Notes from July sessions – from staff wiki to cloud storage

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

So we had another session during the July break. A huge thanks to the dedicated folk who made it in to share ideas and resources. We talked about useful sites online, how to share resources better, ideas for student and teacher wikis and more. I’ll put up some brief notes here.. if you want more details on anything, get in touch or leave a comment. Great suggestions: Use the teacher wiki for sharing resources focussed on a theme, rather than each teacher! We tossed up some themes people have in Read More …

Video interview with Sia Gazis

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace

Fiona introduced Sia and Michael, and suggested they create an interview-style promotion together for the introductory massage course. Using some footage and photography shot by Lauren, Michael shot and edited 15-20 minutes of additional footage down to 4 minutes. The editing was done in a free, professional-grade software called Lightworks (free for a mildly limited version). There’s a learning curve, of course, but michael would definitely recommend this software to anyone who doesn’t have access to iMovie. If you have iMovie.. use that instead. Future suggestions: Any teachers who are interested Read More …

Working with images and layout (in microsoft word)

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

Spent some time last week working with Violeta, who wanted to teach her students about the basics of layout. We started off with putting images on the page. The main issue here of course, is that there are so many different applications, and each has a slightly different way of working with images. So we chose to look at microsoft word, and the basic way of inserting a photo from the “Insert Menu”. You can insert a photo from within the application, or you can drag the photo across from Read More …

Use what’s already there – if you can find it..

Michael Chalk1 Commentace, professional development

Betty – one of the wonderful teachers at Lalor LLC – spent a fair bit of time creating some activities in powerpoint, that let her students match images with audio. But then she found this website “English Guide” (dot org), and decided it was much better to use resources that someone else had already made. “They have everything,” she exclaimed delightedly. Every theme and topic you could want for low-level English as a second language (ESL) learners. What a good point this teacher has made! Why spend hours creating learning Read More …

Exploring online surveys

Michael Chalk4 Commentsace, professional development

We had such a great group session in February. I love it when – in spite of the session plan – people make it really clear that they’re interested in something different. From the teacher survey I’d sent around, it seemed that people were most interested in digital storytelling and recording student voices. So we started the session by looking at this teacher survey, a combination of online form and spreadsheet containing the results. And boom! People were suddenly interested in the possible classroom application of this kind of software. Read More …

Many questions: from powerpoint to copyright

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

It was great meeting with Paula because she had so many questions. I’ve attempted to give a pithy response.. but if something needs more clarity, let me know in the comments below. What can we do with powerpoint in teaching and learning? For presentation, work with student texts in a way that students work either on the data projector or individually. You can include language and literacy learning activities in the presentation. You could work with the whole group of students using a powerpoint on the data projector, and then Read More …

Have fun with photos at photofunia

Michael ChalkLeave a commentclassroom, Uncategorized

I found this terrific “photofunia” site via Vivian, one of the teachers at Glenroy Neighbourhood Learning Centre. She uses the site for students when they first join a class there. The idea is that students upload a photo of themselves and do something fun with it, for example turn themselves into the Mona Lisa, or a design on top of a cappuccino. It’s kind of an ice-breaker, but people are also learning basic skills in web browsing and file management (upload, download files, remember where you saved it etc). Teachers Read More …

Have fun with photos at photofunia

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

I found this “photofunia” site via Vivian, one of the teachers at Glenroy Neighbourhood Learning Centre. She uses the site for students when they first join a class there. The idea is that students upload a photo of themselves and do something fun with it, for example turn themselves into the Mona Lisa, or a design on top of a cappuccino. It’s kind of an ice-breaker, but people are also learning basic skills in web browsing and file management (upload, download files, remember where you saved it etc). At first, Read More …

What is “the cloud” and how does it work?

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

Good question, thanks Paula. In fact plenty of questions came up the other day as teachers sat around a table at Lalor Living & Learning Centre Inc. We were talking about “cloud computing” – when your data sits on other people’s computers. So what is “The Cloud”?  Descending Clouds – by Gary Hayes Essentially it is a move away from storing files and running applications on your local computer. Now you can use data networks in different physical locations to both store files and run applications. The cloud is partly for data Read More …

Jane Hart’s Top 100 Tools for Learning, 2013

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

She’s done it again. For the fifth year running, Jane Hart has compiled a list of the top 100 tools for learning, as ranked by educators around the world. Over 500 educators listed their own top 10, and Jane’s put them all together somehow to come up with this massive list. What I like most about the original list was that each tool would link back to its category, where you could see for example all the “video learning platforms” on one page and compare them. But that feature seems to 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 …

Skills you may need (blogging)

Michael ChalkLeave a commenthow to

What are the the basics of blogging? make new blog, with title & web address (URL) hopefully at a time when google is not policing your IP address make new post  add & format text add images make links save draft / publish get people interested in reading your blog post knowledge you may need Ideas for engaging learners with online activities.  Ideas for adapting your already brilliant teaching and learning knowledge into online spaces.  On writing for the web  keep it as visual as possible  make your text very Read More …