Photos from the E-showcase12

Here are a few images from the very successful and superbly organised day at William Angliss Conference centre on 22 June 2012.
I'm quite impressed with the features of the photo uploader and photoshow tool at the Learn Local NING,  I'll grab the Embed code and see if I can share the Photoshow here.


Find more photos like this on Learn Local e-learning network
Well, it's worked: though as with all trials, there are a few hiccups. I'm not sure why the images autoplay in reverse order, and the captions have disappeared. Oh well, you can drop by the Learn Local e-learning network (AKA ACE NING) at: http://acenetwork.ning.com/ to view them properly.

e-showcase: follow from your desk

If you didn't make it to the e-learning showcase today, you can follow the twitter feed using the "hashtag" #eshow12
Ie: via this link
https://twitter.com/search/#eshow12

(I think)
Michael

Or, failing that, try this one: http://visibletweets.com/#query=%23eshow12&animation=2
A very novel tool for displaying all the tweets with a particular hashtag!
Thanks Michael and Leo

Here's a sample: 

I know how you feel, Dale. If there was a second ipad to win, you'd deserve to win it as much as me.... JK

More follow-up from face-to-face session

More follow-up from the May face-to-face session. Here's the presentation we started with. Of course, the discussion actually went in all kinds of other directions on the day.
And some notes from the discussion (after the break):

"Advanced wikispaces skills" session challenges presenters!

Jill and michael ran a session on the advanced aspects of wikispaces. Clearly nobody feels "advanced", because we were alone in the session.

However, we thought that some skills were worth demonstrating anyway. So we went ahead, intending to record the presentation for possible future value, and also to share some tips & strategies with each other.

Here's the menu we started with:

The large menu was designed to give people a choice (too much for one session) ..so we decided to focus on only 3 of the skills.

Okay the hilarious thing for us was that whatever we tried to demonstrated (for the recording), had changed since we last worked it out.

For Blended Learning, just add ingredients and press 'Blend'

This month we had the opportunity to spend some time with some North West Region e-leaders to explore a number of simple techniques to use Powerpoint in the classroom as an interactive teaching tool.

We were inspired by Rob Lewis from the British Council (previously blogged here) to have a go, and to work out what techniques he was using to speed up the production process so that we (humble educators) can, with little effort, become producers of e-learning resources.

Ha! Is it really that simple?

Let's review some of those techniques here so that you can mentally tick off what is practical and worth trying out - remembering that each time you make a Powerpoint presie, you'll get quicker and acquire new skills, be they keyboard shortcuts to speed the production process or clever ways to incorporate the presie into your teaching practice and/ or enabling students' access to that presie independently beyond the classroom.

Face-to-face networking

In spite of our need to keep in touch via various communication technologies (telephone, web conferencing etc), it's always great to get together in the same room at the same time. Face to face.

And there are so many people in ACE e-learning doing great work across the North-West region of Melbourne.

On the first of May, we were joined by some wonderful educators and managers from:

• Glenroy Neighbourhood Learning Centre, 
• North Melbourne language and literacy,
• Meadow Heights Learning Shop,
• Djerriwarrh Employment and Education Services,
• Carlton Neighbourhood Learning Centre (CNLC), 
• Community West,
• Yarraville community centre. 

We talked about a whole range of things: 

• What people have been up to lately, 
• Issues that come up, time and again, 
• Resources that people wanted to share, 
• Things to follow up.

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.