The #australiaseries Blog

Tech Talk Tuesdays: Playing with my iPad

annemirtschin — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:40:08 +0000

When:- Tuesday 28th February, 4-5pm Melbourne Australia time (gmt+11)

About the session: Penny Bentley recently acquired an iPad and ‘played’ with itwhilst on a camping holiday with her family. Of high priority was to find several apps for efficient “work flow”…with Evernote as her central hub for file storage and transfer via the “cloud”. Penny wanted to se if she could create work in the “field” and share it in real time using social media…mainly Twitter and Facebook

Being in a beautiful, natural environment she was also keen to play with audio, video, photography as well as text. The iPad was used to check the internet for cricket scores (to keep hubby happy), using Face B ook daily to keep in touch with Ms 21, and Mr 18 grabbed it whenever he could to keep in touch with his mates on Facebook.

With a 3G connection students and teachers could add another dimension to their excursions out in the field or even around the school in places where wireless drops out.

About our presenter:Penny Bentley is an innovative Australian Teacher who currently tutors students, online and face to face, in Maths, Science and Computer skills. She is fascinated by the potential of mobile devices to enhance student learning and passionate about mentoring teachers as they increase technology use in the classroom.

Please join us as Penny shares what she has learnt in the last couple of months.

Here is the link to join the session

Trending Tools for 2012 – eT@lking in Review

annemirtschin — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:46:17 +0000

Trending Topics for 2012 was the topic for eT@lking this week. Although the group participating was small, we covered the breadth of education – from the young through to the senior citizens. The suggested tools came from practitioners.

Participants were first asked to share the tools that they were increasingly using in their own lives or classroom.

These tools included:-

social networking: facebook, twitter, google+
use of the cloud:- google apps, dropbox
curation: scoopit, pinterest, RSS feeds
web 2.0 tools wikis, blogs,
learning management systems: moodle, studyladder
resources: scootle, studyladder
tools for students with special needs:- iPads, proloqo2go, pictello
software: MS Powerpoint

Participants discussed how they used these tools. Ness walked us through studyladder and Sandi app shared photoscape. Discussion then centred around what tools we thought we might be using in 2012.

Participants’ suggestions that differed to the above, included:-

web conferencing tools eg Blackboard Collaborate
tablets, iPads and associated apps
screencasting tools
organisational tools eg trello
email (with the senior citizens)
most things google as people know of it

Reference was made to the recently released Horizon Report 2012, Higher Education. The session finished with a quick look at pinterest - a trending tool on the networking sites.

To learn more, listen to the recording. What do you think will be the trending tools for 2012? What tools are you increasingly using in the classroom or your personal life? Please leave a comment on this blogpost with your thoughts.

Google Sites “A Classroom e-portfolio of employability skills”

Junita Lyon — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 08:55:37 +0000

Join Community Connect on Thursday 23rd Febuary as Katt Mathews show us how to set up a Googlesites Classroom e-portfolio for Hospitality Students at Lakes Entrance Neighbourhood House.

Katt will take us on a tour as she creates the site that will become the students documentation of employability skills for 2012.

Learn how to navigate and add content to this wonderful Google Product how to make use of the applications and widgets on offer.

Get ideas for your own classroom practice.

Session Link

eT@lking: Trending Tools for 2012

annemirtschin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:56:07 +0000

When: Wed 22nd February, 8-9pm Melbourne, Australia time (gmt+10)

About this session: Join us for an informal discussion on possible trending tools for 2012. Pintinterest is a trending topic on many online sites. Have you used it? What can you share? Will this be a trending tool? What other tools do you think will be trending? Hope you can join us, share in the conversations and build a list.

Where: Here is the link to the recording

Student Leadership and Digital Citizenship

annemirtschin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 05:33:22 +0000

When:- Tuesday 21st February, 4-5pm Melbourne, Australia time (gmt+11)
About the session:- We often think of student leaders as leading sports terms, or being representatives on Student Representative Councils, or organising fundraising etc.
In the 21st Century, students can be much more sophisticated leaders. They can be citizenship leaders and provide real authenticity to curriculum delivery. They often have a better understanding of the world they operate in than teachers do,. They can also create content that other students will be highly responsive too.
Mark Richardson will demonstrate how student leadership modules for CyberSafety and Digital Citizenship can be planned, delivered, assessed and evaluated. Such modules can be vital to the success of these programs in schools. He will draw on two successful programs conducted with Grade 5 students in the Hobson’s Bay Network of DEECD, Western Metropolitan Region. This module structure he will outline can easily be adapted for other year levels.
About our presenter: Mark Richardson has taught in primary schools for many years.He also has extensive experience planning and delivering professional learning to teachers in ICT / eLearning.

His current interests are

Learning Spaces and Places
Digital Pedagogies,
Online Teaching and Learning
Collaboration
Digital Citizenship

Here is the link to the recording.

Playing 2.0 Learn – eT@lking webinar in review

annemirtschin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:26:15 +0000

This was the topic of this week’s topic on eT@lking’s webinar. It was a general sharing session, where participants were invited to share the tools and technology they have been playing with and then visualize how they could be used further for learning. Following is a list of the tools shared:-

The K12 Online conference’s theme was Purposeful Play and has many tools shared and demonstrated there.
Todays meet - an online back channel shared by Jenny Ashby who shared many further ideas for its use. It allows every student to have a voice.
Tarheel Reader and Natural Readers shared by Ness Crouch Converts text etc into audio. Jenny Ashby reminded us that both MS Word and Mac documents have a facility to text to speak!
Ness Liz Jennyshared their blogs
Pipespeak adds an audio button to be added to eg a blog or wiki so that people can leave audio comments.
Quad blogging
Comix an online cartoon maker which does not require registrations – drop and drag and quite comprehensive
Proloqo2go is great communicating tool for non verbal students
Jenny Ashby shared a spreadsheet with suggest apps for iPads using file sharing in Blackboard Collaborate.

Thanks everyone for a fascinating session of sharing! Here is the link to the recording

Community Connect “Creative Commons”

Junita Lyon — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:36:38 +0000

Join Community Connect 8pm Thursday 16th February as Simon Pankhurst librarian teacher takes us on a Journey around “Creative Commons”.

Session Link

“Creative Commons licensing is very useful and empowering way to design,
create, remix, and share. Unfortunately though, it can also be confusing
to get your head around what your rights and responsibilities are, and
figuring out what you can actually do with other people’s work legally.
However, once you get the hang of CC licensing, the internet can open up
all kinds of possibilities to work with others to create something new
and exciting or to experiment with ideas that may have seemed impossible
to complete by yourself.

In this session Simon will go through the six different licenses that are
available under the Creative Commons license plus where you can get
Creative Commons licensed materials to use in your own projects with an
understanding of what you can do and how to give credit to the original
creator. “

eT@lking: Playing 2.0 Learn

annemirtschin — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 07:27:28 +0000

eT@lking returns this Wednesday 15th February.

Time: 8pm-9pm Melbourne, Australia time (gmt+11).

About the Session: this will be an informal session where participants will be encouraged to share the tools and technology they have been playing with over the last couple of months. Discussion will then be directed around how these tools and technology could be applied to learning in the classroom. Whether you are new or experienced this session will be for you! Bring along your ideas, experiences and questions.

Please join us and share in the conversations.

Here is the link to join the session.

Tech Talk Tuesdays: e-Chatting about 2012

annemirtschin — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:44:20 +0000

After a long summer break, Tech Talk Tuesdays returns to a computer near you. (You just need internet access and a headset).

Date/Time:- Tuesday 14th February, 4-5 pm, Melbourne Australia time (gmt+11)

About the session:- The first session for 2012 will be an informal discussionsession where participants will be encouraged to share any or some of the following:-

What technology will be used for learning in 2012?
What is our wish list? What tools will become increasingly important?
What do you want to know?
What do you need to know?
Do you have questions, issues, discussion topics etc.
What have you been up 2.0 since the last session?
Do you have ideas for topics, presenters etc for future Tech Talk Tuesday sessions?

Here is the link to the recording This was a fabulous session. Max and Carole used the webcamera effectively to share some great apps for use by the young on iPads. The full power of learning with videconferencing was captured with Blackboard Collaborate. Thanks to everyone for a great sharing session.

PowerPoint and Clip Art..

Junita Lyon — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:20:25 +0000

Join Pam Ridd ACFE E-Mentor in our Australia Series room on Thursday evening at 8.00pm for a fun session exploring the ways you can use PowerPoint to create lessons and branching scenarios and how to take clipart images, manipulate and change them to suit your needs.

All Welcome

Session Link