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.

How e-Learning is Progressing at KTI

This blog is based on a report completed for the e-Learning Executive Group in response to a request by Karen Dickinson for a quick, easy to understand snapshot of where we are regarding e-learning at KTI.

I looked at course reports from the end of 2011, when all existing online courses were migrated to WestOne from CE8 to Blackboard 9, until the latest report in July 2013. The courses migrated over in October 2011 represented all the e-learning that had been developed at KTI from 2008 to 2011.

The data I selected only includes courses where there are student enrolments showing up, as student enrolments in a course (even if it is only one) indicates that course has been active in some way.  There are large numbers of course shells in the pre-2011 reports but mostly without student enrolments, which indicates no development of these shells took place and no substantial student access occurred.  Therefore, “Actively using” in this report means there are student enrolments showing in the report – course shells with 0 student enrolments have been disregarded for lecturer activity, student numbers and course numbers.

Uptake of e-Learning

 

Measure	2011	2012
Number of lecturers with courses on Blackboard that had enrolled students	12 lecturers	35 lecturers
Number of courses on Blackboard with students enrolled in them	14 courses	42 courses
Number of student Blackboard enrolments	87 students	508 students

Use of e-Learning by Portfolio

 

TL and BU have always led the e-learning field at KTI, with OH&S, IT and Business units lending themsleves to rapid implementation due to the large amounts of ready-made materials in these areas.  Some emerging areas are Access, Marine Studies and Community Services - see "Green Shoots" below.

 

   Emerging Green Shoots

 

 Access - Josh John's Youth Engagement Program on Blackboard.  Josh, aided by Bronwyn Lovell and Michelle Okonkwo, developed an engaging Blackboard environment for their group of young people.

Melanie Smith and Jane Appleton have set up a brand new Blackboard space for their Open Learning LLN students. They see it as a way to increase the student's digital literacy as well as their LLN skills, to give them a space online they can own, and to engage them in tasks such as sharing photographs and communicating with one another online

Maritime Services lecturers Ben Little and colleagues have created three courses on Blackboard in 2013 for their students due to the fact that there are low numbers scattered throughout the Kimberley and having the courses on Blackboard means the courses can still run, with less need for face to face classes.

Witbin the GS portfolio, there is a brand new emergence of some community service courses online as lecturers in Aged Care (Rosalie Moulding) and Youth Work (Joe Tungaraza) try to solve the same problem as MS - small numbers of participants scattered through remote areas.  According to lecturers in these areas, this trend is set to grow significantly as they master the skills required and continue to try to meet the needs of their students.

As the e-Learning Coordinator I look forward to working with these lecturers to further develop their online course environments and to adopt tools such as the virtual classroom to give their students a more engaging experience.

E-Learning Activities other than Blackboard Use - Watch this space!

There are some delivery areas where Blackboard is either not easily accessible to students, due to remoteness, or is not suitable in the case of very low LLN and digital literacy skills.  Because of this, I have been conscious of the need to promote to lecturers other technologies for both engagement and access purposes.  These areas include non-Blackboard enviornments such as blogging, wikis, social networking tools and personal or class websites, all forms of mobile learning using smart phones, iphones, tablets and ipads, and even the use of CD or DVD course compilations or USB stick storage of course materials. 

Monique Ellis has used a blog to engage her VETIS students - go to Fishbytes and check it out

 Gary Lienert and David Broun have made extensive use of iPads to engage Kimberley Ranger trainees, to collect evidence for assessment, document materials for learning, and for administrative purposes such as signing and sending trainee forms.

Maureen Crowther has been making exensive use of her iPhone to make stories from video and photos, to assist her remote Indigenous aged care students to learn and to gather evidence for assessment.

Wayne Stanley has customised some materials for his pastoral course and has provided his students, who work remotely, with the materials on a USB stick.

Conclusion

It has been a busy year and yet some lecturers have been willing to experiment with technology to increase accessibility and engagement in their courses, with some outstanding results.  I look forward to continuing to assist all KTI lecturers to use technology to make their courses more available to a wider range of student in the Kimberley area and beyond.