Week 10 : Finale.....

22. Ebooks & Audios : Browsed through Worldbook Fair : free access to 2 million books until 4 August : intersting concept and gives access to those unable to get to libraries or to buy books. Librivox utilising volunteers to create free audiobooks was another interesting site - could see great value for those confined to home for one reason or another (e.g. I know a lady who is confined to wheelchair and uses her computer a lot. She loves to read so this site would be ideal for her)
I loved British Library On-line! Viewed the beautiful 'Masterpieces of the Renaissance' and the 'Flemish Masters'. Found Elizabeth Blackwell's 'Herbal' interesting - beautiful botanical diagrams of various herbs used in 1700s. The interesting thing is that many of these foods are now being rediscovered as health-promoting e.g. tomatoes, chillis, etc
23. Feedback: I really enjoyed this course - it has given me some great links and ideas that I can take forward with me in my quest to facilitate teaching in a different way. I will take the opportunity to revisit my site and catch up on those 'things' that I may have rushed due to time constraints. Thank you Peter, it was great!!!!

Week 9: Teachertube, etc.

Have used videos from Youtube on many occasions as some snippets are very good (of course others are not so good but I applaud the people who at least had a go at making them)
Teachertube I knew nothing about and have now 'surfed' around and found an overwhelming amount of information - much like Youtube really!!!
Find Youtube videos easy to download but Teachertube videos are a bit tricky - followed instructions but have, so far, been unable to get any onto my blog. Will have to keep at it and see what I am doing wrong! Anyway have done the next best thing - a web site for one of these videos:
http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=20562&title=Cardiovascular_System
Podcasts - have heard about these but have never gone any further - who knows may do in the future!

Week 8 : better late than never........

Have quite a number of free programmes on my computer and have used them in various ways e.g. I use eXe for student online learning as it is quite versatile and I can get it onto WebCT easily; have used ARED to create individual tutorials with quizzes; have created crosswords from JQUIZ on Hot Potatoes as well as a multiple choice quizzes
Other free programmes I have downloaded and use include eGamesGenerator and Eclipse Crossword. Check them out:
http://egames.clsllc.com and http://eclipsecrossword.com

Week 7 : Wikis

Used wikispaces while doing the Diploma TAA course. I found it easy to use and communicate ideas/share information with the other students. The outline of the elearning project, including evaluations were put onto the space. Most of my project was in the form of links to more detailed information which became evidence towards the Diploma. As a student, I enjoyed doing it this way

Have not actually set up a wikispace but can see a lot of potential and have had a look at several sites of how it could be used in education. The one I particularly liked is an invitation to science teachers for input into their specialty areas. There are a number of categories such as astronomy, anatomy, biology, etc. and some wonderful links and resources. Check it out on:

http://cffscience.wikispaces.com/

Week 6: Catch up....

Have spent some time looking at Del.icio.us and found it to be another great site. Even though I lost several hours browsing, I feel as though I have only just scratched the surface as to its potential. As far as educational materials, there are so many lectures to tap into - some a little too highbrow e.g. Philosophy of Life and Death and the possibility of immortality and whether or not it is desirable - but never the less it is 'out there' to explore. Once again, it overwhelms me about the number of people willing to share their information to others. Of all the negatives of the Internet, this is one of the positives!!!

Don't feel the need to create an account at this stage but I know it is there and who knows, it may come in handy in the future!

Week 6: Tagging, etc

Busy week at work and trying to catch up on all the links for week 6 activities. Anyway, have now looked at Technorati, and blogsearch and have a good idea about the idea of tagging. Have looked at a tag called Education and came up with many blogs on games based learning - spent a lot of time going through them but gained good ideas. Also did a few tours of famous places around the world e.g. The Louvre.
Copyright is always of concern and it it sometimes hard to determine if one is breaching the Act especially when downloading information e.g. diagrams, from the Web, even if the author has been acknowledged. I found the Copyright Kitchen well set out answering many common questions and some made me feel a little easier.
I have used Creative Commons in the past - a good site for anatomical diagrams which I use a lot in my teaching. I do think that Creative Commons is a great idea to share information freely and it is great that so many people are willing to do so. It is something that I would consider doing myself if I was clever enough!!!

Week 5: Catching up.....

Have browsed through shared courseware and think The Commonwealth of Learning a great concept for making education available to small nations within the Commonwealth. The materials seemed good although I did not go into them in detail
Photostory is another great way to engage students, especially if the background music is matched to their 'era'. I was teaching a group of Year 10s the other day - first time for me and a bit of a shock! I found out that what engaged them most on the day were the interactive games I had set up on WebCT. The powerpoint presentation (which I thought I had animated well) bored them! I am now interested in developing required study information using photostory. This is a good website for nay other beginners - it contains information on how to set up photostory and has several videos demonstrating its potential
http://www.teachnet.ie/innovative_teacher/default.asp?NCID=365

Week 5 : ARED, etc.

Have used ARED to create a number of learning interactive sessions for my students (especially labelling, sequencing and multiple choice). The feedback was very positive. The challenging ARED tool is the decision tree - so easy to get into a muddle (can do your head in) but is really good for problem based scenarios.
Can't show you an example at present because I am having a problem posting one of my interactive ARED activities onto my blog as there does not appear to be an icon to enable me to do this. So, HELP!!!

Blogging on....

Have been playing around with RSS feeds and agree that it is a good way to have the latest information about anything of interest at one's fingertips. I like the way it packages up 'interest' areas and comes up with amazing 'stuff'. It is a good way to get up-to-date news and I can see why many newspaper conglomerates around the world are in trouble with falling sales. Check out the latest feed on the 10 top scientific breakthroughs - mind you I am not all science although you may be forgiven to think so. I am also interested into alternate therapies and cooking nutritious vegetarian food

Week 4 : Still hanging in....

Interesting week so far. Starting to get the hang of RSS feeds although still much to learn. Have set up a google reader account and have posted several links from various feeds onto my blogsite. I am interested in second life and games as learning options and several links demonstrate the potential of these modalities to engage students in different ways. I also love astronomy and there is an interesting article about the discovery of the smallest star to host a planet

Week 3 : still going.....

Picture of a red blood cell downloaded from flickrCC. Good for future reference when teaching anatomy and physiology - sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words

The journey continues....

Week 3: Interesting sites with so much information that I am in 'overload'. I like FlickrCC - copyright is always an issue when using information from the Internet. I can see real possibilities for poster maker and trading cards in a classroom situation by putting 'fun' back into learning. I also loved the variety of vibrant colours on Flickr Color Pickr. Another good site to investigate is Photobucket.

Getting started

My first blog so am finding my way at present. Hopefully it will become less daunting as time goes on. Interesting way of communicating ideas and thoughts!