Today’s forum sessions were fun! There was Wink and wiki and audio, not to mention weird echoes!

Diana’s session on using Wink to capture your lectures and audio was a hit, as was Aaron’s discussion on using wiki in your classroom. Participants began to compile a list of ideas on how to engage learners in discussion on a wiki – a great collaborative activity in itself! I think a very useful guide will develop from this.

Moir’s session on adding audio lecturers to your online course was simple, effective and downright practical!

Image: http://www.tomrafteryit.net/

Sue and Kerry went to town on using ARED(v2) and this is now available for CIT teachers via a quick download to your log-in profile. ARED is a quick way to get your content looking great and is easy to use – no special web design knowledge is required!

Day 2 of the forum looks set to engage as well, beginning with your virtual presence at the CIT strategic planning meeting – jump into VET Virtual and have your say about CIT’s future. Colin will be facilitating the online aspects of this discussion.

Marg Robson presents some tips on getting interactive with VET Virtual, while Anne and Moir tell us about their e-learning innovations project. Following that, David bravely jumps into the world of quizzes, and then we finish up the forum with a look at the national LORN, with Kerry and Sue.

What a great way to see in the semester break, don’t you think!

See you online tomorrow…!

We had a gathering for CITFLN at Reid campus on Friday with a number of things on our agenda, some of which we didn’t get to as time ticked away from us!

One highlight was a demonstration by Moir of a digital graphics pen which Moir has trialled with her Physics students (most of whom work in the AFP) in a tutorial fashion online.

Moir showed the pen in action and then showed an online whiteboard through which she encourages students to interact (if you have no pen you can still use a mouse apparently). The service is partly free and is called Skrbl. The possibilities for such interactions are endless – you could develop a floor plan with interior design students, map out an orienteering course for sports students, annotate images and graphs (as Moir does) – even animated gifs work on the whiteboard too! In fact, Michael Coghlan also blogged about a similar setup recently.

The bringing together of virtual and physical activities is the real key here. Connecting students with one another is one aspect, but connecting students to ideas and support is entirely different. Engaging in practice is paramount for students who are isolated from a classroom setting where a teacher is on-hand to offer timely pedagogical support. The interface between teacher-student communication and the ability to interact in the way the pen and online whiteboard show, affords much in terms of hands-on activities that at one time many said couldn’t be done online!

Flex:Ed held it’s first Forum on flexible learning for the year, titled Developing Us…Online!

The sessions were short and sweet at half an hour and we ran these back-to-back over three days – full on! We tried out VETVirtual, the virtual collaborative space developed through the Framework as part of the Access to Bandwidth project.

HUGE thanks to Chris Richter from the VETVirtual team for stepping in to most (if not all) the sessions to see how things were running! Kudos Chris! We had a very annoying echo at the beginning which Chris sorted out for us in no time!

The sessions were facilitated by CIT teachers sharing their experiences in online learning and teaching, using wikis, slideshows, videos, even old man WebCT! We looked at game-based techniques for interaction, Toolboxes and learning design, virtual world (Croquet) and e-portfolios – the list goes on!

A HUGE thanks goes out to the faciltiators for devoting their time to facilitating these conversations! And thank you to all who participated in between their calsses, virtually or otherwise. The VETVitrual sessions won hands down over the face-to-face sessions – it has been a busy time of year too.

We will be running more sessions shortly, after much feedback about when the next forum will be!

Australian Flexible Learning Framework – E-learning Networks

If you haven’t already registered, then I’d suggest you do so for the Online Event taking place in November 7th-9th! Check out the key speakers, Ron Oliver, Janine Bowes and Jonathan Finkelstein – I’m certain you won’t be disappointed!

From the Networks page:

The FOCUS of the event is on showcasing some of the latest developments in e-learning and future directions both in Australia and Internationally. Find out about how to use e-learning for a range of client groups and for industry business solutions. Learn how to integrate collaborative Web 2.0 tools within workplace practices, especially for sharing and networking with colleagues.

You can check out and circulate the flyer available here (PDF).

Waht are you waiting for?! )

technorati tags:elearning_networks, AFLF, Framework, November2007, 2007, online_event

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Flyer Alan Levine ACT event flyer (PDF)

Author of CogDogBlog, Alan levine is hitting the ACT as part of this national speaking tour in October. You might recall Nancy White toured last October, with great success!

Alan’s keeping an “Aussie” blog for his tour, CogDogRoo.

Two topics Alan will discuss:

(i) “Being there” – being actively present in your online courses and approaching educational technologies with a sense of ‘wonder’, and

(ii) Trying out those Web 2.0 gems – just something small to get you started – Flickr, Delicious, YouTube, whatever!

More info via the AFLF website. Registration is a MUST!

We’ll see you there ;o)

[image: AFLF]

technorati tags:Alan_Levine, tour, AFLF, Framework, flexible_learning, seminar

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