All posts by James Clay

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #67  FAQ

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If you find yourself answering from learners the same questions over and over again, it can save time and make life easier for you and your learners to create a list of Frequently Asked Questions (or FAQ).

This can then be used to reference any questions asked by learners about the course and assignments. Learners who then ask the same or similar question again can be shown the FAQ. If they ask a new question, just add the question (and the answer) to the FAQ.

Hosting the FAQ on the VLE allows learners to access the FAQ before they even get to ask the question to you the tutor. If if has their question and an answer they will then go away satisfied without even needing to ask you the tutor a question. This saves both you and them time. It means they will get an answer quicker (very useful at weekends and in the evenings).

alt, conference, jisc

Rewiring Inclusion

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Rewiring Inclusion: Strategies, tools and techniques to promote barrier-free learning

A national one day conference in Nottingham at the National College on Tuesday 9 February 2010, with an optional evening session on 8 February. Organised jointly by the Association for Learning Technology and JISC TechDis.

With an outstanding range of workshop sessions, and plenary contributions from:

· Google’s Julian Harty – “Wave, Chrome OS, Online Docs, and Android.
What impact will they have on the environment for learning?”;

· Jane Seale from the University of Southampton;

· Yahoo! Europe’s Artur Ortega – “The Yahoo! approach to accessibility”;

· Dónal Fitzpatrick from the School of Computing at Dublin City University – “The contribution that computer science is making on inclusion”;
· Peter Hartley from Bradford University;

· Alison Mills from The Manchester College – “How a large urban college has taken inclusion to the heart of its operations”;

· James Clay from Gloucestershire College.

Full programme for the event [1 MB PDF]

A large print version is available.

The conference will focus in particular on browser technologies, Web2.0, e-learning, and mobile learning, and on the benefits these can offer to
all users, including those with disabilities or learning difficulties.

All sectors were represented in the workshop proposals and we are delighted that Independent Specialist Colleges were successful in being
selected to present alongside Universities, FE colleges, Project Consultants, and JISC Regional Support Centres.

Costs to attend:
£120 members of ALT
£160 non members of ALT
£100 dinner, bed and breakfast at the National College

Booking deadline:
Tuesday, 2 February 2010 – http://www.alt.ac.uk/conferences.php

app of the week, blog, blogging, iphone, ipod touch

WordPress – iPhone App of the Week

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WordPress  iPhone App of the Week


I am hoping that this will be 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 WordPress  (iTunes Store link)

I have written before on this blog about the WordPress App for the iPhone.

Back then I said

The interface is not fantastic, though having looked a little more into it, if you had an iPhone (it has a camera) you can add photos quite easily; from the iPod touch you can only (obviously) use images stored on the device.

I am reasonably impressed with the app and if it allows me to blog more easily and more often then that can only make my blog better (or will it).

In the end I have made use of it, as well as writing full blog entries I have also used it for ideas for blog posts which I can then use as drafts once I get behind a full size computer.

WordPress 2 is a revised version which looks and works better than the previous version. It also now supports password protected self-hosted blogs.

WordPress is blogging software, that you can either use free via WordPress.com (which is where this blog is hosted) or you can go to WordPress.org, download and install the software on your own server.

Once installed you can then post blog entries. One of the features of the software is you can either have a fully open blog or one with a password; a closed blog allows for example a learner and a tutor to reflect and communicate without letting the rest of the group (and the world) in on that conversation. A blog is different (better) than e-mail in that the reflections and conversations can be tagged, allowing both the learner and the tutor to collate and look at a group of blog entries. With e-mail they can get lost in amongst the body of e-mails we now get and many places limit how much e-mail you can store!

Since WordPress.com took advantage of the WPTouch theme, it can be much easier to view a WordPress blog on an iPhone (or other mobile device). You can also install WPTouch on your own WordPress installation if you are self-hosted.

The WordPress App on the iPhone allows you to post blog entries to your blog whilst on the move.

You can write entries, add images and then either publish direct, or save as a draft.

The App also works offline which makes it useful if you have the iPod touch, as you can write offline and then publish once you are in range of a wireless network.

Simple to use for just plain text, you can attach photographs, but can only embed them if you know soem HTML and already have the image somewhere already online! Not the easiest thing to do with an iPhone, though at least now we have copy and paste!

The WordPress App is a free app and WordPress.com can be used for free, so if you like free then this is one way that you can blog without needing to spend any money.

Blogging software is very much a personal thing, some like WordPress, others don’t. If you already and are happy using another service such as Blogger or Typepad then you are probably not going to swap to WordPress. However if you already use WordPress or are new to mobile blogging then the combination of the WordPress blogging software and the WordPress App has made it quick, easy and simple.

podcast

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #030: Snow Joke Two

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With David Sugden, Lilian Soon and James Clay.

This is the thirtieth e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Snow Joke Two. After a bit of break, well we’ve not had an episode since October, this is hopefully the first of a more regular podcast.

Download the podcast in mp3 format: Snow Joke Two

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Shownotes

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #42 Setting a task

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You can quite easily set tasks for learners, or small groups, or even a whole group of learners in a classroom situation.

By setting the task using the VLE, you can ensure that all learners have access to the details of the task, what is required of them, relevant resources and what the final outcome needs to be.

You can then use the VLE to monitor progress of the task, check that the learners are on target to meet the final outcome.

Learners can use the communication tools of the VLE to discuss the task with each other, ask questions of the tutor about the task and share resources and links.

Once the task is completed, the learners can submit their outcomes to the VLE and this will ensure that the tutor can access the outcome easily. At the end of the task, the tutor will have for assessment purposes the completed outcome, a trail of discussions, questions, resources and links that supported the task.

Photo source.

apple, e-book, kindle, sony

A BIG e-Book Reader

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We often don’t get gadgets here in the UK that they have in the US, for example anyone want a Zune? Well even if you did, not available officially in the UK.

I remarked very early on when Amazon released the Kindle back in January 2008 that

Of course they aren’t available in the UK at all, I wonder if we will ever see a UK version of the Kindle?

Well the Kindle eventually made it to the UK in October 2009, however without the full on connectivity that made it an attractive device and one that stood out from the other e-Book devices out there. Without the connectivity I couldn’t see how the device was that much different to the Sony eBook Reader which I was using for eBooks. I was also pretty sure that we would see a new tablet/slate device from Apple soon (well probably in next couple of weeks) and that sounded a much better deal.

Having said that, released this week is the Kindle DX, the BIG Kindle. This is again an eBook Reader from Amazon but with a much bigger screen, 9.7” over the 6” of the Kindle. This makes reading complex pages and PDFs much easier than other eBook Readers. This makes it a much more suitable reading device for some curriculum areas which depend on diagrams and pictures.

The other big advantage of the Kindle is the backing of Amazon, making it very easy to buy and download eBooks to the device. This is something that other companies like Apple know, make it easy to buy content and people buy content.

With my Sony eBook Reader, I need to make sure I am on the right computer and then download the eBook to that computer before syncing with the Reader and then I can read my book. With the Kindle, I can browse and download the book via the device. In the US this is pretty seamless, however in the UK it gets a little more complicated and adds an extra charge to the book (as you have to pay roaming 3G charges).

I do like eBook Readers, however I won’t be buying a Kindle DX as I am going to wait and see what Apple bring to the market before the end of the month.

news

Can I just get your attention…

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The BBC News reports on research which states

University students have average attention spans of just 10 minutes

Really?

They will only pay attention to something for just ten minutes?

Really?

Sorry, what a load of cobblers.

The average length of time a student could concentrate for in lectures was 10 minutes, according to the survey carried last month. And a third blamed lack of sleep and being overworked for this.

No students don’t have ten minute attention spans, it’s just that lectures only hold their attention for ten minutes. That is a very different thing.

If students can spend four hours playing World of Warcraft, what does that say about attention spans?

If students can watch an entire episode of Heroes or sit through the 162 minutes of Avatar, what does that say about attention spans?

Yes there are bound to be students out there that only have ten minute attention spans, however the problem that the research has identified is that the traditional university lecture can only hold the attention span of students for just ten minutes.

The problem with this research and the “findings” is that rather than face the actual problem of boring or unengaging lectures, we try and solve the problem of inattentive students or just start doing ten minute lectures and complain about “dumbing down”.

To be honest I don’t think this is anything new and not exclusive to university students.

At the recent Handheld Learning Conference last year in October I remember Tweeting how with one of the keynote speakers I had stopped listening within ten minutes. Now I think I do have quite a long attention span, but in this instance I didn’t. It’s more often not the person who has the short attention span, but how the content grabs the attention of the person listening. With other keynotes at the conference I was there listening all the way through.

Maybe universities need to stop thinking about student attention spans and start thinking about how they can engage their students to ensure that they engage with the lecture or sessions for how long it takes. Making it engaging (though this doesn’t always mean interactive) and interesting so that it holds the attention of learners for more than ten minutes.

Still with me… or did I lose your attention!

app of the week, iphone, ipod touch

Strip Designer – iPhone App of the Week

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Strip Designer iPhone App of the Week

I am hoping that this will be 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 Strip Designer.

With Strip Designer you can create your own personal comic strip. Add your own photos, apply simple image filters to increase their impact, and add speech balloons and text-boxes. When you are done, save the resulting image to the iPhone’s photo album and email it to friends and family.

Cost £1.79

Comics can be used in many different ways to enhance and enrich learning activites, as well as other processes in the college. Think of it as just another medium to get a message across to learners.

  • Rather than have a written list of instructions for a particular activity, create a comic that as well as text has images that support the explanation of the instructions.
  • Create a comic of how to find help and support in the Library or Learning Resources Centre.
  • Add captions and speech balloons to a photograph to make a informative poster.

There are various comic creation apps for the iPhone, where Strip Designer is different is that it allows you to create a comic strip. Most of the other applications allow you to add comic touches to a single photograph, Strip Designer allows you to use a series of photographs, comicfy them, add captions, speech balloons and then save it as an image, send via e-mail or send direct to Facebook or Flickr.

The interface is quite complicated with various menus and sub menus.

However it doesn’t take long to see that the reason for this is the variety of effects and adjustments you can make to the images, text, balloons and captions.

This is a finished strip. Click the image to see the full size version.

Overall the app works very well, but as with any comic app, the key is the thought and planning that goes into the comic design process and writing before you even open the app. That is something to consider if you want your learners to create a comic as part of a learning activity.

apple

Tabletish

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The rumours continue to ruminate, the possible leaks continue to leak, the stories continue to be told.

It is almost 100% likely that Apple will sometime this year, probably this month, release a table slate type device.

No one knows for sure, but there are lots of rumours and speculation running around the web.

One thing that I recently heard about and caught my eye was this simulation of a tablet device showing a magazine. Note that this is not the Apple device, this is just a concept of a future device.

This concept is Sports Illustrated, however replace a sports magazine with a core text book, or a relevant magazine for a vocational area.

No more just pictures and text, now throw in video, audio and animated diagrams.

Yes we can do this already, and with the NLN Materials this was been done a few years ago. However the difference now is the device on which someone would view this content. With 3G and WiFi you can now have the connectivity to download content quickly and easily when you want to use it. A device with a battery life of a day rather than an hour and a half. A device with an intuitive interface that just works then one that requires a pen, stylus or a degree in mechanics to work out how it works.

I have no idea when the Apple device will come out though I think the 26th or 27th January are possible, I certainly will consider getting one.