Copy files into multiple folders (How To)

Michael Chalk2 Commentshow to, Uncategorized

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?

Progress at Lalor LLC phlogged to the world

Michael Chalk1 CommentUncategorized

In response to our plea to try out the very simple phone blogging tool, ipadio, Assunta has produced a wonderful progress report on her and Carmela’s e-project. We’ve embedded it here to inspire you to have a go: Thanks very much for participating with enthusiasm and dedication so far, Assunta and Carmela. We look forward to hearing and seeing your presie online or in our June showcase (more on that later…) You can find a previous post about Progress at Lalor here or Search using the new Search Feature (top Read More …

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

Michael ChalkLeave a commenthow to, Uncategorized

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 …

How to phone blog with iPadio – Listen to the recording of the webinar

Michael Chalk3 CommentsUncategorized

#1) Live session / workshop – a North West Cafe webinar. One of the simplest ways to get people talking on the web: we’re running a session introducing newcomers to iPadio (phone blogging). Because people have such complicated lives, we’re running it twice. And we’re offering this out to the other regions, so we need to have your RSVP. A hands-on tutorial in making a phone blog using ipadio. For people with absolutely no experience in this wonderfully easy podcasting tool. For e-leaders in the current e-mentors program plus anyone else with Read More …

E-learning at Carlton in focus

Michael ChalkLeave a commente-learning, professional development, Uncategorized

Here’s our latest guest blogger: Sarah Deasey from Carlton NLC. Thanks so much Sarah, and welcome (michael).  Hello this is Sarah. I am the Further Education coordinator at CNLC. There have been many opportunities for development of basic computer and online skills in the last 10 years or more. Past projects include: Skillsnet funding in the Nineties for broad community training; a telematics trust  grant for disability students; and various grants through the flexible learning framework. Most staff have taken up the opportunities with goodwill and a range of enthusiasm.  Read More …

Phone blog your Progress, Part 2: E-skills at Carlton NLC

Michael Chalk1 CommentUncategorized

Further to the post, Phone blog your Progress, here are some interesting phone blogs kindly shared with us by staff from Carlton Neighbourhood Learning Centre (CNLC). They were asked to describe how the teaching and learning in their ESL classes changed in 2011 with the introduction of internet and the projector into the classrooms. The CNLC ipadio player: The following phone blogs or ‘phlogs’ can be heard by clicking the little red + icon in the bottom right corner of the player (found as you move your mouse over the Read More …

Using the scanner to get text

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

Tina came in today wanting to know how to use the scanner. “Aha!” I thought, “Finally an easy question.” Because of course i’d already made a “how to document” for using the flatbed scanner in the teachers’ room. I just need to remember where i’ve saved the file ^_^ How wrong i was. Just as well i looked for the file, because i needed to read it in order to remember how do use the scanner. It’s not intuitive by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. Scanners are rarely intuitive – especially Read More …

Phone blog your progress here via our iPadio phonecast channel

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, professional development

This post was originally written by Jill Koppel, as part of our North West e-mentor blog. Below is a phone blog posted by Jill to our North West e-Mentors ipadio channel. Phone blogging is very easy to do – once you’re feeling confident with the technology you could even create a channel for your students to use. Please consider joining us here with your first phone blog. Our iPadio channel is open for business: using ipadio you can call a special number (from anywhere in Australia it’s 1800-802569) from either Read More …

The magic & beauty of “RSS feeds” (aka headlines)

Michael ChalkLeave a commenttechnology

This week, Jill & Michael had a conversation about the mysterious things known as RSS feeds. We covered a  fair bit of ground, including:1) What are they?2) Using google reader to follow many different streams in one place3) Alternatives – follow, friend etc ..but we didn’t get onto this topic4) feeds into wikispaces. RSS is a little-understood phenomenon that can be hugely handy to getting things done, and wading gently through the streams of internet information. Here’s a recording of the session. Here’s the famous “Common Craft” introduction to RSS: Read More …

Updates and work changes

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, community, technology

So, it’s clearly been years since i’ve posted in this place. There’s been a whole lot going on in the meantime, including pandemic etc. Since 2017, my teaching has focussed mainly on technology aka “digital literacy” within adult community education (ACE), and i haven’t done much in the way of language and literacy teaching at all. I’ve been working as a “learning facilitator” aka Tour Guide at the Polly Woodside Museum, with the National Trust. For those who didn’t grow up in Melbourne, Polly Woodside is an old sailing ship, Read More …

Writings Reclaimed

Michael ChalkLeave a commenttechnology

I decided to bring posts to this blog from other projects, such as: Digital Learning at PRACE Digital Learning at Lalor Living and Learning ACFE Learn Local Communities of Practice the North-West e-mentor projects from ACFE Learn Local iPad for Seniors at PRACE the 23 Things project from ACFE, CAE and PRACE.   Having written nearly all the text in those places, i wanted gather it all together. It was relatively easy to export from Blogger, and then import into WordPress here. Unfortunately, now i’ve discovered several roadblocks, namely: the Read More …

Mark Hopkins’ story translated into many languages

Michael ChalkLeave a commentadult literacy

You remember Mark Hopkins, the adult learner from PRACE who told his story so well, not only in our publication, but also on the SBS Insight tv program last year? Well, some of the stories from this Resilience collection have been translated into other languages for the EPALE* site, and the first story to be translated was Mark’s. *EPALE: Electronic Platform for Adult Learning in Europe. https://goo.gl/XqROOX

Adult Learners in Conversation – “A Fuller Sense of Self”

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, adult literacy, community

Last night Tricia Bowen spoke about her experience of reconnecting with the adult learners who have shared their stories in this volume. I talked about how great it was to join with Tricia and Lynne in the whole creative and collaborative process of editing. Then Lynne Matheson invited us to launch the video into the world, so we all made rocket-launching sounds, and the champagne flowed. * It was such a good experience filming and editing these stories with Tricia. I would love to hear any feedback, especially related to Read More …

Reading between the Lines – SBS Insight focus on Adult Literacy

Michael ChalkLeave a commentadult literacy

If you think Australia is a highly literate nation, watch this recent episode of Insight from SBS. This powerful and moving episode features Mark Hopkins one of the students from PRACE. I spoke with Mark as part of the “Stories of Resilience” project, and it’s really heartening to hear his voice in this national forum. All these adult learners show real courage and vulnerability, as they describe their experience for people who have no idea of the extent of this hidden problem. Over 40% of Australians experience some level of difficulty Read More …

Dark Side of the Comment Section

Michael ChalkLeave a commentcommunity, technology

If you’re involved with any kind of online facilitation, you may appreciate this article from The Guardian. They’ve done some research into the comment section, finding that much more abuse is directed at female writers than male. (Also, for web designers, some really good layout effects, especially the way they’ve integrated the graphs and the “how would you moderate this comment” bits.) There’s a whole series around this research, articles interviewing people who have experienced the maelstrom of massive online shaming and bullying.. and articles on ideas for making things Read More …

PageTurners has a new online shop

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, adult literacy, community

Just sent out the latest PageTurners newsletter, letting people know that the new shopping-cart style website is up and running!! It’s taken me much time this year to get the site all updated and e-commercey, so i’m very happy that we’ve finally launched. Woot. You can read the newsletter here. Take a look at the site, tell us what you think. Oh, we need a feedback form don’t we. If you’re not subscribed to the PageTurners email list, you can join via the website.

iPad apps especially for Seniors??

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, technology

I wondered if there are any iPad apps that would be especially useful for people over 55, so i searched the web for  “best apps for ipad for seniors“. Sure enough, there are many many lists: “16 helpful apps for seniors”, “27 bet iPad and iPhone apps for senior citizens”. But are any of them useful.. and how many of these apps are FREE..? Well, some of them are designed to help people by improving things like: Visual accessibility: Silver Surf is a web browser with “large navigation buttons, dynamic text Read More …

Some help files for blogger

Michael ChalkLeave a commenthow to

Here’s a basic intro that Michael made – for low level students really (link: pdf stored in google drive). GCF LearnFree don’t have an intro to blogger, but they do have a great section talking about blogs in general, and an intro to Tumblr instead. Tumblr is much more visual than blogger, which can be text-heavy. Google themselves have a fairly decent help section. Grovo has a few videos showing the basics, including this overview. But they’re a commercial mob, and they’ll want you to pay for more. What good Read More …