Triumphant return to the FootHills for OU colleagues

This blog has been dormant for I don't know how long (but I looked, it's 7 years). Time to include things to support my OU Colleagues.

Coming soon, promise

• GoogleDocs- sharing documents in real-time during tutorials e.g. for drag and drop (includes Tarsia Formulator for creating matching games like jigsaws and  dominoes)
• Ways to use Breakout rooms in Adobe Connect with confidence
• Speeding up TMA marking, sort of by request at AL SD 24/4/21
• Mouse First
• Quick access shortcuts
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Customised autocorrect, including maths (LaTeX) symbols
• Macros
• Keeping comments from previous years
• Clipboard Manager - list of what you copied recently
• MH Handler - Distribute (copy a file to all TMA folders)
• Backup/restore normal.dot for when it changes outwith your control
  
  

This topic was covered in Tips for speeding up TMA marking while avoiding RSI REVISITED (adobeconnect.com) and I suspect covers similar areas

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iPadio - podcasting as easy as phoning

iPadio.com offer an excellent podcast service. They have their own apps for iOS and Android where you can easily record and upload, as easily as chatting on the phone, Or upload mp3 files from other sources. Or broadcast live audio from your phone, landline or mobile, anywhere else in the world.

Instructions at SlideShare Read more!

Computing resources

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
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Google Body

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 Read more!

PowerPoint is dead. Long Live Prezi

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!.

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

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





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Drawing with sound

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

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QR Codes

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.

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Here is the news

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
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Searching for images

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.
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Free Memory Stick for Teachers

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!


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Knol

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?
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Worth Ripe Nut

... 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.
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So called "Low Threshold Applications"

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....

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

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:

1. 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.
2. 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:

• Plain English video from Common Craft
• Add Feeds to igoogle home page
• RSS feeds from the BBC

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(*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)

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Shrink documents with big images

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

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Three BIG Moodle questions

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. Read more!

Welcome to the Foothills of eL

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. Read more!