E-Learning Forum

At a conference when Brian Kelly of UKOLN spoke yesterday he showed a chat tool http://www.gabbly.com that can be integrated in a web page (although he didn’t show that). Just go to the site and click the embed tab to generate the html code. At present anyone can comment and comments are anonymous. There are plans however to enable password only entry. And there are presently limits of 18 comments so they can be made to disappear.

An alternative is to precede any webaddress by /gabbly.com/ and you can create a pop-up comment box that appears in fron of the web page e.g. http://gabbly.com/uodstaff.edublogs.org

I’m reposting this article which unfortunately got a number of undesirable comments attached. I am not sure how they managed that as comments are restricted on thisa blog. Anyway whilst I try and work that out.

Here’s the article again on Tools to manage and build your weblinks.

Pete

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Other than my posting about Stephen Heppell’s keynote speech. I have also put up my take on Wikipedia and its implications for the e-learning development process and comments on Jonathan Darby’s criticisms of e-learning support services.

Pete

Much as Google’s actions in regard to the Chinese government were regretable/ deplorable whatever, you’ve got to give it to them. They press on creating tools that make other institutions, including most UK universities look sluggish, parochial and lacking in imagination.

They have now launched Video Google . A free facility to upload videos with little restrictions to size or format. Whilst we try and climb over the hurdles of getting approval to buy streaming servers, they just go ahead. Good on them.
As long as they don’t try and exploit their position of key service provider to us all (or make further deals with the Stalinist Chinese government). Hang on, I know I’m not that naive.

Pete

Some of you may be unaware of a content creation tool called CourseGenie.

Download a trial here:
http://www.horizonwimba.com/products/coursegenie/try.php

The university should be rolling out this tool to all academics very soon, so be aware that it may mysteriously appear on your toolbar in Word!

CourseGenie is a very powerful macro file that runs in MS Word. It allows word documents to be converted into something fairly interactive (formative assessment, flash media popups, etc.) within minutes.

Hopefully a full staff development programme will commence very soon…

Just been experimenting with these. Edublogs via WordPress enable a large selection of styles. I often think in education we let the technologists run away with design. Here I think we have let graphic designers run away with it.

They look cool but do they maximise use of real space? What is visibility or usability like? Well let me know what you think.

Pete

I have set up a new category. We have all been very busy recently and coming back into this blog is a bit like going to see my mother after neglecting her for some months. Better take a bouquest of flowers – or in this case give a new category.

But seriously…

I’m going to ask some of the academics here at Derby to post accounts of how they feel blogs are working for them. And so I’d better make a dedicated area for them to do so. 

And we are not talking about Man U or Chelsea here but mainly the Computer Assessment, Interactive and Visual Media teams here at Derby. Enter comments here if you have any observations particularly after our team working event of 29th November

To do this go to

Start (bottom left of screen)

SOFTWARE

LEVEL 1

MindGenius 2005

The version you will install is the latest version (Version 2). The student computers will still be version 1 until Christmas when they get updated. Any mind maps produced by students you will be able to view, however if you produce a mind map for them they will not be able to open it, unless you save it as a version 1 file. After Christmas this won’t be a problem.

To save in version 1 

Go to…

File

Save As

Save as Type – change to Version 1

After Christmas there will be a series of training events organised on Mind Genius across the different campuses.

If there are any general problems please share them here on the staff elearning blog.

Quandary is built specifically for one purpose – to create a set of screens containing one or more decision options. A learner chooses an option, and then heads off into a maze of possibilities (depending on how complicated the author has made the learning object). Put simply, this is a web-version of those adventure books we used to read as kids – “If you decide to slay the dragon, turn to page X. If you want to run and hide, turn to page Y’. The software is useful for those who wish to create web pages that are adaptive tests, diagnostics, decision trees, action mazes etc.

Action mazes can be used for many purposes, including problem-solving, procedural training, and surveys/questionnaires. All of these types of use are easier to understand by example than they are to explain, so here are some example exercises. (Note: you can also download Quandary free of charge from this link)

Hot potatoes (by the same company!) is also a good tool for creating interactive quizes, again free of charge and very simple to use, Hot Potatoes can be downloaded from here.

Chris