eLearning News

This blog has moved.

2007-01-10T12:55:00.000+11:00

eLearning News has merged with the other CIT Flexible Learning Solutions edublog OTN@CIT.Check it out at http://onlineteachernetwork.edublogs.org/ for a wealth of interesting, regularly updated eLearning news, ideas and information.thanks to everyone who has been reading this up to now.cheersCol

Showing students that writing for a blog is different.

2006-10-11T08:24:00.000+10:00

“The speed of reading in the age of the digital has changed, and we need to help students navigate this…Reading on the internet requires two separate skills: one, the quick analysis to find what is worth reading, and the second, a switch to slow analysis to carefully consider what has been found. What RSS does is allow students to make this distinction, to receive content as “bits” easy to scan,

Searching Google Video for educational content.

2006-10-11T08:15:00.000+10:00

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: How to search Google Educational VideosIt's a fairly simple couple of steps but considering how much video content is available these days, this is a very valuable tip for finding the educational stuff. 1 - Go to Google Video - http://video.google.com2- In the search box, type: genre:educational 3 - Follow it with anything you want to find video for. eg. I typed genre

Make barcodes that can be read by a mobile phone camera and provide web links.

2006-09-13T10:45:00.000+10:00

smartpox » welcome This is kind of tricky to explain but in essence, there's a system out there now (well, ok, it's been available in Japan for about 10 years but that's neither here nor there) which allows you to generate an image like the one above. This image, known as a QR code, represents information such as a web-link, plain text or even a phone number and what you do is put this

13 ways to promote your podcast

2006-09-01T08:42:00.000+10:00

Around the Corner - MGuhlin.net - Courage can't see around corners, but goes around them anyway. - Mignon McLaughlin Don't worry about the title of this page, this provides you with a list of 13 sites that you can use to promote your podcast for free - well worth a look. Blogged with Flock

Even more video toys (do you think I'm biased :)

2006-08-21T19:52:00.000+10:00

Teach and Learn Online: Blip.TV rocks!!Thanks to Leigh Blackall for this one - he certainly seems excited about it. These things seem to be getting smarter and smarter. (from Leigh's blog - http://teachandlearnonline.blogspot.com) Not only is it fast to upload!! Boy its fast!But it gives you back an mov to save back down to your computerIt cross posts your video to your

Voice discussion boards and voice chat

2006-08-21T10:17:00.000+10:00

The Gong Project - The Web Voice Communication Tool This looks like a very interesting tool that FLS is currently investigating for CIT - it allows for both live voice chat as well as voice discussion boards - certainly something that might help draw in to class discussion students who feel less confident in their written communications. If you are at CIT, contact the FLS team for more

Making movies with your mobile

2006-08-21T10:14:00.000+10:00

Mobile FilmMakers 2006 - MobiFilm AcademyKeeping with the video theme today, this is a pretty detailed resource for people looking to make use of the video camera functionality of their mobile phones - it appears to have some tie-in to Nokia but the general principles will still apply and there are lots of handy tips. You might also like to think about what your students might

Instructional video has a new home - Videojug

2006-08-21T09:50:00.000+10:00

The thinking person's YouTube | News.blog | CNET News.com In looking at the use of video - particular in a VET/VTE context, my feeling is that one of the most beneficial applications is in the realm of the instructional video.Next to having someone there in person to show you how to fit that washer or swing that golf club (ok, probably less of an education application but I found it pretty

Blogging in the classroom

2006-08-15T09:21:00.000+10:00

Weblogs in the Classroom Interested in practical, classroom uses of blogs? - well go no further :) Blogged with Flock

Gizmo - like Skype but cheaper (is freeer a word?)

2006-07-26T10:42:00.000+10:00

Education/Technology - Tim Lauer Nice summation here of the benefits of Gizmo, an internet telephony service similar to Skype but possibly even cheaper. Gizmo is currently running a scheme where you can make free calls to the landlines of other Gizmo users in 60 countries around the world. Blogged with Flock

Using it in the classroom

2006-07-26T09:07:00.000+10:00

This is a quote from George Siemen's blog and sums up very well some issues I've been having with the tool-centred approach of a lot of eLearning 2.0 training."A new survey of teachers and their use of technology suggests there is a clear correlation between hours spent in professional development, classroom integration of technology, and improved student performance. " I don't imagine this is a

Want to brush up on Web Design?

2006-07-21T09:14:00.000+10:00

Web Design - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks This is a pretty nifty use of a wiki to run a web-design course, setup by Michael Nelson of the Blue Mountains campus of TAFE NSW. Blogged with Flock

Great resource of "Serious" Games

2006-07-20T10:11:00.000+10:00

Social Impact Games :: Entertaining Games with Non-Entertainment Goals The Serious Game movement is all about using the particular strengths of video and computer games - engagement and entertainment - to convey useful information about the world. It includes things like language learning, decision based simulation and collaborative learning, properties of physics and much much more. Games

It's educational - really :)

2006-07-19T10:10:00.000+10:00

Top 20 Educational Locations in Second Life - SimTeach Have you taken a look at Second Life yet? It's what they call a Massive Multiplayer Online Game - essentially a vast, earth sized virtual world where you can wonder around and do pretty well anything that it is possible to do in reality. Educators are starting to look at this with interest - and here are some of the leading locations

Practical uses of Wikis

2006-07-19T09:57:00.000+10:00

Wikis offer a simple shared space to collaborate on things that really matter. This does not translate into the “build it and they will come” thinking. Rather, as described in this article, wikis will work only if all of the following are present: * The right culture. The talking, negotiating type. * A practical, compelling reason to collaborate, to share (it helps if they are a number

Everything you ever wanted to know about screencasting but were afraid to ask.

2006-07-19T08:55:00.000+10:00

wwwtools for teachers This is a pretty extensive resource on the wwwtools for education website all about screencasting. According to Wikipedia, a Screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, often containing audio narration - essentially the sort of thing you would use software such as Camtasia for and is quite handy in showing learners the steps involved in doing something

July 14: Social Web Tags using del.icio.us

2006-07-13T18:46:00.000+10:00

Any Maths teachers out there?

2006-07-10T08:59:00.000+10:00

Weblogg-ed » Mathcasts.org Will Richardson has found a wiki that showcases student created screencasts about maths related topics. I really like how he highlights the benefits of this kind of activity. The thing I like the most here is the opportunity to engage our students by not only asking them to show what they know by testing it but by teaching it. I really believe that is a

Thinking about tagging and users defining data

2006-07-06T10:57:00.000+10:00

http://blog.namics.com/archives/2005/Folksonomies_Cooperative_Classification.pdf This is a pretty interesting (and not toooo lengthy) paper looking into the use of tagging in websites such as del.icio.us (bookmark/favourite sharing) and flickr (photo sharing) Blogged with Flock

Interesting use of Flickr - for short stories.

2006-07-06T09:58:00.000+10:00

In investigating the use of tagging I’ve come across an interesting movement using Flickr – it’s people writing short stories attached to Flickr images. Some are one liners, others stretch down a page. All grouped together using the tag Flicktion.This is one I particularly enjoyed. (click image)

OMG!!! Teacher gets class to create MySpace type page for characters from Richard III

2006-07-04T09:35:00.000+10:00

» Blog Archive » Medieval Space Pages This is a really nifty idea - the title pretty well says it all Blogged with Flock

Great Podcast on the importance of creativity in education

2006-07-04T09:20:00.000+10:00

TEDTalks (audio, video)I've just been listening to the Sir Ken Robinson speech about the importance of emphasising creativity in education from this year's TED talks and highly recommend checking it out. The audio file is about 7mb and comes in at about 17 minutes. In addition to being a very funny speaker, he makes some very interesting points about current educational directions and the

Good Age article about blogging in education

2006-07-03T09:02:00.000+10:00

Adventures in blog land - Education News - theage.com.au While this does perhaps go over some familiar ground, there's a fairly broad investigation here into the way different academics have been using blogs of late and how it is reshaping knowledge sharing everywhere. Blogged with Flock

How to assess Blog posts

2006-07-01T11:56:00.000+10:00

Weblogg-ed » Assessing Blog Posts This is an interesting blog entry from George Siemens (in response to David Warlick's initial thoughts) on ideas for assessing blog content. 1. What did you read in order to write this blog entry? Yee Haw! Blogging starts with reading, and I read David’s post, which leads me to blogging. (I read some other stuff, too. See below.) And I think an even more

How do the young people see and use technology

2006-06-30T09:10:00.000+10:00

Global Kids | Online Leadership Program | Digital Media Essay Contest This did come from a US led programme however the results are still pretty relevant to learners in Australia as well. The contest itself finished a few months ago but the winning essays as well as an extensive report is now available up on the website. On a typical day, more than half of US teenagers use a computer while

So you're interested in wikis and blogs hey?

2006-06-01T14:42:00.000+10:00

Well, we can't go past the recent (and rather nifty) collaborative arrangement between Wikispaces and Edublogs! Now you can have your own wiki and blog in one - linked together!to get started, go over to Edublogs and sign up for a blog. Once you've signed up, skip over to wikispaces via the newly createde link in your edublog, to wikispaces and join there. Now, you have a private advertising-free

Beyond text: using your voice online

2006-05-08T14:49:00.000+10:00

So you're interested in using audio/voice in your classes are you?Where should you start? Well, we'd recommend checking out one fascinating project on the AFLF New Practices website titled "Beyond text: Using your voice online".The project team took four different learning groups in four different contexts, including industry, ESL, disabilities, and youth and trades.Using the Horizon Wimba

Innovative Projects 2005 - Laboratory Operations

2006-04-06T15:11:00.000+10:00

John Benfatto - Laboratory and Forensic SciencesAims : The aim of putting Laboratory Operations online was to give students more flexibility by delivering the subject in a blended mode, using face to face and online deliveryInnovation : Integration of parts of available toolboxes, such as Lab Operations, Lab Management and Lab Technology into online components.Improvements : Through the use of

Innovative Projects 2005 - Accounting 1

2006-04-06T15:10:00.000+10:00

Annalisa Miller / Berceuse Thorpe - Computerised Accounting and LawAims : To provide the full statement of attainment in Accounting 1 to students in a fully flexible environmentInnovation:Provides learner-centered delivery modes for all learnersLinks to sections of the Accounting toolboxQuizzes and assessments using Respondus and other media anticipates making the subject assessed fully online in

Innovative Projects 2005 - Developing a Media Plan

2006-04-06T15:05:00.000+10:00

Michele Kennedy - Marketing and Advertising - Business DevelopmentAims : To place media planning in an innovative and interesting community context.Innovation : Different street characters exemplify different audiences. Students interact with characters by analyzing their scenariosCharacters reference other street characters to build communityStudents enter street buildings to access Module

Innovative Projects 2005 - Medical Administration

2006-04-06T14:50:00.000+10:00

Selena Gillian - Business Services TechnologyAims : To develop learning materials that would be relevant and meaningful in an online environment.Innovation :'A Day at the desk' (similar to a toolbox) is the major resource used for this project. It provides learners with access to a virtual workplace. This has been complemented by the development and use of quizzes and games.Students are

Innovative Projects 2005 - Medical Terminology Prefixes & Suffixes

2006-04-06T14:43:00.000+10:00

Justine McDonald - Human ServicesAims : To provide students with an online resource that will assist them in learning how to break down medical terms and understand medical abbreviations.Innovation: Learning medical terminology and medical abbreviations requires the student to perform a lot of memory tasks. Incorporating online learning enabled this subject to become a lot more interactive.

Innovative Projects 2005 - Responsible Service of alcohol

2006-04-06T14:38:00.000+10:00

Milan Rajic - Food and Beverage studiesAim : To create a learning resource that would be user friendly, interactive and fun to use. Innovation : A "real bar" photograph with links to areas of studyUse of interactive material to involve users and make the content interestingUse of audio option to satisfy the needs of different learning stylesUse of "Crazy talk" to announce the content of each area

Innovative Projects 2005 - OHS Literacy & Communication

2006-04-06T14:25:00.000+10:00

Sharon Burnell - User ChoiceAim : To develop quality online resources and activities that deliver and assess against the competencies "Analyse and present research information" and "Write complex documents" within an OHS context. To develop resources which allow learners to contextualise their learning and product development to meet their current/future workplace OHS needs and interests.

Innovative Projects 2005 - Practice wthin legal & ethical parameters

2006-04-06T14:20:00.000+10:00

Nicole Slater - Nursing - Human ServicesAim : To present a very theory based unit in an interactive way.Innovation : The course caters to different learning styles - students can simply work through information and answer questions or they can take on the case study and refer to the written information as needed.Improvements : The course is more easily navigated through by students than previous

Innovative Projects 2005 - Introduction to Public Relations

2006-04-06T14:10:00.000+10:00

Tracie Starkey (Communication and Media)Aims : The overall aim is to provide an introductory unit in PR in an online learning environment while at the same time making it as fun and interactive as possible. Innovation : Rather than students coming in to see our guest speakers, we are taking our guest speakers to our students via a CD. The presentation will then be followed with a live chat room

Innovative Projects 2005 - Mechanical Engineering

2006-04-06T14:05:00.000+10:00

Greg Hartup - Engineering and Resource SciencesAims : To develop interactive exercises and to develop computer graphics to enhance the presentation of the materialInnovation : A simulated laboratory exercise where students gather experimental data in a similar fashion to traditional laboratory procedures. Animated computer graphics with voice overs to explain engineering conceptsInteractive

Innovative Projects 2005 - Virtual Study Centre

2006-04-06T14:00:00.000+10:00

Deb Hattingh - ESL Employment and study / ELCAims : To create a Study Centre that all students in CIT can access, providing 24/7 support for study skills. Innovation:Offers students interactive activities, like quizzes and games, to support their learning. The instruction is delivered in bite size chunks so that the processes are logically explained. Offers teachers a resource they can refer

Innovative Projects 2005

2006-04-06T13:59:00.000+10:00

In 2005 the Flexible Learning Solutions team worked with 11 teachers from CIT on targetted year long projects aimed at developing innovative elearning materials for their subjects. The subjects covered ranged from Mechanical Engineering to Nursing Ethics, from OHS Literacy and Communication to Responsible service of alcohol and made use of interactive Flash animations, audio and video, scenario

Context, Content and Mobile Design

2006-03-28T16:09:00.000+11:00

D. K Robinson covers some interesting points here in his post about designing for certain contexts - and notes the importance of asking yourself HOW your users will use your information, and in what ways.This is a good read if you are especially considering designing materials for multiple formats such as the Web, mobile internet browsing and so on...convergence is upon us!

'Listibles' Web 2.0 Products and Services

2006-02-16T10:00:00.000+11:00

This list is currently doing the rounds in the blogosphere, because it IS really comprehensive! Keep track of it as more things are added...As drewly (originator of the list) saysMany services are expected to replace our desktop applications.I wonder what this means for education and our ed-tech systems? Hmmmm!Check it out for yourself!

SMS Treasure Hunt Trading Company Profit Results!

2006-02-06T13:48:00.000+11:00

For those keen to know how their Company faired overall, from the SMS Mobile Learning Workshop held Wednesday last week, here are the outright scores!Group One(Company / Profit):Dri-Glo / $7500VERS / $6400J Learning / $5600Beetlejuice / $5050Group Two(Company / Profit):Douglas Adams / $7950Robert the Bruce / $4750Congratulations Companies, you all traded exceedingly well! You can find a complete

SMS Treasure Hunt (Mobile Learning Workshop, 1 Feb 2006)

2006-02-02T12:32:00.000+11:00

Trading Companies zoomed around the M-Learning Galaxy, collating m-learning resources and trading them across the Galaxy in the hope they would become the most profitable M-Learning Trading Company the Galaxy has EVER seen!As part of the Mobile Learning Workshop held yesterday, we conducted an sms-based treasure hunt with teams of people hunting around the Bruce Campus of CIT (otherwise known as

News Update: New Practices Project on Mobile Learning

2006-01-31T16:35:00.000+11:00

Have you checked out the AFLF's New Practices Projects yet? If not, go to this one about Mobile Learning to read more! It has some great examples of content for use on a portable device, and much more!Which example is your favourite? Of the five, record at least two of the content examples you like.Oh, The Bonus $50 question: Can you name the celebrity in one of the examples?...he's a real '

Free stock photos websites

2006-01-13T10:48:00.000+11:00

Graphics N Graphic Design Blog » Free Stock Photos for Graphic Designers Web Designers This is a great blog chockfull of links to websites with lots of free stock photos that you can use - sometimes you may need to acknowledge the photographer but that's about it. Enjoy.

HowTo videos for OpenOffice 2.0

2005-11-14T10:09:00.000+11:00

Interested in learning a bit more about how to get the most out of OpenOffice 2.0?The OpenOffice suite is the open source alternative to the Microsoft Office suite - giving you pretty well all the same functionality and the ability to create documents that work in MS Office. Click this link to check out the videos.

Social Bookmarking in Education

2005-11-09T09:53:00.000+11:00

Social bookmarking is another one of those Web 2.0 things, where the internet is used to harness the power of the collective knowledge and intelligence of it's users. Essentially, it's a setup where a group of people share their bookmarks and also have a system for tagging them, making them easier to find. (In a community such as del.icio.us for instance)Can you imagine the difference between

New accessibility guide for creating learning materials

2005-11-09T09:33:00.000+11:00

Taken from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework News HeadlinesIn an effort to help teachers and trainers understand and designresources which comply with accessibility standards an onlineaccessibility guide has been developed. Accessibility, getting it rightthe first time provides users with simple tutorials for developingaccessible resources in the web based coding HTML and also in a

Blogger plugin for Word

2005-11-04T12:54:00.000+11:00

I've just been taking a bit of a look around the Blogger site and have come across this little nugget - it's a plugin for Microsoft Word that allows you to create, edit and publish posts for your blog in Blogger. It also allows you to edit your 15 most recent posts, if you so choose.Check it out here - linkCol

Learner Blogs

2005-11-02T09:33:00.000+11:00

Learner BlogsJames Farmer has set up a new site where students can create their own blogs for free - it seems to be a fairly straight forward and painless process with a range of different templates available for customisation.We set one up within five minutes. There are still a few minor bugs in the system, I couldn't get the photo uploading feature to work (in several browsers) and the date

E-learning 2.0

2005-10-26T11:40:00.000+10:00

As the Web matures and evolves to 2.0 (see Colin's post below) we are seeing similar changes in e-learning. Readily available, free online publishing tools that help people put their ideas into the www and technology that provides access and encourages sharing (eg Flock - see Colin's post below) sits very comfortably with the ideals of genuinely learner centred approaches to education and

Flock - a browser for Web 2.0

2005-10-24T09:31:00.000+10:00

For the last year and a bit there has been growing buzz about Web 2.0.So what is Web 2.0?In brief, it's considered to be the logical evolution of the web - it's not about new technology (so don't worry, no need for expensive or confusing upgrades), it's more about the move towards using collective intelligence in sharing knowledge.This is done through things like blogs, wikis, rss feeds, pod

Podcasting in Education

2005-10-24T09:17:00.000+10:00

Interesting article on Podcasting in Education by Gardner Campbell that I found out about on Stephen Downes' BlogStephen says"It's a good article, though I found the scenarios used to introduce the topic at the beginning of the article to be over the top; better would have been some real-world examples. Otherwise, the author offers a relatively light and education-focused account of podcasting."

Using scenarios

2005-10-05T09:36:00.000+10:00

Thanks (as ever) to Peter LeCornu for this oneScenariationA number of articles about scenario based e-learning. This web page is part of a website for a product called scenariation which is designed to help design scenario based e-learning.

The Innovative Gateway

2005-06-15T10:33:00.000+10:00

Ever wanted to read a bit more about Online Learning? Innovate is a journal about online education - a publication of Nova Southeastern University. You can sign up for free and then access numerous articles about online learning and participate in forum discussions. http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php

enhance your classes with TV

2005-05-25T12:50:00.000+10:00

Well, we're all very excited here at CIT as we are about to begin a three month audit period with Screenrights to see what we're doing in the way of copying and using TV and Radio broadcasts in our educational endeavours. One very useful thing that has happened for me in this has been the discovery of the enhanceTV website. enhanceTV is brought to us by Screenrights and it says that it is:"...

elearning with pictures

2005-05-16T10:24:00.000+10:00

With digital cameras everywhere these days (it seems) there's plenty ofscope to include your own images in your online courses. Ifyou're looking for a free, easy to use piece of software to edit yourdigital images IrfanVeiw is well worth a try. IrfanViewdescribes itself as "a very fast, small, compact and innovativeFREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/

Blogtalk Downunder - Conference 19 - 22 May 05

2005-05-12T13:49:00.000+10:00

I promise we'll get away from this slightly navel-gazey fixation with blogs and blogging shortly but just thought it might be worth mentioning Blogtalk Downunder - the inaugural Blogging talkfest which is coming up next week in Sydney. Check the website out here for more info http://www.incsub.org/blogtalk/In short though, there'll be workshops on the basics of blogging as well as new

Blogs about Blogging (how very 21st century :)

2005-05-04T08:44:00.000+10:00

http://kairosnews.org/blogbibJust taking a quick look at the aforementioned Peter LeCornu blog and came across this link to a blog entry with a list of about 200 articles and other resources about blogging - with a particular focus on the educational possibilities - well worth a look.

Peter LeCornu's blog

2005-05-04T08:41:00.000+10:00

Peter LeCornu has a great blog up with a particular focus on Flexible Learning, learning and knowledge sharing - take a look at http://lecornu.blogspot.com/

Open Source Software

2005-05-04T08:34:00.000+10:00

Looking for cheaper software? The Australian Government Information Management Office has just released its guide to Open Source Software - software produced by a community of software developers and often released free or quite cheaply.Take a look on the AGIMO site - http://www.agimo.gov.au/_sourceit/sourceit/oss

Podcasting

2005-04-27T20:33:00.000+10:00

If you read the technology sections, you're probably sick to death of podcasting, such has been it's rapid uptake and hype in the last 6 months but it's here (or is that hear) and it's adding a whole new dimension to internet communications.Podcasting is essentially the new thing in blogging - blogging with audio. Listeners download audio files to their computers - even directly to their iPods (

Effective e-Learning Design

2005-04-26T09:37:00.000+10:00

This paper, published in the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, focuses on 6 elements of educational design for preparing e-learning materials: Activity; Scenario; Feedback; Delivery; Context; and Influence. For people just getting started with the preparation of e-learning materials, this is well worth a read.http://www.irrodl.org/content/v6.1/brown_voltz.html

Welcome

2005-04-22T08:32:00.000+10:00

Welcome to the CIT Flexible Learning Solutions blog.In this space, we will provide you with news, ideas and other tidbits from the worlds of education and eLearning, technology and beyond that you may find useful in the virtual classroom.Stay tuned for morecheers