Copy files into multiple folders (How To)

Barb and I were working together one morning, looking for a way to copy the same file into all the student folders. There are many ways to do this, but perhaps the best is a combination of keyboard and mouse action. Essentially, you need to1) Hold Down the Ctrl Key, and2) drag the file across the screen, from one folder into another. Here’s a video screencast by Michael Chalk, where he shows one way to do this: What about you – how would you share files with your students?

Email with your students? Take it easy, step-by-step

by Travelin’ Librarian at flickr Here’s a challenging assignment: Chris Mooney came into the teacher room asking for ideas and guidance around setting up email accounts for all her students. Yes, that can be a huge and daunting job, especially if you try to set up all the accounts in one go. [I have tried that, and Never Again is my motto.] So here are some ideas that came up while Chris and i were talking about it: Single group email account1) You could start, not with individual email accounts, but rather with Read More …

Embed media in a wikispaces page

Jill and i were working with Ursula and Trish over at Thornbury Women’s Neighbourhood House the other day, showing them some new skills in wikispaces. So many Adult Community Education (ACE) educators are taking up the wikispaces toolset, especially given ACFE’s private domain label wikispaces for Victorian ACE providers. Afterwards i remembered that i had once made a couple of video screencasts for wikispaces. (Look for the full screen button if you need it, in the video controls). a) how to embed media (such as video) into your page

How to embed documents in your blog (eg blogger)

Several people on the CAE 23 Things project wanted to know how to embed documents in their blog. There are a few ways. (edublogs allows you to upload documents, but i’m not sure that blogger does. And David made the point that if he’s uploading all the time, he’ll use his storage quota in no time.) The trick is to use an external service, eg Slideshare, iScribd, youtube, docstocs, yudu or google docs (your choice could depend on the kind of document). sign up to another web service (eg scribd, Read More …

Coming to grips with "Latest Headlines" (aka RSS)

There’s so much to read on the web.. you might want to keep in touch with several sites at once. for example i like to follow the news headlines from The Age, and my favourite radio shows on the ABC. You could visit each site individually.. or you could use an “RSS reader” to keep in touch with the latest updates. Rss readers are becoming increasingly popular. google has a good reader.. which you have access to if you’ve signed up for blogger dot com or any other google service. Read More …

Green is for listening? The trauma of windows volume control..

So Tina, one of our amazing English teachers at PRACE, comes in with our box of headsets, “Same question i ask you every Monday.. green is for listening?” This is one of the things that used to drive me crazy when we were running our Can You Hear Us? projects.. (No, not Tina.. the computers!!) (Beware: Rant Approaching.) Most of the windows/pc boxes have a colour coding for the audio sockets (green for listening, pink for speaking), but many headsets use a different colour code for their plugs (orange or Read More …

How stylish and strategic are you?

Most people enjoy getting some feedback on their inner “nature”.. some better idea of who they are in different contexts. Surely this is why horoscopes are so popular, as well as identity quizzes (huge on Facebook – eg “Which Buffy character are you?“). A symptom of our Western cultural heritage where self-knowledge is not explicitly taught, leaving people hungry for any basic clues to who they might be. For any kind of structured learning, self-knowledge can be vital to your effectiveness. i know that i learn best when i have Read More …

Huge list of places to find learning materials

Over at PRACE we’re setting up flexible delivery for ICT (information technology) and VET (vocational education & training). (Wrote about this before here, in an attempt to find someone who had the answer already.) But who wants to invent the wheel.. we want to use existing learning materials. Where do we start? So i compiled a big list of places to start searching for learning materials, including: Tied firmly to training packages, the Flexible learning toolboxes, from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework .. or the flexible learning toolbox “repository” (where Read More …

Colleagues diving into web2 with gusto (flickr)

Imagine my delight when Jane the wonderful VCAL co-ordinator at Preston Reservoir Adult Community Education (PRACE) said she wanted to try out flickr for building a slideshow on our website!! 1) Jane had already chosen the photos to go online, and copied them into a folder on her desktop. We used a free image editor called XNview to re-size and optimise for the web. XNview is great because you can do the whole folder in one “batch process”. .. (More details about xnview over on my wiki page .. including Read More …

Screencast [and budget] for fun

Part of the new PRACE flexible delivery project is about showing information technology teachers how to set up a screencast in their classroom. Because there are a few different products on offer, i thought it would be useful to trial some of them up front. Last year, we looked at Jing, as Lisa from Moreland showed her MYOB students some new skills. (Part 1, part 2.) This time around, the buzz is on Screencastle. Recording is straightforward and fast. You set the size of your screen grab and go. It’s Read More …