WIKIs: setting your Notifications and posting a Discussion

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

Following on from that exciting ‘Advanced’ WIKI webinar in which nothing seemed to go right, I decided to produce a screencast on the topic of setting your Notifications to receive emails when someone posts a Discussion. Notifications are a powerful feature that makes your wiki interactive: everyone can follow the latest addition of content and discuss these collaboratively. At CNLC when a new member joins the Staffroom I advocate that the Notifications are set so that the new person can join in to group activities effectively. However, we’ve fallen behind Read More …

More email tips – using the gmail “labs” settings

Michael Chalk1 Commenthow to, Uncategorized

It’s always challenging to learn your way into a new software tool.You know how the old application behaves – its shortcuts and folders. The new application might confound your expectations, with different models of behaviour^^. At PRACE, we are now using the google-owned gmail to send and receive messages in-house**. And while using the PRACE gmail account to send messages, you may be interested in the more experimental side of things. Did you know you can set up a default text styling, for example?That you can have your text looking a particular way in Read More …

Photos from the E-showcase12

Michael Chalk3 CommentsUncategorized

Here are a few images from the very successful and superbly organised day at William Angliss Conference centre on 22 June 2012. I’m quite impressed with the features of the photo uploader and photoshow tool at the Learn Local NING,  I’ll grab the Embed code and see if I can share the Photoshow here. Find more photos like this on Learn Local e-learning networkWell, it’s worked: though as with all trials, there are a few hiccups. I’m not sure why the images autoplay in reverse order, and the captions have Read More …

e-showcase: follow from your desk

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

If you didn’t make it to the e-learning showcase today, you can follow the twitter feed using the “hashtag” #eshow12Ie: via this linkhttps://twitter.com/search/#eshow12 (I think)Michael Or, failing that, try this one: http://visibletweets.com/#query=%23eshow12&animation=2A very novel tool for displaying all the tweets with a particular hashtag!Thanks Michael and Leo Here’s a sample:  I know how you feel, Dale. If there was a second ipad to win, you’d deserve to win it as much as me…. JK

How to manage your contacts in the gmail

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

A few people around PRACE were asking about how to create groups of contacts in the google-based PRACE email system. (Also known as gmail.) So Michael’s written a help guide for managing email contacts. You can create a list of people, for example language and literacy teachers, and then use a shortcut to send a message to all these teachers in one go. Here’s the help file. It’s in PDF format (Link), and it’s in the google docs system – meaning you’ll need your PRACE login to get a copy. Read More …

Get a load of Stephen Fry (madly linguistic podgram)

Michael ChalkLeave a commentprofessional development

I’m listening to Stephen Fry’s podgram on my android phone. And he’s so delightful, as he explores the innards of his linguistic perspective, that i feel the urge to share. But i didn’t take notes, so now i don’t recall anything that he said. Think maybe i need to work on my auditory memory. Oh i’ve just realised from the wikipedia page, that it dates back to 2008. Link to the episode on his webble site, including all kinds of subscribing options. Link to the audio file here:

“Advanced wikispaces skills” session challenges presenters!

Michael Chalk4 CommentsUncategorized

Jill and michael ran a session on the advanced aspects of wikispaces. Clearly nobody feels “advanced”, because we were alone in the session. However, we thought that some skills were worth demonstrating anyway. So we went ahead, intending to record the presentation for possible future value, and also to share some tips & strategies with each other. Here’s the menu we started with: The large menu was designed to give people a choice (too much for one session) ..so we decided to focus on only 3 of the skills. Okay Read More …

More voice-overs for PageTurners (via Soundcloud)

Michael ChalkLeave a commentadult literacy, technology

So, as well as embedding voice-overs into the PageTurners website, i thought there must be a way that other people could embed the stories in their own sites as well. Sure enough, these days there are a few different ways to do this. One i’m trying out now is via Soundcloud. Woo-hoo! It works. But does it work in the land of iPad? Okay, back to editing the audio originals. Ned Kelly next, by Anne Dunn.

For Blended Learning, just add ingredients and press ‘Blend’

Michael ChalkLeave a commentUncategorized

This month we had the opportunity to spend some time with some North West Region e-leaders to explore a number of simple techniques to use Powerpoint in the classroom as an interactive teaching tool. We were inspired by Rob Lewis from the British Council (previously blogged here) to have a go, and to work out what techniques he was using to speed up the production process so that we (humble educators) can, with little effort, become producers of e-learning resources. Ha! Is it really that simple? Let’s review some of 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 …