electro-textual

There’s some amazing work happening in the NW region of Melbourne.

Jill Koppel and i have been on an adventure trail around the ACE providers involved in this year’s e-mentor projects, finding out what people are already doing.. and what they’d like to be doing. We’ve seen student-created zines and blogs, wikispaces built for course materials, computer labs filled with not only pc-machines but also iMacs.. and mini-projectors that would fit in your handbag.

So far, we’ve met with people at Yooralla in the city, Diamond Valley out in Greensborough, Thornbury Women’s NH, Carlton NLC, Olympic AE and Span in Thornbury.

There’s interest in building online spaces for staff and students, creating online courses to add more flexibility for new and existing courses, and adding more engaging use of technology to classroom situations. People want to learn about interactive whiteboards, online voice tools, wikispaces, organisational e-strategy.. and that big old challenge: how to choose the best technology for your teaching/learning purpose.

Overview and links over on the e-mentor wiki. http://ementors.acfe.vic.edu.au/northwest10
We’ll post more detail soon.

michael

(“North West” means the North West of metropolitan Melbourne – it’s a region for the ACFE board, which is similar to state and local government boundaries.)

What’s your dream for e-learning?

Have you heard these dreams yet? On a few occasions, beginning with the ACE e-learning showcase this year, people have shared their dreams for e-learning. You can listen to other people’s dreams for e-learning on the voxopop board, and then post your own response.. put your dream into the world!

(The board is open to all your comments and dreams now – i think you need to register.)

You may notice on the Can You Hear Us? wiki, how the “RSS feed” from this voxopop beard can be embedded into a wiki page.. allowing extra access to the recordings. (We don’t think you can embed the whole board, only the RSS feed.)

Plus: take another look at the wonderful work Dale Pobega has been doing with voxopop, via his Free ESL Blog (look for the voxopop link, left-hand side). You could leave a supportive comment for his students.

(Related links: at the ACE e-learning showcase earlier this year, michael coghlan spoke of voxopop in his keynote address, as one of the tools that can add to social connection via the interwaves.)

feedback very welcome ;-]
thanks and kind regards, michael

..and on the topic of electric dreams, have you seen the grooveshark site yet? Embed any song you like, even the bad ones:

The AccessACE classroom practice group recently had a live session looking at Voxopop. (i’ve put the recording link in the ACE e-learning network Ning for members.)

Michael Coghlan spoke at the recent ACE e-learning showcase on the topic of building online community. (A re-working of his piece from the Community Engagement showcase in Cairns Nov. ’07.)

For 21C learning, “you need a gang!” according to Mike Seyfang. (NB: Thanks mike S for your comment: i wonder where the “paraphrase” comes from  ;-]

It’s all about collaboration and connection.
“a gang”: Having a group of friends and colleagues within easy reach is a good way to strengthen your knowledge and understanding through the magic of PLN (Personal Learning Network).

Michael played us a video of a pastor from the US who vehemently believes that community is not possible without physical presence. That you can have connection online but not community.

There are all sorts of semantic debates about whether you have connection, community, or a network, in online environments. Michael firmly believes that community is possible. 

My favourite is slide 13, where he said:

“Online Community – what’s the appeal?

• You connect less with some of the people around you in your daily life!
  
• You connect with people you already know via a different medium (online). (You get to know people differently)
  
• You connect with people you would otherwise have had no contact with”

.. and happily acknowledged that there are plenty of people he’d rather not meet (in the daily physical world) at all. For Michael it’s much better to connect with like-minded souls, than to endure the presence of people who happen to be in the same physical environment.

Here’s the presentation with voiceover ..
(via the audio goodness of a “slidecast”).

Much of the story focusses on Michael’s experiences with the Webheads, an online community of people who have got to know each other really well over the last decade or so; who started off as friends in cyberspace, but who have now met up in person in many different places.

He talks about many tools used for building community, such as 

• twitter (and yammer)
• twemes.com
• poll everywhere (which he demonstrated live)
• flickr

Full story of this ACE e-showcase event on the Access ACE e-showcase site.

At the recent ACE e-showcase, Michael Gwyther from YUM productions gave a great account of how they have used web2 technologies in one of their multimedia courses. Here’s the list of tools they’ve used:

1. Blog
2. Social Bookmarks (delicious)
3. RSS Feeds
4. Podomatic
5. Slideshare
6. Flickr
7. Video
8. RSS Feed reader! (Bloglines)

The key for Michael is RSS feeds. As multiple students post their course reflections and assignments to their blog, he is able to read the updates from a single place .. his RSS feed reader.

For a feed reader, i like google reader, but michael prefers bloglines. (There are so many options.)

Whatever works for you and your learners is the best choice!

i liked michael’s comment that when most people hear the word “feed” they think oats and hay.

Here are some of the web addresses michael handed out:

• Class blog: c2mm.blogspot.com
• Gwyther social bookmarks delicious.com/mgwyther
• Class podcast: elearn.podomatic.com

Plus (mildly related):

• here’s my own “shared items” from google reader,
• and my “social” bookmarks on delicious (which isn’t really very social).

PS: What exactly is RSS? => i have some notes over on my wikispace.
This video from Common Craft is also one of the best explanations around:

PS i’m sorry i refuse to say web 2.0. It’s a waste of time. We’re not getting web 2.1, so for me it’s just web2. Okay?

photo credit: Colleen AF Venable