Global Classroom

There is currently a series on the RTE (Radio Telefís Éireann – Ireland’s national television service) website called “Global Classroom” which looks at whether technology enhanced learning can facilitate education for children in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Offering examples of how technology and distance learning can make a difference, the series looks at 3 current projects:

  • In Mombasa, Kenya where an Irish charity Camara is attempting to provide African schools in Africa with computers.
  • In New Delhi where a charity called “Hole-in-the-wall” looks to provide a shared computer to poor villages, which children can access as a type of “Shared blackboard” to provide a collaborative learning system.
  • In Rwanda where the One Laptop Per Child Charity aims to provide education to children in the poorest and most remote areas through laptops fitted with creative software to encourage learning.

The link to the Global Classroom page on RTE contains filmed & written reports, interview footage and links on each project. If however, you wish to go directly to the project websites, here are links for each:

Another site of mention is the Global E-schools and Communities Initiative which provides strategic advice to Ministries of Education in developing countries on the effective use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for education and communities of learning.

Darragh

July 31, 2008 · Filed Under Web2.0

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Online Dynamic Content Builder

For those of you who want to create multimedia content but have no Flash experience, you can do so here with Sprout Builder’s easy to use, drag and drop interface. A Sprout can be built quickly and tips and tricks can be found in the site’s forum.

Editing a template in Sprout Builder

You can design your own Sprout, or use a template from the site to create widgets, mini-sites or other interactive content. A mini-site, for example, can include text, photo gallery, video or audio player, RSS reader and more, and can easily be added to a website, blog, forum, social networking site, etc. – simply copy the code provided and paste it into your site.

Sprout Builder is a free product, and although not a new one (it was launched at the start of the year), August should see the release of a new product based on the platform. To get an account you can simply start creating a sprout and if you want to save it you will be prompted to register. Registering is free and quick and enables you to save your content and publish it.

Although still in Beta, if you have a free Sprout account this should stay free even when the platform is upgraded in the future.

Roisin

July 31, 2008 · Filed Under WYSIWYG, Web2.0

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Avoiding gratuitous multimedia – A case study

While dealing with the subject of multimedia in elearning, there is a basic case study here which details the problem of “gratuitous” use of multimedia in elearning.
The essential conclusion can be summed up thusly: “Use it (multimedia) a bit, but not too much”.

Nice & simple.

Darragh

July 30, 2008 · Filed Under NDLR

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3 ebooks on multimedia in elearning from the elearning guild

The elearning guild is an online community of practice where members can identify and access elearning resources that are created or sourced by other members. The website – http://www.elearningguild.com – is worth looking into on a semi-regular basis, as there are often free resources offered by the guild – a case in point being the titular 3 free ebooks.

As a community of practice, all the content provided by the elearning guild is member driven content, something reflected in the 3 ebooks. Each ebook is based on surveys of members of the guild, so the advantage of the pointers in each ebook is that they derive from the expertise of individuals involved in the field of elearning and so can be seen as pertinent to the real world industry. The disadvantage to this approach is that all the information given in these ebooks is based solely on the contributor’s experience, as opposed to being designed to suit the novice learner. There is very little given in any of the 3 ebooks to explain how to use a piece of software – you are already expected to know it. The only information given most of the time is how the contributor applied the software to suit their own situation, or else general tips on the use of a particular product in providing e-learning material.

Therefore, it is recommended that these books not be read straight through, but that the reader peruse through them as a means of seeing what can be done with particular software, or else to look to a particular section relating to software that one is using or intends to use. I.e.: when considering creating flash content to add to a course, a user could look briefly through the ebook “239 Tips for Producing and Managing Flash-based e-Learning Content” and see if there is anything in the book that would be relevant to their own intentions.
162 Tips and Tricks for Working with e-Learning Tools


144 Tips on Synchronous e-Learning Strategy + Research

239 Tips for Producing and Managing Flash-based e-Learning Content

Darragh

July 30, 2008 · Filed Under NDLR, Web2.0

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New Masters

In a flagrant (mis)use of the blog for self-promotion purposes today’s post is about a new Masters degree in Media Design the Cork Institute. This is a taught masters beginning this September, specifically designed for multimedia and media design graduates. It runs over a relatively short nine month period, is flexibly delivered and, enjoys joint accreditation with the University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt, Germany (the only such award in Europe). Please pass on the word to any interested students passing through your offices over the summer time (we are accepting applicants until late August).

For more info please see http://asef.cit.ie/mediadesign

Gearóid

BTW: Roisin and I will both be out of the office for the next while. In our place our colleague Darragh Coakley will be keeping you up-to-date with the big news in the world of TEL.

July 18, 2008 · Filed Under CIT, Courses

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Reusable Learning Objects

Below is a short little Flash animation we’ve been working on here in the DEIS Department to explain the near transfer of skills and knowledge.

(Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. Please install the newest Flash Player.)

More resources are available in the NDLR for members of any of Ireland’s universities or institutes of technology. To get an account, contact your NDLR institutional representative.

Roisin

July 17, 2008 · Filed Under NDLR

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Elearning 2.0?

I was recently reading an article on how the potential of social networks are being missed out on by those laggards in the business world. Research from the folks at Gartner, though not exactly earth-shattering, appears to point to all kinds of missed opportunities re increased savings, productivity and profits that the use of social networking sites could bring if they would but adapt. Of course, as one of the Gartner researchers says, the business world will often lag a bit behind the consumer world in terms of technology uptake but what of the world of education? Are we, as a rule – not counting funded pilot scheme and initiatives – even further behind? Despite (occasional) talk of elearing2.0 how far have social networking and web2.0 tools and technologies been integrated into the world of e-learning and TEL? What role have LMS vendors to play? What can/should we be doing?

BTW: there’s an unusual video clip explaining social networking available here (at the home of its creators commoncraft) and below (as hosted by the nice people @ teachertube)

…fun for the uninitiated and initiated alike.

Gearóid

July 16, 2008 · Filed Under Web2.0

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Welcome message

Welcome to the new blog for the Technology Enhanced Learning Community of Practice (TELCoP for short). This blog and associated page will provide a range of information, opinion, news, resources and links, related to the area of (you guessed it!) Technology-Enhanced Learning, and a rake of associated field and topics such as distance education, ODL, e-learning, web-based training, blended learning etc as well as much more specific stuff like LMSs/VLEs, virtual classroom platforms, e-portfolios, serious games, elearning standards, elearning2.0 etc. A blog of course is nothing without its contributors so we hope representatives of the TELCoP and other interested parties — in particular our colleagues in the Irish Learning Technologies Association (ILTA) — will help make this one a success and be generous with their comments on postings as well as their submission of any content, news, event details etc they would like to posted on the website (for now any such content can be emailed to gosuilleabhain@cit.ie or roisin.garvey@cit.ie). We hope in time that workers and researchers in the field will come to see this site as one of the important go-to space for information, events and discussion relevant to their work.

For now the blog and website are being populated and edited by The DEIS Department of Education Development in the Cork Institute of Technology and the Centre for Learning Technology in Trinity College Dublin. In time it is intended other guest editors will be looked for (so watch out!).

Regards,

Gearoid and Roisin

July 15, 2008 · Filed Under Blog business, ILTA, TELCoP

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