Tag: prace

Live session between classes

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, community, innovation

Today was a roaring success, as we held a Live Session between two classes, one at Merrilands Community Centre and the other in Broadway in the heart of Reservoir. Both groups comprised English as a second language (ESL) learners. Tina and Jan and i came up with a way to use Skype to develop people’s language skills. Lately the students have been practising their descriptive skills, so we decided that each student would describe themselves over the skype phone, and the other group would guess who was speaking. Each group 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 …

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 …

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 …

CommUnity makes you feel good

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, community

A few weeks ago, we had the 15th anniversary of Preston Reservoir Adult Community Education (PRACE). Fifteen years !! As “MC”, aiming to keep the crowd engaged, i asked who had been involved with PRACE for one year, two years, three years etc. The record holders were Kerry and Jo, at around 4-6 years. Until someone turned it back on me and asked how long i’d been working there. Twelve years, yes 12. People seem surprised, as nobody works that long in the one place any more. These days most Read More …

Setting up an Intranet

Michael ChalkLeave a commente-learning, innovation

Over at Preston Reservoir ACE, we’re slowly setting up an intranet. Anyone on the site can set up their own “blog” (diary, or journal). This could be useful for reflective learning in the classroom: teachers could encourage students to post thoughts on their own learning progress. There’s so much going on in the world of learning- with- technology, that it would be great to involve the wonderful teachers at PRACE even more. I’m hoping this place will help us share our knowledge more effectively. We’re using moodle, the popular, open Read More …

Literacy + Technology Network 'jumping'

Michael ChalkLeave a commentadult literacy, technology

Well all right, it’s not exactly jumping, but what an interesting experience. There’s over eighty educators, researchers and students from all around Australia who have been sharing insights and stories related to technology in the classroom. A whole lot of amazing people, from outback Alice Springs to an island off the coast of ‘FNQ’ – far north Queensland, to Tasmania, Adelaide and the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Come and join the list if you’re into Literacy+Technology .. PRACE= outstanding provider ! Here at Preston Reservoir Adult Community Education (PRACE) Read More …