Start-up Workshop 6 (8/9/06)

Your Project - Rippling Outward

1. Do you think your project will grow and be sustainable into 2007 and beyond?
2. Who needs to be on board?
3. What needs to happen?
4. How does your organisation stack up when compared to others?
5. How can you influence the changes?

Organisational Change - an individual perspective
(Guest speaker: Alison McAllister)

• (powerpoint available)
• Leadership models: strategic, organisation-wide, teachers as leaders
• When looking for support align your project with the strategic plan, eg,
• (1) SA’s Strategic Plan: www.saplan.org.au
• (2) New Times New Ways New Skills: www.dfeest.sa.gov.au/dfeest/files/links/WDS2005.pdf
• (3) Better Skills Better Work Better State: www.dfeest.sa.gov.au/dfeest/files/links/nw.pdf
• Managers like hard data, eg, benchmarking - see
  http://e-learningindicators.flexiblelearning.net.au/
• Priorities: innovation in teaching and learning (including e-learning), creative capable people
• Culture: relationships, eg, bump spaces, program area morning teas, newsletters, people receive reward and recognition
• Life Based Learning
• Strategies: champions (interested in something), links/research, guest on discussion forum, quizzes, bump spaces (staff coming together in a casual manner)
• Rewards: good managers

A Handful of Pebbles - a group brainstorm

We all had to write down one idea on how to keep e-learning rippling out into the organisation. Once we had written the idea down on a piece of paper we then scrunched up the paper got around in a circle and "threw our ideas around". We then got into pairs and combined the two ideas we had ended up with into one idea.

Results of 'our' group brainstorm - thanks to Judy Forbes for collating.

1. Involve 5 people in a survey on e- learning and ideas of improving website…present findings of survey as basis for funds
2. Communicate and demonstrate new training methods to engage commitment and to implement new strategies
3. Promoting e learning across the organisation by encouraging the pooling of resources to benefit all
4. Utilise benchmarking as a way of highlighting good models to encourage other people/groups to implement as a strategy of best practice and providing quality
5. Networking either internally or externally to ones’ organisation to get ideas, feedback and support
6. Implement computer training by introducing a mentoring system in the workplace for staff using a planned and spontaneous approach

Lines in the Sand - a personal brainstorm

In this activity we used Mayomi to create a mind map of what we could each personally do to create more e-learning ripples in the organisation.

Digital Storytelling showcase

We got to see two digital stories - one from Chris and Deb introducing their project (very funny and really well explained) and another beautiful one from Judy who used Moviemaker this time (makes the voiceover much more fluid because it is not just image by image). They really are a great way to communicate.

LearnScope Start-up Workshop 5 (18/8/06)

Instructional Design

Anne Davenport: Instructional design = Learning Design, Designing for Effective Learning.

Continuum between activity based learning and content based learning.

Activity based learning

• search out information
• real life learning
• work based learning
• practice firms
• developing content through activity
• learn by doing
• constructivist approach (particularly with online learning)
• teacher is facilitator, ie, encouraging students to reflect, and to be active and involved
• internet driven
• content designed around things to do
• (note to self - is this a webquest????)

Content based

• teacher centric
• chalk and talk
• more passive
• chunked into manageable bits and then quiz at end

Scenario based learning

• case study
• presents student with a problem
• have to make a choice - give options

Software

• QUANDRY - use full version
• Moodle uses branching
• can do using powerpoints.

Check out http://designing.flexiblelearning.net.au - go to the tab "Learning Design" (same as instructional design) for ideas for elearning.

You can use content based materials but use activity type methodology, ie, discussion forum, email, phone conference.

Copyright & IP

Peter Schultz, Ph: 8226 4307, schultz.peter@saugov.sa.gov.au

• Protecting intellectual property - copyright, trade marks, patents, trade secrets.
• Also must be aware of licences and how resources are licensed.
• Should be using non-disclosure agreements, auditing IP, registering & managing IP

Sources of Help & Information

• Flexible Learning Australia: www.flexiblelearning.net.au/copyrightkitchen
• IP Australia Toolbox: www.ipaustralia.gov.au
• Copyright Council: www.copyright.org.au/
• AEShareNet: www.aesharenet.com.au

Online classroom debrief

We had a group debrief about our experiences conducting the online courses. Common thoughts included more organisation needed and more time meeting up with other facilitators needed. Lots of comments on how much time it took and also how much was generated from no content whatsoever! Elena to collate our comments - should copy here!

Digital Storytelling

We need Media Player 10 to run any digital stories and Photo Story 3 to create them. Marlene demonstrated for us - looks very easy. What a fantastic tool. I will get students to create their own digital stories in the Capture a Digital Image competency I teach in Term 4.

An Aside

We were asked not to blog for the main speaker today and I have made two observations when writing my notes up today. (1) I haven't written in my blog since - lost the momentum there somehow and (2) When checking other blogs today to make sure I didn't miss anything in my notes I notice that most other startuppers don't have anything recorded for this workshop in their blogs. Moral of the story - (1) Make a regular time to blog as Marlene suggested all those months ago and (2) let students blog if they want in class despite how distracting the typing can be!

What the !!!!!

I can't believe it is two months since I have updated my blog. So much has happened since then and life has been frantic with work and moodle classrooms and new training packages. I will try and put all my notes in some sort of logical order in here. Luckily I have kept written notes but they would be much more useful in my blog where I can access them from anywhere. I have also been to the CEGSA conference and eDayz since I was here last and have so many links and notes from those events not to mention of course Startup. Only one more to go I am devastated to say. :-(

c2Apps - more beautiful blogs

I have just finished class with 9 new Certificate II students where I showed them how to create blogs. They took to it like ducks to water and six of the nine have shared their blog addresses with the other students so far. They have also been great posting to an Introduction forum in their newly created Moodle classroom, including responding to each other's posts.

What absolutely perplexes me is why the Certificate III class who created the blogs last week and seemed just as keen have not shared them with anyone else nor has anyone of the thirteen introduced themselves on the Introduction discussion forum!!! I spoke to one of the students today and he said he wasn't going to go first so I have asked one of the other students who is an extremely keen mature age student to please go and be the first one to post so hopefully the others will follow suit. It is just rather amazing the difference between the two classes. I will have to wait and see if anyone else posts today or tomorrow. Otherwise my next plan of action will be to give them time first thing in class on Wednesday to do it. Buggered if I know!!! :-0

3HTML - 1st class

I am currently in class with 13 new Certificate III students demonstrating how to use blogs. They are all creating their own blogs and their first posting!!!! We also looked at Remember The Milk to keep to-do lists and Google calendar.

LearnScope Start-up Workshop 4

Poison pills for your future online delivery

What have you disliked about courses you have attended????

LAOG (backward spells goal) ... therefore you are aiming for the opposite.

• lack of interaction
• being 'done to'
• poor preparation
• poor communication
• lack of context, higher order extension
• poor preparation and organisation
• timing and planning
• aimed at incorrect level - not valuing previous learning
• lack of knowledge or faciliation skills
• hindering educational progress
• using jargon
• does not fulfil aims

Theory and thoughts about online facilitation

Gilly Salmon's Model of e-Moderation

Stage 1 - make the classroom feel welcoming
Stage 2 - introduction and students meet each other (can use online forums)
Stage 3 - actively interacting with material
Stage 4 - higher order, do something with knowledge, groups generating new knowledge
Stage 5 - external, very high order skills

Online Facilitation: Stories from the field (Michael Coghlan)

• the teacher - centric model of teaching is out the window
• teacher is just ONE of the resources
• stage one and two of the Salmon's 5 step model are the hardest in an online environment
• 80% of students like to know information about the teacher and other students
• most classes get stuck at level 3 (ie, content, assignments etc)
• deep learning and analytical learning takes place in stages 4 and 5
• need to identify what level students are at and respond accordingly, ie, don't bombard them with information from a higher level and/or don't respond at a lower level to more advanced learners
• facilitator changes role during the learning, eg, goal setter, discriminator, host, pace setter, facilitator, mentor, provacateur, participant etc
• most important role - HOST - inviting people into your space and making them feel comfortable
• don't forget to use your telephone - more personal
• troubleshooting/conflict negotiation: private email? phone? public discussion? peer resolution?
• rate of response/level of involvement: respond with 24 hours unless otherwise specified, but establish ground rules upfront, eg, won't respond on weekend etc
• don't respond to everything - let the group take some responsibility (discuss upfront)
• appropriate ratio: about 1 message from lecturer for every 5 to 8 messages
• Modelling (behaviour) (1) summarising discussions (good brain work); teacher do initially then hand over to other students (2) communication skills - don't be patronising, teacher off centre stage, don't forget students bring knowledge (3) manner, attitude, humour - the affective domain: includes 'learner's values, beliefs, biases, emotions, and role expectations that may influence their disposition towards the learning environment - show you care
• let people know who you are
• engagement: motivate them, inspire them, annoy them, make them laugh, make them angry, but for goodness sake don't bore them! (Thiagi) http://thiagi.com/
• Positive comments Michael received: enthusiastic, sense of humour, thank you for your input into my life
• Email: michaelc@chariot.net.au
• Website: http://users.chariot.net.au/~michaelc/
• Thank you very much Michael.

Online facilitation - giving it a go

We have the role of facilitating an online course for the next three weeks as well as participating in two other courses. I am part of a group with Sonya, Kristen and Sylvia and we are going to create an online course on "Bargains and Free Stuff on the internet" aiming to incorporate the theory from today. We elected Sonya as our leader and have decided to share facilitation of the course by each of us being responsible on different days, ie, Sylvia on Monday and Tuesday, Kristen on Wednesday and Thursday, Sonya on Friday and me on the weekend. We aim to provide responses to students within 24 hours, 7 days a week!

Moving into e-learning - implementing your idea

Everyone spent two minutes discussing their projects. Marlene used a powerpoint that represented us going up in a lift - it was very effective - once the lift opened everyone shut up straight away! :-) I was really impressed with the work everyone is doing. I hope we get the opportunity to see the projects along the way.

Reflection, questions & homework

1) Post up your REFLECTION of the 4th Workshop – how did you feel about it?
2) Post to the YOUR PROJECT thread – how’s it going? Where are you up to?
3) Post to the TEACHING ONLINE thread - let's talk about facilitating online!
4) Facilitate your online ‘course’…and participate in another 2.

All in all, another excellent afternoon!!!!!

Deciding on my LearnScope project

For my project I have been trying to decide between an online classroom or an online staffroom using EdNA groups. Marlene posed the following questions to me in the Workshop 2 homework forum on Projects to try and help me make a decision (my responses are in bold):

• Which one is more likely to bring immediate value? Either
• Which one is going to take the least time for the initial setup? EdNA staffroom
• Which one will be the easiest to promote within your work team, to get them on board with what you are trying to do? Online classroom I think???
• If they were both ready now, which one would you use the most? Online classroom
• Which one will be the most FUN to set up and get going! EdNA staffroom
• Which one are you attracted to the most (as opposed to the one you feel you should be focusing on.) EdNA staffroom

For the purposes of this project the EdNA staffroom may be the best in regards to scope and time required, however … we are in an unfortunate situation where our numbers have dropped and the online classroom will most likely benefit the students more so that is what I will undertake for the project. The main benefit for producing an online classroom is to allow us to still offer the Applications Stream of the Certificate III in IT at Port Adelaide. Currently there are not enough students to warrant running this course in the classroom on a continual basis but I think it would be a real shame to pull it from our offerings when it will be a pathway into the Certificate IV in Website Design which I am hoping we will start running next year.

At this stage I haven’t got very far at all as I have found it very hard to decide exactly what I would do for the project and also to define the scope of the project. This has been further compounded by the fact we are also implementing a new training package next semester and the competencies and how they will be bundled has only been finalised last week. As it stands, I still do not have the textbooks I need to start planning or teaching the new subjects after the holidays (and therefore have no resources for any of the subjects to put online)!!!!

Another problem I have faced is that I will not be teaching the competencies for the Applications Stream until Term 4 when LearnScope will be finished. To put this online in Term 3 I would have to rely on other staff teaching the subject to give me the resources they develop each week. This puts a lot of pressure on other staff members and does not allow me the opportunity to see firsthand how effective the online classroom is and what modifications need to be made. (We will be using it in the classroom in the first instance next semester).

As a result of all these issues I have decided I will put some other competencies online for my LearnScope project. There are also some common competencies in both the Applications and Network Administration Stream of the Cert III that if put online would make it much easier for our part time students as well as having the resources online for our full time students. I will be teaching and developing the resources for these competencies so I can modify them as needed as a result of feedback from my students. The hope is that I will continue on developing the online resources for the Application Stream after LearnScope has finished.

One of the other considerations for this project and any further online development is the platform on which the online classroom(s) should reside. As TAFE use Janison it seems likely that is where the resources will end up once they have been bedded down. For the purposes of this project and the resulting time constraints I feel it would be wiser to use a VETSA Moodle classroom in the first instance. I am however concerned about duplication of effort so I will have to try and create reusable content wherever I can.

LearnScope Start-up Workshop 3

What current team members are doing:

Sonya's comments on her blog:

• make it personal (as if you are talking to others)
• short and frequent
• links to work she has done

Judy Forbes' moodle site on vetsa:

• Children's Services Diploma
• Has news forum, profile

Guest speaker - Michael Bullock (1 year on from Start-Up)

• Managing Director of Subrosa Solutions
• Only a small company with not a lot of money BUT a lot of tools out there are free
• About changing people's attitudes
• Won't suit everyone or every course
• More open minded
• Make a decision to put in some of the technology
• Still meeting with other start up team members
• Went back excited about the different technologies

Baby Steps...2 years on...Sean Simper

• At Online Access College
• 15 years experience prior to Start up including Web Design business
• Taking ideas back to work, finding out what people were doing, continually flagging things that they should be doing better
• Organised an elearning expo (primary to TAFE staff sharing what they were doing with others)
• Kept looking for opportunities continually - flexible learning strategies
• Started networking with others
• Project - taking stock of elearning direction
• In project on multimedia online learning objects
• Looked at funding opportunities, finding people with a passion who spoke a similar language, conferences, online training, edayz
• Sense of an antenna - honing your skills - the who, what, where, how
• Be strong in your mind about what you want to do and go out and try it, communities, blogging, connect with other, training (you must be the driver), work out who you need to talk it, find the person to make it happen
• New project on research into podcasting
• Passion and drive
• (Marlene comments he was always there at everything she went to)

Sphere of influence

• Dropping a pebble in water - ripple effect
• You can influence things you are in contact with
• World sphere - so far out of our sphere of influence (but they affect us)
• Peoplele usually work on their sphere of influence and whinge about the world sphere of influence because they can't change it.
• Middle sphere of influence - break our of your sphere of influence and influence change in areas around you, eg, talk to your manager, get elearning on the agenda. It will ripple out and it will accelerate - "The surface of the pond has been disturbed".
• Push those walls and don't waste your time on things you can't change (the really big picture)

Introducing the e-learning guru

• Passion
• Risk-taker
• Determined & initiative
• Approachable
• A willing learning
• Skilled
• Willingness to explore
• Expansive & creative
• Energetic
• Persistence
• Prioritise
• Focused
• Non-threatening
• Networking

Guest Speaker - Robby Weatherley

• Capability Building Program Leader (Australian Flexible Learning Framework)
• Professional Development: opportunities to learn, progressing skill, creating new knowledge, application in context
• Strategies: workshops, mentoring, networks, coaching, conferences, conversations, dialogue, experimentation, reading, watching, questioning
• Expert centered learning
• Work based learning
• Life based learning ... adults learn from multiple sources, ie, leisure, family, work, personal

Speed Dating!

We had to sit in two rows facing each other and we had one minute each to tell the person opposite us how what steps we were now going to take to become an e-learning guru. After two minutes one row had to move down a chair so we had to talk to the next person. My thoughts were as following:

• Read our forums, make time to really look at links everyone else's provides
• Look and participate in other online communities at EdNA groups
• Share my journey with others at work, get their input

FINISH HOMEWORK BY 10am THURSDAY 27 JULY

My exploration

The following are extracts from my homework forum question where we had to discuss our explorations of the tools presented to us in Workshop 2:

• Skype: I have downloaded skype and have it working on my computer. I know we won't have permission to use this at TAFE but I still think I could talk to some of my students from home if they miss a class or need help prior to major assignments/tests etc.
  
• Wikis: I have set up a wiki for myself and jotted down some ideas I have been having about a project at work. I have also spoken to my manager about us using wikis for agendas for meetings so everyone can have some say (anonymously) about what we want covered at staff meetings. For students, ? use it as a brainstorming tool to find out what students know about a topic and maybe getting lesson feedback about what was good or bad about a topic and what they need extra help with???
  
• Live classrooms: I haven't managed to set up one of these for myself yet because THEY ARE BLOCKED ON THE TAFE NETWORK!!!!!! Elluminate was impressive when I got to see it in action at the Tapping into Social Networking for E-learning Online Event. It was possible for everyone to interact with each other in a number of ways, eg, voice, text etc.
  
• VETSA classrooms: I have using forums in an online classroom I have but haven't had any responses from students except for a very funny one from a student who had been busy celebrating our victory in the world cup the night before and couldn't come to class. I did have one other student who added some useful links but interestingly enough it really just ended up being a way for me to communicate on mass to the students and they seemed happy enough to get the posts emailed to them.
  
• del.icio.us: This is a place for keeping your favourites and sharing them with others.
  
• Podcasting: Attended an Apple podcasting in education seminar this week which was awesome. I think our students would love this as a way to receive and submit assignments. Unfortunately there are not equivalent tools for PCs!!! Must looks at Podkids and download iTunes to see what podcasts are out there. Also must look at subsribing to relevent ones.

LearnScope Start-up Workshop 2

E-learning tools, LMSs, online spaces and other resources:

• Survey Monkey for creating surveys.
• MeetOMatic for organising meetings.
• QuickTopic for discussion forums.
• Skype for making free voice calls over the internet.
• Seedwiki for creating a place where everyone can edit the pages (asynchronous).
• Tripod for creating free websites.
• LiVVe and iVisit for creating collaborative spaces.
• Quiz Center for creating puzzles.
• VETSA for free online classrooms.
• EdNA Groups for free staff rooms.

Thoughts so far ...

I can't believe 3 weeks has passed since our first LearnScope session. Where has the time gone??? I have done the required homework but still feel like there is so much more I could be doing. I wish I had a PAUSE button somewhere!

I feel the need to rewind and comment on some things from the first LearnScope session that have stuck in my mind:

• Allison commented on reproducing exactly what is done in the LearnScope sessions back in her classroom. This was a bit of a light bulb moment for me (doh!) - of course that is what we can do and probably should be doing. I think I have previously had the notion I could use the tools but had to come up with my own way of doing things. Whilst, I may well have to modify things to suit my students at least I have a complete working template to start with!
• I thought the exercise we did to define flexible learning was great and a good way to get everyone moving around etc, I must try this too! If I remember correctly we wrote down our definitions, passed them around and then in pairs gave them a score of seven. We did this five times to get a possible total out of 35.
• Encourage students to use blogs for learning journals also. Get them to share with other students if they feel comfortable doing so. Suggest to them to take their notes there etc.

I'm sure there is more and hopefully it will come back to me!

Orangies blogs

I thought I might put the links for the rest of the orangies' blogs in one place so I can easily find them. I hope nobody minds I have done this. Please let me know if you do.

• Tracy
• Joanna
• Kylie
• Sonya
• Annette
• Sylvia
• Daryll
  
  

LearnScope Start-up Workshop 1

I created this blog a couple of months ago and then never really knew what to do with it. Now here I am at the first LearnScope workshop and find out we need to create a blog... at last, a use for my blog!!!!!

Wow!!! My own blog!!! How bloody exciting is that!