March, 2010

Digital Learning — No Comments
30
Mar 10

#BectaX COVERITLIVE

Kristianstill: So, here it is. My first COVERITLIVE.
Its already set up to capture and any late night, early morning Tweets. Lets see what gets caught up in the nets come morning.

Click Here

So the Coveritlive BectaX experiment went reasonably well, even if our readership was minimal. Set up was pretty straight forward although if we were to use this platform for Digital Leader conference events we would need to prepare a media folder in advance and even consider setting up formal panel settings. IMHO the combined features of COVERITLIVE would have provided a better platform to engage an external audience than twitterfall and later Skype. I must admit there were technology (rather power) issues but it represented a real LIVE context.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Digital Leaders / Digital Learning / e-Tools — No Comments
30
Mar 10

COVERITLIVE

I have wanted to test drive COVERITLIVE for some time now. I think I am just getting my head around it. I have read and chatted about the tool being used to engaging learners in an online chat room on ‘roids’ kind of thing but I see its use as a platform to cover school events, speeches, sports, assemblies and the like.

Setting up a CoverItLive account is free although I not sure I fully understand the ‘freemium model despite a few emails to and fro, but once you’ve done so you can either jump straight into liveblogging or schedule upcoming events. All LIVE content is all hosted @ CoverItLive, and you simply embed a frame onto your webiste / blog / VLE by pasting in a small snippet of HTML code.

Features you get as publisher as IM, the ability to receive comments from readers and post the ones you choose to the stream, so lets hope that manageable. Live polls, nice. Post either prepared images, ideos or fresh from the event snaps all rounded up with publishers statistics and viewership. So, is it a platform to getting into multiply classrooms? Interesting thought. So, I will get it a go tomorrow and hope Mrs Tucke (aka Mr Stucke joins in the testing). This could be a future Digital Leader platform.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Curriculum / ICT — No Comments
29
Mar 10

Office 2010 Free e-book

Having trialled Office 2010, there were some very nice features in there, but I would have to say that I probably got the most professional benefit from Outlook 2010. Question is, having only moved to Office 2007 this year, are staff ready for another move in the summer? Perhaps, perhaps not. Second, with a new ICT specification most likely for Sept, shouldn’t we move and write the new resources for and using the new Office 2010? Somewhere in there too is a consideration to LIVE@edu email accounts too.

WHat I would like to see is Microsoft creating some very simple help file type demo’s, to add to the ribbon game to save hundreds of enthusiastic screencasting teachers from themselves.

As with most schools we wrestle the Perpetual vs Subscription Licence for the operating system, but we are confident that we will opt for software assurance for software. Which means Office 2010 is a viable option and the First-look-at-office-2010-free-e-book a valuable read.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Digital Learning / e-Tools — No Comments
29
Mar 10

Rules?

At an overall level, one in four (25%) home internet users aged 8-12 have a profile on at least one of these three sites (Facebook 19%, Bebo 11% and MySpace 4%), an increase from 15% in 2008….. The minimum age for registering with social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo or MySpace is thirteen. UK children’s media literacy | Ofcom

Popularity: 1% [?]

Digital Learning / e-Tools / ICT — No Comments
29
Mar 10

That’ll Toondoo Nicely

I am a big fan of Comic Life. I often use a simple 3 panel Garfield comic creator to get the students to explain basic concepts, but today the site was blocked?!?! So, I dipped into my Delicious links and revisited Toondoo. What a difference a year makes. Back in 2008, Toondoo was good tool. Now its a fantastic, simple and versatile educational tool. The students rarely enjoy Unit 1 as much as they did today and I recommend you try you students out with a similar task, it certainly does not have to be ICT based. Professionally and perhaps more interestingly to me the teacher, the task also clearly identified the ‘creative thinkers’ in the group from those that required hand holding.

Here’s how a typical infotoon sessions goes. I send the students an email outlining the key message(S) that need to be communicated as a safety net to avoid having to repeat instructions but typically verbally introduce the task. The only proscription is that students use a 3 panel design and the ‘communication / information.’ I find a 3 panel design works best with students posing / outlining the question, providing solutions and the advice on future work or conclusions. It is a model I have used a few times and it rarely falters.

You have been asked to create a series of info docs / comics  to ensure that staff at Downloadable Tunes fulfil office procedures. Rather than be a nagging boss all the time, you thought a fun way to encourage staff would be to use a 3 panel comic strip. Create three infotoons on the following three topics

  1. The importance of using the subject line in staff emails. (AO1.2)
  2. The importance of branding the company, using the correct text font, logo and colours in all business documents. (AO1.4)
  3. The importance of file management. (AO1.1)

Good luck.

I might show them an example, (in this case I didn’t have one) but then its over to them. Bam! Straight into students working I stand back and watch the students tinker and investigate the webware. The results were very good and with Toondoo being more versatile, with more characters, backgrounds, than Garfield, the students work was more distinctive. In a lesson you can expect 1 or 2 strips but its great supportive evidence to demonstrate students understanding.

SUBJECT LINE

Popularity: 6% [?]

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