Podcast – The atom
October 20th, 2010 by Hilde Schaerlaekens
Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning
Archive for October, 2010
Video – Listening Skills
October 19th, 2010 by Jan
That’s the result of our 5 minutes of brainstorming:
Twitter and Voicethread
October 19th, 2010 by Jan
Today we started with using Twitter and Voicethread. Both could be used at school level (Roleplay, creative writing etc.).
However, there is the issue of access. Not all students want to create an account or have a mobile device to access Twitter. They could use their mobile phones, but then there is the question of costs.
Voicethread seems to be a very useful device. Especially since it is quite easy to embed it into moodle:
Film to present de members of the Taccle-cours
October 19th, 2010 by Hilde Schaerlaekens
We created the film in Moviemaker.
Voicethread
October 19th, 2010 by belmira
This morning we learned how to use voicethreading which is a very useful and interesting tool to be used in a learning scenario. It allows teachers and students to comment on a particular image by using phone, the webcam, the microphone, by typing or doodling, by making an audio comment or simply by sending an image or a soundtrack as a reply.
Group 1 – Google Earth
October 18th, 2010 by Jan
We used Google Earth to show where the participants come from and started with a map of Europe:
Uploaded pictures gave an impression of the towns, in this case Malayta, Turkey:
In some cases we could even use the new Google Streetview option, here Milan, Italy:
An ID-card gave you basic information about the participant:
Our interests for TACCLE course
October 18th, 2010 by belmira
This is the result of a brainstorm done in our group concerning our interests in this course.
Teaching and learning in practice
October 17th, 2010 by Graham Attwell
I am in Blankenberge (somewhere on the north coast of Belgium) all this week where. together with Jenny Hughes, I am running a European funded course on using social software in the classroom. The course is based on the excellent Taccle handbook, which Jenny wrote and promises to be a lot of fun. We have torn up the original Taccle course format, which was in my view overly lecture based, and instead are planning to run it through experiential learning. Sadly the weather forecast is not too great which may interfere with our plans for some outside multi media activities.
But now for a little moan. Our friends from Belgium who coordinate the Taccle project have done a great job in handling all the course administration. Without them the course would not have taken place – there is no way that me or Jenny would have filled in all the forms the European Commission require for funding courses of this nature. But we have been unable to communicate to them two of what I regard as key features of the learning environment you need for this sort of teaching and learning. The first is ubiquitous internet connectivity. We have wireless in the school where the course takes place but our hotel only has wireless in the basement where they have two training rooms. Needless to say we are negotiating to try to get access to those rooms in the evening.
The second is an informal space that we can organise for working in. And whenever I run courses like this organisers try to hire computer suites for us to work in. I find these rooms one of the worst teaching and learning environments i have ever known – rows of people sitting on their own behind computers. The reality is most teachers do not teach in such rooms – which tend to be reserved for specialist IT or science based subjects. Increasingly teachers use their own laptops – and for this course I think all but one participant has brought their laptop.
Indeed the most important point of the spreading use of mobile devices in education is to free up learning from being tied to sitting behind a computer – even in those institutions where some thought has been put into how to design the learning spaces to incorporate PCs and to encourage collaboration and communication.
The third area where I find it hard to explain what I am trying to do is in the distinction between ‘formal’ learning which takes place in the planned course programme and the learning which takes place outside those times. the social spaces in the evenings are as rich a period for potential learning as the formal period.
And here is Jen’s moan. The European Commission demands a detailed course programme in advance. But – in line with much of what the education directorate of the EU say – we wish to negotiate the programme with the learners. surely that is central to learner centred learning. And that does not fit with a rigidly pre-ordained programme. The EU needs to practice what they preach!
Anyway enough of the moaning. I am looking forward to the course and will be reporting back on it over the next week.
#PLE2010 That unkeynote with Alec Couros, Graham Attwell and Friends
October 13th, 2010 by Graham Attwell
Personal Learning Environments – #PLE2010 Unkeynote Preseetation
View more presentations from GrahamAttwell.
In June, together with Alec Couros, I presented the opening Keynote at the #PLE2010 Conference in Barcelona. Only it wasn’t a Keynote, it was an Unkeynote. The organising committee had asked me and Alec, who had never met face to face, to ‘do something different. And after a couple of skype talks we came up with an idea. We would set up an open Google document and ask people for their ideas. After a week we hacked together format based ion a series of questions drawn from the Google docs and asked the community to contribute slides, messages or even videos. We edited it all tither and chatted our way through the presentation in Barcelona. Hence the attribution – Alec Couros, Graham Attwell and friends. It worked pretty well. Of course we promised to make the presentation available online. And I promised we would. Except I forgot. But enough people have nagged me into feeling guilty about not doing it.
So here it is. There is a video embed part way through and I have uploaded that separately. It is worth listening too – George Roberts almost raps lyrically on a healthy PLE. There is a Presi missing I think. I will try to find it. there is also a rumour that a video of the whole show exists somewhere. I will try to find it. But meantime I hope you enjoy the slidehare and video.
Search Pontydysgu.org
News Bites
Open online seminar
Jisc are hosting an open, online seminar on ‘Making Assessment Count (MAC)’ on Friday 3rd Feb – 1-2pm. The presenters are Professor Peter Chatterton (Daedalus e-World Ltd) and Professor Gunter Saunders (University of Westminster).
The mailing for the seminar says” “The objective of Making Assessment Count is primarily to help students engage more closely with the assessment process, either at the stage where they are addressing an assignment or at the stage when they receive feedback on a completed assignment. In addition an underlying theme of MAC is to use technology to help connect student reflections on their assessment with their tutors. To facilitate the reflection aspect of MAC a web based tool called e-Reflect is often used. This tool enables the authoring of self-review questionnaires by tutors for students. On completion of an e-Reflect questionnaire a report is generated for the student containing responses that are linked to the options the student selected on the questionnaire.”
You can find out more ans sign up for the seminar at http://jiscmac.eventbrite.co.uk/
EC-TEL 2012
The EC-TEL 2012: Seventh European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning 21st Century Learning for 21st Century Skills takes place on 18-21 September 2012 at Saarbrücken in Germany.
The focus for the conference includes:
- How can schools prepare young people for the technology-rich workplace of the future?
- How can we use technology to promote informal and independent learning outside traditional educational settings?
- How can we use next generation social and mobile technologies to promote informal and responsive learning?The deadline for proposals is April 2.
Visitors and Residents
David White (University of Oxford) and Dr. Lynn Silipigni Connaway (OCLC) have been attracting quite a stir with their JISC-funded work on Visitors and Residents: What Motivates Engagement with the Digital Information Environment?, being undertaken as part of the Developing Digital Literacies programme webinar series.
Slides, audio and a recording of the Blackboard Collaborate session where they presented some of the findings of their work can be found at http://bit.ly/jiscdiglitvr.
Learning and New Technologies
Graham Attwell is delivering a keynote presentation on Learning and New Technologies to the ‘Encouraging participation in continuing training in Romania, with focus on disadvantaged employees’ project in Bucharest on Wednesday 7 December.
ECER 2010
The keynotes, videos, radio shows and interviews from the ECER 2010 Conference in Helsinki:
Taccle handbook for teachers order form
Here you find the Taccle handbook for teachers order form.
Twitter
- The Graham Attwell Daily is out! http://t.co/NNd01wH6 ▸ Top stories today via @merlinjohn >>
- @chrissinerantzi What abt the Samsung. @francesbell says she might get one. made me think too . >>
- RT @jimgroom: We are talking WP, themes, plugins and more in #ds106 tonight. Will see if I can live stream it, if not will definitely ca ... >>
Other Pontydysgu Spaces
-
Pontydysgu on the Web
Watch the Pontydysgu Videos
Our Wikispace for teaching and learning
Join our Sounds of the Bazaar Facebook goup. Just click on the logo above.Our next programmes will be live from the German Moodlemoot in Emsden. Full details coming soon