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Talk:Computer Literacy Resources
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Discussion on general development (1)
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I've just taken Elluminate out of the Synchronous communication tools(SCT). After our recent meeting, it seems that Elluminate is a key communication tool for the people currently involved in the project. Also it's a web-conferencing software, and so is functionally different from the other applications listed under SCT.
Hi David,
We're going to take a look at DimDim - a free software alternative for Web conferencing. I'm keen to run a trial to see how this may support our Work in Wikieducator.
I'm starting to add in the content categories that staff at Otago Polytechnic feel they need support for. This will continue over the next couple of days.
Categories (1)
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I've been pondering the Access/Interpret/Create tags assigned to each level of difficulty. It seems to me that interpret is not necessarily related to intermediate use. Perhaps engage might be more appropriate?
General development (1)
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I've just
Post grads and powerpoint (1)
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I am not sure I agree with post grads not requiring information about PowerPoint. My students may well be asked to make a PowerPoint presentation, and we certainly use it a lot for lecture notes. So I think it would be a good resource - Sarah
An interesting challenge ...
How about requiring post grads to work with Open Office impress to produce slide shows. Its free and can do a bunch of neat things that you can't do with PowerPoint - for example export to Flash format or save as a ppt file. You won't be able to save a PowerPoint file in Open Office format <smile>
This may be a great opportunity for learners to discover the difference between open standards and closed proprietary formats.
Something to think about - at least I think that a course of this nature should accommodate the freedom for a student to use open source tools. Not all learners may be able to afford legal copies of closed software.
Chat to you soon. W
Thank you for your reply-I am very excited to see as I am very very new to this, so its great to see some interaction. I think what you've got to remember is some students (certainly mine) are new new to computers and your suggestions (whilst they are great) would blow my students away completely, which is why we're working on this resource in the first place. So I think for this particular project, we should stick to thinking about very basic information and not get too carried away with more complicated stuff. My question would be: is there a difference between high school students coming into teriatory education with regards to levels of skills compared to adult learners? I would assume there would be but is that the case?
Welcome to our Wiki family - sometimes you won't get a response, however when you hit a hot topic - conversation will emerge dynamically.
I'm a strong advocate of freedom of choice. As educator's I don't feel that we have a right to force students to purchase proprietary software. When we teach ICT skills, I feel that teaching institutions have an obligation to accommodate the needs of both free software and proprietaty software users.
I work largely in the developing countries in the Commonwealth (thats 49 out of the 52 Commonwealth Countries) and I know exactly what you mean about folk being new to technology and software.
That's why I think your project is a great resource and YES - you need to stick to basic information. You should take a look if the CCNC course materials will meet any of your needs.
Good question regarding the differences between skills of high school students and adult learners. I think that this would differ significantly depending on the country. For example in the US I would expect to see significant differences between school leavers and adults. However, the situation would be very different, for instance, in the Cameroon.
Last week's meeting in Helen's office (1)
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Here are some notes from the meeting where we discussed support resources for distant and online students:
Meeting notes:
1. 8 people met on Friday 12 October to discuss support needs and viable service developments for online learners. 2. People from Midwifery, Massage Therapy, Certificate in Health, Vet nursing, Educational Development. 3. Helen Lindsey from the Learning Centre is keen to keep a dialogue going on what supports her unit can offer students engaging in online and distance learning. 4. Some time was spent describing the different features, environments, and expectations of the different courses using distance and online features. 5. Some discussion about under grad and post grad students. Identified that some post grad students have not been in education for some time and may not have online experience at all. This illustrated that support is needed right across the student profiles. 6. Students currently have access to the help desk at Otago Poly - but limited access and types of support; their teaching staff (may create extra workloads on staff); printable Bb help file handouts. 7. These students are accustomed to face to face learning and the social aspect of that, and struggle to find such levels of connection online. 8. Community Learning Centres could offer support both technically and socially. CLC are in Wanaka, Queenstown, Alexandra, Cromwell, Balclutha, Mosgiel, South Dunedin, Dunedin. 9. Vet nursing students like screen recordings and Elluminate is being used successfully. Comment: be prepared to work at nights 10. Orientation package for new enrolments involve multimedia resources that are used in face to face sessions, by distant and online learners, as well as contracted tutors in regional areas.. aka wiki tutorials... 11. Flexible Learning Development Funded projects (through EDC) budgets have to be spent before December. Perhaps EDC can help to pool small amounts from each project into a Learning Centre lead development of resources to support distant and online students.
List of activities that may need support
- Turnitin
- Blackboard
- Elluminate
- Blogs
- email groups
- powerpoint
- delicious
- open office
- Google and advance google
- How to use Firefox
- More listed at the Computer Literacy Resources development page
Levels:
We will need to arrange these activities and the support needed for them into 3 simple categories:
level 1 – "Access" - Basic level stuff. Turn on a computer, what is a browser, save a file, etc
level 2 – "Interpret" - What are blogs, what is blackboard, what is a discussion board, how does online video work, etc
level 3 – "Create" - Creating audio, video, pictures, links, blog posts, forum posts etc
It was suggested that we will need to devise a screening process, probably self screening, to assist people to quickly access the support they need.
From here:
This project will proceed in the following steps:
1. Make a list of skills and applications that need supporting 2. Make a list of repositories to trawl for existing resources 3. Delegate people to a number of skills in the list, and they go through the repositories looking for level 1,2,3 resource examples 4. The final resource list becomes a script for developers
Actions:
Action – LB send minutes of this meeting, update list of skills and applications list on the wiki and create a repository search list
Action - HL to coordinate people searching for existing resources and adding good examples to the wiki
Action – LB to develop wiki templates ready for further development
Action - Leigh Bron and Terry to explore left over funds from other projects
