Highlights of DTWD Summer Shorts PD, 5th December 2014

Webinar-streamed PD - a great development for remote providers

Department of Training and Workforce Development have responded to our requests to ensure streamed delivery of Professional Development events held in Perth were made available to remote training providers such as Kimberley Training Institute.

This wonderful development allowed me to take part in the Summer Shorts program offered on the 5th December, via Collaborate, sitting at my work station.  I was able to take a lot of notes and  link everything instantly back to work I was doing on training materials and processes.  Highly recommended for all KTI staff.  In future if there is enough interest it would be possible to organise a group to participate via VC.  This post is to share the highlights of the presentations. 

Opening Plenary:   Sharon Ferrier, "Facts Sell, Stories Tell - Persuasive Presentations"

Sharon Ferrier gave an overview of her dynamic approach to training and presentations and emphasized the importance of story-telling to engage learners and audiences. She advocates the use of relevant personal stories from one's own life to illustrate points and engage.  I found it a good exercise to think of my own stories and how they could be useful to illustrate a point or provide examples, or to stimulate interest.  A word of caution - good to use occasionally to illustrate a point or for an engaging introduction - generally it is probably better to obtain learner stories.

Finding Free-Range Resources for Training 

Naomi Stallard and Naomi Jeffers from DTWD shared their knowledge of different copyright licenses and how they can assist us to use open source resources on Creative Commons sites, video sites and open education resource sites.  They will be providing their PowerPoint presentation and handouts for us and I will share them here as they become available.  Here are some great resources on the web that we learned about today:

Creative Commons - This site has put together a large range of Creative Commons Licensed materials and materials that are in the Public Domain (as well as good information on what all the different copyright licenses mean) - covering music, video, code and creative work, for example

There is also Creative Commons Australia which seems to be the same site but more related to Australian resources as it covers many different institutions, sites and organisations that provide creative commons materials.

Open Education Resources Commons (OER) is a fantastic site which collates free to use educational materials from around the world, and you can browse by categories such as subject areas, grade levels and material types.

There are many video sites available with free video resources but as with all "free" resources it is still important to look at the conditions for use.  YouTube is the most commonly accessed site for training and educational videos but most of the material is for "personal, non-commercial" use, which may restrict us in how and when we use it.  It was recommended that we use a search term "cc" or "creative commons" along with the topic we are searching for to ensure that our search brings up materials that are free to use.  The search can also be further filtered for CC-licensed videos.

Vimeo is a very community-oriented video sharing site

TED talks are often used by training professionals if they find a particular speaker inspiring or relevant to share with their learners, as  a point for discussion.

Khan Academy is an online free education website with hundreds of instructional videos across all subject areas

Open Clip Art  - free clip art that could be useful where you want some colour and visual objects to lift your training materials.

The National Library of Australia has a range of free resources, one of which is a collection of e-books - there are other free resources such as newspapers and articles, and for some of them may need you to apply for a library card.  Explore and find out what is on offer!

Escaping PowerPoint Purgatory

This was Sharon Ferrier's presentation about ensuring you use PowerPoint's potential to the full without causing PIWI - PowerPoint Induced Whiplash Injury - the phenomenon of death by PowerPoint, or head jerking back due to falling asleep!

Sharon has a newsletter on her website which has great information.

Sharon has excellent tips for making sure PowerPoint is a great tool for stimulating discussion and learning.  Here are some of her tips.

Some of the main annoyances about PowerPoint (or a good list of what NOT to do with PowerPoint)

• Reading the slide for the audience, failing to make eye contact with the audience
• Small text
• Information overload, too much text
• Poor colour choice (too little contrast between background and text)
• Too many gimmicks with no point - flying text, bouncing text, etc.
• Annoying sounds or music
• Complex diagrams or flow charts
• Poor structure
• No objective or aim
• Too many different fonts

Things to do with PowerPoint:

• Make it like a billboard - visual and emotive

• Use Smart Art

• Use a Pen (ControlP turns the mouse into a pen so you can write or draw on the slide

           ControlE erases any marks made with the pen)

• IT IS NOT THE NUMBER OF SLIDES YOU USE BUT HOW YOU USE THEM

• Where you have a slide with lots of information, use  multiple slides, not one slide.

Share your ideas and experiences

Have something to say?  Please share your ideas and thoughts in the comments!

Training Providers Forum 2014 Highlights for E-Learning

I attended the Forum for the full two days and amongst the more staid and obligatory topics to do with national and state systems and compliance issues, there were a number of highlights that were exciting or interesting related to technology and e-learning.  I am reporting back from some notes I made, specifically on e-Learning.  Here is the link to all presentations on the DTWD website

Ander Sorman-Nilsson

By far the most outstanding highlight was the address by Ander Sorman-Nilsson, a futurist and writer.  Check out his website here.  These are the points I noted from his very dynamic and absorbing talk:

Ander divides approaches to learning, and to the world at large, into "analogue" and "digital" thinking and approaches.  His schema can be presented like this:

Analogue	Digital
Old school	New school
Human touch	Virtual
Emotion	Rational logic
Adaptive	Disruptive
Physical computer infrastructure	Cloud computing
Heart	Mind
Transformation	Information

Ander's argument is that these two different systems for understanding the world are not mutually exclusive.  We need both approaches.  Some examples he gives are:

Old fashioned hands-on customer service is still appreciated by many.  However, they want to extend this using digital technology.  So while they may go to a real life shop to have personal service and attention, they then may want to leave the physical shop and go to the internet to compare prices and value - so a retail outlet that relies on traditional "hands-on" customer interaction would be wise to have a strong internet presence as well.

The positives of digital technology include the interconnectedness it gives us, and such wonderful advances as the cochlear implant to give hearing to those who are deaf.

 Everything in the workplace is about to be digitized - we need to prepare for the digital apocalypse!  Training organisations are in the position of being able to train and prepare people for the increasing digitization, using mobile learning as well as the internet.  Education is now available free to millions of people via Massive Online Open Courses, and games for learning are everywhere - in fact gaming is the preferred learning style for many people.

We can make smarter decisions based on data that is digitally collected and analysed, we can share info on mobile phones with our colleagues and increase sales and efficiency, we can gather together information to help us in many ways, such as Nike selling performance software as well as shoes, an app called "Mint" that visualises our financial situation and progress.  The ageing demographic will be using mobile technology to monitor their own health and well being.  Life lessons will be "gamified" in terms of wellness and healthy habits. 

We are moving to a world where everyone is both student and teacher. With 3D printing we can become home manufacturers, using intellectual property we find on the internet - for example make up and jewellery.  What can't be digitized?

Here are some websites that featured in Ander's talk:

Icebreaker (NZ Wool company) code tracker - to track the environmental impact of the produce, called Baacode

Financial organiser called Mint

Skillshare on YouTube.  Skillshare is  an online learning environment where experts share their skills via video - they have a YouTube channel where it is possible to access some of their videos free.

Here is a video of the talk Ander gives to a range of audiences on his ideas, similar to the talk he gave to the Training Providers Forum:

Chris Winter from DTWD - Virtual Workplace Simulation

Chris gave a useful and interesting workshop on ways to include workplace simulation in your training.  His emphasis was that although there are many fancy graphics and apps out there, you don't necessarily need these to simulate workplace activities.  A well-structured set of activities and tasks will suffice. 

Chris gave an example of fire fighting training that uses video on screens combined with real life gas masks, two-way radio and communications.  The learning was about communicating and collaborating in an emergency scenario, so although the action was simulated on the screen, the trainees were communicating with each other in much the same way as they would in a real life situation.  The skills were giving and receiving instructions and collaborating with a gas mask on using two-way radio.

Another example was a simulated hospitality workplace, online using Moodle Learning Management System (which is much like Blackboard).  The learning materials consisted of scenarios within a visual framework which provided restaurant branding and graphics.

A third one was the use of a face to face class which was being given access to a mannekin to simulate symptons and nursing activities, that was broadcast to a remote class via Skype, allowing them to interact, watch the demonstration and ask questions.

Chris emphasized that with all these types of blends of real life and simulation, planning is important.

Guy Truss - e-Learning Partnership with a non-government organisation

Guy is a Principle Lecturer from SW Institute of Technology.  He worked with Baptist Care, who wanted their trainers to provide a flexible and accessible form of training for staff scattered at centres all over Regional WA.  Guy did a MOU with Baptist Care in which SWIT agreed to allow Baptist Care to use part of their Moodle LMS.  He then helped each trainer set up a course space on Moodle.  The trainers are mainly delivering non-accredited, in-house training.  This lends itself to using a wide range of innovative tools and apps, so Guy introduced the trainers not only to Moodle and how to create a course space there, but also things like blogs, Google Docs, an instant chat forum that is simular to Twitter called TodaysMeet which can be used on mobile devices, using cartooning for teaching and learning and a range of other digital tools.  Guy's presentation was a good example of how lecturers in State Training Providers can create business for their organisations as well as acting as a resource for not-for-profit organisations that need flexible training.  The trainers in Baptist Care did not see themselves as digital natives, or digitally competent, but they became enthusiastic and grew in confidence due to the project.  They reported a growth of cameraderie and team work and provided peer support, while the Moodle spaces they were developing grew organically with their own training and e-learning discoveries.

Kym Squires - Technology Enabled Learning

Kym Squires is from the Department of Environmental Regulation, which has staff scattered around regional Western Australia.  They wanted a training model that followed a 70:20:10 ratio where most of the training is done on the job, using competency based training.   They had limited resources and they are a small organisation.  There was strong management and executive support for an e-learning approach.  They used a Moodle Learning Management System and created modules and webinars.  They used In Design and Captivate to create learning  modules that had images, video, text and interactive elements.  In addition they recorded webinars of environmental and legal experts giving talks and posted these on the Moodle LMS. 

This was an interesting example of a government agency that is also an RTO creating their own e-learning programs.  It demonstrates what can be achieved when trainers are given access to programs such as In Design and Captivate with which to create learning modules.

 

 

                                            

E-Learning Expo Lecturer PD November 2013

In this blog post I will be posting all of the information and links that I will be using in the PD I am conducting at Kununrra and Broome in the next few weeks.

The idea is that instead of giving you a CD with lots of hard copy handouts, you can come here any time you like and find the links and resources.  You can also join in a discussion with your peers.

Below here you will find information and resource related to each topic in the PD sessions.

Introduction and Warm Up

I am using a fun exercise to get you to think about your goals for this PD, by using web based comic making programs.  You might like to think how you can use this or other similar programs with your students.  For this session I will be using Make Beliefs Comix.  There are quite a few great sites for this type of activity which we will cover in one of the sessions.

Good Teaching Practice using Technology - Designing an e-Learning Program

Jermaine and myself hope to get you excited about how you can use e-learning to create great learning designs to engage your learners. 

The Flexible Learning Advisory Group has endorsed a quality model for e-learning that has four levels, with RTO Standards at the top, below which sits Quality Criteria for E-Learning, Inputs and Resources.

The National VET e-Learning Strategy is full of resources and information, including standards and good practice for e-learning in Australia.  The link mentioned is to the Design page, which also has a link to a "Gallery" of a large range of e-learning strategies and tools. 

The Learning Design Tool from the National VET e-learning Strategy is a handy resource with a step by step guide incorporating best teaching practice.

Learning to teach online is a series of video interviews with e-learning practitioners at universities in Australia, covering topics such as Managing Time, LMS or Open Web?, Integrating Online Resources into Your Teaching, Planning Your Online Class, Engaging and Motivating Students.  In addition, it has video clips of case studies of e-learning delivery.

Another useful site when considering designing an e-learning space is Instructional Design Strategies which gives an overview of instructional design approaches and a great set of tips on how to use each of them to ensure your e-learning program is engaging and retains your participants.

As well as looking at good teaching practice (pedagogy) we also need to consider some principles of design when we are using on screen technology.  Neilsen Norman Group have the evidence of how people move their eyes across the screen.  There are many sites with information on good web page design but this one looks quite simple and has some good suggestions:  4 Principles of Good Design for Websites

You may wonder why on earth you need to learn about website design.  Perhaps you don't intend ever to build a website.  However if you are going to ask your students to look at anything on a screen, it is not a bad idea to find out what will engage them and what will turn them off!

Go to this recording of an excellent presentation by Chris Winter from WestOne, on "Writing for Online" in which he demonstrates the most effective way of gaining and maintaining engagement with your e-learning resource, whether it is a page on Blackboard, a blog, a wiki, or your own website.  This link is to a Blackboard Collaborate online classroom recording so it m ay take a few minutes to load, and you will need the latest copy of Java on your desktop (this should be installed already if you are watching from a work computer).

Video and photography with mobile technology

This has been covered quite nicely on our sister blog, Peer Support for Mobile Technology.  Go to the link to the page that has all the information on using mobile technology in teaching and learning.  It contains a great deal of information about capturing, saving, storing, uploading, editing and sharing video and still images.

Using Mobile Technology for Teaching and Learning

This session follows on from the above session and is obviously related to it.  Here we are exploring all the different ways people are using mobile technology in teaching and learning, not just image capture and sharing.  The YouTube video of Stephen Duggan speaking at UNESCO Mobile Learning Week is great value and very inspiring.



QR codes are a great tool that can be used in many ways to get students engaged in research.  There is a lot of information about this on the page of this blog called Mobile Technology in Education and Training - see the link on the right to the page (at the bottom of the list).

I will be putting up QR codes around the training rooms and getting you to scan them with your phones - watch this space.  In addition you will be creating your own QR codes, by downloading the free QR code creation and readers from the app stores to your phone.

Web-Based Programs for Teaching and Learning

Here is a YouTube clip of a university lecturer providing a few examples of using web-based tools with his students for learning and collaboration - "the good, the bad and the ugly."



This blog is one example of a web-based tool.  Blogs and wikis are great teaching and learning tools.  Blogs and wikis can be used for students to collaborate with research, to document their learning or a process, or for reflection and group communication.  There is a page within this blog all about blogs and wikis and the differences - see the link "Blogs and Wikis" on the right in the list of pages.

There are too many web-based tools for teaching and learning to be able to do more than survey the very tip of the iceberg here.  Here is a link to a page called Web2go2, a page of results from putting in a tag, "e-learning."  You will find a multitude of interesting and useful, also not so useful, apps that may support teaching and learning.  Another useful website lists web 2.0 tools by task, making it easier for you to narrow down your search to something that could be used for a particular task.

Link to all resource documents on Google Docs (ie Power Point Presentations, information documents)

The Gamification of Learning

What on earth is "gamification?"  It has been bandied around all over the internet in forums to do with education, training and corporate culture.  I am going to tackle this topic here and provide an overview.  Then at a later date I will create a page with more detailed discussion on the topic - feel free to add any suggested sources to the comments area.

How many adults said to you when you were a child being coerced into doing something you don't want to do (ie eat up your  mashed potato or tidy your room!) - "lets make it a game?"  This is a very common ploy that humans use to avoid boredom or even depression.  If we make the leap to an education or training situation, the bulk of adults are undertaking education and training because they need to in order to better their situation, usually economically.  And it is also common practice to liven up the learning process with a few fun activities and games.  Gamification is really this, but it has gone one step further by taking elements of the science of the online gaming industry and applying it in education and training settings.

Here is a joke example that digital technology expert has created that turns life itself into a video game:





This is a depiction of a totally immersive game you might get in a virtual environment such as Second Life. It is not always possible to provide such an immersive experience in education and training but elements of gaming have been found to be good teaching practice.

 Applying gaming principles to learning

Using the principles employed in gaming educators and trainers have tapped into the secrets of
gaming design that keep people engaged even when they are not winning.Chris Riedel, in The Journal  cites Katie Salen from the Institute of Play, setting out 6 guiding principles of gameplay that can be applied to any learning environment:

1. Everyone can participate. Games, said Salen, create opportunities for collaboration and community, where everyone has the chance to participate and contribute to the outcome.
2. Challenge is constant. Games provide a context where participants are continually challenged and confronted with increasingly difficult problems as they progress.
3. Feedback is immediate and ongoing. Whether they are progressing through a level or stuck on a specific problem, games provide a continuous feedback loop that lets players know where they stand.
4. Learning happens by doing. According to Salen, we are more likely to learn by actually completing a task than simply reading about a concept or theory.
5. There are many opportunities to fail up. As players progress through a game, said Salen, there are many situations where they fail at a task multiple times in order to gain enough knowledge and skill to actually succeed. "Failure does not need to be a negative thing," she insisted. As educators, we should be asking ourselves, "How do we create opportunities in our curriculum for students to fail up?"
6. Solving problems builds expertise. Similar to failing up, the more problems students solve, said Salen, the more expertise they gain and, in turn, are able to share with their peers.

She says the goal is to make learning "Irresistible" and provides a link to a website called Playforce ,
an online community where teachers and parents share educational aspects of gaming.  Other resources for gaming in education mentioned are GameKit and SimCityedu.

Here is a great slide show on some of the things gaming can contribute to education and training:

10 Things We Know About Video Games for Learning from Karl Kapp

A great blog on learning games and gamification is one by Yu-Kai Chou.  He talks about multi-sensory learning, and how multiple intelligences are exercised in learning games.  His Gamification Framework, Octalysis is made up of 8 "arms" or elements that can be used to engage people, as in the diagram below which is from the above blog entry:

 

 

 The Quest to Slay the Dragon

One of the biggest lessons educators can take from "gamification" is the principle of "failing up" as opposed to just failing or failing down.  In our education system, too often a fail or a not-yet-competent spells the end of learning and also  often the end of obtaining qualifications and a job.  At the very least, it represents a huge and negative sruggle on the part of a learner to get through a course of training or study. However within a computer game, you never really fail in that way.  Everything you do is a quest, and along the way you are collecting trophies, reaching levels, and even if you are stuck at one level for quite a while, you never really feel as though you are failing.  It is more seen as a question of practicing until you achieve mastery.  Gamification of education involves tapping into this culture of mastery.  Rewards built in along the way in a quest for knowledge and skills, and there is no feeling of failing, only "failing up" by obtaining sufficient practice to go to the next level.

Badging for small achievements in education and training is now being tried by some practitioners.  It is possible to create certified badges of achievement of small steps along the way in a learning program, that can be added to the learner's resume or portfolio and used to promote their achievments for employment or promotion.  Credly is a website to which you can subcribe, where it is possible to create and issue badges.  It is also available as an iPhone app which can be used to both create and issue badges.

Please feel free to comment on any experience you have had in gaming and how you think it might work applied to education and training.

Research on the 321 Tools

The list of useful tools for teaching and learning just goes on and on, and the page I provided a link to in my last post was to a grand total of 321 tools for e-learning.  This can be quite overwhelming to busy lecturers who are just trying to meet the needs of students on a day to day basis as well as satisfying the growing number of audit and admin tasks!

So I thought I'd sift through the 321 in the list and try to make sense of it, and this blog is a summary of anything I thought particularly useful, as well as links to particular websites that have extremely good value tools.

 Infographics

The first section of the list is entitled "Free Tools to Create Infographics For Teachers" - what is an infographic? (I imagine a chorus here).  As far as I can tell an infographic is a digital graphic comprising images and text, that is a shorthand way of putting across a complex set of information or concepts.  Here is an example of an infographic about internet use:

 I have inserted infographics about relevant topics on other pages of this blog if you want to look at other examples (the resolutionis not good for this one as it is actually just a thumbnail rather than the actual infographic).

Infographics can be simple charts, but often they have a great deal more information and include images and some text - they are designed to grab attention and get the person focused on some key information.

In the list of websites provided in the "321 list" for infographic tools, there are some that are mainly chart creators, including diagrams and flow charts as well as others that will do a bit more, similar to the one above.  One that I think is particularly interesting is Chartsbin which enables you to create interactive maps instantly, online, with no installation and no coding requirements.  It works with iPad and iPhone and they are working on an app for other devices.  I have not explored it fully but I am guessing that by "interactive" they mean you can create some kind of point and click activities on maps.

Text to Speech Tools

In the list there are 19 free text to speech tools.  These may be of interest to anyone teaching people with low levels of literacy, or English as a second language, or possibly people with a disability such as sight impairement.  Some of them simply convert text on a screen to speech but others have additional features such as avatars.

Digital Story Telling Tools

Digital story telling is a fun way to get students to demonstrate their skills and understanding, and also a way you can get across information in a more engaging way than a straight lecture or block of text.

There are 21 apps listed for this.  I found MakeBelief Comix the most straight forward and easy for creating simple non-animated cartoons on the web and sharing them via email or social networking.

MapSkip looks intriguing, making "the world a canvas where we can share our stories and photos" - it has a map of the world and I gather you can add your own stuff there to tell a story about where you were born, have lived, have travelled etc.  A great one for the LLN people!

There are many others that look really fun and exciting, all free - so I encourage you to explore them all and decide for yourself which you would like to try.

Podcast tools

Podcasting is broadcasting audio or using audio to transmit content in your e-learning.  There are 15 podcasting tools which enable you to record audio, upload it and share it.

Audacity is the one I use all the time to record and edit sounds.  It is a good cross-platform program that allows you to edit sound then export it as MP3 which is a file that is easily shared.

The others allow you to do this but they also have features such as the ability to upload to a platform for sharing and providing a continuous feed to specified recipients.

Survey, Polls and Quizzes

We have access to quiz and survey creations on our Blackboard LMS.  However if you want to try something different and possibly more engaging, there are 27 options in this list.  Survey Monkey is the most well known and it does have a free version.

PollDaddy is another popular site.  The list includes a number of web-based form-creation sites, including FormsontheFly

Again, it is a matter of exploring and finding the ones that you may like to try - if you see a place for surveys and quizzes in your delivery, this may be of interest to you.

Screen Capturing

Have you ever wished there was an easy way you could just photograph or video your computer screen when you are trying to help a student located away from campus?  This list has 17 free screen capture tools that will do just that.  I often use CamStudio which isn't listed here, but it seems to download and run fine on my work PC.  It will capture either a still photo of your screen, or a video clip of your screen and if you have a headset with a mic, it will capture your voice.  So you could create mini lessons on how to use certain applications on your desktop, and upload these to Blackboard or share in some other way.

I haven't looked at those on this list, but there is sure to be something amongst them that will work for you.  I did find that ScreenR, which is very popular,  would not run on my work computer due to firewall and security issues. 

Social Bookmarking Tools

I will have come clean here and confess I have never really got my head around social book marking.  It is, I think, a way to organise all the resources and links you find valuable on the web, into categories that make it easy to find specified sites, and possible to share with groups of people that you wish to target.  They list 30 on the site, and I  have not tried any of them apart from Diigo,  which I do belong to but so far have not really used its full potential.  And I should, because my bookmarks are extremely disorganised!  Please, please, try some of them and help me use mine to better effect!

Online Bibliography and Citation Tools for Teachers

If you are engaged in university study, or if you require your students to correctly reference their work, these sites may be of interest to you.  There are 14 tools there and they may make it much easier for you to do in-text citations and end-notes, bibliographies and reference lists.

Sticky Notes Tools for Teachers

There are 13 of these apps listed here.  They can be used either for your own organisation, for note writing and reminders, or you can use them to collaborate with others.  You may find a good tool for your students to use to collaborate in projects.  Spaaze is an example of a sticky note page that has great additional features to make it useful for project management and collaboration. 

Google Note Board is a Google Chrome app which is not on this list, but it is one that seems to be really easy to use like a digital pinboard to share ideas and notes with others.

Photo and Image Editing

These tools are getting to be essential in an age when much of our teaching uses technology such as mobile devices or the web.  We are using our cameras and tablets to record using photos and video, and we are creating digital content that includes video and images.  So it is important to know about any apps that will help us do no-fuss editing and file conversion.  There are 30 apps listed here, and they include graphics creation and drawing tools, as well as simple editing tools.

If you look at back at a recent blog here, I had a link to a video created by Guy Truss of SW Institute of Technology, which had him drawing a graphic about e-learning as the focus for conveying concepts. He used his iPad on a stand to record this.  However, the video part of it could also be done using a simple digital drawing tool and screen capture to record. For example, CoSketch is a multi-user online whiteboard designed to give you the ability to quickly visualize and share your ideas as images.

Pixlr is the best web-based app I have seen for editing images.  To re-size, enhance or add effects to images, this is the easiest to use that I  have come across.  However there are many others in the list that do similar things.

GoAnimate is also listed, but it could just as easily have been included in the section on Digital Stories.  It is a great website for creating animated cartoon stories.

Quizzes and Tests

The 17 apps here have a slightly different focus than the list above that was mainly about surveys.  This list has tools to create games and quizzes for engagement and testing - check them out and ssee if any of them work for you.

Web Conferencing Tools

Very soon we will have a choice between Collaborate, GotoMeeting and our College Video Conferencing, as tools for conducting classes over the internet.  However you may like to explore the 15 free tools here for communicating on the web in real time, for future reference or in case you are working from home, or in an environment where you are unable to access our standard tools.

Authoring Tools

There are 15 tools listed here that are free apps for creating interactive learning materials.  Most of them do not require a high level of technical knowledge and are usually drag and drop with ready made templates. However I have tried some, such as EasyGenerator, which looks promising but I am having problems using it due to our Institute's internet security settings and the fact we have a proxy server.  Nevertheless I will try it at home and see how I go!

Royalty Free Creative Commons Music

Listed within the 321 tools are 34 sites that contain music that is free to use - good if you have created a digital story and would like to create atmosphere!

Free Stock Photo Sites

Once again, it is great to have access to galleries of free images for your learning content.  There are 17 useful sites listed here.  The licensing requirements are normally just that you link the image back to the website that owns it.

All Done!

That was a lot to work through so I hope my sifting activity has helped some lecturers and saved you some time.  Please feel free to comment below on anything you try and share your experiences!

Making e-learning a great experience for students as well as a good business model

 A workable E-learning Model?

All the research up to date suggests that e-learning needs to be engaging and have adequate interaction and support built in, for students to successfully complete a full course of study. There is a track record of high drop out rates in many courses and it is usually put down to a lack of these factors. So it is common knowledge that simply throwing course material into a Learning Management System is guaranteed to result in a high student non-completion rate.

I have found that one of the most successful models for e-learning is one on one coaching and mentoring using virtual conferencing, combined with self-paced study using materials available within a Learning Management System. The key is the one on one coaching. Without that, even if you have discussion forums set up for peer support, many people fall by the wayside. However this is not a good business model as it is labour intensive and costly. It also seems to encourage students to take extended periods to finish their course.  So what information is around about a model for e-learning that works from a business perspective as well as from a learning perspective?

I have researched this over the past week and have found a couple of useful resources to help us think about models for e-learning.  It is evident that there are no shortcuts.  However, investing a significant amount of work and capital in setting up a good e-learning program should pay off - the initial set up investment will lessen the need for continuous one on one coaching sessions, ensure the students complete learning programs in a reasonable time frame, and free the lecturer up to do  more development of learning materials and courses.

I found a free e-book published in 2009, "Delivering E-Learning," written by a well known e-learning specialist, Kenneth Fee, that is written in plain English and is a comprehensive guide to all things e-learning, including different models.  I have placed this e-book in my Google Drive for your consideration.

Here is a link to an article about the GEAR instructional design model (Gather, Expand, Apply, Receive feedback) which I believe gives us a few ideas about a blended learning model.  This article also has a link to an upcoming course by the E-Learning Guild (an American e-learning association) about "agile instructional design" which I think would be of great value. 

Ultimately, KTI teaching and management staff will need to come up with a solution that meets the learning needs of Kimberley communities while at the same time affording us a business model that works financially for us.  We can use resources like those above to  help us but it will be our unique solution that requires all KTI brains to work together!

Video Streaming

How many of you have grappled with the problem of giving your students or fellow lecturers access to video clips or even full movie-length videos when they are not on campus?  Video files are very large and take ages to load or refuse to load at all if you try to share them via email or even if you put them in a cloud-based storage site such as Drop Box, as they still have to be downloaded to the recipient's desktop.  Streaming of videos makes them run much more smoothly because they are downloaded in small amounts as they play.  But where can we stream videos?  Here are some possibilities I have researched and used:

YouTube

YouTube is the most well known solution for sharing video clips.  Some lecturers may be worried about security of intellectual property and privacy issues - however you can set the privacy of each clip you upload, at the time of upload.  The most practical option is "unlisted" - it won't appear on YouTube or come up in searches, but you can share the link with others, or use the embed code to insert the video into a web page or blog.  If it is listed "private" you will not be able to do this - you don't get an embed code and the link won't work for anyone else.

However YouTube is restricted to uploads of 300 mb at a time, and many clips are bigger than this.

Vimeo

Vimeo is like YouTube without the ads, and it also streams videos at a higher definition which makes for clearer and larger video windows.  The limit however is 500 mb per week.  Once you reach your limit you have to wait until the following week to share more.  Vimeo has the same options for privacy and sharing as YouTube

Brainshark

I discovered Brainshark this week, while searching for a streaming solution for the two hour workshops by Clive Moffat recorded by Access lecturer, David Broun.  I really like Brainshark!  You can upload 500 mb at a time, with no restrictions on how many, using their free On-Demand service in "My Brainshark."  The great thing about Brainshark is they have some great enhancements for teachers and learners.  You can add any attachment such as a Word document that could be an assignment, and it has a facility for creating a quiz at the end of the video, or adding slides of information and images to the video at the end.  So in other words this could be a complete lesson, created using video, slides and documents on Brainshark and available to students via  a link to Brainshark or embedded in Blackboard.

I would encourage all lecturers to try the free "My Brainshark" - if I get enough good feedback I would be advocating that KTI pay a yearly fee to have a portal which would be a platform for all videos and presentation produced within KTI (or legitimately obtained from other sources) - which would make it easy for lecturers to find resources such as videos, powerpoint presentations and even full lessons.

Some great free teaching tools

Browse this long list of web based tools and you are sure to find something you could use, from websites that enable you to create infographics and other types of graphics from data, to tools to create interactive maps, digital story telling programs, cartoon apps and many tools that you could use to create whole digital lessons with.  Here is the link to 321 free tools for teachers

Latest news and discoveries

This week I am sharing with you some of my discoveries during the past week.

 Draw and record idea

Firstly, take a look at what a lecturer at South West Insitute of Technology has created using video and his own drawing talents - a little clip on  e-learning which very effectively demonstrates that e-learning is far more than boring online learning guides.  It also is in itself an example of a technique to make a bland explanation into something a little more engrossing.  Guy Truss made this using his iPad, an app called Movie Maker, and Garage Band.

 New app from Google Chrome to share and collaborate - Note Board

One of our hospitality lecturers,Craig Schaffer discovered this and thought he might use it with both his team and also his students, for collaboration and communication.  It is set up like a notice board with sticky notes which you can type into but also draw on and use doodles and colour.  Great way to share ideas and brainstorming!  Here is the link:  Note Board

Video clips - shooting, saving and managing

This is a topic we are tackling in our Peer Support Discussion Group for mobile devices - last week we looked at shooting, editing, uploading and storing still photos from our iphones and smart phones.  Next week we will be looking at the same for shooting video.

Editing and reformatting video is something I do on a regular basis to create teaching materials as examples for e-learning.  I have had to teach myself the basics.  Here is the story of an example:

Lecturer David Broun from Access shot two full 2 hour sessions on an iPad of delivery by Clive Moffatt to the Access team and others, about teaching numeracy.  The resulting files were rather large - more than 5 gigs for one of the sessions.  So the problem was how to re-format them to compress the size as much as possible.  And then what to do with them.  David wanted to share these clips with all lecturers to enable them to access Clive's entertaining workshops on numeracy.  Clive is a veteran of teaching math concepts to remote Aboriginal groups, and his workshops were very good value.  The videos are worth viewing to get some great tips for teaching numeracy.

There are many free and trial versions of video converters on the net and I needed to convert these clips from .MOV files to something like MP4 which compresses the size of the file.

I  have tried WonderShare which will create the movie again in a range of formats or for a range of devices depending on what option you choose.  I chose to convert it to an MP4 Video file which would result in a much smaller file size.  However Wondershare is only a trial version and has a water mark on the final product.  There are also other converters out there that are totally free.

Wondershare is more than a video converter program, it is a full editing suite which seems rather easy and nice to use.  When I put one of the clips of Clive into Wondershare video editor, he was upside down!  I had to drag the clip into the timeline then  use the "rotate" editing tool to turn him the right way up, then click "create" which invited me to choose options as to file type or device type.  Once I chose,  it took around 15 minutes for the conversion to be completed.

I have created one clip with Wondershare, and another two with a completely free program called Freemake Video Converter.  I used the editing function in Freemake also to rotate upside down Clive.  (I am speculating he was upside down because of the orientation of the iPad with which the clips were shot but not sure).

For a great website where there is a list of good free video converters, try CNet

I uploaded the Wondershare conversion to Vimeo which is a site for sharing videos.  This conversion has a watermark on it as I used a trial version of Wondershare but it is good quality.  Here is the  the video embedded from Vimeo - it will take a while to load. 


Clive Moffat Session on Teaching Numeracy - Session 1 from Jill Lyall on Vimeo.



Another place to share videos and also slideshows and podcasts is Brainshark - however it would not accept the Wondeshare conversion.  I have converted the other two clips using Freemaker and you can access these here:    I have put these on Brainshark mainly to see if there is any difference to Vimeo, running them on mobile devices as well as desktop computers.  The videos embedded from Brainshark run better than the Vimeo video as you can see if you try the ones below.

By the way, I embedded all of these videos in this blog by using a piece of code that is available on any video streaming site including Vimeo and Brainshark (also available on YouTube if you upload your video there) - it is usually availabe in "share" then "embed" and you just copy the code and paste it in to the html code in wysiwyg editor - however if you don't really have a clue what I am talking about here, don't worry! It can be covered in a separate blog page with step by step instructions.   It's just a nice thing to do so that to see the video, people don't have to click a link and go to a different site, they can watch it right within the web page they are on.


If anyone has any comments or can share their experiences or information they have, please feel free to comment below.  And of course if you would like further help with any of what has been discussed in this blog, feel free to contact me.