electro-textual

“We’re so far off online learning,” said one manager to me, implying that it was so difficult we shouldn’t even bother.

My first response was to bring it all back to the classroom. “Online learning is only one part of e-learning,” I replied. I think people still see the two terms as identical, which is a problem.

E-learning, step 1: some kind of technology in your face-to-face situation. For example, taking photographs on an excursion, or recording audio from student presentations. Having access to a local network drive folder for sharing documents & files. Using a data projector with wireless keyboard to engage & motivate.

E-learning, step 2: some kind of online presence for your classroom. For example, storing learning resources on a wiki or blog or something similar. So that students can access them outside of set class times.

E-learning, step 3: regular face-to-face intensive workshops for your online course. To make sure you’re building strong group dynamics for collaborative and constructive learning.

So really, in the ACE / Learn Local sector, we’re dealing with steps 1 & 2. And step 1 is about making  sure you have the infrastructure in place, as well as some good strategies for teaching & learning.

(These are my initial thoughts: I’m coming back to add more. Let me know what you think in the comments.)

VALBEC conference, 17 May 13

Ah, it all seemed so simple: Having trouble with conference prep. BYOD is challenging.

Any ideas for a better way? 

Hello Internet Friends. I need your help preparing for a conference workshop (VALBEC 13). Please share your ideas or feedback via the comments below:

• Do you have any experience with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in the classroom? 
• How does this session plan look.. what would you add or subtract or change in any way?

Okay this is totally a spoiler for anyone who is thinking of coming to the VALBEC conference in 2 weeks. Here’s my pitch: “All you have is the internet and a data projector. Some of your students have telephones, maybe there’s a smartphone, a tablet or one other laptop in the room. How can you engage a group of literacy learners with the limited technology on hand?” 

The theme is “BYOD”: bring your own device.

• Smartphone, tablet, laptop, ordinary mobile phone, camera. Pens & paper.
• Anything that is capable of connecting to a wifi signal, taking a photograph, making a phone call, recording audio etc….

Session structures

[Cross-posted from the North-West e-learning mentor blog.]

Recently I spoke with Carmen Harris from Yooralla adult education. Carmen was involved in the North-West e-learning mentor projects back in 2011. She told me all about the amazing work they’ve been doing with literacy and technology over there, including blogs, facebook, email lists and zines.

You can listen to the interview right here. I was aiming to edit down to 5-8 minutes, but Carmen just kept on saying interesting things. Highly recommended for an insight into creative classroom practices.

[Tech notes:]

We spoke over Skype and I recorded the call using a thing called “Amolto skype recorder”. Really impressed with the sound quality.. but it was interesting that the Amolto app gave no warning it was recording. Just so you know.. it is possible that someone could be recording you in a Skype conversation without telling you.

I’ve used soundcloud to host the audio files, which is a very impressive app used by musicians and podcasters around the world. The free account gives you 200 minutes of sound files.

Good discussion on the ACE Network Ning, started by Lynne Gibb the e-mentor for Eastern Metro Region.

Like Lynne, I used to be a big PaintShop Pro fan, as i had a free licensed version from one of the computer magazines. Now I use XNview for browsing through my image collection, and also for those times you have to quickly re-size, adjust colours or optimise an image for the web. [Here's my video screencast about it.]

Screenshot captor is my choice for screengrabs (similar to Carole’s Snipping Tool.) I’ve loaded it in my dropbox apps folder and set it to auto-start on all the windows machines.

I’ve used The Gimp, when i was on a mac & couldn’t access xnview or macromedia fireworks. Takes some getting used to, but it will do most of the things you need. Free and open source, you can run this as a portable app too.

Screencast-o-matic is the tool i use when i want to make a video screencast. It runs in Java, which can be trouble-some, but the web-based app now has a desktop version. [Here's my list of video screencasts.]

Over on the LearnLocal e-learning network, Liz Grigg from Eastern Region has started a discussion: “ just wondering what your favorite new eTool is.”

There has been a lot of talk about touch-screen, mobile & tablets – so I finally found an Android tablet that matches the iPad. I’ve just bought myself the Google Nexus 10. (Similar to Ruth’s choice of Galaxy Note.)

Partly because I wanted to see what all the fuss is about – and while I admire the beauty and simplicity of Apple products, the iPad is not for me (*).. which meant waiting until Android caught up. At last!

Now I’m a couple of weeks into the experiment, and I’m very impressed. I honestly didn’t think I would have much use for an e-tablet, but I hadn’t recognised how much I was using the phone for reading the news, reading email, engaging in social media (for both social and educational networking).. and yes occasionally watching my favourite TV shows.

So now I’m thinking about applications for education. The Nexus series are very closely integrated with the google apps world, and here at PRACE, we’ve been running google apps for our email.. branching out into docs. So that level of shared documents, calendars.. possibly google plus for information streams, video conferencing via hangout.. could be worth exploring. I wonder how the Nexus 7 might compare to iPad mini in a classroom setting.

Found a lovely conversation on the Adult Learning Australia (ALA) Linkedin page, started by Sally Thompson. It was great to see so many joyful responses [You'll need to join the conversation group to follow those links.]

I must say Junita amazes me with her constant sense of bubbling joy in her work. She’s a real inspiration in the way she’ll organise a network of educators and draw them into connecting. Above and beyond! Junita spoke of a small group of collaborative educators who would get together and learn collaboratively on a regular basis. We need to learn stuff, let’s do it together! A different person each week would take on the facilitation.

Like some others in that conversation, my joyful learning is in the music sphere. I took a jazz piano course with Steve Sedergreen at the CAE which improved my playing and enjoyment out of sight (although still a beginner in many ways). It was very interesting to be on the other end of the teaching there. As well as that i’ve been developing singing skills on a Monday morning in the city with an amazing woman called Vicki. Next up I’m hoping to get a few different people to show me how to play a semi-acoustic bass guitar. So much fun.

Angela’s reminded me to put Vietnamese cooking on my list of classes to explore as well. Ta.

Naturally the theme of work pressure came up. The adult training sector is now so overloaded with documentation and accreditation demands, that it’s a wonder people have any time left to themselves. Nonetheless, it’s vital to a balanced life – make sure you get out and learn something for yourself.

Here’s to more joy in all our learning lives,
michael

If you drift past here, tell us what kind of learning has brought you joy lately, in or out of your work.

Last year, a few of the Victorian LearnLocal e-learning mentors put our heads together to think about the skills that people need when they want to run a live web conferencing session. I think it’s really crucial, if you’re thinking of running a live web conferencing session, to get as much help as you possibly can.

We came up with the ideas in this document below. Direct link to document here, and i’ll attempt to embed it below as well.

What have we missed – what would you add? Have you attempted to run a live online session? How did you find it?