E-Learning for Beginners

Each year we run a free one day event that is aimed tutors and trainers working in the Further Education and Skills Sector, who are completely new to e-learning and ILT. The aim of this event is to offer them a taste of e-learning and a chance to see what technology can do to support education. It's also a chance to be inspired and see what technologies or topics might be emerging that could help you with your teaching practice.

This year the full day event will include sessions on:

• Sharing and finding electronic resources


• Using the IFL REFLECT e-portfolio to record CPD Practice


• Assistive Technology Workshop


• Tech On A Budget


• Emerging Technologies (or 7 Things You Should Know About)


• Using a Wiki to Support your Teaching


• The Wonderful World of Word Clouds


• Teaching and Learning safely online

The event has proved very popular in previous years and has therefore been limited to three people per learning provider with places being allocated on a first come, first served basis.

This event is free to attend, with lunch and refreshments provided. To book visit the page on our website.

We look forward to seeing some of you there!

Free Web Based E-Portfolios for You

The Development Manager are now offering free, open source e-portfolio solutions that are available for both learners and staff to use online. Their new e-portfolio project, Portfoliofor.me is built on the award-winning Mahara software, which provides learners with their own free e-portfolios, hosted on the web.

With portfoliofor.me, learners have the freedom to create their own e-portfolios away from the restrictions usually imposed by institutional e-portfolio systems. They also take ownership of that e-portfolio, much like they do now with email and many other web services. As part of this project, educational institutions can also have a dedicated branded e-portfolio area hosted on the web that their learners can also access when they leave their course of study. In this way the institution no longer maintains responsibility for the learners' work once the course has finished. (Please note - that particular service does have a nominal charge).

Portfoliofor.me now also makes use of a Mobile Upload application which allows people to make recordings, take photos and upload files from their smartphone straight into their e-portfolio. This makes maintaining their e-portfolio extremely easy to do on the go, as well as capturing useful evidence of the learner voice along the way.

The four minute video below offers a quick demo of some of the capabilities of the Mahara e-portfolio platform on which this project is based. Certainly worth a look at what this e-portfolio option offers, for free.



For more information on how you or learners can benefit, please contact the TDM team.

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Related wobble links:

E-Portfolios for Starters
E-Assessment Online Toolkit
Use Of E-Portfolios In Assessment
Midlands E-Portfolio Group



To read more of Wobble click here.

Google Maps and Street View

I was quite amazed to discover recently just how powerful the new Google maps street view is.

I’ve always used Google Maps to plan my visits to learning providers but now with street view you can now see photographic 360 degree street level images of where you're going. This makes it possible to also see exactly what a building looks like, plan parking, and take a look around the area all before you set off. I can see how this tool would be useful for assessors or field workers, planning an initial journey out to see a learner on site.

The video below tells you more.



With street view still you still get the step by step route plan that Google maps has always had, but now you can see photographs at every stage of that journey. As for the applications outside of work, the mind boggles. I think the possibilities are enormous. It seems that so far there have been a few issues relating to privacy but Google assure us that these are being addressed.

This street view is only available in major cities in the UK at the moment so Birmingham is covered but many areas aren’t yet. (E-guides may well recognise the image below.) I’ll certainly be watching this space - I imagine it won’t be long before most of our homes and offices are on there too.



To read more of Wobble click here.

OpenOffice Online Tutorials

A number of people have recently been given the free OpenOffice suite on their netbooks as an alternative to Microsoft Office so I thought it worth sharing a few tutorials and supporting resources here. (OpenOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office, you can find out more here).

The OpenOffice Online Tutorials and Training website provides web based training for OpenOffice. These OpenOffice tutorials are full-motion movies that feature graphics, text and narrated audio.

The site notes that “...if your experience is like most users, these tutorials (designed for the web) will help you learn OpenOffice 2 to 5 times faster than other methods such as reading books or trying to figure it out on your own.”

Looks like they only have a few packages available at that moment, which show you how to use Impress for presentations and Calc for spreadsheets but worth keeping an eye on the site as I reckon it will be an increasingly useful resource as it develops.

For manuals on some of the other free software that is being used in learning, there’s also the FLOSS Manuals website that I’ve mentioned previously. The Floss manuals site has online books that show you how to use other tools, such as Audacity, a popular tool used for editing audio files. There seem to have been some changes to that site since I wrote that last post but looks like several of the main tools are still covered so again might be another site to note.

To read more of Wobble click here.

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Related wobble links:

Free software for your learners or staff
Open Source Software - JISC keeps us informed

Ways to Make Your Netbook More like a Notebook

This blog post caught my attention recently as it focuses on how learning providers can get more out of their netbooks.

In it Rick Broida asks “...Ever wish your netbook had just a little more processing power, storage capacity, and battery life? Fear not: With a few simple tweaks, you can make your netbook run more like a notebook.” (A number of learning providers in this region have invested in net books recently so this is well timed and great for discovering new ways for getting the most out of them.)

The full article suggests a number of very useful tips, here are a few of my favourites:

1. Improve the battery life. For this Rick suggests dropping the screen brightness and tuning off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi whenever possible.

2. Double or triple your storage on the cheap - mainly by buying memory cards or external USB dives which are generally cheap and cheerful.

3. Switch to “lean” software (basically use smaller applications. The article gives some great free alternatives to the processor hungry applications many of us use).

4. Keep your stuff in sync (by using sites that store your data online making it accessible between two or more computers. Again some good options and links are included).

That’s just a few of the suggestions so worth reading the full post if you want to discover more ways to help to help you get the most out of your netbook. Thanks to Rick Broida for the post. Sure it will be useful to anyone using netbooks – myself included, cheers!

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Related wobble links:

Netbooks - everything you need to know!

Free video-conferencing for learning providers

I’ve mentioned Dim Dim on here previously, its a free video conferencing tool. My colleagues and I have recently been showing how much potential this tool has for learning providers.

For example videoconferencing could be used to...

* support groups of remote learners who can access a tutor led session from their own PCs (no downloads required).

* many training providers have several centres and staff are required to travel to attend meetings. Using videoconferencing reduces the need for that, saving travel costs and travel time for the company. (Reducing carbon footprints too!)

* to host short staff training sessions online - these might also be recorded for later playback.

There are several options for free videoconferencing software, Dim Dim is not the only choice, but it is a favourite of ours at the moment because of its ease of use and the fact that it is an excellent free option. I’ve mentioned more in a previous post which has links to a BBC review too. A new version has also just been released with additional features making it an even stronger contender to many of the videoconferencing tools you pay large fees for.

If you haven’t yet seen Dim Dim or experienced videoconferencing, possibly because you were put off by the technical requirements, know how or cost, the good news is Dim Dim now addresses much of that. If you would like to know more here's a one minute video that highlights Dim Dim in more detail, this previous post has additional reviews or feel free to get in touch with any questions or comments.

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…!)

Latest Discover-e

Last week we had our annual online conference which judging by the feedback and the evaluations so far, was a tremendous success. The three days featured a number of stars but the biggest star of all was possibly Dim Dim, an extremely useful free tool that we at the RSC are becoming increasingly fond of.

Dimdim is a FREE web conferencing service where you can share your desktop, show slides, collaborate, chat, talk and broadcast via webcam with absolutely no download required for attendees.

Used within our conference it allowed us to show PowerPoint presentations live on the web, with attendees logging it to view the slides, where they could also see the speaker on a live webcam, hear the accompanying audio and chat with other attendees using its chat facility. We could upload files to view and share live and even capture chat transcripts to share with anyone who couldn’t make the meeting. We used it to host live sessions on mobile learning, Moodle updates and to discuss using virtual worlds.


How else can it be used?
So DimDim can be used for online meetings, but the DimDim team also note that “...online learning, training, educational and non-profit organizations who want to save on travel expenses or have remote students positively love Dimdim....” We’re beginning to see why.

The BBC Click have also reported on how powerful DimDim is and their short video clip typically shows you what the application can do.

If you have ever thought about implementing any kind of video conferencing system yourself, we’d suggest you take a look at this little gem first. Last week it very successfully connected our West Midlands based trainers, teachers, managers, assessors with presenters from as far away as Perth, Australia and at the same time showed us what can be achieved with some imagination very little effort and no cost.

For many at this years Discover-e conference, I’d say that DimDim was perhaps the biggest find.

Free Software Options for Work Based Learning

A very big thanks to Derrin Kent of the Development Manager, who recently presented a session on free software at our online conference. Derrin kindly donated much of his time to present information and answer questions on free and open source software, showing how these tools can be used to enhance provision in the work based learning sector. He also shared a number of excellent resources some of which I'll shortly make available on our RSC wiki .

Derrins session presented a wide-ranging “training toolkit” of software applications – all available at zero financial cost. With his many years' educational management experience, Derrin perfectly understood the concerns with using free software and nicely contextualised the area, addressing both managers and trainers concerns. He also offerred a very long list of things that are currently available and can be adopted and used for free.

If you’re interested in discovering ways that your organisation might be able to make use of free software I’d suggest Derrin would be useful to know. His details are available on his website along with just a few reasons why so many of us all think that free software is increasingly becoming the way to go.

Searching for Images - another way

When searching for images do you have to click through online photo galleries or squint at thumbnails? Here’s what my colleagues and I now use to search for images on the web. PicLens, a free browser add-on which enables rich, full-screen slideshows of images.

It’s proved really popular here in the RSC office as its a great way to search for images on the web without having to go forwards and back from page, to page, to page - sure you get the picture.

PicLens is also free to download, and free to use. So it gets my vote there.

If you haven’t seen it yet try the guided tour here or a demo here. There's also a tutorial showing you how to use it here and an FAQ page for answers to questions about features, compatibility, and more.

(Thanks to John Dalziel for sharing!)

25 Tools for e-learning

Do you want to get to grips with the wide range of technologies and tools available for learning? If so you can now do this in a very practical way by trying out a core set of 25 tools (taken from the current Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008).

In this new free online staff development activity - simply called 25 tools - Jane Hart has grouped a series of simple tasks into activities which aim to help you to understand various e-learning technologies and find out what they are so popular. The suite of tools shows you how to:

· Understand the bare essentials
· Get an online presence and keep up to date
· Build content and share it with others
· Bring people together
· Develop and manage courses

Sounds good. But what I also like is that fact that the tools it covers are all FREE.

What’s more, 25 Tools “… doesn't reinvent the wheel; it makes good use of existing resources in a variety of formats including video and audio….It also encourages a social and collaborative approach to learning and includes a community, where users can share valuable input in terms of their own thoughts and experiences. Engagement comes from working with people not just interacting with content.”

I like the look of this and think its a great way to learn more about some of the e-learning tools you might have heard about or just have a nosey at what's popular and why. To get started have a look at what’s covered in the core toolset or learn more about the resource on the 25 tools site.

Using Google for your Surveys

Yesterday I spent some time playing with a new survey tool in Google Spreadsheets. (Thanks to Darren Draper for sharing this tip)

In his post he describes how we can create online surveys using Google Spreadsheets forms feature and shows us with illustrations just how easy it is to set one up. The post highlights the fact that results can also be viewed in real time and should you wish, they can also be embedded directly into a webpage.

This sounded like a great idea so I got my RSC colleagues to help me with a very quick sample of my own. So the very simple “what did you have for breakfast survey” is here - if you want to answer its two questions and see how it works feel free – it’s open to anyone. Because this survey is published live, you should see your results on a web page here and also in the live spreadsheet that I’ve embedded below. (Might have to wait a short while though, republishes every five minutes)


Like Darren I think this tool has a lot of potential. For example, a couple of possible applications of this tool within the sector are:

• Induction - Interactive questionnaire for learners and employers checking accessibility to hardware and broadband connection, survey link delivered via email.

• Internal/External Verification - Online Quality Assurance questionnaires used for sampling learners and employers.

(Both those tips are based on Innovate’s Examples of the Use of Technology in Work Based Learning).

I have used various other free survey tools previously (just one example here) but was very impressed with just how easy this Google one was to set up. With all of the collaborative tools built into Google spreadsheets and traditional spreadsheet functionality at your fingertips it’s potentially very powerful too. It’s something I will certainly use myself. In the meantime I’ll be adding this link to the Google Docs and Spreadsheets page of our RSC Wiki.

Thanks to Darren for sharing and to Stephen for signposting.

Free Manuals for Free Software

Recently I mentioned a listing of free software applications which are useful both at home and at work. Since then Ive discovered there are now also manuals about how to use this free software in the form of FLOSS Manuals, available online. (Once again thanks to Marcus P Zillman for the link).

Why is this important? Free software gives users the freedom to copy and redistribute the software which can potentially save learning providers a lot of money. However with lack of good documentation or training much of this software is overlooked. Thats one of the reasons why these free, customisable FLOSS manuals are a great idea.

In the first section of the site you can read manuals online or download them via PDF. These generally cover the following areas:

what does the software do and not do?

how to install and configure the software

a basic introduction to the interface

using the softwares most important features with hands-on step by step tutorials

where to go for more help


Through the WRITE section you can write manuals using a 'wiki'. You can see a wiki in action as well as learn more about the potential of wikis here.

Finally, what I think is the best bit... In the 'remix' section you can remix chapters from any of the manuals into a single pdf. These can have a table of contents automatically generated, and you can also include a cover that you can design yourself. These are ideal to provide to staff on CDs/USB sticks for reading offline and could also be useful for staff development. You can also include the remixed manual in your own webpage by cutting and pasting 5 lines of HTML.

These FLOSS Manuals are something I’ll definitely be using in the future, particularly when we are demonstrating free software for the Work Based Learning Sector. Watch this space and our events page for details.

162 Tips and Tricks for Working with e-Learning Tools

The eLearning Guild recently asked its members for their favourite tips for using software for the creation of e-Learning. This resulted in a total of 122 people contributing 162 usable tips that have now been collated as a free digital e-book. The tips range in length with some being very basic, and others quite advanced and include everything from customising clipart in Powerpoint to considering e-assessment.

Last year the E-Learning Guild also published “The eLearning Guild's Handbook of e-Learning Strategy”. This e-Book aims to help learning providers make a connection between learning, e-Learning and their organization's mission, business objectives, and the bottom line. In that, chapters addressed everything from crafting a focused strategy, to keeping your strategy focused, to change management.

The books are aimed at an American audience but are still relavent as the tools and suggestions they make are universal. They can both be downloaded from the E-Learning Guild site here.

Creating E-Resources, Trainers Doing it for Themselves

An increasing number of work based learning providers are moving towards installing learning platforms or environments that now make electronic learning materials available to their learners. Consequently, delivery staff are also being encouraged to also make their resources suitable for this medium, but as Wikipedia notes... “..the vast majority of teachers do not have the technical skills to build their own web pages, and must therefore rely on the availability of web developers to generate professional looking online content.”

I'd suggest that was true in a lot of cases, but Ive been recently pleased to see that with exe, a free content creation tool, many delivery staff now can and are, doing it for themseves.

Exe is an e-learning editor (or content creation tool) that can be used to create web-based learning and teaching materials without the need to know html or to use web-publishing applications.

Curious to know more? Here are a few links to get you started.

* Watch a very brief you tube video introduction to what eXe is all about.
* Download the software form the exe learning site where you’ll also find links to support forums etc.
* Take a look at RSC North Wests e-book that explains how to use exe which you can access in their online e-library. (Thanks to John Dalziel for that)
* Visit Exe’s Wikipedia page for online tutorials, and hints and tips to show you how to use the software.
* The free E-Guides programme includes a workshop that will show you staff how to access and use exe.
* RSC West Midlands is scheduling a content creation workshop that will cover using exe (as well as other open source tools). Keep an eye on our events page for details.
* Any other questions, feel free to get in touch (or use the comments below).

Free and Freeware Software

Marcus P Zillman points to the Best Free and Freeware Software for Windows, a very nice listing of free and freeware software that can be operated on Windows (and are useful both at home and at work). It has tools listed under several categories including:

Office tools
– including Open Office , a suite of free applications designed to mirror the tools available in Microsoft Office
Multimedia
– including music players, media players, sound recording and editing software
Security and Privacy Protection
– antivirus and spy ware detection software
Graphic / Desktop publishing tools
- free image and photo editing software
Internet
- web browsers and Internet suites


I like this listing – it’s clean and easy to follow and includes many of the popular free software options with links directly to pages where you can download them. It also shows just how much great software is becoming available to use in this way.

I’ve also mentioned previously why alternatives to costly proprietary software are important to the WBL sector – if you missed that and want to know more you can access that post here.

Via Marcus Zillman

Converting from PowerPoint

Ever wanted to reduce the size of those massive PowerPoint files to upload to the web, make them more accessible or just to run more smoothly? Our HE Adviser Kevin Brace does and he’s also discovered and kindly outlined a few ways to do this easily and for free.

For learning providers using PowerPoint, these tips are worth noting because –

You still can’t guarantee that everyone has MS office
By converting to PDF your make documents available to a wider audience
Readers can use the PDF aloud option to read out presentations

In the post Kevin also notes how you can use Impress (a free PowerPoint type application) to easily export files to Flash format (.swf) or to convert to portable document format (.pdf)

Now there’s another good reason to try out a free software option that also offers you that little bit more.

Thanks Kevin!

Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 (Becta Report)

Becta, the education technology agency, has published a key report on Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 which analyses its suitability for adoption by learning providers, recommending that IT departments review the findings of the report before considering any large-scale investment in these software packages. (The report is aimed predominantly at schools and further education but the same issues affect Work Based Learning providers who are considering future upgrades.)

It notes that "upgrading existing ICT systems to Microsoft Vista or Office 2007 is not recommended and mixed Windows-based operating environments should be avoided."

It also states that IT users “… should also be made aware of the wide range of free-to-use products currently available and on how to use and access them…” and “…the ICT industry should be facilitating easier access to 'free-to-use' office productivity software.”

I agree entirely and by pure co-incidence this also leads on nicely to another post I wrote earlier today. (Free software anyone? )

Moodle on a USB Drive

My colleague had a nice free gift from Kidderminster College come through the post today – Sticky Moodle or Moodle on a stick. Well on a USB drive. Basically it was an installation of Moodle (an open source virtual learning environment) that can be run from the USB drive or from any XP or Vista computer, without installing anything and without being connected to a network.

Thought I’d share the link here because for those interested in Moodle it’s a great way to try the product if you haven’t already seen it. Using the USB drive, even established Moodle users could use this to practise with Moodle anywhere, anytime.

(If you’re new to virtual leaning environments, the E-Guides programme also looks at the use of Moodle and explains how this particular virtual learning environment can be used by Work Based Learning providers.)

If you’re an e-learning professional or manager working in Further and Higher Education institutions in the UK you can request a Sticky Moodle to be sent to you for FREE. Alternatively, you can download your own free copy of Sticky Moodle from Kidderminster College’s VLE Middleware Moodle site. You won't get a free USB stick of course, but you will get the zipped version of Sticky Moodle almost immediately. The package contains a condensed version of Moodle, together with all necessary ancillary programs (Apache, PHP and SQL). It’s all there and ready to go. It even has a demo course to get you up and running straight away.

I plan to sign up for my own right away. Suppose I’d better also give my colleague his back. (Thanks for sharing Kevin!)