Monthly Archives: May 2010

100 ways, presentation, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #48 Embedding an online presentation

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Death by Powerpoint has almost become a running joke at conferences and in education. Despite that, presentations are a staple of many conferences, courses and learning programmes.

it’s very easy to upload and link to a Powerpoint presentation, but does mean that not only does a learner need to click a link and download a file, but also (usually) needs Powerpoint on their computer. If they don’t then we might send them off to download OpenOffice another step and hurdle.

One service I am using much more now for my presentations is Slideshare. It allows you to upload a presentation and converts it into a Flash slideshow. This can either be viewed on the Slideshare website or can be embedded into a webpage. This means you can embed it into the VLE.

This allows learners to immediately access the presentation, without needing to wait for it to download. With larger presentations this can be a long wait on a slow connection. As Slideshare allows you to navigate to a specific slide, this means that learners who want to look at one slide can more easily than from a whole Powerpoint.

Of course there are a few downsides, the main one is that Slideshare is an open service, so your presentations are public and you may not want that. Though that’s also an advantage in that there are lots of presentations on the site that you can use and embed into the VLE.

Being Flash based this could cause issues if your learners have lots of iPhones and iPads, however Slideshare now provide an iPhone friendly service.

It is very simple to link to Powerpoint files, however using a service like Slideshare allows you to easily embed not just your presentations, but also other presentations from the site, straight into the VLE.

stuff

EdTech 2010, some thoughts

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EdTech 2010 has now finished and I have left Athlone. I opened the conference with my keynote, entitled Cultural Shifts.

The keynote looked at the importance of culture and changing culture if we are to not just embed the use of learning technologies, but create a culture that embraces new technologies and pedagogies, rather than resist them.

The feedback I got was that it went down well with the delegates at the conference and created a buzz and conversations throughout the conference.

It was my first time to EdTech and I enjoyed the conference.

I have found that attending learning technology conferences always provide something new and interesting to take away. Even if the conference is based on a different sector or in a different country, there are lessons that have been learnt that we can learn from. Despite the differences the issues and challenges we face in different countries and different sectors, what we know and what we learn is more often than not transferable and easily adapted to our own institutions and learners.

There were some really useful and interesting presentations and talks and I hope to blog about them later.

stuff

Cultural Shifts

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This morning I delivered my keynote at EdTech 2010.

It went down very well and I hope to have the Slideshare and video up soon. It appears to be taking a very long time for Slideshare to convert my presentation, might need to convert it myself first to PowerPoint from Keynote before uploading.

I am enjoying EdTEch 2010, lots of useful presentations and discussions. Making some useful contacts and found some great resources; such as these bricklaying videos.

stuff

Travelling

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Today I spent most of the day travelling to Athlone in Ireland for EdTech 2010 where I am delivering the opening keynote. Travelling to a different country shows how reliant we are (well how reliant I am) on connectivity and communication.

Arriving at Dublin Airport, though my iPhone connected easily to the O2 phone network and I am on O2 in the UK, I got a nice little text message from O2 to tell me how expensive it is to use the phone and data whilst in Ireland.

At £3 per MB this is very expensive for “normal” usage of the iPhone for e-mail, web browsing and using services such as Twitter and Flickr. I did consider buying a data bundle in advanced from O2 but at £50 for 50MB I decided no way.

I also did consider buying a SIM for my unlocked Nexus One, but as I am only here for a few days I didn’t think it was worth it, and what I really wanted from a local SIM was data not calls and texts.

In the end I decided that I could live without connectivity for the time I am in Ireland. Where and when I needed to use the internet I would use WiFi.

What I did quite like in Dublin was the availability of free WiFi in cafes and restaurants. I could buy a coffee and use the WiFi, whereas in the UK it is more likely these days to find that the WiFi is a BT Openzone or other costly wireless hotspot.

app of the week

Boggle – iPhone App of the Week

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Boggle – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is Boggle.

Test your way with words by playing the popular wordsearch game.

Until 23rd May £0.59

Boggle is a nice simple game that gives you sixteen letters, has a time limit, and you need to create as many words as possible with the rules that the letters can only be used once and must be “touching”.

The iPhone is a great little gaming device and works really well with these casual games. At 59p it’s not expensive and is certainly value for money. I think it was David Sugden who told me about it, so he’s to blame!

Research from various universities has demonstrated that if learners play word and number games this can improve their literacy and numeracy skills. As reported by The Telegraph:

Scrabble is just as good at improving mental sharpness as a Nintendo DS video games console and a copy of Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training, say researchers from the University of Rennes, Brittany.

Just on that article and research I have to admit I have always found it much easier to get 17 year olds to play games on the Nintendo DSi or the iPod touch than I have getting them to play Scrabble!

Boggle is a fun word game that fills the time waiting for the bus, the train or coffee.

alt, news

ALT Learning Technologist of the Year Award 2010

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Last year I was honoured to win the ALT Learning Technologist of the Year Award 2009.

James Clay from Gloucestershire College was ALT Learning Technologist of the Year 2009 for his contribution to changing the College, which has become a leader and an exemplar in its use of learning technologies.

James Clay of Gloucestershire College commented, “I am honoured and privileged to win the Learning Technologist of the Year award from ALT. This award not only recognises the work I have undertaken at Gloucestershire College in enabling, embedding and promoting the use of learning technologies; it is also an award for all the staff and management at the college who use learning technologies effectively to enhance and enrich the learning experience.”

The ALT Learning Technologist of the Year Award 2010 is now open for entries with two streams.

http://www.alt.ac.uk/awards.html has links to the rubric and entry form for the 2010 ALT Learning Technologist of the Year Award, which is now open for entries.

The 2010 award will be run in two distinct streams:

  • Stream One is open to all ordinary and certified members of ALT, and to individuals and teams based in ALT member organisations anywhere;
  • Stream Two is open to individuals and teams employed in Department for Education funded learning providers in England.

The closing date for entries is 10 June 2010.

flickr

Flickr Advanced Search

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I like Flickr, not just for a place to upload my photographs, but also as a place to find photographs. Regular readers of the blog will know that I use images often to illustrate my writing. Some of these are mine, but many are creative commons licensed images from Flickr.

It’s very easy to search for creative commons licensed images on Flickr, but getting to the advanced search is not the easiest route (or if it is I haven’t found it). So I usually add the direct URL as a bookmark or a favourite.

http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/

Another way to search for creative commons licensed images is to use the search box on the creative commons website.

ipad, podcast

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #047: Is the netbook finished and now the iPad is the future?

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What do you use your computer for?

Photo source.

Is the  netbook as a concept finished? Is the iPad the future? James, David and John discuss the rise and fall of the netbook and the potential of Apple’s iPad.

With James Clay, David Sugden and John Whalley.

This is the forty-seventh e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Is the netbook finished and now the iPad is the future?

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Is the netbook finished and now the iPad is the future?

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes

Shownotes

stuff

Computeraid and elearning in Africa

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Post from Peter Kilcoyne
ILT Director
Worcester College of Technology

pkicoyne@wortech.ac.uk

Thanks very much to James for asking me to write a few posts about Computeraid and their support for elearning in Africa.

Computeraid (www.computeraid.com) is a great organisation that collects, refurbishes, wipes hard drives for PCs in the UK and ships them out to Schools, Hospitals, Universities and other community organisations.

Computer Aid

This picture shows a container of refurbished PCs being unpacked by one of their African partner organisations.

Over the last fe years Computeraid have been working with Universities in a number of African countries supporting them in implementing e-learning.

Online learning has great potential to open up educational opportunities to many Africans.  Compared to the UK, HE provision is much more limited and is beyond the reach of many due to the cost of fees, limited numbers of scholarships and the physical distance that many people live from Universities.

A great example of how an institution that Computeraid is working with is planning to use elearning to increase access to HE is the Zambian Open University.

ZAOU

ZAOU at present has a population of around 5000 distance students who study through an entirely paper based system. They aim though to increase that to around 50 000 students through adopting elearning. Compared to using paper based system staff and students will get great benefits in efficiencies, speed of delivery, use of communication and collaborative learning tools and e-assessment.

Computeraid are supporting this project in a number of ways. They are shipping out containers of PCs for use by staff and students.They are also supporting development of provision of small learning centres around Zambia and the development of e-learning and technical skills amongst staff at ZAOU.

An example of the innovative solutions that computeraid have developed to provide access to the Internet and ICT is this solar powered cybercafe which is built in a shipping container.

 

Computeraid have also helped ZAOUs development of elearning skills amongst its staff through funding two visits by myself to Zambia to run e-learning training sessions and a reciprocal visit from five ZAOU staff to Worcester College of Technology.

Pictures of Moodle Training  in Lusaka

Moodle training At Open University of Zambia

Moodle training at elearning conference

Moodle training at elearning conference Lusaka Zambia

Pictures of ZAOU visit to Worcester College of Technology

ZAOU and SLT meeting

ZAOU at WCT

Dust clouds permitting I’ ll flying back to Lusaka on Wednesday to do some more Moodle training with staff from ZAOU and a number of other universities.

I hope to do one or two more posts on James’s blog to let you all know how it’s going.

Finally please find out what happens to your organisations old computers and consider donating them to Computeraid.