Edublogs webinar overview – What poll was that?

Introduction

In this recorded session we took a look at if, and how, we use/have used e-polling or surveys. The idea for this session was triggered when I used a poll in the overview for last week’s Serendipity and wondered about the different polling and survey tools that people use.

The Session

We started with a look at whether we had used polling/surveys either as a respondent or as an information gatherer. Then moved on to the platforms on which we have used them, finding that most of us had used polling/surveys on one or more of: Twitter, Facebook, blogs, mobile devices and of course “Other” including Learning Management Systems, Elluminate/BlackboardCollaborate and email!

Then came the most interesting part of the session where we started to look at tools we have used and/or that we know about. We began this by using a whiteboard to name those tools we have used as information gatherer, and as respondent and also those we have heard about.

Next came the best bit where members of the group shared an experience of using a poll/survey tool, We had brief looks at GoogleForms (including a quick play), Facebook, Flubaroo and PollDaddy before running out of time and moving on to our best takeaways from the session. This session flew by and we reached the end far too soon!

Conclusion

This was so interesting – I love to know what tools others are using and to hear about the contexts and purposes. I had a major takeaway in that although I was aware of GoogleForms in a vague way and had responded to polls via that tool I didn’t realise how many different question types there were. Neither had I really taken in the fact that a spreadsheet is automatically created for the answers thus making subsequent data analysis very easy.

Next Webinar

Our next session will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday January 19that 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday January 20th at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual BlackboardCollaborate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic.

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – gifted & talented students

Introduction

Our first Serendipity session of the year was a great session! As always the session was recorded and is well worth a watch/listen for the huge amount of sharing of ideas and links. I’m sorry for the delay in posting – a combination of migraines, a visitor staying and too many things still to do before I go back to work has left me without enough time!

The Session

We started as usual by putting our topic ideas on the whiteboard and then polling to choose the topic for consideration. The winner was a double topic “IEP for gifted students” and “Behaviour strategies for gifted”.

Once the topic was chosen we started with a whiteboard for the headings and to collect some of our ideas and thoughts on this including some links. As usual ideas were also shared via text chat and audio. This was a lively session with much of the sharing via audio leaving me with a dilemma about an image/interactive for this week’s post. The whiteboard has only a very small part of those things that were shared as does text chat. So what I have finally done is to experiment with a survey!



While the survey doesn’t give us an image in the post it does give us something different to do and so meets my personal criteria for something other than just plain text in every post 🙂

 

Conclusion

I enjoyed this session – this is one of the topics that we have visited before from different angles and I am always fascinated by the different directions taken when topics are re-visited. Because we never have exactly the same group of people each week Serendipity sessions are truly serendipitous in that our direction is informed by the particular experiences of out participants each week. Love it!

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is our first Edublogs “Fine Focus” session for 2012, where we invite you to share your favourite online survey tools in “What survey was that!”  join us on Thursday January 12th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning January 13th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs webinar overview – Do you know Dabrowski’s Dogs?

Introduction

This recorded, Fine Focus session presented by Jo Freitag (@jofrei) was fascinating and exciting. Jo coordinates the “Gifted Resources” information service website which includes “Sprite’s Site” where Dabrowski’s Dogs are regular visitors. She has intrigued us with mentions of Dabrowski’s Dogs in a number of sessions so it was particularly exciting to have a session devoted to them.

The Session

Jo started off by finding out where we were coming from on “Dabrowski’s Dogs”. She then gave as a great list of references so that we could find out more about the overexcitabilities for ourselves at a later stage.

Next we took a look at the dogs themselves as personifications of Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities. Jo gave us great character sketches of the dogs and also links to blog posts that explore the characterisitics.

Then it was our turn to do some work. Jo gave us slides on which to brainstorm the positives and negatives of the overexcitabilities in a classroom context and to suggest strategies for managing these.

The first of these slides is shown above. This activity was a great tool for thinking about the impacts of the overexcitabilities in the classroom context and for considering how they might be managed. As well as the whiteboard input there were also ideas shared in text chat. Jo also talked briefly about a teaching unit that can be used to help students better understand themselves.

Finally Jo asked us how we felt at this stage about Dabrowski’s Overexcitabilities which gave rise to an additional whiteboard activity for us to express whether we could see echoes of ourselves in the dogs.

Conclusion

This was a fantastic session – full of information and activities and with lots of interesting “homework” in the form of links to visit later. As always I learned much! It seems to me that a virtual classroom might have some advantages over a face-to-face situation for managing some of the negatives (particularly those characterisitics that prove distracting to others) posed by the overexcitabilities.

Next Webinar

Our next session will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday November 24that 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday November 25th at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual Elluminate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic.

Edublogs webinar overview – Strategies for SpEd

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Just a Reminder for those of you whose clocks change in Spring/Autumn (Fall). The Session time for you will be different when your clocks change in September/October. Our time remains on 23:00 GMT Thursdays. If you are in the Northern Hemisphere the session time will be ONE HOUR EARLIER after the clock change. In the Southern Hemisphere it will be ONE HOUR LATER.

Introduction

This Fine Focus session was a “spin-off” from last week’s Serendipity where we shared our ideas about strategies we have used when working with SpEd students. We were joined by Jo Whalahan (Jo W) who is a SpEd teacher well known to  one of our regular participants Sandra Stewart (@marndon) from New South Wales. Jo W joined us to talk about how she works with her students.

The Session

The session was very much a conversation using mainly audio and so this overview can only give a taste – catch the recording for the full flavour!

We spent a few minutes discussing what would work best for Jo W as it was her first webinar and it is always really dificult at first to talk into a void. So we settled on an interview style with Sandra asking questions – a strategy that worked very well as Sandra is familar with Jo W’s work and also knows her in “real life” making the questioning a bit less stressful than if it came from someone unknown.

Because the session was mostly oral I tried to capture some of Jo W’s thoughts and ideas and some of the student characteristics on a whiteboard and have used this to create a Wordle.

Although the focus of the session was on the conversation between Sandra and Jo W there were also questions in the text chat which Sandra was able to bring into the conversation enabling us all to join in while maintaining the flow of  the session.

Conclusion

This was a new style for Fine Focus – it worked very well and is something that we will definitely do again! Hearing Jo W’s strategies and insights into her students was fascinating and she coped brilliantly with the new (to her) medium.

Next Webinar

Our next session is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday October 13that 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday October 14th at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual Elluminate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – Ideas for Special Ed Strategies

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Just a Reminder for those of you whose clocks change in Spring/Autumn (Fall). The Session time for you will be different when your clocks change in September/October. Our time remains on 23:00 GMT Thursdays. If you are in the Northern Hemisphere the session time will be ONE HOUR EARLIER after the clock change. In the Southern Hemisphere it will be ONE HOUR LATER.

Introduction

In this lively session, recorded as always, we shared ideas on strategies for what is termed in this session as “Special Ed” within a classroom situation with students of widely varying level. We all seemed to interpret this (for the purpose of this session) to mean meeting the needs of students with specifically identified issues that impact on their learning

The Session

The topic chosen was proposed by one of the participants who was seeking ideas for working with large class of very diverse students – over 50% of the students having issues impacting on their learning – with no additional support (teacher’s aide) available.

We headed a whiteboard with the topic and then shared ideas and strategies using not only the whiteboard but text chat and audio – the Wordle is a composite of many of those.


We also had input from a colleague of a participant who was unable to join us but who contributed suggestions that were added to the whiteboard. As usual a variety of thoughts and links were also shared so catching the recording will give you more information.

Conclusion

This session was particularly interesting as we were focussing on a particular classroom situation, so our ideas were perhaps more specific than is the case when we are having a general discussion on a topic.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session, Topic not yet finalised. Join us on Thursday October 6th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning October 7th in Australia – in the usual virtual room

 

Edublogs webinar overview – “ESL with e-stuff”

Introduction

For this session we were joined by Jane Curry, who is @parrpakala on Twitter, and a group of her students. Jane and her students talked with us about some of the “e-stuff” they use in their English language learning. The students also told us a little about their backgrounds and former school experiences.  Checkout the recording to hear and see this exciting session.

The Session

The session was informal and was very much a conversation with Jane telling us about some of the e-activities her students undertake and then the students joining the conversation and answering some of our questions about their learning.

Jane uses her “Youth Class Blog” as a thread for the activities and Web2.0 tools she uses with her students. Recent activities include a VoiceThread.

Jane also records her students and uploads the videos – fantastic for language learners to see and hear themselves speaking the language.  We watched one of these videos where Lan talks about the school she went to as a child.

This session was itself another Web2.0 experience for Jane’s students who overcame their shyness to join in, answer questions and tell us a little about their own thoughts and experiences.

Conclusion

For me this was a really exciting session! I love it when we have students involved in webinars in some way and would be delighted for it to happen more often.

Next Webinar

Our next session is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday August 18that 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday August 19th at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual Elluminate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic

Edublogs webinar overview – “Can I also do that virtually?”

Introduction

Another exciting session with a number of those presenting at  “The Reform Symposium (#RSCON3)”  joining us for Elluminate learning and practise. Again we focussed on using Elluminate with a similar “roller coaster ride” to our last FineFocus through some of the tools and features from the moderator perspective. There was a lot of stress  as BlackboardCollaborate is rolling out its Elluminate replacement and people were concerned they would need to suddenly learn a completely different interface!

The Session

As for the last two weeks this was a fast moving and very interactive session with a high level of participation particularly through text. I felt I was talking, answering text questions and demonstrating /illustrating constantly. This always leaves me with the resulting concern of talking too much!  The session overview can really only give a feel for what we did. Access the  recording for a complete look at this buzzy session.

As with the FineFocus two weeks ago and with last week’s Serendipity This was very much a participant led session in terms of direction. We had an initial whiteboard for participants to suggest what they needed from the session and I had “How to” slides and examples available for a variety of Elluminate tools and strategies in case they were needed. We started with a whiteboard for people to indicate what they wanted from the session. One of the questions was a very big ask!

“Can you give us a step by step list of things to do in order to use Elluminate successfully in our #rscon3 session”

While I started replying and demonstrating/explaining some answers to other questions @philhart put together a fantastic quick list of steps!

Phil12stepsResize

As with our last session of this type the whiteboard of requests and the questions asked throughout the session determined the entire direction of the session including which slides I actually used. Sometimes it was quicker/easier just to demo “off the top of my head”

Early in the session we made everyone moderators so that they could see all the tools and also explore their functions. Activity was rapid and we looked quickly at uploading slides, the pros and cons of video images, using multimedia, application share and webtours with opportunities for “playing” throughout.

We finished as usual with  feedback polls (which were very positive about the session) and a best “takeaways” whiteboard.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this session it is always exciting to have people wanting to find out about Elluminate , and I feel that these sorts of sessions are really good for me also. They keep me on my toes and stop me getting complacent about my own Elluminate skills and knowledge.

Next Webinar

SerendipitybsmallOur next session is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday July 21st at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday July 22nd at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual Elluminate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic of the day.

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – Using Elluminate as presenter

Introduction

This session was exciting! For me it also felt very strange as I had to leave half-way through so Phil (@philhart) was the main facilitator from the start, and I caught up with the second half of the session from the recording which is well worth a watch and listen. The reason for needing to leave early was an interview at work for a advanced standing as a lecturer – what is known in Western Australia as  “Advanced Skills Lecturer”. For those of you who were in the session when I mentioned this – I was successful!

The Session

We had several people who are due to present at “The Reform Symposium (#RSCON3)” who were keen to learn more about using Elluminate from the presenter’s perspective so this was the chosen topic at polling time.

We started with a whiteboard for people to add anything specific they wanted to know about and this informed the entire session. We made everyone moderators so that they could easily access the extra tools they will see as presenters. The session was terrific with masses of interaction, discussion and sharing – truly Serendipitous with everyone sharing their own Elluminate knowledge and with instant learning going on through experimentation. Takeaways were very positive.

TakeawaysResizeIn answer to a couple of the questions raised that were not fully clarified due to lack of time.

1. It is possible to use a YouTube video – there are at least three possible ways: a) WebTour which will just take everyone to the link via their own browser (usually but not always starts immediately); b) do it by putting the link into the multimedia library (in my experience this doesn’t always work); c) put the link on whiteboard or in chat for people to access (it is good practice to make the link available in chat/whiteboard anyway.

2. Using Prezi – not ideal it can be application shared but app share is not generally very good with anything that frequently updates or is “swoopy” and also not good for anyone with a slow connection.

3. Links can be shared on whiteboard or in chat. On the whiteboard you need to use the “A” tool the text edit one is not consistently clickable. Also the link needs to be “on top” ie if you circle it then it won’t be clickable

Conclusion

This was a fantastic session and Phil did a great job especially as he was “thrown in the deep end” with respect to the chosen topic. He is a very experienced and brilliant Elluminate facilitator but a little less familiar with all the tools and capabilities than myself.  If you are about to, or might in the future be presenting/facilitating and Elluminate session then this is definitely one to catch!

Our Next Session

FineFocusSmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. Again this week (by request) we will be taking a further look at using Elluminate from the presenter’s pont of view in ” Oh and can I also do this virtually?”  Join us on Thursday July 14th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning in Australia – in the usual Elluminate room

Edublogs webinar overview – “Can I really do that virtually?”

Introduction

This session was really exciting! With “The Reform Symposium (#RSCON3)” coming up in a few weeks we were joined by several of the presenters looking to increase their Elluminate experience before the conference. The session was one of our semi-regular ones that focus on using Elluminate and on this occasion we took a “roller coaster ride” through some of the tools and features from the moderator perspective.

The Session

This was a fast moving, highly interactive and participative session. The overview can really only give a taste of events!  Catch the recording for the full flavour of this lively session.

This was very much a participant led session in terms of direction. I had “How to” slides and examples available for a wide variety of Elluminate tools and strategies in case they were needed. We started with a whiteboard for people to indicate what they wanted from the session. This and the questions throughout the session determined what slides were used and what we did!

Initially we took a quick look at setting up your screen to suit you, the importance of doing an audio check especially if you are going to be presenting or speaking at all, and at the most used of all the Elluminate features – the whiteboard.

The next part of the session was to make everyone moderators so that they could see all the moderator tools. After this the questions and activities came thick and fast. During the rest of the session we briefly explored (giving opportunities to “play” where feasible) many of the features of Elluminate that make it such a great webinar platform. Time just flew by so that we over-ran our usual end time.

WordleTakeawaysResize

We finished with some quick feedback polls which were entirely positive about the sessions and finally as usual a whiteboard for our best “takeaways” from the session.

Conclusion

This was a fantastic session! I really love these sorts of sessions where I am having to “think on my feet” to try and keep up with the pace of the action, answer everyone’s questions and step through tools on request. As always this was a terrific learning experience for me – I have my own “takeaway” which I didn’t put on the board at the end because I was answering questions. This is an improved understanding of how the whiteboard works with live links – for which many thanks to Rodney (@techyturner)!

Next Webinar

SerendipitybsmallOur next session is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday July 7th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday July 8th at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual Elluminate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic of the day.

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – Tools we use most & why!

Introduction

This session was fun with lots of tools shared and discussed. Also I started the recording at the proper time this week, there was a lot of audio discussion as well as text chat and the recording is well worth catching if you missed the session.

The Session

Our chosen topic was “What tech tools do you use the most and why?” We put the title on an empty whiteboard and then each added the tools we use most.

ToolsWordleResizeThis gave us a great selection to talk about! We only managed to discuss a small number in the time available, and even then we scarcely touched on the “why” of using particular tools. Because we all found this session both useful and interesting and felt that there was so much more we could have discussed we are going to try something a little bit different in the upcoming Fine Focus session, by continuing the theme of tools we use most and inviting YOU to tell the group about your most used tools.

Show and Tell Invite resizeWe already have one volunteer who DM’d me after the session. Please join us and add your voice to the session. Let me know if you would like to “Show and Tell” and what tool you plan to talk about (so we can avoid doubling up).  My Twitter ID is @JoHart or you can use the Contact Form on my “About Me” page

Conclusion

This was a great session and was definitely one of those where we just didn’t have enough time to talk about everything. I left resolved to investigate several tools that were new to me – although the available time for that is extremely limited at the moment!

Our Next Session

FineFocusSmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. This week in “Show and Tell” We invite volunteers to do a 10 minute “Show and Tell” about one of the tools they teach their students about. Check out the Invitation above – let me know if you would like to “Show and Tell” If you haven’t used Elluminate before we can help with anything you would like to do.  Join us on Thursday June 16 th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning in Australia – in the usual Elluminate room