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!
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
- 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!
