Status2 April 6, 2007
Posted by Steve in Elearning, Musing.add a comment
It seems I have made at least some progress with elearning since about June of 2006. Some of the events that have taken place include:
- Moodle training 2 days in Sydney
- no Moodle available to my school
- hired a site in Perth. Extensively tested but students could not download files due to my school’s security settings. Sigh.
- participated in online Moodle conference via video conferencing
- Participated in panel for hiring an elearning integrator
- no one was hired due to lack of practical experience
- ICT Group formed, I became the minute secretary
- A paper entitled “Elearning at TIGS” was written by me and passed onto the Executive in an attempt to bring the 3 dimensional aspect of elearning into a clearer perspective.
- Virtual Staffroom came into existance where I became much more aware of Web 2.0 services.
- Elearning conference, 3 days, Melbourne
- Summary paper written about the 3 days for the Executive
- Evaluated Edumate for my school which undergoes implementation in 2007
- Became involved in the Honours Programme as an elearning integrator and as part of my co-curricular obligations.
- mentoring 3 students in programming so far (Python)
- may be mentoring one other in graphics editing software
- set up TIGSHONOURS yahoo group for communication purposes
- participated in presentation to parents about the Honours Programme
- a lot of time spent outside of school hours setting things up
- Scoured the Net for student activities that can be used in individual student blogs.
- Decided upon Learnerblogs.org as our site due to security and lack of advertising
- 3 lessons lost due to technical difficulties at the Learnerblogs site
- opted for Edublogs Premium for six months, 35 students but it is expensive
- a signficant number of students seem excited about the concept of a blog
- ICT Support investigating WordPress options that run under tigs.com.au domain
- Participated in Podcasting inservice run by the AIS
- tested out blogs ability to upload mp3 files and movies
- tested out Movie Maker 2 with 1394 cable, digital camera and new laptops
- Blogs and the use of Audacity inservices have yet to take place
- I suspect I will be a presenter at future professional development days at my school
As I grow in skills, it certainly has been a case of two steps forward and one step backward! But that is the norm for technology and trying something new.
Theme Choice April 6, 2007
Posted by Steve in Musing.comments closed
I chose this theme because it happens to be the colours that are used on my school’s stationery. In addition, I believe it is entitled ‘Regulus’ which is a planet used in the Star Trek series. It seemed appropriate to choose this since I am known to be an original Trekkie. The contrast in the image appealed to me as well.
Status1 April 6, 2007
Posted by Steve in Musing.comments closed
Edublogs has a Wikispace link. I am not sure how they compliment each other. In May 2007, the CSTA has a presenter on Wikis and I hope to gain some insights in how it may be used in the classroom.
The Honours Programme 2007 has kicked off and the last day of term was devoted to inviting participants to join tigshonours at yahoo com. The mass invitations seemed to work with only 5 bouncing back which indicates an incorrect email address. I also created 3 moderator text files: when one joins the group, unsubscribes from the group and a monthly reminder.
My ICT helpdesk has gone beyond the call of duty and has apparently set up a multi-user WordPress site which I have insisted since I know more about WordPress than any other.
Black Diamond refers to coal. It is quite a valuable commodity and has been for a long time. Currently, I live in an area where coal is exported and generates a tremendous amount of revenue. When coal is compressed for a lengthy number of years, it is transformed into a diamond. Whilst I would like to take the credit of the title, it also refers to the first school magazine that I produced at my first school in Wonthaggi, Victoria.
First Musing April 2, 2007
Posted by Steve in Musing.comments closed
This person has spent the last several months investigating blogs and other web 2.0 services. I have read material from a significant number of other blogs. Whilst I am good at restating or summarising what has been written, I am not so sure that I can come up with something original. Time will tell.
