LTM Update @ Petersham 2

May 31st, 2011 Posted by cmastroianni in captivate, Emore & Petersham, facebook, LTM, LTM report, moodle, smartboard | Post a Comment »

Great to hear news of the LTM road for everyone here! And great tips and tricks and links too!

I attended the Advanced Smartboard training on Thursday 18^th May which focused on the Smart Recorder and Video player, and there were some nifty tricks like recording the page that you are teaching on so that you can upload it later onto a wiki or Moodles page for absent students or for students to review. As Notebook only works with mp3 and flv files, this site http://www.mediacoderhq.com/ once downloaded will automatically convert files.  Soungle  http://www.soungle.com/ is also a useful site to download royalty free sound files.

I learned how to use the ebeam via the projector in the classroom and although I found it fiddly compared to the Smartboard its portability is a plus if you need to teach offsite.  You would still need to have a projector with you. Love our one and only Smartboard. I only wish we had more here.

Paulis delivered a Moodles training session at West St. Petersham last week. It was well attended by Childcare, Disabilities, Language and Interpreting teachers. It was a good overview and teachers also enrolled  in the  introduction to the online Moodles course for more hands on practice. I was approached by teachers afterwards for more one on one or small group training so that was a good outcome. Mentoring continues…

Have also been exploring some educational apps on Facebook, mainly word games for ESL students. Here is a snapshot of what I found at the link below which I created via Captivate.

Facebook Word Games

If you’d like to try your hand at creating a Facebook App, this video may help. Haven’t tried this one yet so if you do try it first, let us know if it works.

How to make a Facebook App

Look forward to hearing more.

Cheers

LTM Update @ Enmore

May 26th, 2011 Posted by tdobble1 in Emore & Petersham, LTM report, resources | Read Comments(3) or Post a Reply »

My LTM road has so far been not only like running in treacle but like being feathered afterwards as well!

Initial response was very enthusiastic & training has been requested for moodle & captivate.

As my skills in these two areas are still being developed, I have been directing interested teachers to the different PD workshops or the Adobe connect Friday Sessions & they also had the opportunity to join Petersham teachers for a session with Paulis.

Barbara Rendall our librarian also gave me an orientation session of all the fantastic resources in our library that are available to borrow which I was hoping to also show at an introduction session. We were also planning to have a presentation on the online resources available through the library database to help with developing teaching resources.

I  organised A show & tell twice but had to cancel on both ocassions due to lack of response!  Extremely disappointing. Further discussion with head teachers & teachers has indicated that making time to attend is just near impossible. They all expressed the desire to have someone on call & available as the need presented itself.

So I currently have around 15 teachers that would like one on one training in either moodle, captivate or the adobe suite. Thank God for Paulis’s Bamboozled for Moodle course on Monday! At least I know now where to log on & request a new course! We also discovered that we would be the last group to attend a face to face session on introduction to Moodle & that training would now only be online. An interesting point he made was that he would be creating some glitches in the course so that you were made aware of issues that online students faced & how to make sure you made your own online resources more user friendly.

I can relate! Just trying to log on to all the different platforms with usernames & passwords has been frustrating in itself.

Tommorrow I am attending a ‘NING’ workshop. The Graphic design department is investigating using this platform to launch their new online course. I will also be doing an overview of Moodle, wikis & blogs etc to the group to further expand their e-learning repertoire. Thanks Con for your handouts, I will distribute these to the group if you don’t mind.

Blogs are my favoured elearning platform so I have created two differently setup pages for different classes that I am using as an example to show teachers. My students have been really excited by the blog as a teaching tool & this has encouraged the teachers I have spoken to – to develop their own. (Although with more Moodle knowledge I could convert).

They are called VMillustration & TVET interior

Apart from that my office is in quite a useful position situated in a major corridor next to a main photocopier. As I have an LTM sign visibly outside the door anyone having issues with the phoocopier selectively sees the word ‘TECHNOLOGY’ & approaches me to help.

This week my tutorial is on how to add your email address to the photocopier so that you can email things that you scan to yourself without having to add your name everytime.

these instructions ar for the Apeopsport IV C2270 machines

STEP 1. Go to the home screen (press silver  with house on it)

STEP 2. Press the setup button on the bottom left of the screen

STEP 3. Press the ‘Add Address book entry’ button

STEP4. numbers will be listed maybe with addresses already added. Press a number that is ‘available’

STEP 5. A screen appears that says ‘address type’ select ‘email’ &  then SAVE

STEP 6. A screen appears where you can add your email , name etc. fill this out & then SAVE

STEP 7. Your email is now added to the address book so when you want to email just go direct to address book & select your name

OK – so that’s it for this week , onto making appointments for individuals. My first one is on Thursday morning – uploading files to moodle – so any tips are greatly appreciated!

PS: Some other interesting sitesto visit that have been discussed at Boosting flexibility meetings:

http://www.blip.tv/

http://prezi.com/index/

http://www.stupeflix.com/

LTM Update – Harris St Cluster

May 24th, 2011 Posted by jstratfold in Learning and Innovation, LTM, TH&SIC, Using Technologies | Post a Comment »

Another week gone, another week closer to the end of term and the end of this LTM project, but will it get done?

I attended the moodle for beginners training on Monday and had the opportunity to chat to a number of other LTMs who were present.  There was general agreement (I believe) that being an LTM feels a bit like running in treacle; you know where you want to be, you’re heading in the right direction, but you don’t think you’re ever going to get there. 

To misquote a famous Rumsfeld line – the problem we are facing is that whereas we  now know what it is we don’t know – our colleagues, whom we are here to help (or force) into the 21st Century, for the most part have no idea of what it is they don’t know.

This latter fact may be the part of the reason most of us have not had an overwhelming resposne from our clusters in putting together projects.  Who wants to learn moodle, when they don’t know what it is, are not aware of how it can help and are pretty sure that they wont have the time to do anything about it anway?  Sp how do we overcome this major issue ICT – the lack of teacher preparedness?

The other frustration I am facing is fitting in with other trainers & LTMs to getting the upskilling I need to meet the needs of my cluster – be it due to covering for colleagues or clashing commitments – but it feels like more treacle to be waded through!

POV training Mark II scheduled for tomorrow – have found and read the user manual (thanks for the tip Stephan) and am raring to go – let’s hope it’s a sweet begnining not a sticky end!

Masa NAITO – Work & Study Pathways Cluster

May 24th, 2011 Posted by mnaito in LTM, LTM report, Using Technologies, W&SPC | Read Comments(1) or Post a Reply »

I just keep forgetting about here!

Work & Study Pathways Cluster Technology Mentor Wiki
<http://wspc.sydneyinstitute.wikispaces.net/>

It’s launched last week and I still need to develop more. Eventually (hopefully soon) I will upload handouts that I have used in the seminars.

Learning Technology Seminars

So far, I delivered three sessions for Data Projecter, eBeam, Scanning and Editing Images, last two weeks. The number of participants was low for the first session, but there were (even little) more people for the later sessions and I hope more people joining.

SMART Boad Seminar on Wednesday 19 May 2011
<http://www.interactivewhiteboard.net.au/>

I attended the beginner’s session and it was quite helpful.

LTM update @ St George

May 23rd, 2011 Posted by cathanasiou1 in Learning and Innovation, LTM, moodle, resources, St George, Using Technologies | Read Comments(2) or Post a Reply »

I conducted a learning technology showcase today between 12-1pm for several teachers from IT & ESOL.

The hour was meant to cover Moodles, Adobe Connect & Vision software, however we spent the whole time discussing & setting up Moodle for the teachers who attended.

I included a Learning Technology Showcase 1 handout with the basic functions for setting up, and managing content & students in Moodle, as well as outline of Adobe Connect & Vision. 

The teachers were also provided with the following documents by followup email, to read in their own time to support them with Moodle development and use;

• Moodle_For_Teachers_and_Trainers
• DET teachers copyright manual 

The next showcase is scheduled for next Monday 30th May, 5-6pm for all teachers.

LTM update – Harris St Cluster

May 18th, 2011 Posted by jstratfold in LTM report, smartboard, Video | Read Comments(1) or Post a Reply »

Had a busy week on the LTM front – borrowed the library’s POV camera.  What a large box with not a lot of stuff in it – what is it with tech equipment and packaging???  So I took the tiny camera home and had a play – recording easy peasy once I figured out which was was up (not so straightforward with a round camera!!).  Then I discovered how to access the memory card (there are no instructions in the box) and copied the files onto my PC at home.  When it all started to go wrong and I couldn’t open or edit the footage.  Hopefully my session with Tom tomorrow will reveal more!

Yesterday I went off to beginners smartboard  training at Crown St public school – seeing how we were given e-beams on day one of LTMdom which I believe turn any surface into a smartboard I figured I should check out what it’s all about.  How fabulous – I want one now – its like Powerpoint on steriods crossed with an i-Pad.

Cant seem to get the insert link button working – I do often wonder how come I ended up an LTM given my lack of expertise – but here is the smartboard link – there are also loads of vids on youtube demonstrating it’s qualities

http://smarttech.com/us/Solutions/Education+Solutions/Products+for+education/Interactive+whiteboards+and+displays/SMART+Board+interactive+whiteboards

Right-oh – POV training tomorrow – Moodle Training on Monday – just need some Adobe Premier training tacked on the end of that and I should be ready to display my LTM skills to the world – or at least to Harris St Cluster.  Bring it on!

Johanne Champness Sutherland TAFE

May 18th, 2011 Posted by jchampness in smartboard | Post a Comment »

Today I spoke at the Senior Staff Meeting with 40 participants about SMART Boards and their implementation across the 2 campuses. We have created a Sutherland Campus Moodle users group for the SMART Boards and of the 40 people 32 have agreed to join so that we can collaborate our learning experience. These are exciting times.
After this I mentored 4 TAFE High School/ Foundation Studies Teachers on the use of the SMART Board
Things covered were the
Pens
Eraser
Gallery Sampler
Blind
Running a DVD
Magic Pen
Math Instruments

Facebook and Twitter apps

May 17th, 2011 Posted by glahoud1 in facebook, social networking, Twitter | Post a Comment »

I have created a TwitterLTM account (especially for those of you who refuse to open a facebook account  and can’t join our group). Here is the link if you would like to follow. You don’t need to join both groups (facebook and twitter) as threads will be posted to both platforms.  I have been playing around with apps that link threads to both platforms.  I had to use 2 different apps: one called facebook to twitter that links facebook posts to your twitter account. The other app is called twitter to facebook.

I had a bit of trouble linking Twitter to a Facebook Group (pages and personal accounts are easy to link), read a few forums and it seems to be a common problem, I found a great app in facebook called called RSS Graffiti – hope it will solve my problem.  I have used it to feed this ltm blog on our facebook group wall.

If any of you have tried another app and are happy with it let us know!

Both Tom and I are running a social networking session via adobe connect on Thursday19th from 10-11am, we will be discussing these types of things and other applications for sns in education. You can register via the calendar and perhaps let interested mentees know.

LTM Petersham Update 1

May 11th, 2011 Posted by cmastroianni in Emore & Petersham, LTM, LTM report, moodle, smartboard, social networking, workshops | Read Comments(1) or Post a Reply »

So far I’ve had a lot of responses from teachers on using Moodles and have already set up a couple of mentoring sessions on using Moodles. One teacher wanted to know how to upload audio and how to set up an activity where students had to listen to the recording, evaluate their voice, pronunciation and language performance and write about it. The Essay quiz type seemed most appropriate for this activity. Other teachers wanted more of a general beginner introduction or a refresher especially if they had not used it for awhile. Given this interest, I spoke with the Workforce Development Team about the possibility of having an on-campus training session which I’m following up on. I understand from Tanya that Enmore teachers are also interested. It may grab more teachers who are generally restricted by their timetable and commuting issues.

The exciting news is that we have the SMARTBOARD  being  installed this week so I will able to organise a Show and Tell session soon. Language teachers are particularly keen to use this and I’m hoping for responses from other sections too.

One thing I’m experimenting with is setting up a facebook page for teachers, the objective being that they could familiarise themselves with what it was about especially if they are new to it. I also set up a MyESOL at Petersham TAFE  LIKE page but if it doesn’t get 25 likes it could go  This page could be a place where students and teachers could keep in touch or even as a way to connect with other students (i.e. if it ever became a hit).

On my own professional development, I attended the Boosting Flexibility workshop that was held at the Aspire Hotel Ultimo on Tuesday. I found that the variety of examples of what colleagues had been doing in other sections provided a useful overview of the different  elearning tools that could be used depending on the purpose.  Also it highlighted the expansion of elearning in education and that we had better be ready for it!

LTM Update – Jo Stratfold (Harris St)

May 5th, 2011 Posted by jstratfold in TH&SIC | Read Comments(1) or Post a Reply »

Had a meeting today with my CEO and Floristry head teacher to discuss their eLearning project. 

Modelled on a US site called UBloom - and to assist distance learners and others who can’t attend practical demonstrations – they would like to take videos of demonstrations and upload them onto the Floristry moodle for learners to view as a vod cast.  The learning outcomes for this project are for the floristry teachers to be able (and keen) to implement the technology for themselves, and potentially for them to then train students to use the process as well.

There is a two day teacher’s retreat for floristry planned for the non-teaching week and I have been provisionally invited to run a short (2 hour) workshop on the technology.

Having been overheard by the one of the head teachers for hospitality it’s been proposed that the commercial cookery teaching staff should also be using the same technology so I will provide the same mentoring process to the hospitality team – marvellously convenient!