All the latest Moodle news

Having recently attended a Moodle conference in Brisbane, Moodle Moot ’08, I thought I’d share my notes on some of the great presentations and sessions we attended…

A trip to Brisbane

Had a great weekend in Brisbane…so many idiots on the road though! Best thing? We got to see my 5 year old nephew Angus and spoil him rotten!

Good design is worth fighting for!

Fight for good design!
Fight for usability!
Fight for a decent looking, user friendly, cool and stylish interface!
Why?

For a better customer experience, a satisfied customer, to be competitive. The next generation is coming (Generation Z) and they are more fashion and design conscious than ever before. Be ready!

Be more effective with your emails

Emails Vs. Letters Remember all the different types of letters we learnt to write (business, casual, personal), the different ways to structure them, different ways to sign-off? How does this compare to Email? When you check the mailbox, what gets your attention first? What I miss about letter writing is: I know, from the structure [...]

Feeling Slack because my Dad’s got a blog!

Is nothing sacred? My Dad’s got a blog AND he’s getting more comments than me… If it’s not enough he humiliates me in real life…

Welcome to teaching and learning in 2008

So it’s the beginning of 2008 and it’s time to get back into it. But, before we do, and in case you missed it…. bumped into Kevin Rudd on Christmas Eve…

US University puts classes on YouTube

Berkley University, California has put free videos of courses on YouTube. Have a look at their YouTube homepage. Check out their three sections, Courses, Events and Campus Life; More than 300 hours of University of California, Berkeley, classes and events are available online in this media rich format. The university began online broadcasts, called “webcasts”, [...]

Reviews of the LearnScope Regional Event ’07

Regan Harding shares some of her thought provoking experiences with Youth at Risk and Generation Y students and the treasures within. While Kate Jones had a clear message, there’s no need to recreate the wheel, there are plenty of great media rich resources out there.

Goodness Gracious!

How to be Gracious Online

This blog post was inspired by an article I read in the September 2007 edition of Vogue.

I was sitting at the hairdresser last week, having my foils done, and I came across the following excerpt, taken from the interview with Capricia Penavic Marshall, the social secretary to President and Mrs Clinton from 1997 until 2001;

“Nothing is more elegant than beautiful manners. People who can handle any situation with grace, humour and aplomb will be welcome guests ans treasured friends.”
I thought instantly, about all the times someone had been gracious to me online and the people that had not. Those that have been rude are not highly thought of or called upon to ‘join in’. Those that have been polite and gracious are in my close networks, circle of friends and I sincerely love communicating with them online.
So here are a few of my tips

This Blogger is a true Slogger!

Keeping up with “the Waters”…

Every time I check my netvibes (RSS Aggregator), I am astounded that there is one or two new posts from Sue Waters. I’ve mentioned Sue a few times throughout this blog and her content often inspires me to write a post in response. Like this post I wrote in response to Sue’s article about innovation being challenged by all the constraints currently on us, like blocked sites within DET.

Sue is a Aquaculture teacher at Challenger TAFE in Perth. She trials a lot of new technology with her classes, on her blog she provides useful examples, guidelines, tips and much more. If you are interested in m-Learning, PDA’s, mobile phones, spy glasses, etc, and you don’t already read or subscribe to Sues blog, you’re missing out on loads of good tips and advice.

another blocked site? feeling stifled? what can you do?

Please Don’t stop the Innovation

The availability and access to these tools and this technology has resulted in so much innovation, collaboration, creativity and excitement from teachers, students, community and industry. While this has been very inspiring, there is obviously material out there, on these spaces, open to the world wide web, that legally shouldn’t be, may be against policy, unsafe, breach privacy and child protection legislation and therefore, those websites get blocked inside the DET world.
I do NOT however, think the solution is to block everything.
So what can we do?

Who’s responsibility is it to guide young people in these spaces? Their parents? Do they understand it themselves? How can we, as teachers, coaches and mentors, guide them in these spaces, prepare them for use of this technology in the workplace if we can’t access them?

There’s an obvious effort by educators to “engage youth, get on their wavelength” (article by Khyiah Angel from the NSW Teachers Federation), there are generation studies emerging at a rate of knots as the Baby Boomers and Generation Jones try to embrace technology, get their head around the effect that video games have had on Generations X & Y, and how this all might affect us in the workplace. How can we do this if we can’t access the technology that our children “live” in and work with?

Steve Jobs and a Field of Women

I flew to Sydney early on Friday August 10th for the ICVET Learning Powerhouse 2007 – Sustaining the Spark conference. It was such a great day for sharing, collaborating, networking with colleagues and viewing product showcases. I must say, I gave my newfound blogging/twitter network a bit of a rap while I was there and I got some interest in the Web2.0 apps we are all using. I was very motivated by some of the speakers. You can see more on my moblog.
So what’s this about Steve Jobs?

On the flight, I was delighted to read in the QANTAS magazine that when recently attending the “All Things Digital” conference with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs was heard referring to recent statistics about iTunes becoming one of the most popular programs for Windows and stated; “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell!”
So, we stayed in Sydney for the weekend for the AFL Field of Women 2007 event (and of course some shopping). This was an amazing event for Breast Cancer Network Australia with 100% of proceeds going to Breast Cancer. Great to see the Sydney Swans (yes I’m a fan) win. More photo’s on Flickr.