ICTeD Services

Video Interviews about Web Conferencing [Using Elluminate]

This has been a project that I worked on that took ages to finish for a whole lot reasons. I interviewed a number teachers and educators who used web conferencing for a wide variety on purposes. Those involved all used Elluminate the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development [DEECD], Virtual Conference Centre.

There are four videos organised under the themes of
• Networking
• Connecting with Experts in the Wider Community
• Online Teaching and Learning
• Staff Professional Learning

To access go to DEECD FUSE https://fuse.education.vic.gov.au/pages/Teacher.aspx and type in Learning Resource ID XWRXZ9

Thanks to all those who participated!

ICTEV Webinar: Defining Digital Identity

I'm looking forward to moderating this Elluminate webinar next week with my fellow ICTEV State Councillor, Roland Gesthuizen as presenter. I had the privilege of hearing many of Roland's thoughts on the recent ACCE Study Tour of the USA. If you haven't heard Roland before, this is your chance to hear his amazing knowledge and analysis on education in general and eLearning in particular.

Thursday, December 8, 2011 - 16:00 - 17:00 [GMT/UTC +11]

This is Roland's abstract

With the huge selection of social networking tools available online to engage with others and expand your professional learning network, the question arises as how to best manage your online identity. With that in mind, the next in our series of free professional learning webinars has been developed.
Defining Digital Identity
The digital identity of an educator is the online representation of their role within a school or the wider community.  With different social networks, an individual could have different identities or alter egos spanning multiple communities. With some exciting possibilities and new threats, engaging and sharing online is a double-edged sword for many teachers. It is no longer enough to remain completely anonymous and just hide behind a web browser.  
This session will share some of the different stories about our digital identity, the places that teachers meet, ways we share and describe how to build a personal learning network that can help shape our digital identity.
 
To join the session, please click on this link
 https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007026&password=M.3D82B35A25427F214330DFE7EA66CB within 30 minutes of the start time on December 8th.

For more info see http://ictev.vic.edu.au/pd/2011/12/08/free-online-professional-development-defining-digital-identity

If you miss participating, a recording link will be available after the session.

 

Thought Leadership Webinar- QuickTime version available

Further to the ICTEV Elluminate session on Thought Leadership with Helen Otway and Ray Nashar on October 13th [see my blogpost of that date]

If you wish to download a QuickTime version of the session it is available here. It is a big download [88.5 MB]!
Download Thought Leadership
The two videos that Ray used in the session are listed below,  as they don't play in this .mov version.

Thought Leadership http://vimeo.com/27146770

Thought Leadership - When? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5qwXKJ0eyQ

Otherwise the Elluminate Recording link is at
https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2011-10-12.2201.M.2C2C0F22112F366AD681DF90C0A985.vcr&sid=2007026

Thought Leadership - Elluminate Session

Just finished moderating an Elluminate session for my fellow ICTEV State Councillors, Helen Otway and Raymond Nashar. There session was Thought Leadership. This was a great session with lots of interaction from our audience.

Session Synopsis

Thought Leadership
Leading change is something leaders are faced with frequently as new technologies, contemporary pedagogies and learning spaces evolve. Thre has been much movement within ICT and as leaders there is an ever-growing need to think about ways to bring people along. We will share some strategies and pedagogical models that will enable you to categorise and articulate where you are at and what kind of changes you want to see. The notion of Thought Leadership will be explored as a means of thinking ahead.

If you are interested but missed it, there is a recording..... https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2011-10-12.2201.M.2C2C0F22112F366AD681DF90C0A985.vcr&sid=2007026

This is the first of a series from the ICTEV, with the next at 4:00 p.m., Thursday 10.11.2011 on Open Source Solutions with Donna Benjamin. See  http://ictev.vic.edu.au/ for details in the next couple of weeks.

Students as eLearning Leaders Project 2011 - CyberSafety Module

I have been working as part of DEECD, Western Metropolitan Region, Hobson’s Bay eLearning Leaders' Network, [A Partnership Program with Dell] to develop a six part Leadership & ICT module for Year Five students.

Finding a pedagogical model for this was a challenge. So I'm really looking forward to reflecting on and tweaking the learning model after this event

What comes next are some slide which combining two learning models and how they are to be used in this project.

The Hobson’s Bay Network Leaders' Network meeting on Tuesday [Sue, Kevin, Clare & Geoff] gave direction to what you see is written here. What is here is still a draft and will be further discussed next week. It is published for study purposes only.

What is student leadership?
 
Student leadership encompasses the school’s provision of:
• formal and informal learning opportunities which develop the competency of individuals as leaders and effective participants.
• processes and structures for student representation and the incorporation of students’ views into decision making and the life of the school. [Not Relevant to this project]

The development of student leadership skills involves opportunities which encourage students to:
• act in roles of responsibility with integrity and honesty.
• foster a sense of vision and purpose.
• work with others to determine and achieve collective goals.
• take on responsibilities and use decision making skills in order to carry a project through to a successful conclusion.
• be active, reflective listeners who respond effectively.
• earn the respect of others through their actions.

http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/studentsupport/studleadsrc/studlead/primary/

What skills are we looking for from our Student eLearning Leaders?

• Communication skills
• Thinking / Planning skills
• ICT Competencies
• Collaboration Skills
• Mentoring Abilities
• Good Listeners
• Decision Makers
• Project Management Skills

What’s the Pedagogical Model?

• It’s based on the Kids Teaching Kids pedagogy.
• This has been used at many Student Environmental Conferences run by Kids Teaching Kids. A number of schools in Hobson’s Bay Network send or have
sent students to their events in recent years,
• This model is also great for other student lead events and is based on a solid pedagogy! See http://www.kidsteachingkids.com.au/kids-teaching-kids/learning-model.html

There is also a bit of Challenge Based Learning in the pedagogy as well.
• This is Action / Solution Based Learning.
• In this activity there will be a Big Idea or Challenge for students to approach.
• Students will provide an action or solution to that Big Idea or Challenge by the end on the activity.
Based on http://ali.apple.com/cbl/

What eLearning themes could students explore?

• Creating Resources for their classes back at school.
• Creating Online Content, [Ultranet etc.].
• Creating tutorials for other students.
• Action / Solution Learning.
• Virtual Classrooms.

Let’s put this all together!

The Big Idea
Being safe online [CyberSafety] is important for all users of the Internet.

The Challenge
Show how we can make our students to be all great digital citizens.

So what will the 6 weeks look like?
• Each has a half day session and the network Professional Learning Centre
• Maybe 4 students form 5 schools = 20 students
• With 1 Dell laptop each + EduStar Image
• Teacher support
• Technical support
• Back at school activity

Week One

Week Two

Week Three

Week Four

Week Five

Week Six
This project is exciting, will write further, both the planning and the practice [and the evaluation].

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy & The Ultranet

Postscript:
I thought this session went well. It was a small group but some great dialogues via the chat and the mic. Thanks to Kevin for organising the group and being a great moderator. Missed the session? Recording link is here:
https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2011-05-16.2251.M.029A3E8D94509A2DB46E48181501BF.vcr&sid=2007026

Original Post ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm looking forward to presenting Bloom's Digital Taxonomy & The Ultranet to the Hobson's Bay eLearning Leaders' Network using Elluminate next Tuesday 17.05.2011 at 3:45 p.m [GMT / UTC +10]. The Elluminate room will be open from about 45 minutes before that. The Hobson's Bay eLearning Leaders' Network is the work of Kevin Daly Hobson's Bay, Ultranet Coach. This is the second meeting of the network, the first being F2F.

In this session I'm exploring ideas about Ultranet Release 1 Applications and how they can be used to teach the thinking skills of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy. I hope to get some ideas from participants on this too.

Below are my screen dumps where I have overlayed Bloom's Digital Taxonomy on to the Release ! Apps. If you want my ideas of the activities you can use you will need to join the session!

 

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As usual will write about the event later.

ANZAC Day and The 1000 Poppies Project.

This ANZAC Day blogpost comes from a number of sources. It originally starts with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28.06.1914, my great uncle's involvement in what followed, his army records that are available on the web and a great video project which involves school students for Australian students in 2011 on themes of
• War Stories • Forgiveness • Culture • The Home Front • Legacy •Our Community.

The latter part of this started for me in hearing an Elluminate web conference from the History Teachers Association of Victoria [ HTAV] on the 1000 Poppies project in early February this year. This recording is still available for download at http://guidetoinnovation.ning.com/events/remembrance-day-1000-poppies. Also see the HTAV's website at http://1000poppies.org .


You can find out everything that you need to know about this great project from these links. It is certainly a great idea to link two events which are traditionally honoured and taught in schools in Australia [ANZAC Day, 25th of April and Remembrance Day, 11th of November] and move the teaching of them into the 21st Century through the use of video, the internet and Web 2.0 technologies.

Back to 1000 Poppies activities for students a bit later though.
What this did get me thinking about, was my own family World War One story. My great uncle [my paternal grandmother's brother], Norman Max Pontin, [or as some records show Max Norman Pontin], enlisted in the first Australian Imperial Force [AIF] on 12.07.1915. He left Australia on 16.10.1915 and ended up killed in action on the Western Front [ Bullecourt, France], on 11.04.1917.


None of this is unique or special, it is the story of a tragedy that affected one Australian family amongst hundreds of  thousands of Australian families of during World War One and beyond. My great uncle was blown to smithereens and what remains lies of him lies under, what is now in summer, peaceful green fields. His name is remembered on the wall of the Australian War Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.


What is great, is that the records of Australian World War One diggers are freely available on the internet. For my great uncle's war record go to Australian ANZACS in the Great war 1914-1918

http://www.aif.adfa.edu.au:8080/index.html and do a search.



But the best thing was being able to get my great uncle's service record at National Archives of Australia  http://www.naa.gov.au/

The service record goes for some 60 pages starting with this page.

The most harrowing find in these records was a copy of a letter, written on behalf of my great uncle's mother, by his brother, looking for some closure, a body to bury really..
One that has never been found.

 

Every family in the world has one of more war stories in its history this is one of mine.

The futility of war is just unbelievable, but in fact if humanity can use history to learn from the mistakes from the past, then activities such as the 1000 Poppies project are truly significant.

One of its activities is a short video competition for school students on those themes I mentioned in the opening paragraph. See http://www.1000poppies.org/network/images/poppiescomp.pdf . Students have only about 6 weeks to complete their video [which includes over two weeks of holidays].  I asked grade 5/6 students at the school where I teach, who would be interested in entering the 1000 Poppies Challenge? This was on the basis that I would be only a resource, lend cameras, teach editing skills etc., but that the video to be completely planned, shot and edited in the students' own time and that production teams could be no bigger than three students.
What amazed me about my invitation was that 20 students turned up to the first lunchtime meeting about the Challenge, which is about 10% of the total grade 5/6 enrolment in the school!
Now maybe not all the six production teams will complete their videos, but it does indicate what a strong influence ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day still has on today's students.
Will post again when some videos are completed.

Tech Talk Tuesdays: Challenge Based Learning + Elluminate

I spoke on Tech Talk Tuesday, on Tuesday 8.03.2011, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. [GMT +11]. Hosted by Anne Mirtschin, these are great Elluminate sessions on eLearning.

 
See http://guidetoinnovation.ning.com/events/tech-talk-tuesdays-challenge for more details,

Missed the session?  Click on the link for the recording.

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/playback.jnlp?psid=2011-03-07.2130.M.00497A88007BC3D3009F730247AC50.vcr&sid=2007026

Thanks to those that participated, we  has a great discussion. If you have any views on CBL or the webinar, please add your opinion via the comment box.

Elluminate - Lots of Session Inspiring Ideas in the Moderator Toolbar

I have just finished running two Face to Face [F2F] training sessions with teachers for the DEECD Virtual Conference Centre. These sessions are to train moderators and presenters for the DEECD Online Professional Learning Program  [February 1-3, 2011]. This is a great three day program on online professional learning events. Click here for more details of session and how to register.

It was very interesting running moderator training with a selection of educators / teachers from settings such as the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Sports Museum and Sovereign Hill, Ballarat. As a presenter, what the session did was to get me thinking about how the Elluminate  Moderator Interactive tools could be used more widely. On one hand we have an Elluminate toolbar and on the other, groups of teachers from diverse settings wanting to use these in a very wide variety of educational settings. Don't think of Elluminate as PowerPoint with a headset, there are heaps of things that you can do with the Elluminate Interactive Tools.
So here are some of my ideas.
This blogpost is a work in progress, so I will add more ideas as I continue with the training. If you have any great ideas, please add via the comments box.

What I thought I would do is look at some of the elements of the Elluminate moderator toolbar and look at some different uses for those tools by moderators and presenters.

Application Sharing

01. Use it to share anything that you have created on your computer [remember, this tool has no audio].
02.Use it to demonstrate any application / program on your computer. It doesn't matter whether the participant has that application / program or not, e.g. if you were on a Mac you could show Apple iLife apps to participants on Windows computers.
03. Use it to demonstrate software that participants may not have on their computer, but that you suggest that they purchase e.g Comic Life.
04. Show off the features of some Open Source software that enhances teaching and learning in your area of expertise. This might be software on the DEECD EduSTAR image which is on most teacher and student computers but is less used that it should be.
05. Show off some high end software for your curriculum areas e.. Sibelius in Music, Mathematica in Maths, Final Cut Pro in multimedia. This allows teachers to see the application before they buy.
06. Show off some subscription websites in a certain curriculum areas e.g. Mathletics, Purple Mash. Brain Pop etc. This allows teachers to see the website before they subscribe.
07. Use it to show participants how to fill in online forms and surveys.

Live Video

01. Switch it on at the beginning so that your audience can see what the presenter [ and maybe the moderator looks like]. Participants like to "put a face to a name". Remember Live Video is Bandwidth intensive so limit its use.
02. Allow students to play around with the Live Video Preview before transmitting [maybe?].
03. Remember as a moderator you can take away the Video camera permissions. Make sure you know how to do this!

Polling

01. Use the default "tick and cross" to keep the interactivity up, e.g. you could say "give me a tick if you a following what I am saying or a cross if you would like me to go over that last point again".
02. Set up a poll at the beginning of the session. Ask a question about the upcoming content of the presentation with some graded answers. The answers will give the presenter a feel for the knowledge level of participants.
03. Set up a poll that when published will encourage discussion amongst participants.
04. If you are a moderator you might ask whether the presenter agrees with the answers of the audience.

File Transfer

01. Handouts via File Transfer are great. It is a way of getting extra content to participants with out crowding the presentation.
02. Any File Transfer handouts remain with the Elluminate session recording, so those catching the session later via the recording still get the handouts.
03. Use a file format for your handouts that all can open. PDF, [Portable Document Format is the best as everyone can open it]. You can turn your work such as Word documents [if using the later versions of Word] by going to Save As and selecting PDF in file format [both on a Mac & Windows]
04. As a presenter think of some extra resources that teachers might need to enhance their experience of your talk. Some handouts which they can use with their students are usually most appreciated.

Web Tour

01. This is a great way to show video content. In my opinion it is better than the Multimedia Library, in that participants don't need any extra software like QuickTime or Windows Media Player.
02. The trick is that you need to have you video of a website, so that you can get a URL of that video link to paste into the Web Tour window.
03. I have my videos for this blog in a website made with Apple's iWeb and hosted on my Mobile Me website account. [See examples below]. I could use this URL to paste into the Elluminate Web Tour if I wished.
04. There are some other ways of posting your video on a website to get a URL. Here is a screencast I made about using YouTube, Vimeo and Teacher Tube. http://web.me.com/mark_rich/Site/Video_for_Elluminate_1.html
05. Here is another screencast that will be of use to DEECD staff only. It is on how you can use FUSE to upload video and get that URL for your Web Tour. http://web.me.com/mark_rich/Site/Video_for_Elluminate_2.html
06. So now that this issue of getting the URL has been sorted out, you can think of taking some video to show in your Elluminate session. This might be "real life video" illustrating the presentation.
07. Access to the tools for making video are so prevalent these days. Think Flip camera or alternatives, iPod Nano, smartphone etc.

Timer

01. Put the timer on 5 or 10 minutes before the session starts for all to see. Participants may be all set up waiting to go. The timer will let them no whether they have enough time to grab a glass of water, go to the toilet etc.
02. If your session has a definite ending time you may wish to put a timer on for the moderators only, e.g a five minute warning so the presenter knows when to finish etc.
03. Use the timer when using Polling, e.g. if you want a quick polling activity, set the timer on for say 2 minutes and tell participant you will lock the poll when the countdown is finished
04. Do a similar thing if you are having participants using the Whiteboard tools, e.g tell them to stop drawing / writing when the timer countdown to zero.

So that is it for the moment, but hopefully this selection of ideas will grow. Please use the comments box of you have others to add.

Web Conference Leaders - Final Session

Today was the last online session on the DEECD Innovation and Next Practice Division's Web Conference Leaders Project. It was great for the 11 of use to chat about our challenges and achievements. This was a great project to be involved in. Thanks particularly to Krystie for running the project, and Becky who ran Elluminate Moderator Training with me over the two terms of the project.

The Web Conference Leaders Project aimed to empower teachers and professional learning coordinators to facilitate engaging professional learning opportunities using web conferencing software.
Ten school-based educators are needed to become Web Conference Leaders for the project.
Web Conference Leaders
• facilitated a series of online professional learning sessions in a curriculum or interest area of your choice
• offer web conference training for teachers
• provided informal advice and support to a community of web conferencing users within an online professional network
• attended four Web Conference Leaders team meetings for collaborative sharing and planning
• conduct Elluminate Training for others who were interested in being future Elluminate Moderators or presenters
• conduct a PD Series using Elluminate [6 sessions]. I've blogged about What's Burning in eLearning extensively.

While the two term project is now over, the skills and networking that has developed, will continue on in a wide variety of future projects.

Links
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/news/newsalerts/2010/webleaders.htm
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/researchinnovation/virtualconferencecentre/
http://guidetoinnovation.ning.com/