Using Powerpoint in the classroom

What's so special about using Powerpoint in the classroom?

Occasionally I read something that really resonates strongly with my current thoughts about teaching practice: what I do in the classroom, and what I'd like to do better.

Rob Lewis, writing for the British Council, has encapsulated what all of us could use with very little additional training and equipment. His reasoning: you don't need fancy interactive white boards nor many more typing skills beyond what you might have with Microsoft Word already, to sit down with your learners (and a handy cordless keyboard and laptop) and bring their (and your) ideas and language to life with a projector.

Rob says: '... it's easy to prepare before lessons. In class it can also give an extra dynamic, especially with the 'clickability' it gives you - the chance to quickly click through slides....'

Evernote Webinar rescheduled to the 8th May

Here is the link to the recording of the webinar held 8th May.
 
Competing priorities have pushed out this webinar (scheduled for tomorrow) to the later date of Tuesday, 8th May at 3pm, in our ACFE E-mentor Blackboard Collaborate room.

Recently I blogged here about my discovery of this brilliant personal and professional management tool: Evernote. I was also very impressed with Trent Bourne's webinar for the Australia e-series: here is a link to the recording.

"e-learning - why?" Come to a showcase in June

"e-learning - why?" A showcase for LearnLocal people and organisations.

Hold the date: 22 June 2012 for your diaries. Come and meet your colleagues face-to-face, share ideas, build your networks, ask questions and learn more about the worlds of e-learning. 

• To register please follow this link.
• Here's the showcase wiki being developed: eshowcase12.acfe.vic.edu.au/

More information as soon as we can.

Let's get together, and re-focus your mini-projects

Hello Amazing North-West e-learning People. Who can believe we're looking at the final term for these e-mentor projects!

(1) Remember your "e-learning plan"? What about this for an idea: depending where you're at, let's re-work this into a "mini-project" so that you can present with pride to your peers, and feel you've made some progress. It's possible you've done some remarkable things you just don't recognise.

(2) We would very much like to offer you a face-to-face session in term 2 so you can all get together, ask questions, share ideas and network**.

Here are the dates we're looking at (what's your preference?):

• 26 April, 1.30pm – 4.30pm (CAE 278 Flinders Lane) 
• 1 May, 1.30 - 4.30pm (CAE 253 Flinders Lane) 

The menu could include:
=> How to "find the amazing" in what you've done already,
=> Assist each other with your mini-project work,
=> Hands-on workshopping,
=> Tech focus: Powerpoint in the classroom and/or optimising your photos for publishing in online resources.

Please tell us your thoughts As Soon As You Can (asayc):
1) Will you join us in a face-to-face networking workshop day 
    (a) Yes (b) No (c) Please visit me instead.
2) What else does this menu need? (It needs your input).

Please respond via email, a comment reply here, or via the iPadio.

Evernote everywhere

It's awhile since I promoted a web tool in this blog - but I've become a convert to Evernote, not just because the folks at Evernote proudly promote it with a video showing Jack and Jill (Jill's the smart one with Evernote, Jack's got sticky notes all over the place and is totally disorganised!).

Evernote is widely used for grouping your Notes (free text) in Notebooks (folders of related notes) across platforms on a PC or Mac and synchronised to your Netbook/ laptop, iphone (apparently - I don't have one of those yet) and tablet/ ipad (ditto).

It's really useful in the planning stages for a project or learning task because you can collect links and files together with your Note, and tag your notes (to search by subject tag later, when your collection of Notes and Notebooks has grown). You can also record some audio - that's right - just click the little microphone icon to record your thoughts/ comments and the recording is then attached to the Note.

North West region "community of practice"

Victoria Market

I've just met with some wonderful teachers and managers of the North-West region and Sue O'Brien of the NW ACFE regional office, in at the AMES "Multicultural Hub" opposite the Victoria Market.

From the agenda, i was expecting to give a presentation with an overview of blended learning, and some examples of who's doing it around the regions. Because it was about 10 of us around a table, the session quickly turned into a conversation where i hope most people had some input. We tackled the really fundamental questions too, for example

• "What is blended learning?" 
• "Just give us the easiest thing to start with, not too many options", 
• What are our main issues and concerns, as well as 
• explain the jargon!  

Here's the presentation, with notes that came up during the session.

Collaborative authoring.. a live session

Thanks to all who attended this session.


We attempted a "live document editing activity" during the session, which went pretty well i thought (michael). 


Jill was nervous about it, because she was running that activity, and it can be nerve-wracking. From my perspective, she was amazing. It takes a lot of skill to do application-sharing and web touring all at once. 


Here's the presentation from the session.



Please post any follow-up questions in the comments here, or over on the network "Ning". Recording link to follow.

Strategies for engaging with staff and workers in a virtual staffroom

Many of the e-learning leaders in the North-West region are searching for ways to engage their staff in some kind of online communication space, or virtual staffroom. 

Last year we brainstormed a list of ideas for overcoming barriers and connecting with staff (link to document here).

Huge thanks to all who came along to join the discussion, share their ideas and find out how their thinking meshes with others in the wider network. 

We had participants from NW and Barwon regions, as well as further up North (thanks Carole, great to see you). 

Here's the recording of the session from Wednesday, 07 March at 7:30pm.

Remember there are plenty more sessions on offer this semester, from all around the regions of Victorian ACE. More details on the calendar page. 

Progress at Lalor LLC phlogged to the world

In response to our plea to try out the very simple phone blogging tool, ipadio, Assunta has produced a wonderful progress report on her and Carmela's e-project.

We've embedded it here to inspire you to have a go:



Thanks very much for participating with enthusiasm and dedication so far, Assunta and Carmela. We look forward to hearing and seeing your presie online or in our June showcase (more on that later...)

You can find a previous post about Progress at Lalor here or Search using the new Search Feature (top of the right sidebar).