Tag Archives: technology

Edublogs webinar overview – Accessibility Standards

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Introduction

This recorded session was a FineFocus session in which we took a brief introductory look at Accessibility Standards.  The topic is one that is becoming increasingly prominent as governments around the world set accessibility compliance standards for government websites.

The session

We started with a poll and a whiteboard to find out where we were all coming from on Accessibility Standards and their application in an online/e-learning context. This revealed varying knowledge and so provided great opportunities for discussion as we continued through the session. We moved on to look at the sorts of things that we, both as individuals and in the context of meeting our students’ needs, felt made websites more accessible.The next part of the session was a brief look at the links and possible conflicts between Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Accessibility Standards. We also took a very quick look, via App Share, at the guidelines that have been derived from the standards. I must admit that when I first looked at the guidelines I went into panic mode! I am reasonably tech savvy and I was totally daunted by the impossibility of making every piece of e-learning I develop totally compliant. I think that others in the session felt similarly – having had time to reflect my response is that I will do what is feasible and take baby steps. One of my main concerns is that this will all be too hard for the average practitioner who is only beginning their journey into developing online content and that the result will be a return to boring text only documents uploaded as documents and lacking interaction.

We also considered the impact on others (not falling in to defined equity groups) of changes made to meet the needs of specific equity groups. We compared some of the old Elluminate buttons/features with the new BbC ones that were developed through very close consultation with equity groups.

Finally we discussed some ways we might make a start on improving accessibility in our own practice – including checking foreground and background for colour contrast. Although it wasn’t one of those suggested I have made a change in my blog theme moving to a “responsive theme” ie one that is “mobile friendly” and adapts itself to the device type so that the text is readable without  zooming. I made the change because fortuitously I saw this post by @suewaters – on “theedublogger” and it nudged me into making the change. I don’t like my new theme as much as the old one – I would probably have stayed with it forever given the opportunity, but I think it is good that I made the change!

We finished with a page of links, “takeaways” and feedback.

Conclusion

This was a really interesting session partly because we all came from very different amounts of prior knowledge which always gives rise to great discussions.  Also our varied backgrounds enabled us to bring different perspectives – one of the best things as always for me was hearing/seeing the ideas and opinions of others in the group.

Our Next Webinar

Our next webinar will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday April 11th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday April 12th 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”. We post these on the whiteboard and then choose the topic for discussion by poll.

 

Edublogs webinar overview – “Replacing GoogleReader”

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Introduction

This recorded session was a FineFocus session where we looked at some of the possible replacements for GoogleReader. The topic was born out of the previous session which was a Serendipity discussion about the upcoming demise of GoogleReader.

This session was similar to our occasional ones where we each experiment with a tool or app that we might use with students and then feedback to the group on the experience. However in this case our concerns were more about the tool meeting our individual needs for a GoogleReader replacement than being suited to student use.

We followed out usual practice in these exploring sessions of each member of the group spending around 10 minutes exploring one of the alternatives and then feeding back to everyone else using audio, textchat, whiteboard and app share. As usual this worked well in providing first impressions! Checkout the  recording for the feedback.

Conclusion

This was a great session! One of the best things about this type of session is that it gives an idea about the potential usefulness of several alternative tools/apps in a much shorter time than it would take each of us as individuals to look at them all. This often enables us to narrow down our choices to one or two for deeper exploration.

Our Next Webinar

Our next webinar will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday March 28th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday March 29th 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 webinar overviews – Serendipity (infographic homework) &FineFocus – “good” presentations

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Introduction

This post covers two webinars. A Serendipity session in which we shared and discussed our infographic “homework” from the previous session and a FineFocus discussion session about what makes “good” presentations.

Serendipity – infographic tools

This recorded session was a Serendipity (unconference) session with a difference as it continued the theme from the previous session. We shared our “homework” infographics resulting from the previous session and found that most of us experienced a degree of frustration with the infographic tools such that some of us had not used the online tools. @jofrei picked up on a need expressed in the FineFocus session and has created a visual for one of our participants in the USA – Jo has posted about this. In my case I did two infographics one with one of the tools we experimented with and one with Powerpoint!

I put my two infographics on the screen WITHOUT labels for the tools I had used and asked the group for comments/preference. The one made with Powerpoint was preferred. This one was quicker and easier for me to make partly because I am very familiar with Powerpoint. However I did find that consistently selecting and moving shapes in the other application was much more difficult.

The discussion moved on to consider whether the proliferation of tools available for very specific tasks is necessarily a good thing, especially when there are more general tools that can be used very effectively. My personal thoughts on this are that the choice can perhaps be bewildering for those relatively new to e-tools, and can also sometimes produce a tendency to use the tech for techs sake. I feel it is important to remember that the “best” tool for a task is not necessarily the newest and trendiest but the one that suits the user best. I now realise that the reason I had not used infographic generators previously is that I don’t need them as I can create better ones with tools I already use. Of course this may change  – we live in an era of rapid change so I could feel quite differently in a year’s time.

“Good” presentations

This recorded session was one that arose from some comments in the Serendipity session above relating to appropriate tools for tasks. On this occasion we had a structured discussion about what makes “good” presentations and whether this varies with the purpose and audience. FineFocus discussions are differentiated from those we have in Serendipity sessions by the fact that they are structured in advance and that we often use pre-prepared stimulus questions and/or resources.

Ideas flew thick and fast on the whiteboards and in text chat and audio.

We took a look at presentations from several perspectives including:

  • checking out some posts on presentations,
  • considering audience and purpose
  • features of presentations as a continuum from boring to interactive
  • the ‘fine line” of getting it right for audience and purpose

Presentations in one form or another are something that we, as educators, do all the time. Using e-tools and strategies adds a new dimension and perhaps can help us to avoid a “death by ….” with whichever presentation tool we are using. We should always remember it isn’t the fault of the tool if we do a boring presentation!

Conclusion

Two lively sessions! Lots of ideas links and interactivity.

Our Next Webinar

Our next webinar will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday February 28th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday March 1st 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 – CC images “storing” for future use

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REMINDER

It’s that time of year again! Over the next few weeks timezone chaos will reign. Half the world goes onto daylight saving and half comes off daylight saving. Except for a few regions such as here in Western Australia where we don’t have daylight saving. Just to make it even more complicated different places change on different dates. This is one of the main reasons we use GMT/UTC for our webinar times – because (like our West Australian time, but with much more “credibility”) it stays the same all year round.

If you have just lost or gained an hour then double check the times for anything trans-global in which you are involved. In the Northern Hemisphere you are heading back into winter so will “lose” an hour when your clocks are set back, thus our webinars will be an hour earlier “your time”. In the Southern Hemisphere you are going forward into summer so you “gain” an hour resulting in webinars an hour later “your time”

(For the link for live webinars and info about the times and topics scroll to the bottom of this post)

Introduction

The topic this week for our recorded Serendipity webinar was about how best to “keep” (appropriately Creative Commons licensed) images that we had found for use in presentations or other resources. The purpose being to be able to easily and quickly add them to future presentations. We also spent  a little time at the end of the session discussing and looking at managing student Edublogs accounts.

The session

Before starting the discussion we asked the proposer of the topic to give the context behind the question. This was mostly an issue of time both to re-find/re-access a remembered image and to carry out any rezising and cropping activities necessary.

The great challenge of this topic is not in keeping or classifying the images but in finding a way to easily store/access them with the attribution and a live link to the original source  integrated.

We began with a whiteboard brainstorm although most of the discussion was via audio and text chat. A number of ideas were shared and the pros and cons discussed. These related to platforms (eg DropBox, EverNote, Powerpoint). However there were fewer suggestions for ensuring that all the attribution information and a live link were retained.

Some thoughts on a strategy for the above

This has been on my mind since the session because of the difficulty I have myself in ensuring that students attribute and link when using CC licensed images. If I could find a strategy they could use that would tie the attribution and the link to the image for future use  I would be very happy! My current thoughts on the issue would be the following:

  1. Use Powerpoint as the platform/medium
  2. Find and download an appropriate CC licensed image (from Flickr CC search is good and easy)
  3. Check the license conditions, copy the attribution and the link to the image within the owner’s photostream & paste these to the Powerpoint slide
  4. Edit the image as required (if permitted under the terms of the license) for me this is usually limited to resizing and occasionally cropping. I use PhotoFiltre because of its simplicity. See this previous webinar overview for more on PhotoFiltre and this post from the 2011 Edublogs Teacher Challenge on Free tools for more about PhotoFiltre and the importance of image size.
  5. Save the resized image and then load into Powerpoint – alternatively you can frame as much as you want of the image and just copy/paste onto the Powerpoint slide.
  6. Position the attribution and the link either just within the image boundary or below the image. Adjust the sizes of text boxes and font so that they are not significantly wider than the image.
  7. Group the image and the text boxes together.
  8. If you need to tag in some way then add a list of keywords to the slide – you should then be able to use the “Find” option in editing to take you to suitable topics.
  9. Save the Powerpoint! You can then store it anywhere that suits you – including in the cloud.
  10. To re-use, select the grouped objects (image, attribution and link), copy and paste into your new presentation. NB if you are uploading to a blogpost you will need to save the grouped image as an image file (jpg or png are good). Then upload as usual. To make a live link you will need to insert an additional link to the photostream see below.

Link to johartoz’s photostream

I would love to hear from anyone else with ideas on how to do this better and/or from anyone who has tried/is trying something similar. This post has turned into rather more than the usual simple overview & recording link.

Our short look at managing student Edublogs blogs was around the different ways that blogs might be set up for students and how the teacher might be able to access the blog with some admin control/rights if the blog was set up independently by the student rather than by the teacher using the class set up process.

Conclusion

This ws a great session with many ideas shared. Storing CC images for easy re-use was not a topic I had ever really considered myself so I found it particularly interesting. Mostly I use my own images – either photographs or screenshots, although I do occasionally source an image through Creative Commons search on Flickr. If I need to re-use one of these I just go back to wherever I previously used it (usually Powerpoint) and copy/paste the image with associated attribution and link.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. It’s a long time since we talked Twitter” and there seems to have been a recent spate of h*ck/ph*sh/sp*m attacks so this week in “A cuckoo free Twitter nest!” we will take a look at some strategies that might help you evade these.   Join us on Thursday October 4th 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 5th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – reading to dogs, why great apps close, mismatched expectations

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Introduction

Again a Serendipity session where we didn’t vote on a topic! When we are only  very small group as has been the case often lately it works well for us to briefly visit several topics. This week we looked a “reading to dogs”, “why great programs/apps close” and 2stC expectations in a digital age. As always we recorded the session.

(For the link for live webinars and info about the times and topics scroll to the bottom of this post)

The session

This was an interesting session starting wih a look at “reading to dogs” a fascinating topic shared by @jofrei about “Reading Assistance Dogs” who help reluctant readers with reading aloud by being non-judgemental listeners. Jo shared a number of links, and this caused us to widen our thoughts into other animals as “assistants”

We then moved on to consider some possible reasons why what we feel are great programs/apps disappear or are changed beyond recognition by being taken over.

An offshoot from this included thoughts on the proliferation of new apps many of which seem to be very similar in purpose and which often don’t last long. My own leanings are towards using Open Source apps maintained by the community. This is because it appears to me that anything small and commercial that is good is immeditely a target for takeover by one of the giants in the field. It is then either shut down because it was a competitor or changed beyond recognition in the name of re-badging. These closures of good apps also raise issues about loss of personal data that has been uploaded and/or the complexities of removing it and transferring to a new platform. This provides a strong argument for having everything backed up in the “down here” and not just up in the cloud.

Our final very briefly visited topic was about the continuing existence of 20th Century expectations/methodologies being applied to assessment of learners who are learning using digital technology. This raised questions about: the time spent teaching the students how to use the tech tools instead of working with content; and the fact that students no longer need to learn and regurgitate content but must instead be able to evaluate information that they source from the Internet and make informed judgements on its reliability. This is definitely a topic for a full Finefocus session in the future!

Conclusion

As always a fascinating session – we almost forgot to stop at the finish time! These flying visits to several topics in a session are fun, and they work well with a small group.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. In this session Phil Hart (@philhart) will take us on an introductory look at e-publishing in “E-publish or be e-damned”.  Join us on Thursday August 23rd 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 August 24th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – emerging tech et al

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Introduction

As has been the case a couple of times recently this was  a Serendipity session where we didn’t vote on a topic! The consensus was to take a quick look at all three that were proposed – “Emerging technologies for the classroom”, “Introduction to PLNs” and “rscon4” The last of these is a little cryptic. It refers to the Reform Symposium Conference for which a date has not yet been finalised. The hashtag seems likely to be #rscon4. The session was, as always, recorded.

(For the link for live webinars and info about the times and topics scroll to the bottom of this post)

The session

A lively session with much sharing on the whiteboard and in text chat, although I felt – as so often that I talked too much!

We began with a whiteboard of ideas about emerging technologies. 

Then shared our knowledge of those we had any experience with – my particular fascination out of this part of the session was with the concept of 3D printers. Something completely new to me & definitely out of the realms of science fiction! This was the longest part of the session.

Our next topic was “Introduction to PLNs”. Again we used a whiteboard to share our thoughts on the variety of tools and strategies we use as part of our own individual PLNs. Any discussion about PLNs is always worthwhile because there are always new thoughts and angles on how we each view them. This was a “flying visit” to the world of the PLN but sufficient to give a flavour!

Finally another “flying visit” this time to “#rscon4” this is actually the probable #tag for this year’s (or maybe early next year’s) – the date is yet to be finalised – Reform Symposium Conference. This was a very short chat as the planning for rscon4 is still in the early stages. However it seems it will be a very exciting event using multiple strands and platforms.

Conclusion

This was a great session – I always find something new and interesting to me personally in every session. However some stand out more than others and 3D printers are a definite standout for me. The whole idea is getting so close to Star Trek “replicators” that I can almost hope for “transporter beams” to enable me to travel without the claustrophobic “tin tube” experience of flying!

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. This week Lisa Conrad (@ljconrad) – the Moderator of  the lively Twitterchat for Gifted and Talented (#gtchat) will give us a “heads up” on #gtchat and on moderating a #chat.  Join us on Thursday August 9th 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 August 10th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs webinar overviews – catching up on three!

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Introduction

Once again I must apologise for my slowness in posting webinar overviews. I hope that from now on I will be back to posting after each session. The project that has taken almost all my time and energy for the last few months is complete! So I hope I will now have a little time for my PLN.

These three sessions were:

  • a Fine Focus – about using Symbaloo pages to help students keep on track in our online adult literacy course
  • a Serendipity in which we talked about and explored Pecha Kucha about which we knew very little at the start and much more by the end of the session
  • another FineFocus session – this one was delving a little deeper into some of the storymakers we tried out a few weeks ago through sharing stories and how we made them

 Online students staying on track

This session, recorded as always, was a look at one aspect of my now completed project where we have been trialling a new delivery strategy  for our online adult literacy students while also working to improve digital literacy and online study skills..

Issues that often arise with all students when using the Internet are those of: getting “off track” and becoming “lost in the surf”. These issues are a particular problem with online students as the teacher/lecturer is not “surfing” the physical room and so is unable to see when this might be happening and offer guidance.

The use of a project based approach with online students also has implications for teacher/lecturer time as students researching completely independently may all choose different websites of varying quality or even ones tht are not relevant to the task so the teacher/lecturer has to evaluate many sites.

This session looked at the combined strategies of “chunking” activities into “daily tasks” to help maintain focus, and then managing the links that students used by using topic based Symbaloo pages and colour coding the tiles for the different student levels and activites. Ownership was also provided through individual student choice of tiles for some activites.

I enjoyed this session – inevitably I think – because it gave me a chance to talk about the project that has been such a great success for the students and that I have enjoyed facilitating so much. Once my “mental dust settles” I intend to post more about the whole experience.

 Serendipity – What is Pecha Kucha?

This was a Serendipity (recording here) that “just happened” there was no vote on the topic which arose out of the chat before the formal start of the session.

The topic arose because one of our participants was considering submitting to present at a conference and the required form was Pecha Kucha. None of us knew very much about this as a presentation format (including the person considering using it). We were all interested to learn more!

This session was mainly audio and some textchat, with the whiteboard being used for occasional ideas and for some links about Pecha Kucha. We shared our preconceptions and then did some exploring individually to find out a little more about the method to enable us to discuss it more effectively.

Our discussion was wide ranging as we considered whether we might choose to use this ourselves and if so in what sort of context. There was some agreement that there were advantages for  some presentation where it could provide opportunities to “taste” several topics and then spend more time is Q&A with the presenter of the preferred topic. However this could be very frustrating if an attendee hd strong interest in more than one – or from the presenter perspective if all attendees focussed on one topic.

There was also some discussion about the merit of Pecha Kucha more as an art form than as a presentation strategy – an intriguing and appealing thought with which to end this great discussion!

Story Sharing

This recorded FineFocus session was a “spin off” from one a few weeks ago in which we took a look at some online story making tools in one of our “quick and easy tools” explorations.

In this session we shared stories we had made. The star of our show was @jofrei who is a great storyteller! See her stories about Sprite et al  She hadfantastic examples from Storybird, Storyjumper and LittleBirdTales for us. Phil and Sandra also shared stories. Sharing the stories provided opportunities to talk in more depth about the pros and cons of each tool and also to share experiences in storymaking generally. I was guilty of not doing my homework but shared a great story created by one of my students.

Next Webinar

Our next session will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday June 21st at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday June 22nd 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 webinar overview – in the “Moderator Sandpit”

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Introduction

This session, recorded as always was an opportunity to find out more about using BlackboardCollaborate from the moderator perspective including both features and strategies . As with the precursor Elluminate there are many tools and features available to the moderator that are not visible to participants. Although in my personal opinion there are a number of ways in which BbC is less “user friendly” and less conducive to smooth session flow than its predecessor. This is still my opinion after regularly using BbC as a moderator since its inception almost a year ago. In my work context I still use Elluminate – as this is easier for my students (adult literacy/numeracy).

The Session

This session was a “walk through” and “play with” some of the features available to moderators that are not available to participants. We were a very small group which provided opportunities for discussion and dialogue about the various features and their use. I started as I often do with a poll on where people were coming from on BbC and a “what would you like to takeway”.

In these sessions I always give everyone moderator privileges, this usually leads to interesting effects as people are unable to resist just “playing”. However with the small number of us this did not arise. Throughout the session we discussed some of the positive and negative aspects of particular tools/features.

During the session we discussed and played with:

  • whiteboard tools
  • whiteboard object menu allowing monitoring of “who did what”on the whiteboard
  • loading slides/whiteboards
  • layers on the whiteboard as a means of managing access to live links
  • saving whiteboards & chat
  • application sharing with particular respect to the least bandwidth/resource heavy strategy
  • managing access to tools for participants both as a group & individually
  • webtours, managing participant movement around the site
  • managing access to the session (eg removing a participant if necessary)
  • using the timer
  • managing screens through the Explorer window
  • polling

Throughout we were both demonstrating/experimenting with tools and also talking about how they can be used with students for: monitoring participation; estimating engagement; technical support and a variety of other activities.

Conclusion

This was an excellent session – despite or perhaps in part because of the small number. Many questions were raised and (mostly) answered. I always enjoy sharing my own strategies and how I use the tools to work with students as well as giving others the opportunity to explore the moderator features.

Next Webinar

Our next session will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday April 26th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday April 27th 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 webinar overview – a look at some avatar makers

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Introduction

As always we recorded this session in which we took a look at some avatar making tools in one of our “quick and easy tools” explorations. These are occasional sessions where I put up a list of 5-10 tools and each participant chooses one (preferably one unknown to them) to explore for ten minutes and then give feedback to the rest of us. The first time I did this the tools were a mixture of different functions however more recently I have chosen ones with similar purposes.

My personal rationale for “ten minutes to explore” is that if it takes too long to “pick up” the basics of using any tool then the focus of the “lesson” in which it is being used may change from the educational purpose to the tech being used. In other words we risk using “tech for tech’s sake” rather than as a tool to achieve the educational purpose.

The Session

The tools explored in the session were:

We started with a have you used it and to what degree on the five tools to be explored. This revealed that most of us had some awareness of, or familiarity with at least one or two of them and a couple were reasonably familar with all.

The next step was for everyone to choose an avatar maker to explore and then explore for ten minutes with the following considerations in mind:

  • how easy to learn the basics
  • how engaging to use
  • a lesson/context in which to use it
  • whether they personally would use it with students

After the ten minutes everyone came back, added their avatars to the whiteboard and talked about the ease of use and other features of the tool they had explored. We did have someone drop out and be unable to rejoin when trying to add their avatar – the avatar is still in the composite image.

Throughout the whole session there were lots of links shared in text chat and on the whiteboards: to avatar making sites, to sites which list avatar creators and to sites which illustrate many creative ways of using them. After the session Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) added a “My Avatars page” to his already amazing collection of pages of useful education related links.

We finished with some feedback and a look at our best takeaways from the session.

Conclusion

This was great fun! Everyone always seems to enjoy sessions like this. Those of you familiar with the webinars will know I have something of an obsession with making them as interactive and “hands on” as possible and from that perspective these tool explorations work really well. Avatars have been on my mind a lot at the moment as I have been looking for an easy to use creator that my not necessarily very techie distance students can use. I would love to give them a list and let them choose but needed to fix on one so that I could do a stepwise process as in this slideshare for them to refer to. The challenge with wholly online students is very much that the lecturer (teacher) is not there standing behind and able to coach them through the steps. I do do this individually with Application Share in BbC/Elluminate however my students are often working asynchronously so we are not in virtual class at the time they have the problem!

Next Webinar

Our next session will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday March 29th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday March 30th 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 webinar overview – Birdwatching with biblical binoculars

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Introduction

In this excellent recorded session we learned about “Birdwatching with biblical binoculars” (@jofrei) – Jo Freitag of the Gifted Resources information service told us the story of her exciting blogging project carried out with a group of Church School attendees during 2011.

The Session

Jo started with some background on how she had come to do the project – using the subscription to EdublogsPro that she won at the Reform Symposium in 2011. She then introduced the blog that she used.

Jo moved on to tell us about the wide range of activities that the group undertook and how the “biblical binoculars were used to find biblical references to birds that illustrated the topic under study. There was some exciting “just-in-time” learning and sharing by members of the group using their mobile phones to find and access references.

The range of tools that Jo used with her group was wide – some of which are shown below.

Many links were shared via whiteboard and text both by Jo and by other participants. Some of them we visited during the session and others were saved for later :). It is very well worth catching the recording for this session both for Jo’s great presentation and for the interactivity and links that she shared.

Conclusion

An exciting sesssion! Jo’s use of such a wide range of tools and activities was awe inspiring and led to a very high degree of engagement from her group. I found this particularly helpful given my own context at the moment of preparing for a project which hopes to better engage my online literacy students through adding media to blogposts and thus generating a simple e-portfolio.

Next Webinar

Our next session will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday March 1stat 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday March 2nd 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.