Australian ACE e-learning network

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, e-learning, professional development

Great to be involved in a national e-learning network for Adult Community Education (ACE). Mary Hannan from Adult Learning Australia (ALA) has taken on the role of bringing together some e-learning people in the community sector. Just got together with some people around the continent, in a meeting where Josie Rose told us all about the Victorian ACE e-mentor project, a regional approach that’s emerged from the ’07 Access ACE research trials; Georgina Nou (of Deadly Mob fame) showed us around Second Life, and inspired me to have another go Read More …

Guest speaker rocks the audio house

Michael ChalkLeave a commentprofessional development

Ah, delight! The technology worked! For our Can You Hear Us? project, we were lucky enough to get Michael Coghlan on our wavelength as guest speaker. He was in Adelaide, and we were in Melbourne. It was all done with the smoke and mirrors of skype. i love that! Michael told us about many wonderful tools for getting audio online, from voiceboards to podcasts and live conferencing. His slideshow is online on the project wiki .. and if we can get the recording to work, i’ll post that too. Actually Read More …

keyboard lights up .. video in class

Michael ChalkLeave a commentclassroom, technology

Here’s a gadget that looks like fun .. and is completely useless. i just want to know if it comes in Dvorak flavour. Speaking of gadgets, today we had the adult literacy classroom on their laptops for the whole session. i wanted to get students used to searching for images and videos, so a couple of activities focussed on these skills. For example, find a video that interests you on how stuff works. Watch it, take some notes and then write a response (a description, an opinion or a set Read More …

[cck08] initial connections .. on the map

Michael ChalkLeave a commentcommunity, professional development

So i’ve listened to some audio/video recordings, i’ve read a couple of articles, i’ve finally made it into the forum areas .. and most importantly, i’ve put myself on the map. Rodd (the Clever Sheep ..from Canada i think) set up a shared map within the google-o-sphere, and created a neat screen cast to show the rest of us how to join in. Yay Rodd. (Yes i did have to watch the video to work out how it is done.) A few fellow Australians already there, including Howard Errey, Alison Read More …

elluminated innovations (reporting season)

Michael ChalkLeave a commente-learning

Last Tuesday was the mid-year reporting session for Victorian e-learning innovations. Some terrific work going on, especially Coonara community learning centre, and AMES who are both using wiki for students and classrooms. Howard gave us all a three minute timer, and because PRACE was close to the end of the day, i finished 5 seconds inside my 3 minutes. Woot. i enjoy talking to a 3 minute timer .. means you just focus on the essential points. Elluminated? We met in the elluminate live conference room. Always fun to meet Read More …

Massive connectivist hook-up

Michael Chalk2 Commentsprofessional development, technology

Well this is extraordinary. Nearly two thousand people involved in a massive online course on Connectivism; a course that will go from now until November-ish, and takes place on thousands of different sites around the world. Have to join in, don’t i! Stephen and George are among my favourite writers, and yes, i’ve missed a couple of courses i wanted to attend this year (eg Leigh on facilitating).. so it’s time to dive in and experience. Got no idea what connectivism is really .. well it’s somewhere in there with Read More …

Ceres, goddess of excursions ..

Michael Chalk2 Commentsace, adult literacy, classroom, community

Way back in February, Leigh Blackall wrote about his journey to Melbourne, and to Ceres Environmental Park. He raved about the luxury of having such a wonderful site so close to the city – and recorded a couple of interviews with the locals there. Yes Leigh, we’re lucky here in Melbourne. i’m really lucky, i can go visit Ceres any time i like, and often buy my organic vegies there. They also have a second-hand market on a Saturday morning, and let me tell you i’ve found some real bargains. Read More …

Struggle with wordpress

Michael Chalk1 Commentace

Over at PRACE, we’ve been upgrading our website to wordpress, so that a range of people may author and edit content on the site. Yes it’s taken me quite some time to finally get the thing ready to show other co-ordinators, but it’s a lot of fun to work with the new system. It’s meant i’ve had to upgrade the wordpress on this site, to find out more about how it all works. (Upgrading is an adventure in itself.) .. and now, the editing (wysiwyg) toolbars don’t really work, the Read More …

mashed-up e-Gems from Jokaydia

Michael ChalkLeave a commente-learning

Mashups have been the most flavoursome technological approach for the last couple of years, in and out of the e-learning world. i have relished the opportunity to splash music, video, slides and photostories all over the web – just by copy-and-pasting some “embed code”. Will wordpress allow me to mash in my voice-based thoughts? (no, have to use odeo instead) powered by ODEO According to wikipedia, there are four main kinds of mashup: digital, musical, video and “web application hybrid”. Aha, that’s why i was getting so confused about the Read More …

Can You Hear Us? New project launch ..

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, innovation, research

Thrills and spills !! What a lovely group of people we’ve got for the new PRACE research project into audio technologies: “Can You Hear Us?” We’re building on the successes of the 2007 “Can u hear me?” project, and last Thursday was the launch day. These sessions are always nerve-wracking and you never feel quite prepared enough, but we dived in and the water was warm! Plenty of ideas flowing around the table, and of course everyone is at different levels of knowledge and experience. First session was about creating 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 …