I came across this updated version of Jane Hart's Tool box - thought I'd share it. I was delivering training this week and touched on a number of them.
A Toolbox for Learning Professionals 2009⤴
from Joan Walker @ eCurriculum Blog
Tag Archives: web2.0
Realising the Benefits⤴
from Joan Walker @ eCurriculum Blog
The previous post of images from our recent conference uses a number of web2.0 technologies. Practice what we preach is the mantra in our office and I'm rather pleased with myself having uploaded to Flickr and embeded the slide show in my Blog. It's a slick way of doing things and means that our collection of images can be used in a variety of different ways. Hope you enjoy them.
Creative Commons – The answer to our Copyright prayers?⤴
from Joan Walker @ eCurriculum Blog
While delivering a briefing on copyright recently I realised that copyright had not featured on my Blog. The danger when talking to staff about copyright issues associated with digital resources is that in effect you cannot copy and paste anything from the Internet without breaching copyright law. Case closed - and that's not what staff want to hear!
Our approach here at the RSC however is to focus on how you can find resources that you are at liberty to use. Creative Commons (CC) is a not for profit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with 
Google (for websites) and Flickr (for images) now have advance search tools which allow you to filter your search to resources which have a Creative Commons licence already assigned. You should click on the CC icon and read the licence but really all 4 licences do tend to cover use in the mainstream, non-commercial education sectors with just a simple attribution note.
Advanced search in Google:click advanced search / enter your search term / expand date and usage rights section / choose one of the 4 appropriate usage terms that suits you needs. All 4 reflect the CC licences.
Advanced search in Flickr: enter your search term / click search / then choose advance search / check box that says "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content".
The returns you get using either of these techniques will provide you with materials that you can use without breaching the copyright legislation but you should check out the CC license terms for every resource you find.
It is worth noting that you may not be in a position to assign a creative commons licence the work you develop yourself for your students as the intellectual property rights are likely to rest with your employer. Check it out
JISC Legal Webcast on “Digital Copyright with Confidence”
Using Blogs for e-Assessment⤴
from Joan Walker @ eCurriculum Blog
As with many Web2.0 tools the emphasis on communication and collaboration means that many types of social software are becoming recognised as valuable learning tools that can be particularly useful to assess contributions of individual learners to group outcomes. Blogs can be used in this manner and have the potential to become powerful tools to provide evidence of deep learning and reflection.
Community blogs can be used to document progress towards the completion of a group task and the chronological aspects of the software are helpful in monitoring progress, achievement and contributions. Consideration of the extent to which authentication is required and indeed how it's managed will determine how this type of software is deployed within an institution.
Blogs can be used as a journal and to assist personal development planning, documenting progress towards the achievement of goals. Staff at Dumfries and Galloway College are using Blogging software in quite a structured way very effectively with learners to encourage reflection and document progress. The ability to easily upload multimedia to web-based applications is of great value in many areas of the curriculum e.g. hairdressing students can take images of both the end result and also the processes that were involved. This could be applied in the same way in food production or the construction trades.
Balancing the need for structure (to ensure performance criteria is met) and learner autonomy is a challenge for institutions. It is argued greater structure undermines the authenticity of postings and can compromise the opportunities for deep learning that Blogs can offer. It can't be denied though that using technology seems to be more attractive to learners than putting pen to paper. Perhaps in the Further Education sector providing structure is an essential ingredient if the attractions of web 2.0 technologies are to be exploited and potential benefits are to be maximised.
Christmas Cheer⤴
from Joan Walker @ eCurriculum Blog
Merry JISCmas
A few websites for some Christmas fun this time:
Dvolver creates creativity widgets - software that enables people to creatively communicate using internet technologies. www.dvolver.com
NORAD Santa Tracker - It is very good this year, with educational games for younger students, plus lots of other goodies.On Christmas Eve they team up with Google Earth to track Santa as he speeds around the world delivering his presents. As he reaches places of interest there is information about the towns and Cities. http://www.northpole.com/
Buying a Present - One for the lads - forearmed is forewarned!http://bewareofthedoghouse.com/videoPage.aspx
Elf Yourself - For those of you who had fun a year or two ago - just to let you know The Elf back again this Christmas: http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/KQHtQ4ef9fWLQ9h118fI
Toondoo“ Create your own comic strips, Publish, Share & Discuss”: a creative site with a community presence, very visual, embed or link to favourites, your own or other peoples. http://www.toondoo.com
Have a happy Christmas and New Year - I'll be back blogging in 2009 - Joan
What's your preference – Pull or Push ?⤴
from Joan Walker @ eCurriculum Blog
This week we published our first podcast. It's the first of a series of short podcasts (and in the longer term - vodcasts) that we are planning this session.
The essential difference between a podcast and an audio file is that a podcast is syndicated. This means that, if you subscribe to it, 
the podcast is automatically supplied to you when it is published - you don't have to go and "find" the information. You'll have seen the orange feed icon I'm sure. You see it on browser menu bars, on websites and in email clients. It's the new way to manage information. It's now often referred to as "pull technology", where the request for information originates from the client, with the reverse known as "push technology" where servers push data to the client.
Feeds can also be embedded into websites using feed widgets. Therefore it's perfectly feasible to provide dynamic content to course websites using this method. e.g. a feed with local exhibitions for art students, a current affairs feed for journalism & politics or late travel deals for tourism students.
We had a great deal of discussion in the team about the best way to provide access to our new podcast service. Mark would use iTunes, Celeste uses Google reader and I prefer the RSS reader integrated into MS Outlook. So because of the range of alternatives that people use now we've provided a few options.
If you use iTunes simply click on the link; If you use an RSS reader copy and paste the code provided; the final alternative is to open the link and save as a favourite feed (an option in IE7) or a live bookmark (FireFox).
Check out our very first podcast here
The ever reliable Lee and Sachi LeFever from Common Craft have a great short video that describes RSS really well, although as I've already mentioned the reader software they talk of is not the only option now.
CPD, PDP & ePortfolios⤴
from Joan Walker @ eCurriculum Blog
I've said before that I'm surprised about the impact doing this Blog each week has had on my capacity to reflect (see posting on 4th of April) and I do feel I really benefit from it. It provides an opportunity to have another think about my activities each week, firms up my ideas and files them in amongst the rest of the nuggets of knowledge that are in my head - (bet you're glad I shared that thought with you!)
I've previously advocated the use of Blogs with learners as a tool for reflection. Many eportfolio systems include them along with templates that encourage Personal Development Planning (PDP) which is often an element in guidance programs, but a paper I was reading this week as part of some personal study that I'm undertaking, got me thinking a bit more about the idea. The paper was written by Lorraine Stefani the Director of the Centre for Professional Development at the University of Auckland. It essentially explores the link between PDP, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and the use of ePortfolios. She makes the point that there is a very low uptake by education professionals of formally recording the CPD that is an implicit part of their work (by virtue of their professional status). Stefani suggests a link between the attitude of staff to recording CPD (i.e.the resistance to it) and how it mitigates against the successful implementation of PDP with learners and the embedding of eportfolios into the curriculum. In other words if teachers have difficulty formally reflecting on their own development and documenting it, how can they really expect learners to be able to effectively reflect on theirs.
At the University of Auckland they implemented an initiative where staff were encouraged to develop a Teaching ePortfolio and there was the possibility that it would become mandatory for new staff to have one. Some staff development input was necessary and Stefani posed some interesting questions that would need to be resolved before a significant cultural shift might be seen:
Do line managers understand and value the concept of reflection on teaching and learning ?
Do line managers recognise the importance of teaching staff modelling the use of technology ?
They are not easy questions to answer. The initiative was introduced initially as a pilot with staff members, as part of an assessment strategy and staff who were facilitating and mentoring were also expected to maintain their own Teaching ePortfolio. It will be interesting to revisit this and have a look at the outcomes of the pilot and I'll update the blog once I find out more.
The idea of staff modelling the use of technology is something that the team here have always agreed with and is one of the reasons that I began to write this blog last year. If institutions embrace new technologies for their own business processes, robust systems would develop and wouldn't it make perfect sense for teaching staff using new learning technologies for their own CPD.
The team here at the RSC endeavour to use the technologies that we advocate whenever possible and I do feel that it provides us with a real insight into the issues that will crop up for the people that we support in the post 16 education sector. It's really invaluable and I'd certainly recommend that learning by doing yourself will help to you to introduce ICT into the curriculum more effectively.
Joan
Stefani, L. (2003) ‘PDP/CPD and e-portfolios: rising to the challenge of modelling good practice’ [online], Association for Learning Technology. Available from: http://www.alt.ac.uk/docs/lorraine_stefani_paper.doc
Dr Kawashima strikes again⤴
from Joan Walker @ eCurriculum Blog
Learning and Teaching Scotland reports that use by children of Brain Training on a Nintendo DS boosts maths scores. Schools in Dundee piloted the DS with primary school kids - I wonder what age they managed to achieve ?