Alternative to dvolver for Family Learning

Have had some mild concerns that dvolver's characters and backgrounds are not all suitable for children. Although when they choose, they tend to go for the young lady with handbag, the slippered man, the bear and the Uncle Sam characters. So Voki could be an alternative to create and give a voice to an animated character they can design and have say whatever they want - I want them to get the character to give some e-safety advice. It can be shared by email just like dvolver video, is quicker, and still free. If create account they can make as many as they want. Here's one I did in about 5 mins: I added the Squeaky sound effect.
He is saying:  Hodor the hamster here, with a Happy New Year.  How quickly time will pass, when you're having fun in class!

CPD sessions for colleagues

Quizlet is easiest option to begin?
Ask for preparation of some terms and definitions from subject area before session. Like a matching quiz.
View site, they sign in with email.  Share email addresses.
Create quiz, talk through/demo process.
Save quiz, then email it to each other or pass round the url for quiz.

Could also use a padlet i make shown on iwb, to share quiz url with others. New browser window, type in padlet short url. They add a sticky linking to their quiz. Then all can try them out. 

Update:  Dec 2014

This worked well with colleagues from Early Years childcare, Supporting Teaching & Learning and Hair & Beauty.

All got on the site in minutes, found relevant material existing to investigate, copy & adapt, and made their own study sets.  They shared them and challenged each other with the Scatter game.

I heard afterwards that the ST&L students loved it, joined the site themselves, made their own study sets and shared them.  All while Ofsted were watching!

Interactive Quiz maker site - business docs example

Here is a nifty interactive quiz I found that relates to Business Admin/Office procedures.  I hope to embed it in a VLE page as soon as I get editing rights for the page in question.  Although the flash version doesn't let you enlarge the document thumbnails to see what they are, like the full web page version does.

It came from: http://www.allthetests.com/quiz30/code.php?qnumber=1362590589&testid=1362590589

Curating links and useful information for colleagues

As one possibility for experimenting with gathering together useful links and information in an attractive and easily navigated format, I have created a Pinterest page intended for colleagues in the Family Learning team.
Follow Nancy Turner's board Could these help you as well? ICT tools, and ideas on Pinterest.  They have a wide range of interests, many of which are art-based so it lends itself to visual images as the jumping-off points for weblinks.  Also the Family Learning team seem much better at communicating amongst ourselves so I  hope that once the word is out I should get some feedback and hopefully other people joining in with pinning things of interest.    My pin about IWB tips (on a padlet) is being re-pinned! By people I don't know, even.

Options for curating & communicating with push tech, and to use or not?
Twitter - Don't think many colleagues use it.
Facebook - if they do it's for personal not work and many wouldn't bother doing both.
VLE - theoretically best but presently RSS feeds do not work for me.

In addition, I have an agreement with my curriculum manager that I will provide a periodic input of new ideas and tech suggestions via our LinkedIn team group.  Since that has not taken off in a big way yet (and could my input change that?) I am going to try Rebelmouse as the central repository, and see if I can persuade a couple of people to "follow" it and give me a bit of feedback as to whether they have been able to make use of any of the material or tools I post about.  I can publish the Rebelmouse page to LinkedIn I believe so I can still meet that task.
I have the chance to try out the idea in some CPD workshops I've just been asked to do.

Using podcasts for lesson review - session 4 205boo and other media

I just thought of another purpose for audioboo - recording a 3 minute review of a class I've just finished, where I've had to leave the venue just after and haven't been able to write stuff down - in the car before I leave the carpark. If I'm careful what I say, it could be used by someone who missed the class to find out what we did.  I can then transcribe if need be (or run it by Dragon?) afterwards.  Worth a try at least, after the 2 Monday classes.

So here's one of the experiments:

listen to ‘session 4 205
boo
’ on Audioboo

I think I will need to ask someone in the group whether they would find something like this more useful than written comments - I don't have the experience of ESOL learners to know whether the spoken word is easier to deal with than writing. I'm sure it depends on lots of things.
Audioboo makes it easy to share the content in other social media, I need to think about which is the most straightforward for people to access, to increase the chances of them doing so!

On the face of it Pinterest would seem a good choice - you can get to it if someone gives you a link, there is no sign-in needed to view the page.   It is visual and most pin pictures give a good clue as to what the reference is about without needing lots of text. So better for ESOL (or anyone, really).  Getting to the source of the post is just a click.

Here's an attempt at creating a multimedia source for a group -http://www.pinterest.com/nancythehub/it-for-esol-jobseekers-hounslow/  This is a secret page just for the group to include the audioboos recorded on phone, and some pictures taken in class using phone, uploaded to Dropbox to be available for use on PC (e-teaching tutor invited to see them) as well as relevant Youtube videos.

 However, I learn from this article http://mqas.org/blog/2012/02/11/pinteresting-but-is-it-accessible/  that for someone using a screenreader, Pinterest is quite confusing.   (Also you have to have a picture for every pin! So an Audioboo recording has to have a pic attached.)

Then I found this: http://www.web2access.org.uk/.

Funded by JISC, it is a site that has reviewed web tools against various accessibility measures.  In respect of accessibility, at the time of review Tumblr came out quite well among the Journal entries category.  In the Embeddable content generation category, Youtube got the highest score.

The above is about accessibility - one dimension of inclusivity.  Other aspects I need to consider are the availability to learners of internet devices to receive/view the content, and the kind of language used. Also, whether the channel/site invites comment, to encourage involvement, preferably without having to log in first.

 For those not so confident on the internet, a push process might help, since they can be guided to "follow" the posts/page then it will happen automatically thereafter, without them having to remember where to go to find it.

Push technology - can it work with Adult Ed short- course learners?

Well, I've thought about this quite a bit and so far my impression is "no, not easily".  There are a number of reasons for this:

1. I cannot include RSS feeds into my course pages on our VLE. There is some admin hitch that I do not know how to get round, or whether it's worthwhile trying to get help on it.
2. My learners on the whole are not Twitter users.
3. I don't spend long enough with learners to get them used to the idea of a regular broadcast - they would not expect it and IT confidence may not be at a level for them to subscribe comfortably.
4. I'm not technically supposed to know or store their mobile numbers so a regular podcast to smartphones (if they have them) is tricky to organise.

That said, I have experienced a distance learning Moodle-based course where the weekly podcast was pretty useful to remind me of the focus topic and what needed doing.  So I know it can be good.

How could I make use of push technology then, in light of this?
(to be continued....)

Well, in the meantime I've set up a few Pinterest boards, including a secret one for jobseekers' class.  I will invite them to view it, and if they want to, follow it so that if I post other useful stuff in future they can see it. Also considering a Rebelmouse page for sharing with tutor colleagues, to include twitter feeds from edtech bloggers, Pinterest posts, blog posts by me and other stuff.  Shared directly or via LinkedIn group.

Hinder or enhance? When does tech do both of these?

I believe that using educational technology and web tools is a good way to make an ICT session more interesting.  I still teach using whiteboard demonstrations and a lot of handout-based practical exercises, but these can get a bit boring after a while, certainly for me.  Bringing in a more colourful and varied way of looking at the same material improves it for me, and I would hope the same is true for the learners. For example, the class today needed to know about some basic health & safety information concerning RSI, eye strain and back problems.  Instead of just talking it through or giving them a handout (they are all ESOL students) I created a Quizlet study set which covered the same material as the assessment sheet they would have to complete. Short sentences throughout.  They could look at the study cards as often as they needed to absorb the information and do the test to practice choosing answers in multiple choice format.  I think it helped them learn it.

But - I got a bit too enthusiastic about Quizlet and got them to join my class, which involved them accessing email, clicking a link, buttons, adding info and all sorts of other processes which really took more time than it needed.  I could have simply given them another tinyurl to the quiz set and let them get on with it.
Another thought - H&S involves knowing the words for body parts, e.g. elbow, forearm, wrist. Some people didn't.  I could have projected a suitably labelled figure to point out where the relevant bits are! (With an IWB I could have done it as a drag&drop and the learners could have contributed where they knew stuff, but I don't, in that room.) As it was, I just pointed to myself.

Here's an example from my PGCE Blended Learning module of how technology can get in the way of learning:

1.                  VLE online Assignment – laws, licensing and the WEEE Directive

ECDL Syllabus ref.  2.7.1.1, 2.7.1.2, 2.7.1.3, 2.7.1.4, 2.7.2.1, 2.7.2.2, 2.7.2.3

4 of the 6 learners in class completed this.  Learners found it a useful learning exercise, participated willingly and did not appear to struggle with the technique of submitting the assignment online.

I planned this as a constructivist exercise, whereby the learners would be actively involved in finding out the information to answer a knowledge requirement, and would learn more from it than if they had simply listened to me. “Constructivist learning emphasizes the five different attributes of meaningful learning which are (i) intentional learning, (ii) active learning, (iii) constructive learning, (iv) cooperative learning, and (v) authentic learning.”  (Jonassen et al, 1999) As the comments below indicate, this did not quite work for everyone.

I also provided a Chat facility for learners to consult with each other as they worked on the assignment (“co-operative learning”). They were so busy individually that there was not time to use it effectively, but the principle is good. 

Learner Comments:  

• Having to create the submission as a Word document, and worry about layout and formatting, distracted from the attention needed to the actual information.   
• Using copy & paste from websites or text resources provided did save time, but one learner remarked that she did not pay too much attention to the actual information, once she had identified that it more or less covered the answer required. (From verbal learner feedback)

 This is a drawback of the ease of internet searching to find relevant text – once a few key words have been matched, there is much less incentive to read the text actively.  There is a risk that information is found that answers only part of the question.  This happened.  I should rethink the phrasing of the task instructions to avoid this, and encourage learners to engage more actively with the information they find.

 And another example:

Using a VLE with learners

Problems arise with resources – documents produced in Office 2007 cannot be read by users with Office 2003, so ideally each resource would need to be uploaded in both formats.  If it is an instructional handout, this is a considerable extra workload in design to make it appropriate. Similarly, due to time and knowledge limitations, resources are not usually uploaded in formats suitable for learners with disabilities, e.g. a narrated version of a text resource. This is a common problem, as shown by Sarah Dunn’s study, which “reveals a widespread lack of accessibility in VLE materials. The inaccessible elements are both within the VLE software itself, and within the content the institutions put into the VLEs.” (Dunn, 2003)

Each time a document requires changing, the existing resource has to be deleted and the amended one uploaded. This is also time-consuming.

In my view the main obstacles to tutors using the VLE as a teaching aid are knowledge, time and cost. They are not paid extra to research or develop VLE-suitable material. In addition, many tutors who also work outside Hounslow Adult Education wish to maintain control over their resources and not leave them open to unauthorised reproduction.

References:

Dunn, S  “Return to SENDA?  Implementing accessibility for disabled students in virtual learning environments in UK further and higher education”

2003  London: City University

PDF document [online] available from http://www.saradunn-associates.net/?6

  accessed 28/2/11

Jonassen, D.H, Peck, K and Wilson B.G  “Learning with technology: a constructivist perspective”  1999.  Merrill, University of California