From the Foothills of eL

Computing resources

2011-09-29T11:32:00.003+01:00

Thanks to the very nice people at Computers at School, I've got some pretty cool links. Such as

Lightbot - game that you solve with tiny programs of instructions
Manufactoria - move a robot, abit like a Turing machine
Proganimate - write flowcharts that become programs and watch the programs run

Links at http://delicious.com/andydiament/computing 'cos I'm too lazy to copy them all here

Google Body

2011-09-29T11:25:00.000+01:00

Have a look at Google Body at http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/ Look inside the body. However, it does not work as default on all browsers because of browser settings. Here is the text of a batch file that works at Penwith College to launch it in Chrome. cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\ chrome --ignore-gpu-blacklist http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/ The key thing is to launch with the --ignore-gpu-blacklist to turn on something that the policy turns off

PowerPoint is dead. Long Live Prezi

2010-05-10T11:23:00.006+01:00

Bored of those bullet points and presentations that seem little more than the having the bullet points read to you? Fed up with irritating animations? Can't be bothered or talented to be creative?

Light on Prezi

Try Prezi. This is a different approach to presentations. Basically, you lay out your comments, images, video clips on a blank surface, then you click on each part to indicate the order and play. The program zooms into each part like a plane flying over a landscape.

You can rotate and resize text so the program swoops around your presentation, in a way very diferent from PowerPoint. You can set it up to autoplay.

However, the whole document can be saved as a pdf, so you have a handout/summary. There is fun to be had arranging your text and images to show a theme/diagram/mindmap or whatever. There are loads of good examples on the site.

The whole thing is online (so use a browser; it needs Flash) - the free version means that you create/host all your work online and it's available for all to see. As educationalists, you can get free access to the intermediate version, so you can keep your work private.

Give it a whirl, literally!.

My Clock says 2009, so lets move from Office 2003 to 2007.

2009-06-10T14:30:00.007+01:00

It's not the end of the world, but the shift in apearance from Office 2003 to Office 2007 is pretty strong, at first glance.

However - the packages are basically the same, they just look different and you have to spend a bit of time looking for the commands that you want.

Microsoft have put loads of material on their website to help you learn, including a great interactive guide where you choose a command from an Office 2003 program, like Word, and it shows you the corresponding one in 2007.

I've put the most useful links here

Drawing with sound

2009-03-05T15:41:00.004Z

And can you gusess what this on is? Clue - Nothing Compares to U by Sinead O'Connor

It's done by a new application that allows you to control a drawing application with sounds alone - try it at http://www.zefrank.com/v_draw_beta/index3.html (microphone or web cam with mic needed).

The pic was actually created by playing the song into it. Interesting? Stupid? You try

QR Codes

2009-02-13T09:02:00.004Z

As Rolf Harris would ask, can you tell what it is yet?

Imagine a world where you want your students to look something up on the internet phon/portable devices that they all will have eventually. They point the camera at this bar code and, whoosh, straight to the web page. Apparently Nokia's popular N95 camera already has the software to read it built in. Look for Bar Code Reader on your phone.

Learn more about them at Mobile BarCodes. Educational uses are discussed at James Clay's Blog.

Here is the news

2008-11-12T15:51:00.004Z

Nothing special, but I quite liked

100 top elearning resources at Jane Knight's Blog
Free software for the mac at local boy Simon Elliott's site
James Clay experiencing how the other half live at his holiday blog

.....and anything about Mr Obama's victory of course

Searching for images

2008-10-17T09:58:00.003+01:00

Have a look at this tutorial to help you search for images.

Sharon Waller from the HEA/JISC Collaboration commented on the new tutorial saying "This tutorial is an excellent resource for anyone needing to know more about where and how to find images online. The fact that it concentrates on copyright cleared images will make it even more valuable for busy learning and teaching professionals, researchers and students alike. It will also serve to inspire confidence in those needing to use images from the web in their work."

This tutorial has been created by TASI - the JISC Advisory Service for digital media http://www.tasi.ac.uk/ and Intute as part of the Intute: Virtual Training Suite http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/. The tutorial was funded and supported by the Higher Education Academy / JISC Collaboration Initiative.

Free Memory Stick for Teachers

2008-10-17T09:55:00.003+01:00

For a free memory stick, packed with educational resources, go to memory4teachers. I'm sure they are selling something, but the best memory stick is a free one and 2 Gb is generous for a freebie!

Knol

2008-07-24T11:10:00.003+01:00

Google has now launched it's own alternative to wikipedia - knol. A Knol appears to be an encyclopaedia article, written by a named 'expert', as opposed to the anonymous collaboration that goes between wikipedia articles. However, anyone can write one - you do need to sign up with a google username. I bet google give prominence to this source in their search results, much as they have with wikipedia for the last couple of years, so you probably can't avoid it. You may find it a useful alternative, but you may want to wait a while. Why?

Obviously, today's the first day of it going public and there seem to be, umm, hundreds of articles (compare with nearly 2.5 million in the English Wikipedia). Hopefully, as it grows, it will keep the focus of a well edited encyclopaedia, rather than the free for all of trivia in many of the wikipedia articles.

However, they do need to check the copyright. I went to the article at the top, on Type-1 diabetes. Appears to be written by an expert in the field, though the term 'moderated collaboration also appears'. It has a creative commons licence attached, but all the photos have copyright/all rights reserved under them. So, can we use this information freely or not?

Worth Ripe Nut

2008-07-22T11:24:00.007+01:00

... and at least 299 other anagrams of Truro Penwith.

You see, I was struck by our new domain name, truropenwith.ac.uk, which I sort of read as trur open with, which I'm sure could mean something.

Anyway, easypeasy.comwas the first site that I came across that offered to turn any phrase into an anagram. Want some more?

Interrupt who

Turnip her two

Winter hop rut

North pure wit

Truth wine pro

and several that cannot be repeated here. Give it a go here if you want to set a few puzzles.

So called "Low Threshold Applications"

2008-07-14T14:01:00.006+01:00

Came across this piece of jargon today, defined as:

"A Low Threshold Application (LTA) is a teaching/learning application of information technology that is reliable, accessible, easy to learn, non-intimidating and (incrementally) inexpensive."

(from The Teaching, Learning and Technology group/ which has a list of 50 ideas/tips/applications/little tutorials, though with an American focus.

Anyway, the emphasis is on things that are easy to learn, easy to use, free or cheap,or likely to use things that are already on your computer.

Please tell us what you'd add to this list....

Got this one from Learning Times, an online community of teachers.

Arse Feeds

2008-07-10T15:49:00.009+01:00

Well, RSS* feeds are those headlines you see in some websites - it's a list of links to the most recent newsitems on various other websites. Look right and there are 2 feeds form other blog sites sites - eLearning Stuff and Connected Learning. They get updated when the original sites do.

I could have headlines from anywhere and in other places I have feeds from news sites like the BBC and the Guardian, from entertaining sites and from other blogs.

Anyway - you need two things:

A site with a feed. Look for the little orange symbol, like the one the one above. Generally, if you click on this it'll take you to the feed page, which will show you a list of headlines.
A feed reader. There are loads of them around - some are programs, some are websites, some are things that'll let you download news to your phone. Modern browsers, like Internet Explorer and Firefox have them built in.

My personal choice of reader is iGoogle. Have you noticed that there is a link on the google page that says Sign in, anothe says igoogle. Click on the link for igoogle - it'll show you a version of the google search page with more info on it. Click Sign in to do that or create account, then look for Add stuff on the page - you'll find loads of feeds to add, and somewhere to add your own.

Some links:

(*Alliteration courtesy of el Reg, the website which bring us all the news of the Jesus Phone and the Girl on the Beach with the Asus PC)

Shrink documents with big images

2008-07-10T11:25:00.004+01:00

This from the department of learning something new every day.

You know how it is, you put loads of images into a Word document or a PowerPoint Slide show, without thinking about their size. Next thing you know, the file is huge, it's running slowly and too big to put into moodle.

Here's how to compress them.

Click on an image, and the picture toolbar should appear; if not, right-click on the image and choose -Show picture toolbar.
One of the icons there is compress - clcik on it
Choose Compress all images andd web/screen (for slideshows) then OK.
This will save loads of space without loosing a lot of quality.

Full details from my source of this at Dave Foord's Blog

Three BIG Moodle questions

2008-07-03T09:33:00.010+01:00

Do you want to know the single most common moodle question I get - how do I make such-and-such a teacher on my moodle course. Try this:

Log into moodle and go to your course, where you are a teacher or the creator
In the admin block, click on Assign Roles (it's probably on the left of your page).
You'll see a list of roles - click on the one that says Teacher.
From the list on the right, click on your teacher (you may need to search for him or her).
Then click the little arrow pointing to the left to add the teacher. That's it.

Follow the same route to remove teachers, only select them on the left and click on the arrow pointing right.

Question number 2: How do I remove a course?Sadly, YOU don't - ask an administrator. However, you can keep students out.

In the admin block, click on Settings
Scroll down the page and look for Availability
Select This course is not available to students
Then click on Save changes

Question Number 3: Help - I forgot the enrolment key

You'll also find this in the course settings. Remember, if you protect your course with an enrolment key, it's up to you to tell it to your students.

Welcome to the Foothills of eL

2008-07-03T09:12:00.002+01:00

Here I am writing to you from a little FE college in the far West of the UK (ok, a little FE college that's now part of a bigger one). eL is short for eLearning, which is short for something else, I suppose.

Anyway, I should have done this ages ago - a blog of ideas for using eLearning and ICT in teaching, in a college. I'm speaking to my colleagues, but anyone else is welcome.

There are plenty of blogs around to keep you up with the cutting edge of eLearning - have a look right for headlines from a couple of the best.