an interview with Carmen Harris

Recently I spoke with Carmen Harris from Yooralla adult education. Carmen was involved in the North-West e-learning mentor projects back in 2011. She told me all about the amazing work they've been doing with literacy and technology over there, including blogs, facebook, email lists and zines.

You can listen to the interview right here. I was aiming to edit down to 5-8 minutes, but Carmen just kept on saying interesting things. Highly recommended for an insight into creative classroom practices.

Please use the comment area to give us your feedback.

Find out more about Carmen's work over here at their LitnTech site.
 

Tech notes:

We spoke over Skype and I recorded the call using a thing called "Amolto skype recorder". Really impressed with the sound quality.. but it was interesting that the Amolto app gave no warning it was recording. Just so you know.. it is possible that someone could be recording you in a Skype conversation without telling you.

I've used soundcloud to host the audio files, which is a very impressive app used by musicians and podcasters around the world. The free account gives you 200 minutes of sound files.

Investigative Teachers at Community West

A wonderful project at Community West in St Albans, where Dinna Tayao has invited teachers to join a weekly session of exploration and sharing.

I went out to visit Dinna and her team of investigating educators. They have been running a fantastic in-house exploration of all kinds of e-learning.

Each week one teacher explores a new strategy, software or other resource, evaluates its usefulness in class with students, and then reports back to the other teachers. 2 hours a week. They've had visiting expert speakers as well. Brilliant work from Dinna and the teachers at Community West. What a great job they are doing.

One teacher had researched the idea of using powerpoint to engage students in the colour, language and meaning of signs. What impressed me most was the way she had given such close attention to noticing how the students responded at each stage.

*Question of the Week*

I showed the teachers at Community West how google docs/ drive can work for collaborative writing. There was some enthusiasm around its potential, and also some reservation around the complication of requiring a login (too challenging for lower levels).

And a great question from one of the teachers: tell us who's been using this, and how?

[Oh no, did I really turn up without any case studies in hand? Yeh, I don't think they were too impressed actually, and fair enough.]

So who can tell us of some great examples or case studies of teaching and learning with google docs? Please add your thoughts in the comments below.

best regards, michael

Collaborate and create documents together - with google drive, desktop edition.

3 Questions:

• Are you using google docs? (aka google drive)
• Have you noticed that you can now access your google drive files and folders via your desktop?
• Have you noticed that you can share any kind of file via this cloud system now, not just google documents?

Google drive is now a lot like dropbox - a place to share files and folders with people in different locations. You get 5gb of storage space, and you can access and manage the filing system via your local file manager*. 

[*eg: Windows Explorer on windows, or Finder on mac.]

Most people are better at managing file systems via their own file manager rather than via a web app - making new folders, moving files from one location to another. Why upload via a web page, when you can copy/paste from one desktop folder to another.

Once you store files in the google drive space, you can share them with other people, either to view or to edit. It doesn't have to be a google doc. You can also publish documents on the web. For example, here's an intro to google drive (desktop edition), a PDF file stored in my own google drive area.

Updated, Dec13: [Download a copy here.]

4th question: is there enough info in this document to get started? What's missing?

Oh wait, I know what's missing. How could this be useful for education? 

Please respond to any of the questions in this post via the comments area below. Thanks so much,

Michael Chalk

PS: I have updated this document to mention that you can allow people different editing rights (thanks Jill for that feedback). 

What’s the Difference Between “Using Technology” and “Technology Integration”?

Are we just going through the motion or are we making a difference in the classroom with the use of technology? The table below makes a good comparison. Here is the link to teachbytes blog

Dropbox, an introduction

Michael Chalk and Ian Hall present an intro to Dropbox:

• How to get it,
• what it's for and
• what can you do with it. 

Thursday 07 March, 12:30 AEDT. Location TBA (online - you'll need a headset). 

Especially for the folk of the Loddon Mallee and North-West regions, however everyone is welcome. Please indicate here in the comments, or on the ACE network Ning events page (login req'd), whether we'll see you. Come and share your knowledge if you already have some experience.

Still booking an online room, but we'll let you know how to find us.

We'll talk briefly about the other options, for example Google Drive and microsoft Skydrive, but the main focus will be on Dropbox.

45-60 minute presentation, followed by optional conversation and networking, Q & A time.

What's happening around the region?

Here in the North-West, we've met with some inspiring educators from 8 different organisations.

It always intrigues me when i meet people who say, "We're real beginners with e-learning, we don't really know what we're doing," and then you find out they're already experimenting with all kinds of engaging practices in their classrooms. So often, people in adult education don't recognise what's already happening in their teachers' practice.

Here's a very brief overview of what people are working towards on these e-learning mentor projects. So far, people are looking to:

• find a way to enable the trainer to support many people at different levels of information and communicative technologies (ICT) awareness in the one "drop-in" session (RCLC),
• build up resources to share across English as a second language (ESL) classes using online storage & discussion space (wikispaces) (Yarraville, Laverton),
• employ presentation software to engage low-level language and literacy students, and expand techniques of using data projector in the classroom (JSS), 
• set up networks of students between different organisations, using "keypal" strategies (students email between classes) (Glenroy),
• engage staff via virtual staffroom to explore and share strategies for engaging learners (Lalor LLC), 
• build or adapt a model for blended learning across the organisation (Glenroy, AMCS), 
• explore ways to overcome student fears of technology (JSS), 
• find a learning management system (LMS) that suits learners at very low levels of technology confidence (AMCS). 

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Credits for photos in the presentation: Urban Don, Pixel Addict

Workshops coming up very soon (face-to-face)

In November, we have 2 half-day workshops for anybody in the region. The sessions are face-to-face, held at the CAE (Flinders Lane, Melbourne) and free to attend. Both sessions will have opportunities for networking activities & discussion, as well as Q&A problem-solving. Bookings are needed however. (Please use the form below.)

Day One:
Thursday 15 November 1:00 - 4:00pm
Working with images and photos -

• examples: flickr, instagram
• ideas for using photos in class
• books & zines with Publisher
• optimising images

Day Two: 
Tuesday 27 November 9:30am - 12:30pm
Exploring powerpoint and other slide-based presentation tools,

• for in-class face-to-face interaction
• teaching ideas
• hands-on practice
• audio in powerpoint

First meetings underway

What a great turnout we had last week for our "induction sessions" in at the CAE. Educators from nearly all organisations came along, and we talked about many things:

• what e-learning is, 
• what the issues are, 
• what you would like to learn about, 
• what you are doing already, and 
• various ways to stay in touch during the project. 

Here's the presentation from the day, including input from everyone in the room as we went along. You should be able to make this full-screen, and move through the slides. If you'd like to add or remove anything, please let us know via the comments or direct contact.

Which model of e-learning suits you?

Clint Smith is one amazing e-learning strategist. You may have seen him at the recent Victorian LearnLocal e-learning showcase. According to Clint, these 8 models are the most commonly understood representations of how people engage with e-learning in business and education.

We asked our participants which of the models were most likely to interest them. Blended Learning and Live Online Learning (aka web conferencing) were the most interesting.

We held a live poll in person at the North-West induction sessions, via sms and also the web. People could vote here on the page, but now voting is closed, and here are the results, showing a clear winner for "blended learning 2.0".

You need the Flash Player to view this page.

Didn't get to vote? Don't like the results? Maybe you agree, and would like to add something. Please leave us a comment below (look for the bit that says "(number) comments". I made this poll at smspoll.net, after seeing Michael Gwyther use it at a forum.