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.