Mobile Technology In Tafe

Kathryn Greenhill (Librarian Matters blog) provides her tips on blogging and blog fodder e.g. ideas for blog posts. Kathryn is a well known blogger who provides excellent blogging tips and this is her presentation from Perth PodCamp.

Virtual Worlds: Promise and Perils presentation by Alan Levine for the WA Elearning Showcase (Oct, 2007). Refer to his wiki for his slides and great his links on virtual worlds from this presentation.

A conversation with Alan Levine on the role of New Media Consortium (NMC), the Horizon report, how technology is changing and advice for people on using new technology. We also talk about his upcoming speaking tour of Australia.

Here are my tips for podcasting based on my knowledge as a podcaster and from my experience teaching others how to podcast. The presentation was originally put together for Port 80 mintalks . This is the audio from my presentation.

Nick Cowie, from nickcowiecom talks about the problems faced with the mobile web in terms of display size of mobile screens, the number of different mobile web browers, how rapidly the mobile web is changing, how people use the mobile web compared to the Internet on a computer, problems faced using the mobile web on a non-qwerty keyboard and the costs of accessing the mobile web. Sales of mobile phones and PDAs capable of accessing the mobile web are increasing, and will continue to do so. The challenges we face as educators will be how to appropriately tap into the mobile web.

This is our discussion on podcasting in education. Present were Michael Coghlan, Trevor Bennet (Edith Cowan University), David Day (Pilbara TAFE), Jenny Heathcote (Swan TAFE), Stuart Knox (Flexible Learning Framework) and Sue Waters (Challenger TAFE).

Sean O'Driscoll, General Manager Community Support & Microsoft MVP, talks about online communities. This interview includes how he became involved with online communities, how to deal with disruptive online community members and the value of online communities to businesses. We also discuss his Community Group Therapy blog, how blogging has helped his work and other Web 2.0 technologies.

Marcus Ragus (TAFE Tasmania) and Daniel Dacey (New England Computer Solutions explain the difference between barcode, RFID and NFC technologies. For more information on work by Marcus Ragus and Ian Whitehouse on RFID tags go to RFID scoping study. For more information on Virtual Trainer contact Daniel Dacey.

This is Becky Saunders (from Teaching and Learning, WA Department of Education and Training; runs workshops on instructional intelligence), presentation on embedding professional development for Learnscope e-learning Project Planning Day. In this presentation she talks about how professional development is change management (i.e. the goal of professional development is to bring about a change in practises or processes). She explains that change takes time plus conflict and disagreement are part of the process. Becky also explains strategies for maximising the outcomes of professional development. Thanks to Becky Saunders for letting me record her presentation and Ann Odgers (WA Learnscope Manager) for letting me use it. Read more about embedding professional development on my blog

Adam Frey, co-founder of wikispaces, talks to me about using wikis in education (this is the longer version of the interview). We discuss how wikispaces is giving away 100,000 free plus wilkis to K-12 teachers. He also explains the features of their wikis that make them easy to use with students. He shares tips for setting up wikis & encouraging collaboration between members. We examine the benefits of wikis in education by looking at the excellent work done by students in the flatclassroomproject.wikispaces.com. If you want to learn more about "how to" use mobile devices (such as ipods, PDAs) with students check out my wiki site, Mobile Technology in TAFE wiki

Sean Waters interviews Sue Hickton (aka Evil Sue) and Sue Waters (aka Good Sue) about how good Sue is lost in this digital age of NetLingo, Emoticons and Leek Speak. They both try to educate her. If you suffer digital illiteracy issues then this is a must listen. Visit Lingo2Word and Basic Emoticons and Smilies for help!

Rowena Melling, Learnscope Project Manager for "Taking an E-step forward" from Swan TAFEWA, talks about their project in terms of the e-learning skills they gain. She explains that the participants had minimal exposure to e-learning and then highlights what was gained from the project. They did a skills audit prior to the commencement of the project and plan to do another at it's completion.

Yolanda MacPherson, E-learning Coordinator from Swan TAFEWA, talks about their learnscope project titled "Taking the mystery out of E-learning Facilitation which involved staff from a range of industry areas. She discusses the different projects undertaken by the participants such as blogs (set up by trainers to allow students to give feedback), induction CDs and videos for staff on PD available in the College.

Neil Griffiths, automotive lecturer from Swan TAFEWA, talks about their Learnscope project. The idea of this project was to create digital resources that would give prospective and current students a better understanding of the automotive industry.

Robert Svanbery and Jane Looker, IT lecturers from Great Southern TAFEWA, explain how PDAs are being used by Health Care trainers. They discuss how PDAs are an integral part of the health care industry and provide excellent information on PDAs in general. They also explain how they have created a database for the PDA using Visual CE that is used for workplace assessing.

Cheryl Galloway, from Central West TAFEWA, gives an overview of their mobile technology project. She discusses the process used to select the mobile devices they trialled. For more information go to m-learning.

This is the audio only to the presentation by Andrew Nicholson (Project Officer: Trades and Rural) from Great Southern College of TAFE at WA E-learning Showcase, 2006. He talks about how trade lecturer's are using PDAs with trainees. Discusses how lecturers went to Nerd school to increase their skills.

This is the audio from interview with Kathy Keay, Great Southern TAFE, where she talks about her College's Learnscope project on "Putting the bigger "e" in management". The idea of their project was to increase the knowledge and skills of their managers so that they had a better understanding of technology and e-learning. Thanks to Kathy Keay and Great Southern TAFE for permission to podcast their presentation.

I trialled PDAs with aquaculture students in 2006. The PDAs were not used in every session, and were only used when I felt they were appropriate. The material on the PDAs relate to fish health (i.e. how to use microscopes, how to do fish dissection, anatomy of fish, how to diagnose fish diseases, common parasite diseases of fish and include videos that show what fish diseases look like using a microscope. This is an interview with my students, from two different classes, on how they found using the PDAs. Did they like them, if they liked them why and if they didn't why not. I was surprised by the response that majority would have liked more information on the PDAs. For more information go to using PDAs with students

This is an interview with Rajiv Singh, maritime lecturer, at Challenger TAFE on how he uses PDAs to enhance his work. He talks about how he uses his PDA as a mobile reference source and the usefulness of PDAs for his maritime students. For more information go to technology and PDA software.