"ease" of Screencasting part ii

Michael ChalkLeave a commentclassroom, e-learning, professional development, technology

Well .. Lisa continued her brave and valiant exploration of screencasting in the MYOB classroom, as part of the Can You Hear Us? project. And it’s still not as straightforward as we’d like it to be. We discovered a few more things about this program known as Jing. We already knew that the application would not run without a login. Now we know it’s a challenge to log yourself off the system .. for example when you’re on a public computer. Lisa’s had a go at recording the in-class on-screen Read More …

Mainstreaming e-learning in ACE .. an impossible dream?

Michael Chalk2 Commentsace, e-learning

i’d be interested to get comments from anyone in ACE: is e-learning still out on the fringes, a strange and wacky add-on only for geeks? Or has it begun to come in from the cold? Is e-learning becoming part of the mainstream in ACE? For this live conference session (details below) Josie Rose started us off by leading some group brainstorming: what does ‘mainstreaming’ mean to you? On the whole, it was about normalising, acceptance, integration. Josie then spoke of the wonderful “e-mentor” program that she has pioneered, and which Read More …

Fill in forms .. on CD

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, adult literacy, classroom, e-learning

Chris couldn’t do the whole research project, but i still wanted her to be involved; so we talked about how to use audio technologies with her very beginner, low literacy ESL learners. Filling in forms is a crucial survival skill, but the language is reasonably advanced. Chris’ students find it hard to remember written text or even recognise words on the page.. so we decided to prepare an audio CD allowing the text to be both on the page and on the CD player. She would have them do the Read More …

(cck08) Nancy White on .. appreciative change

Michael Chalk3 Commentsprofessional development

The fabulous choc-o-Nancy White was speaking about all manner of things today, including: how to facilitate in a massive online course, and the implications of trust in large networks; the range of identity and boundary from the personal, through communities to networks; new and emerging roles and practices; the value of “appreciative change”, which is related to the appreciative inquiry championed by Marie Jasinski and Maret Staron in ’07 research. Recognise people’s strengths as a starting point for the learning process. Ideas came up around the responsibility of adult learners Read More …

CCK08: Power to force involvement in a course?

Michael Chalk2 Commentsprofessional development

Link : CCK08: Power and Auto-Subscribe (the connectivism forums, week 08). In week 08, Stephen decided to exert his power over the masses of people involved in the massive OOC known as connectivism 08. Through the flick of a switch, he drew many back into public conversation. People who know the forum software called “Moodle”, will know that you can “force” your enrolled students to receive copies forum posts via email. Stephen flicked this switch, and hundreds of people around the world started to experience Inbox Pressure from all the Read More …

make Designed > Zip Zip Usb Brick

Michael Chalk1 Commentinnovation

Yes i should be catching up on many weeks of the cck08 connectivism .. but this gadget from Pat’s shop is too much fun to pass by. The Lego usb stick. i especially love the one with a lego cap on it. make Designed Objects > Zip Zip Usb Memory Brick. Pat runs the make shop in Elgin St, Carlton (Melbourne) .. full of beautiful designer objects. The web site is fully flash, but still searchable with proper urls and page titles. Lovely work.

mm, the 'ease' of screencasting

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, professional development

So, Lisa was having some issues finding a straightforward way to incorporate audio technologies into her classroom. i suggested some ‘preparation-free’ activities such as : recording the presentation live in class (audio only) recording the screen demonstration live in class (screen and audio) We thought this might work, and i’d had some fun using “jing” for making a screencast. Looked easy to me. So i turn up at Lisa’s workplace, laptop at the ready. What could possibly go wrong? my laptop can’t connect to the Moreland network, and Jing will Read More …

catching up with the connectivist crowd (week1)

Michael ChalkLeave a commentprofessional development

So it’s week 6 already, halfway through the course, and i must sheepishly admit i’ve been ignoring my responsibilities as a student. i’ve been following some of the forum discussions, and some of the connected bloggers, and Stephen’s dailies .. i’ve even made some notes and saved up a few delicious bookmarks. But i haven’t posted any reflections or readings here on the blog. Oh blimey.

A pen that reads aloud?

Michael ChalkLeave a commentadult literacy, technology

So Pauline mentions, on her way out of the office, that she once saw a “scanner pen” that would read aloud printed words from the page. “Stop right there!” i leapt up from my seat. (Actually, i gazed up in a web-induced stupor, “Hmm?”) At a conference for adaptive technologies a couple of years ago, she saw one of these things being used. A pen, that scans the page and reads aloud. i want one. i want several !! How useful would that be for literacy learners?! .. could be Read More …

Taxonomy of blogs, and civility online (radio national)

Michael Chalk1 Commentresearch, technology

Browsing the Radio national podcasts, i found this interview and panel discussion: “Author and media analyst Margaret Simons takes a stab at defining the different types of blogs that currently exist.” (The interview follows an article in Creative Economy, where you’ll find relevant other links.) 1) Pamphleteering – often political blogs are like this, with many authors. 2) Digest blog, which aggregates and comments on a range of other stuff, eg from other blogs or from mainstream media. 3) Advocacy, eg telstra – where the company gets their workers to 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 …