ELearnings

It was a little disappointing this publication wasn’t launched at Ulearn earlier in the month. Though it will be released soon so go to Core-Ed to register your interest. This book is a collection of personal perspectives from a variety of people and aligns with the implementation of the national strategy for ICT in Education. I have contributed a chapter in the section Digital content & Community about “The Virtual Learning Network – Increasing Access for Learners.”

Video Conferencing Technology Options

Many of the Secondary elearning clusters online classes are based on Video Conferencing between schools. Much of the VC equipment (in our cluster anyway) is now 8 years old - wow that must be over 100 in human years! It is really important for schools to have in their long term plans and budgets contingencies for the replacement of equipment. The following is an overview and comparison of VC solutions from the simple desktop through to HD VC.

Although VC is not the only way to connect learners online. In some ways i think VC can be a pedagogically unsound way to run classes as it is so easy to replicate the f2f transmission model of learning. Other options for online learning that schools can be looking at are the use of Adobe Connect for real time classes which has more functionality for the interactions of students and the further development and use of Web 2.0 tools and LMS classroom environments with a focus on putting the student at the centre of learning.

The French Connection

ULearn is a great place for making connections and in a round about way through those connections I have made contact with Pascale.

Merci beaucoup Pascale for profiling learning languages online!

Pascale shares examples of our TaraNet Y9/10 French class and the VLN Primary languages programme.

http://www.french.ac.nz/blog/French+via+Video+Conferencing+/

This is a great website for supporting NZ French teachers.

The Creative Internet

The world IS full of interesting things. Just need the time to check it all out!