Tag Archives: Teaching

Sharon Robinson award winning video

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I got an email this morning from Sharon Robinson in Biology that she and her team had one first prize in the CholorFilms recent (session 3) content for the best plant videos on YouTube.

Congrats! I loved the video too, and learnt a lot. I’m emailing a link to my son, who is interested in this kind of thing and trying to work out some career/uni options. I wonder if it will impress a 15 year old? I guess he’s right on the money for a potential UOW student. (Bright kid, local high-school, curious by nature.)

Concepts map links within a blog post.

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Collaboratively or individually produced concept maps included as a link within a blog post… If this sounds interesting read on for a free solution.

This is a link to a test map

It was created online at…http://www.bubbl.us

A link was generated within the online tool that was then added to this post.

– It can be a private mind map or collaboratively authored.

– It can also be exported as an image (.jpg or.png).

– It is free – A map image can be exported without creating an account but to save, share etc a – free – account needs to be created.

If students were using a blog to discuss/respond/reflect they could produce the mind map and then create a post with a link to the mind map image as I have done here.

Similarly it is another option for collaborative brainstorming activities between researchers, co-authors etc.

It’s worth a look 🙂

Wk 6 Progress: VM Ware /open source tools pilot

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Generally, we seem to have ironed out most of the hiccups (mainly linked to people having problems copying the system to Mac formatted disks or by locking the VM system by not shutting it down properly (have to throw out the lock file to restart in those circumstances). Other issues are mainly about the overall technical complexity of having to load up another operating system and then engage with complex set of programming APIs – a real challenge for many of the students.

Testing VMWare player in labs with FCA staff

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Been working with Brogan Bunt and Peter Goodall to get an open-source applications pilot up and running. Brogan wants to run his classes in the ITS labs, but with open-source software. The solution has been to install VMWare player in the labs, which allows other operating systems to be used. THen the students bring in a USB specially formatted with Ubuntu (Linux) operating system and a suite of open-source or freeware applications on it. They create a range of sound/media products with them. Then they take it home and use exactly the same software to do their homework and projects. No need for them to purchase expensive proprietory software at home, nor to treck in to uni just to use software. Let’s hope the pilot works well. Cos so far, it sounds fantastic!IMG_4708IMG_4709IMG_4710

Xtranormal

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Xtranormal is a great tool to create a short movie. All you need is a script. That’s right just a script, no cameras, no lights and no actors, it’s all animated on screen before your eyes. The web-based version is quick and easy to use. I made this is about 5mins.

So go ahead and try it yourself at xtranormal.com.

ScreenR and SnapzPro

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I had our regular monthly catchup today with Rob Wright, to share innovations and eLearning initiatives. We discussed the possibility of doing a pilot for Media Creation Tools in second session, and i mentioned that the Learning Designers were also interested and possibly the Library staff who also create lots of online tutorials. I asked Rob what he used to create the “how to” video on his blog and he said SnapZpro and also mentioned that the Articulate community used and promoted a web-based serviced called ScreenR.

http://screenr.com/

I used it and am very impressed with the ease of use (no account setup/login as i already have a Twitter account) and the quality of the image and audio of the movie it output is great. Here it is:

Helping your Community of Users

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Some great things are happening with the Edublogs pilot. We can now see great communities breaking out.

One particular Administrator of these communities has made a quick little video to help their users.

Adding comments and posts

What else are you doing to help develop your community of users?

digital voice recorder

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olympus dvr CC Hickey 08obviously not a ‘new’ technology, but if I had to name the one techi thing that changed life in my corner  it was the nifty usb recorder I started using five years ago…. what it means in practice is that the linguistically vulnerable student seeking advice about their writing (those using English as an additional language, for example) can instantly get a copy of the consultation (no cables, just pull it apart, stick it in their laptop) which they can listen to repeatedly at their own pace, and thereby  learn so much more than from a single exposure which they may or may not well recall when back at their desk trying to put into practice the pearls of linguistic wisdom showered upon them… their feedback assures me this was the best investment for teaching I ever made…

Dropbox – a cloud with a difference

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Synchronisation of files across multiple computers & mobile devices, web-based access to files, managed sharing of folders with other dropbox users, url creation for public documents for emailing links, web-album generation, event history tracking of your dropbox (file restoration) etc …

Well worth a look and a boon when travelling and you need access to storage or sharing items with international contacts.

Hosted externally, which brings along its own considerations, but this type of thing would have great potential for groups of students working collaboratively on a group assignment, sharing progress between themselves and tutor etc…

Currently free for up to 2GB of storage, plans beyond that.

https://www.dropbox.com/


Dropbox