ACAL and ACTA Exchanging ways of being.

Introduction

A few weeks ago (7th-11th April 2016) I went to a great conference! The “Diversity: exchanging ways of being” Conference was jointly organised by the “Australian Council for Adult Literacy” (ACAL) and the “Australian Council of TESOL Associations” (ACTA) with the local host organisations being the “WA Adult Literacy Council” (WAALC) and the “Westralian Association for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages” (WATESOL). It was fantastic to have so many LLN oriented people all together in one place, fabulous sessions and incredible networking!

ACAL ACTA conf

As always after conferences/events whether face-to-face or online I like to let my personal dust settle a little before I post my thoughts and reflections on the event. Now a few weeks later it feels like the right time to post!

I rarely attend face-to-face conferences – our own annual local WA Adult Literacy Council Conference being the only one I have attended for many years. There are several reasons for this:

  • I live in regional Western Australia, not too far from Perth but a long way from the Eastern states of Australia and the rest of the world so most conferences are not easy to get to;
  • I loathe flying – being both claustrophobic and not very good at heights – I find it frightening and stressful and it leaves me useless for a couple of days afterwards;
  • Large International conferences are expensive – I work in the public vocational education and training sector and my organisation has only limited funds available for professional development/conferences.

I do find it frustrating that with the multiple streams available in large conferences there are always so many sessions that I can’t attend! Online conferences by contrast usually record sessions so it is possible to catch up with any of particular interest later.

The Conference

I am just so delighted that I had the opportunity not just to attend the conference but also to present a workshop.

The buzz of all those LLN people gathered in one place was phenomenal and very exciting. Strictly it was two places – because sessions were in two Perth hotels just across a street from one another. However the need to move between buildings didn’t prevent the conference running (at least as far as I saw) extremely smoothly throughout, thanks to the efforts of the organisers.

The sessions I attended were all excellent and the Keynotes were outstanding. For me this conference “walked the talk” of “exchanging ways of being”. I think that combining the ACAL and ACTA conferences provided exceptional opportunities for networking and “cross pollination” of ideas and is something the two organisations should consider again, perhaps more regularly, in the future

The only downside for me was all those sessions I would love to have attended but couldn’t because they were concurrent with something else! In my opinion this is a huge and intractable problem with all major conferences. While providing concurrent sessions is a terrific way of catering for varied interests, it does also mean often being unable to attend everything that is relevant. Possible options for large conferences might include adopting some of the practices used in online conferences such as recording of some sessions so that they can be made available afterwards as videocasts or similar.

My own session

I deliver quite a lot of presentations/workshops on using technologies for facilitating learning to colleagues. This is in my own organisation, more widely in WA and Australia and also globally. Most of these in the last 10 years (with the exception of my own organisation and our WA Adult Literacy Council Conference) have been online. In all of these sessions (face-to-face and online I strive to use interaction and activities to keep the content interesting and illustrate the engagement potential of using technology as an adjunct to learning.

There were no computers available at the conference venue for session participants so I needed to make activities feasible for a “Bring your own device” (BYOD) context. A big challenge for me as in the majority of my past face-to-face sessions the participants were using desktop computers that all had the same operating system (ie Windows) and online they were mostly using their own familiar desktops or laptops rather than mobile devices. This made it relatively easy to be sure that everyone would be able to access the same tools, that we were exploring and using in the session. In this session we had a mixture of mobile phones and tablets and Android and iOS – some of the tools I use regularly with students are not compatible with one or more of these others need an installed app to work. So it was important to have illustrations of usage in my slides to minimise the frustrations felt by those who couldn’t easily access the tools via their device.

A further challenge for me was that I wanted the session to do two things: illustrate and provide opportunities for participants to extend their PLNs (ie exchange their own ways of being), and also introduce and explore some “tech” tools that could be used with students to facilitate them in exchanging their own ways of being.

My sessions always include a lot of link sharing – online this is very easy as links can usually be shared in chat boxes and/or on whiteboards. Not so easy in a face-to-face environment! However I have developed an approach that seems to work well – I put all the links I will need to share on a blog page – in this case ACAL/ACTA Conference 2016 – with some narrative, and then create a customised “bit.ly” link for that page so that people can easily type it into their device.

Integrating PLN development with tool sharing seemed to work very well. A lot of participants joined our FSTeach Facebook Group during the session and some tweeted with the #tag #FSTeach.

As is my wont in PD sessions I used a variety of tools and activities to encourage participation including online polling, online sticky notes and social media. I have posted the slides in Slideshare, and links to the tools and to the sticky not canvases are on the blog page ACAL/ACTA Conference 2016.

I really enjoyed doing this session – despite being quite nervous and apprehensive about whether the strategies I had planned would work. The participants were wonderful – so supportive throughout and happy and enthusiastic about engaging with the technologies. The two hours flew by and before I knew it the session was over!

Conclusion

When I was completing my workbased Adult Ed teaching qualification  in the UK over 25 years ago one of our lecturers was always telling us to “take risks” – she gave us a list of strategies and said we should try them all. I felt unhappy with this – my students were studying for national exams and I was unwilling to take risks with their learning. However when I looked at the list I had already used almost all of them! My whole life in teaching seems to have been about trying different things, or the same things in different ways. Always seeking to keep it interesting and to challenge students to get involved in their own learning. I try to do this ie “walk my own talk” in PD and conference presentations as well. For me this is particularly important, with respect to technology, and using the technology to support the learning – not as an end in itself. However, having said that, with the continually increasing significance of digital skills and digital literacy for future workplaces using the technology effectively, safely and critically is itself becoming one of the objectives!

I would love to see your thoughts (comments):

  • on the session – if you were there!
  • on the blog page and slideshare
  • on “taking risks”
  • on the increasing importance of digital skills and digital literacy to foundation skills/literacy/language/numeracy teaching.

 

Edublogs webinar overviews – two Serendipity and “What isn’t taught in school”

Introduction

This overview is for three webinars – two Serendipity sessions and a FineFocus about “what isn’t taught in school”.

Serendipity topic – Instructional design

In this recorded session we talked about instructional design. There has been a recent discussion around instructional design in LinkedIn and it is a topic that arouses strong feelings.  It was certainly at the top of my mind for two reasons:

  • I was about to start a temporary new role working on a project to develop e-learning for a Certificate II (Australian levels) vocational course. This involves being part of a team with specific designated roles eg designer, developer, SME, although mine is a bit “woolly”! A sharp contrast to my usual situation where I am often the sole e-learning designer/developer or the facilitator and main designer/developer for a very small team.
  • The second reason is my current involvement with others from my network in the development of deMOOC which is highly collaborative and informal without the narrow role designations of a formal team.

The discussion was wide ranging beginning with a look at “What is instructional design?” We also talked about the pros and cons of need for subject expertise in instructional design and other aspects of the process.

 “What most schools don’t teach” – a FineFocus session

This was a session where I was unable to be present – I logged in but was unable to stay due to work commitments. So this is one of those recorded sessions where I needed to access the recording to find our what happened! This was a very small group so was more in the way of a two way conversation than usual.

One of the things that most schools don’t teach is coding! Those of you familiar with our webinars will know that my co-facilitator Phil is a programmer as well as a teacher. In this session Phil shared some ideas about the uses of teaching students to code. These are not just their resulting ability to write programs! However

I personally have some reservations about everyone learning to code – analysing systems and developing algorithms is one thing but writing good clean efficient code is very different. I think there are risks involved in that as is currently the case with building websites everyone who has learned by “playing” with the tools thinks they can do this to professional standards. The result with websites is many very poor quality websites built for organisations by amateurs.

Serendipity topic – the loss of GoogleReader

As always in Serendipity we began this recorded session with a whiteboard for topic ideas. The news that Google is to close GoogleReader was at the forefront and was the chosen topic.

This is the second Google product that I use personally where closure has been announced relatively recently, the previous one was iGoogle (due to close in Novemeber). In the light of this our first whiteboard was an opportunity to think about whether we, as individuals, have too many eggs in our Google baskets.

The consensus was that on the whole we probably do tend to use too many tools/apps from the one source. We considered briefly the “why?” and it usually comes down to convenience. You only need one login for your GoogleAccount and also the tools/apps often enable cross linking and cross posting to occur fairly seamlessly.

Links for a number of possible alternatives for GoogleReader were shared and we also added alternatives to some of the other Google tools/apps. Main takeaways from the session were that there are alternatives – we just need to look even though changing is a pain!

Conclusion

Three very interesting sessions with lots to think about. The Serendipity has given rise to the next FineFocus topic which will be an opportunity to share and explore some possible GoogleReader alternatives

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is a FineFocus session. Join us for “Replacing GoogleReader” in which we share and explore some possible replacements for GoogleReader. Join us on Thursday March 21st 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 March 22nd in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

 

Edublogs webinar overviews – Personal e-portfolio journey and a Serendipity session

Introduction

Once again this overview is for two webinars – a FineFocus and a Serendipity. Both sessions were lively and interactive with lots of sharing of ideas annd opinions.

E-portfolios for RPL – a personal journey

Our first FineFocus webinar for 2013 was about using an e-portfolio for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). This recorded session was about Phil Hart’s (@philhart) personal journey through the RPL process in gaining higher level vocational qualifications through recognition of his prior experience and learning rather than following a formal course.

Phil began the session with whiteboards to elicit some thoughts from the group on the what and when of e-portfolios.

The next part of the session was a brief consideration of the technologies that can be used in e-portfolio building, beginning with a whiteboard for ideas from participants and continuing with Phil’s own mix of tools (a website format) used to produce his Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) portfolios. This led on to a look at  the design objectives of the website and the portfolio structure used, including drilling down through units to performance criterion level.

Phil then discussed the assessment process (including the challenge test he completed with the assessors for authentication purposes) and lessons learned. Some of the lessons came out of his first portfolio and were applied in the second and third portfolios to give a more streamlined and focussed product.

This was a terrific session – I always find hearing about “personal journeys” fascinating! There were also lots of opportunities for interaction enabling all of us to share our own ideas and experiences of our own and/or student e-portfolios.

Serendipity

As always in Serendipity we began this recorded session with a whiteboard for topic ideas. These were flowing well giving us several topics to choose between in the poll. The topic selected was

“Why do so many students drop out of online courses? How to keep them motivated”

We started with a blank whiteboard focussing on the “why people drop out” side of the topic.

These ideas were developed and extended through discussion in text chat and audio. We then moved on to consider ideas for overcoming the risk of students dropping out. Again this started from a whiteboard and expanded from there into both audio and text chat discussion with many ideas around participative activities, ownership and community.

Conclusion

Two great sessions that provided massess of food for thought and reflection as well as many links and strategies. E-portfolios are always a topic of interest as there are probably as many variants as there are people building their own portfolios. Maintaining student motivation and reducing dropout from online courses is one of those issues that most of us are always keen to discuss in our constant search for ways to keep today’s learners energised.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is a FineFocus session. Join us for “Extraordinary Literacy Learning!” in to hear about how we delivered a pilot (funded by the Australian National Vocational E-Learning Strategy initiative – Partnerships for Participation) adult literacy course entirely online using virtual classroom, blogs and other e-tools. Join us on Thursday Jan 24th 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 Jan 25th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

 

Edublogs webinar overview – Characteristics of 2E students – Part 2

Introduction

Yet again my apologies for tardiness in posting this. I hope to get my act together next year and return to posting soon after sessions. This recorded session was Part 2 of Jo Freitag’s (@jofrei) terrific session about  “Twice Exceptional” (2E) learners – those who have a disability/disorder and are also identified as gifted in one or more areas.

The session

Jo started with a quick review of Part 1 of this session however we were a very small group who had attended the previous week so this was very quick. If you neither attended or read the overview/viewed the recording for the previous session you might find it helpful to do so before viewing the recording for this one

The session continued from the end point of the previous one, we “visited” the remaining half of the characteristics of 2E learners.

As before we added our ideas on strategies to overcome the weaknesses either by capitalising on the strengths or in other ways, using the white space around Jo’s. The discussion ranged across whiteboard, text chat and audio and was fascinating for the insights gained!

Jo then moved us on to discuss briefly some of the teaching strategies and formal programs available for 2E learner’s. We also touched on some side issues that impact on learning for 2E students – Social/Emotional, Dabrowski’s Overexcitabilities and the Environment. Jo finished the session with an excellent list of references to help us further extend our knowledge.

Conclusion

A great session, providing an excellent continuation from Part 1. Again the time passed rapidly – as it does when the topic and presentation are fascinating.

If you have something  you would like to present a webinar on please let us know (add a comment to this post, or Tweet us – @JoHart or @philhart).  Then join us to facilitate a session about your e-edu passion! If you are not familiar with BlackboardCollaborate we can help you plan how best to do your session so it works for you. Our sessions are small and friendly – the ideal setting for your first webinar.

End of Year Party!

On Thursday 13th/Friday 14th of December we had our usual end of year party recorded as usual. A session where we shared “goodies” on the whiteboard as well as chatting about e-stuff and playing some games.

This session is always fun – this was our fifth end of year celebration as the webinars have now been going, and evolving, for over 5 years.

As usual we played some games including finding and sharing links to online Christmas games. This gave rise to a whiteboard full of links for fun and engaging games related to the holiday season (not just Christmas!).

We finished with some feedback for the session and the year – leaving me with a resolution to try and raise the profile of the webinars next year to encourage more people to attend! I hear from a number of people who view the recordings so I know that there is still interest. However unless people actually attend we have no content to record and this year we have come perilously close to this on some occasions.

Our Next Webinar

Our first session for 2013 will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday January 3rd at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday January 4th 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 – Characteristics of 2E students – Part 1

Introduction

This recent recorded session was Part 1 of another of Jo Freitag’s (@jofrei) excellent sessions about aspects of working with 2E learners. For those of you as bemused by the term as I was when I first encountered it, this is “shorthand” for “Twice Exceptional” and refers to learners who have a disability/disorder and are also identified as gifted in one or more areas.

The session

Jo started with  started with  look at where we were coming from on 2E  students and a recap on the meaning of the term. She then moved on to start describing contrasting (perceived positive and negative)  characteristics of 2E students that can pose challenges to teachers. 

Jo left lots of inviting white space around her images for us to add our ideas on strategies to overcome the weaknesses either by capitalising on the strengths or in other ways. The discussion on the whiteboard, in text chat and through audio was totally engaging! We “visited” around half of the characteristics leaving the remainder for the next session.

Conclusion

A fantastic session! Time flew by and we finished with appetites well whetted for the second part next week. If you missed the first session then catch up with the recording and join us for the second exciting episode (see below for time/date).

If you have something  you would like to present a webinar on please let us know (add a comment to this post, or Tweet us – @JoHart or @philhart).  Then join us to facilitate a session about your e-edu passion! If you are not familiar with BlackboardCollaborate we can help you plan how best to do your session so it works for you. Our sessions are small and friendly – the ideal setting for your first webinar.

Our Next Session

Our next FineFocus webinar is the Second Part of this session on the Characteristics of 2E students where @jofrei will continue to keep us busy considering how we can best meet some of the needs arising from the distinguishing characteristics of 2E students. Join us on Thursday November 29th 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 November 30th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs webinar overviews – Pt 2 De Bono action shoes for 2E students, a Serendipity & shared tools

 

Introduction

Apologies once again for the delay in posting and the need to do a three in one post. Too many things happening in life and work at the moment and I can’t keep up! The first of the two sessions in this post ws the second half of a FineFocus session on De Bono’s action shoes and 2E students by @jofrei. The second was a Serendipity session – I am particularly grateful that this was recorded as I was unable to attend so the overview is based on the recording. The third session was an “off-the-cuff” session where several of us shared a tool/application we have used with students – Voicethread (@poulingail), GIMP (@philhart), Linoit (@JoHart) and Voki (@jofrei).

De Bono action shoes for a 2E student on Gagne’s DMGT road – Part 2

This recorded session was the second part of the double FineFocus session presented by @jofrei – Jo Freitag, creator of Sprite’s Site and co-ordinator of the Gifted Resources website

Jo began with a brief recap of the first session:

  • Edward de Bono’s Six Action Shoes which are the follow up to the Six Thinking Hats;
  • Gagne’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent;
  • the Six Action Shoes in the context of the Feetspeak Quest Map;
  • a reminder of the six shoes and their relationship to the Gagne DMGT model.

The main focus of this session was a consideration of combinations and variations in the shoes. We had a great time exploring the possible combinations of two shoe types to produce modified action plans. Jo also shared some extra shoe types of her own that broaden the program possibilities including Sprite’s plaster cast that symbolises the support that may be available through eligibility for funding!

A great session from Jo as always!

Serendipity

A lively recorded session that I was sorry to miss! I am writing the overview from the recording and although I am delighted to be able to catch the recording and to do this, I feel that the overview lacks the depth that comes from being there. This Serendipity ranged across several topics – Contacts for ESL; Which is better f-2-f or online; and why are outdated skills still being taught. An eclectic blend of topics which seemed to work very well! The conversation jumped around between topics often linking them together through context for example using online for ESL. The only way to do this session justice is to catch the recording!

Show and Tell about tools used with students

The third recorded session in this overview was a FineFocus in which several of us present gave a short “Show and Tell” about a particular tool that we use with students. This session was inspired by Gail (@poulingail) who had (the previous week) volunteered to tell us about her use of Voicethread.

Gail showed us the Voicethread site giving us the link for signing up. She also shared her own page and in particular a thread from her Kindy students about a visit to a nearby vernal pool, fantastic to hear such young students articulating their ideas about the pool. Gail continued – telling us about how she is using Voicethread to collaborate with other classes. One point she made of which I was only vaguely aware before is that you can give your feedback using other media than just plain recording on the site. This may encourage me to try again! A great “share” by Gail – I certainly learned a huge amount!

Next up was Phil (@philhart) who told us about the GIMP – his favourite image editor. Free and with similar features to those of Photoshop. This is the one that Phil always recommends to students who want something a bit more sophisticated than Photofiltre. Phil takes panoramic images – many images that are then “stitched” together. These inevitably need a degree of editing and to illustrate the advantages of GIMP Phil showed us how he can quickly and easily remove image flaws. Again a fascinating share!

Then it was my turn! My chosen tool was Linoit which is similar to Wallwisher. I have used this intermittently with students since myslf contributing to a fabulous global one instigated by Michael Graffin (@mgraffin) for World Water Day in 2011. I have used Linoit for students to give feedback on classess and also for short pieces of writing – often using an image as stimulus. Next year I will be asking students to write Haiku in response to an image stimulus. I enjoyed sharing Linit.

To finish off Jo Freitag (@jofrei) related her experiences with Voki (a talking avatar) and teenage boys in her blogging project completed last year. She emphasised how much the students enjoyed making Vokis and slso made the point that they didn’t, as could easily be the case with this age group feel that making Vokis was “babyish”. A terrific “word picture” from Jo to end the session.

This session was fun – it is always so interesting when different people share tools as we all gain so many insights from one another.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session where we invite you to suggest your “hot” topics for discussion – we then select the topic by poll.  Join us on Thursday November 15th 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 November 16th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Webinar overviews – Edublogs Serendipity & De Bono action shoes for 2E students

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)

Serendipity

Recorded as always, this session took a look at two topics: alternative assessment ideas and email newsletters.

Alternative assessment ideas rapidly gave rise to a whiteboard full of strategies! We were a very mixed group ranging from teachers of Kindy to Adult and Vocational education and having teaching, training or both qualifications. This made for some great discussion and it was interesting that similar approaches seem relevant whatever the age or education sector.

Email newsletters were discussed from the perspective of how best to create them (ie the medium: embedded html, pdf, simple word processed doc)  and also the pros and cons in comparison with other ways of distribution such s using a blog or similar website.

De Bono action shoes for a 2E student on Gagne’s DMGT road – Part 1

This recorded session was the first part of a double FineFocus session (next part coming up on Thursday/Friday depending on where in the world you are) presented by @jofrei – Jo Freitag, creator of Sprite’s Site and co-ordinator of the Gifted Resources website

Jo began by checking out our understanding of:

  • 2E students;
  • Edward de Bono’s Six Action Shoes which are the follow up to the Six Thinking Hats
  • and Gagne’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent.

We then heard about the Six Action Shoes in the context of the Feetspeak Quest Map, moving on to look at each of the six shoes in more detail and to consider their relationship to the Gagne DMGT model. As always Jo kept us thinking by seeking our input on the “positivenesses”, “negativenesses” and “interestingnesses of each of the shoes.

We overran slightly to bring this part of the session to a neat conclusion with the last pair of shoes! In the next session Jo will extend our activities into a consideration of combinations and variations in the shoes.

This was a fantastic session – Jo always  increases our knowledge, expands our horizons and makes us think through inviting whiteboard input! If you plan to join this week’s session try and catch last weeks recording beforehand but if you don’t have time for that join us anyway as Jo will recap the previous session at the start.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is the second part of of @jofrei (Jo Freitag’s)  double FineFocus session (next part this week).    Join us on Thursday October 25th 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 26th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs webinar overviews – catching up on three!

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 Serendipity webinar overview – projects, community

Introduction

In this recorded Serendipity session we didn’t actually vote on a topic! There was a consensus to briefly discuss three of the topics and that the fourth one perhaps merited a FineFocus session of its own (see next week’s topic at the bottom of the page). In fact we looked at two of the topics in the end – they were:

  • project based learning & using the strong language of online programs
  • community involvement in content delivery

These blended together very well and generated lots of discussion.

The Session

Initially we shared concerns and misgivings about:

  • some of the possible issues  of being locked in to any one of the increasing number of publisher owned and operated student/content management systems;
  • increasing curriculum rigidity and standardisation of “learning”

Then we moved on to discuss the advantages project based learning “PBL” and the difficulty of doing this with the increasing constraints on educators. This conversation blended well into community involvement in content and gave rise to many ideas on possible community projects. There were also suggestions for other ways of increasing community involvement in educational organisations as a strategy for breaking  down the barriers that often exist.

Conclusion

This session was fascinating – truly Serendipitous in the way that we ranged across the related topics. It seems to me that increasingly in our sessions we are hearing the frustrations of educators in schools, who meet with severe constraints on how they teach as well as with the ever narrowing and more prescribed curriculum. As an adult educator in literacy/numeracy I feel that I am incredibly lucky at the moment in having a less rigid and constrained curriculum than colleagues in schools but it is probably only a matter of time!

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. “Big Brother (Google) is watching you!” In which we will take a look at some of the implications of the recent changes in Google.  Join us on Thursday March 8th 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 March 9th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – four topics!

Introduction

This recorded Serendipity session was a little different from usual in that we took a brief look at several different topics:

  • 2 minute teaching presentations in job interviews
  • managing image sizes
  • technology troubles
  • the new look Twitter – what are the differences

This was fun – we used the timer to ensure that we spent similar time on each topic.

The Session

We started with “2 minute teaching presentations” this topic was proposed by a participant who has a job interview coming up. It is a topic that I think most teachers find interesting bcause we have all been there at some point whether it be a 2 minute, 5 minute or 10 minute presentation. In my personal opinion the shorter the time they allow the harder it is! We used a whiteboard to make suggestions and there was also discussion in text chat and through audio.

The second topic was “managing image sizes”. A topic which often surfaces as a result of people trying to send  files (eg “Powerpoint) by email or to upload them and discovering that they are too large for sending and/or they take an inordinate length of time to upload.

As someone who lives in a “bandwidth challenged” region it is an issue close to my heart! Because of this I probably talked to much in this part of the session :). The topic was the subject of a Fine Focus webinar “Imagine your Image” overview here some time ago and is also one the the Free Tools Challenges in the Edublogs Teacher Challenges. There were a variety of links, tips and ideas for image management shared in text chat  As a result of the discussion @philhart with input from @MrsSOnline produced a Google Doc on managing images post download from camera and has posted about this with the link on his blog in “Pictures and presentations: an issue of size”.

Our third topic “technology troubles” lent itself very well to a whiteboard where we shared the technology troubles that are currently at the top of our respective lists. For several of us one of these was the perennial “getting others to use the tech!”. One of the best things about this sort of topic is the realisation that “one is not alone”! Another plus was the sharing of suggestions on how to solve particular tech issues.

The final topic was “new look Twitter – what are the differences?”. Coincidentally, and serendipitously, I had been exploring the new Twitter just before the session. I rarely use Twitter web, Tweetdeck being my client of choice, however I accessed Twitter web directly because of a glitch with Tweetdeck. Found myself unexpectedly in the new version and so did a quick explore. As a result I was able to share my Twitter page and do a quick tour of similarities and differences. The main plus I think for me is the inclusion of “Interactions” enabling me to see new follows and RTs easily. This was a very quick skim and I’m sure I missed things that are significant in the new version. We may take a closer look in a FineFocus session soon!

Conclusion

This session was quite fast paced – Serendipity sessions are often slower paced and reflective. However fast or gentle paced there is always that Serendipitous learning element. I really enjoyed this session and think that perhaps we should do more Serendipity sessions where we have short discussions about several topics – what do you think? Feedback would be very welcome – let us know if you think this would be a good idea.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. This will be an exciting session with Jo Freitag (@jofrei) who coordinates the “Gifted Resources” information service website. Jo will tell us about her blogging project “Birdwatching With Biblical Binoculars” that she has been undertaking with her Sunday School group.  Join us on Thursday February 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 February 24th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.