New Academic Year, New Laptop Image, New O/S and lots of New Learning

The title says it all really.  2013 sees NMIT IT students using Windows 8 as their operating system this year.

On Thursday my new laptop was dropped off to me (thanks Pip) and I had a little play then.  On logging in there was a whole new screen shown to me – the Windows 8 Start screen.  I enjoyed pushing a few of the buttons (tiles) to see what they would do.  I found the desktop (that nice familiar looking screen where I used to be able to access everything.  Not now.  What do I do next?

What did I do next?  Well, as you may have gathered, I hadn’t got far. I tried to get back to the Start screen – not as easy as it seems as there was nothing to easily click.  But as a ‘savvy user’ I used the windows button on the keyboard and there I was back to the start screen again.

Week 24 catchup: Summarise, Assess and Contribute

So I have found my way to the end of the course.  Below are the links to my blog postings for this course.

I have loved this course from the moment I was sent the link to it.  The syllabus promised an interesting mix between theory and practical.  I love trying out new things but I need to be guided in this area – I need someone to suggest something to me and to give me a bit of introduction as to how or why I should do it.  Then I feel that I am in a position to play with it and learn how I can use and apply it.

Would I recommend this course to others?  Most definitely.  Anyone using or wanting to add web technology to their course delivery will find this course an exciting introduction to ‘what is out there’.  I want to come back and keep playing and learning and adding to my courses – even though I teach face-to-face.  It doesn’t matter how the course is taught, the tools and ideas apply to it all.

I have prepared a final video on how I have applied my new-found knowledge to one of my courses.

Week 23 Catchup: Presentation

My presentation for week 23

I have put together a powerpoint and uploaded it to Slideshare but unfortunately some of the links don’t appear to be working when the presentation is played online even though they all work when the powerpoint is downloaded!!

Week 22 catchup: Personal Learning Networks

I have just watched Dean Shareski, Sharing: The Moral Imperative and his last statement of ‘what will you share today’ is what this post is going to be about.  The last couple of weeks have seen me updating my Access 2010 tutorial (from the 2007 version) and changing some of the other parts to show them better.  Over the last few years I have put together a few tutorials related to people I have been working with as part of my teaching and tutorial jobs.  One day I finally got myself sorted and created a google site for these tutorials. 

Week 21 catchup: Online Education Theory

Here I go thinking that I can quickly finish this task as I’m on catch up mode big time.  I should have known better!!  Having watched the video and read the articles, I am left thinking about Issac Asimov’s Foundation series.  A lot of what was said makes me think that we have to be very careful where we go with learning. 

Week 20 Catchup: Does the Digitial Classroom Enfeeble the Mind

This heading caught my attention. It is something I have wondered about for a while.

A friend posted an interesting statement on Facebook in relation to her son not knowing who IBM is.  How can someone not know who IBM is became the issue. Was it because he spent too much time on the computer? The conversation continued during our Saturday morning coffee get together.  The last comment in that post was probably the most important – “It’s the Google’s and Facebook’s that are relevant today”.  We knew about IBM in the ‘old days’ because we could see evidence of them about us.  These days, IBM doesn’t seem to have the same presence.  The early PCs which were on the market were usually advertised as IBM clones, but not any more.  Times change.  Is this good or is this bad? 

Week 19 Catchup: Web-Enhanced, Hybrid and Open Classes

Open Classes

I have started by reading the using online technologies article and am only page 5 and I’m already struck with the thought that this is what this course is all about.   I remember seeing a map of where all the participants of this course come from and eventually I located it on the distributed activities page:

I think the heading for the map identifies one of the difficulties of open online classes. However the use of audio and video options as discussed in this course can certainly make distance seem a lot less, especially for someone sitting in New Zealand where our holidays and seasons are so different from those of you in the USA!!!

Week 17 catchup: Classroom Management

I have decided to use Audioboo to provide some feedback on this unit.  I haven’t used Audioboo before and thought I would give it a go as until you try something, you don’t know how it could be used in the future.  Another reason I decided to use this was to try to avoid having to convert an Audacity file.  The sign up was nice and easy because I used my Twitter account.  This saved having to set up yet another username (even though I do try to use the same one each time to reduce the different combinations I have).  Before getting started, I thought I would view the getting started video – it didn’t work.  Then I thought I would have a look at the Help screens – but they didn’t help neither!  So I just decided to give it a go.  The 3 minute limit certainly goes quickly and I had to restart my recording.  While I am writing this, my audioboo is being uploaded so at this stage I don’t actually know what is going to happen next.  I am assuming that I will get a url for it which I can paste into this post – I see that I can’t just upload the audio file directly into my post unless I upgrade.

Week 14 catchup: Audio and Video

Slidecast

I created a short PowerPoint for part of a unit we had just covered.  The PowerPoint uses mainly 1 slide and I found it easy to add talk around the slide however I kept using the mouse pointer to illustrate what I was talking about.  Of course, the slidecast doesn’t show this so maybe a different form of screen capture would be useful.

To add the audio, I downloaded Audacity.  I then had to figure out how to turn the Audacity file into an mp3 format.  The Audacity website provided a link to the lame mp3 converter but I was unable to download the required file.  Fortunately I found some information on how to convert the file using iTunes and as I now have an iPad, I also have iTunes on my computer.  To create the slidecast, I followed the instructions on the slideshare website.  I am glad my PowerPoint was small as it didn’t take long to upload it.  Adding the audio was straight forward.  Here is my Slidecast:

Week 15 catchup: Screencasting and Multimedia

Mindmaps

I’m not big on mindmaps as I prefer lists however I have used mindmaps occasionally.  I have a mindmap for how the Systems Development course I teach fits in with other courses offered and also the components of the course.  The main reason I have the second mindmap is there was one for the course when  I first taught the course so I just updated it for my changes.  I find the mindmap of how the courses fit together useful as it gives my course a place with their other courses.  I have used mindmaps when I used to teach secondary maths and used them at the beginning of units to find out what students already knew about the topic and then adding in what we were going to be learning next.  Students seem to enjoy this approach.