Plunkers e-Learning

jason

jasonmplunkett posted a photo:

• Resume building tool - PLP
• New Zealand E-Learning website

It has been a while, wonder how many people still actually read this blog. ;-)

I know this isn't a new idea, but am interested in a slightly different spin.

Programming for mobile phones has been a discussion I have noticed in a few places, however few people have mentioned using them with input/output devices.

I am currently exploring a few options for a course next year to motivate students with programming and have been looking at robotics.

Options I have explored include Lego Mindstorms, Scratch with the optional interface or from a purely motivational standpoint Alice or a creative use of Flash.

During this exploration it has occurred to me that students have their phones.... is there a way to get an attachment for the phones that will allow input devices to be added? Can a simply language then be used to make use of these readily accessible computers sitting in kids pockets...

Another avenue to explore - not sure I will get anywhere with all those different connectors.

• googleplayer.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)
• WikiMindMap
• E-Learning Software and Authoring Tools | Articulate Rapid eLearning

• Visual Basic Activities

• Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0: Part 1

• Open Source List
• online library
• Educational videos for the classroom
• short free educational videos

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jasonmplunkett posted a photo:

Blue Lake Pumping Station
The location where we will be getting married.

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jasonmplunkett posted a photo:

Mac's Hotel - Mount Gambier
The location of the AFL Grand Final party between the wedding and reception.

• Learning Styles Test
• Multiple Intelligence Inventory

I am presenting at a School Support Officer conference this coming weekend in the south-east of South Australia. One of my topics is blogging.

My plan is to promote how a blog could be used to present information to a school community via an online medium. I was then going to link this into bloglines and demonstrate how all school newsletters for the south-east could be made available from the one page.
This would reduce costs and mean that mail-outs to other schools would no longer be required.

Problem....
I have only been able to find a few examples online, and the quality hasn't been that high.

Does anyone out there know of any schools that have a blog that is set up for their school newsletter?
Does anyone know of any examples I can use?

With the recent activity I have had with web 2.0 tools I thought I might share an observation. (btw after the holidays I came back to school and we couldn't use any of the tools at school that we used during the holidays. :-( )

Mindomo.com - a mind mapping web 2.0 resource - excellent resource to use.

But did the creators think about the name?... or maybe they did it on purpose....

mind = brain (just go with it)
omo = a washing powder


Therefore mindomo must be a brain washing program .;-)

Nothing like a two week break to bring a fresh look on things.

My last post suggested that the selection of students meant that the technology wasn't being used as it was last year and bandwidth issues were causing problems.

I guess when things don't work you adapt. During the holidays students have requested help online. This has resulted in a new "tool-set" being adopted.

Initially the students were using my school email for contact. This turned out to be problematic, due to space restrictions etc. Purely by accident we fell into using g-mail accounts and we have found that the default layout really promotes a discussion thread. Really useful when you are reinforcing a concept and having a student work through something. This has received a big tick.

I do need to encourage the use of forums again however. Email has worked fine in this case, however a forum in general is a much better tool.

For more immediate conversations we have taken to using Windows Live Messenger (Transcripts kept for historical reference - safer than a phone call really). Using this and screen captures has gotten around the issues of not having the use of Centra.
The only issue with this tool is that you need to be careful not to be "too available". I am sure people will understand what I mean here.

Although not used as the students are beyond the analysis/design stage, earlier in the piece I made use of an online collaborative space - thinkature. This was not used with students, however, I could see this easily being adopted and fitting the model.

So in situations of low bandwidth it is still possible to local deliver. One simply needs to adabt to the environment in which they are working.