Free Training in Creating and Finding Electronic Learning Resources

If you’re delivering any kind of learning you will know that effective and engaging learning resources can make a real difference to your learner’s experience. Similarly, the success of any e-learning owes much to the quality of the electronic resources it uses.

To support this area and help learning provider staff discover and create engaging electronic resources, RSC West Midlands are holding a free one day workshop that focuses on resources for e-learning.

In this workshop, staff can learn how to create their own e-learning materials using a number of free software packages including the popular Photostory. We will also show you how to search effectively for resources using the web and will show a sample of existing materials that are available for the work based learning sector to freely access.

The day is all about discovery, so all delegates are asked to bring along at least one object or resource that they use in their teaching and that they have found to be useful or popular. (We believe it’s good to share!)

The full day event will take place at Wolverhampton Science Park on 11th March. Places will be limited to two per learning provider and will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

For more information or to book online visit the events page of our website. Look forward to seeing you there!

Photo credit: Andres Rodriguez
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Related links:

Create your own Jigsaws Online
Digital Storytelling with Photostory
Creating E-Resources, Trainers Doing it for Themselves

Digital Storytelling with Photostory

At a recent regional E-Guides Refresher event, staff from around 45 Work Based Learning organisations were shown how digital storytelling can be used to enhance the learning experience. Photostory was demonstrated and was a great tool to use for this purpose. Not only because it’s free, but because its also very easy to get up and running with.

Photostory can be used to:

· Create slideshows using sets of digital photos that are then saved as short videos. These videos can then be watched on your TV, a computer, or a Windows Mobile–based portable device.

· Add special effects, soundtracks, and your own voice narration to photo stories. Then personalize them with titles and captions.

This is a great tool to use to enhance digital images that are captured and used by learners and as a way to engage them with digital media. The finished articles can also be a nice keepsake - finished videos can be distributed on a CD, uploaded to a web page, an e-portfolio or saved to other storage devices.

Of course, Photostory can also be used by training staff to create engaging electronic resources that use illustrations to get a point across.

It’s also worth noting that Photostory doesn’t need a video camera or any existing digital video recordings – just your digital photographs. This makes it a great tool to use to take still images to the next level with no cost and very little expertise.

Recently our National Work Based Learning Co-ordinator used Photostory to easily create a short video which talked about the possibilities for e-learning in the Work Based learning sector. This is very useful as the video itself also highlights a number of other useful (and free) tools that can be used for e-learning.

Here's another short video that will show how you can set up a Photostory yourself.

Microsoft’s Photo Story is available for free download from the Microsoft web site or for a guide on how to use the software click here. Hope its useful (and that if you create your own Photostory do let me know what you think of it…!)