Picnik

Greetings Bloggers,

During this post I will be discussing with you the capabilities of the Internet site Picnik (2008). First I would like to show you an image that I uploaded from Flickr (2009).

So this is the before.......

And this is the after.....

Now I did play around with the capabilities of Picnik quite a lot but I did choose to alter the image but still retain what I looked like. The options available are quite extensive, although it is disappointing that so many of them are only available through premium.

Just as a photo enhancer this program works quite well. For students using digital cameras, to have access to a program that can fix up any red eye, sharpen the image and fix problems with exposure would be quite advantageous.

If I were to use this in a classroom one aspect I could take advantage of would be to utilise this program in conjunction with the Arts Essential Learnings (QSA, 2009), specifically the Visual Arts. Students can work with the Picnik program to change the focus of certain digital images they are given such as adding light colours to bring them to the fore or darkening parts of an image to make it recede.

Thank you for reading,

- Alex Ricks

REFERENCES:

Flickr. (2009). Photostream. Retrieved July 30, 2009, from http://www.flickr.com/

Picnik. (2008). Photo editing made fun. Retrieved July 30, 2009, from http://www.picnik.com/

Queensland Studies Authority. (2007). The Arts Essential Learnings. Retrieved July 30, 2009, from http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/downloads/learning/qcar_el_arts_yr5.pdf

YouTube and TeacherTube

Greetings Bloggers,

During this post I will be discussing with you the advantages I have found with the site YouTube and TeacherTube. I often use YouTube for personal uses, mainly listening to music and movies, but I have previously used YouTube for educational purposes. My previous encounter was in a Prep class that had a Jungle theme to their learning and the class wanted to learn about how people swing from vines to vines in the jungle. I worked with the teacher and discovered online a clip of Tarzan swinging from vine to vine that I could display to the students on the class Interactive White Board.

In my current class I am teaching a Space unit from the Primary Connections (Australian Goverment Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, n.d.) website about Space. My teacher wants to have the students of the class learn explicitly about the phases of the moon. Looking on TeacherTube I have found a clip about the phases of the moon which I will use as an educational tool to show students both what the moon looks like and the name of each phase. The video itself displays just that, it shows an image of the moon in each of its phases and displays the name that goes with it.



Thank you for reading,

- Alex Ricks

REFERENCES:

Australian Goverment Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. (n.d.). Primary Connections linking science with literacy. Retrieved July 30, 2009 from http://www.science.org.au/primaryconnections/index.htm

Quizzes

Greetings Bloggers,

During this post I will be talking to you about Quizzes, specifically those created using the ClassMarker website. I chose to create my quiz for an audience outside of the schooling sector, so I created my quiz for a club that I am a committee member of called the Rockhampton Strategy Gamers Association (2009). The quiz was created for forum members to brush up on some of the basic skills of the game that we are a part of, Warhammer 40k. More than likely those of you that read the test will not have a great understanding of what the questions are asking for, but the quiz was created with people that had particular knowledge in mind.

I found the making of the quiz quite an easy and simple process and it was only limited by my knowledge of the subject. There is a wide variety of question types from multiple choice to true and false and although I did not use it in my quiz there is also an option for essay style questions. It seems that in today's society online testing is the way of the future and research is being done to help phase out written testing in favour of online testing (Way, 2006).

The quiz that I have utilised seemed to be an effective method for checking current understandings of the members of my club and I believe that while effective as a formative assessment it could also be quite useful as a summative assessment with the right questions. I would use online quizzes in my classroom for any essential learning as it seemed to be a simple, effective way of testing student's knowledge.

http://www.classmarker.com/embedded_quizzes/?quiz=ce025c7990e1081478e35395ac8c3cf3

Thank you for your time,

- Alex Ricks

REFERENCES:

Rockhampton Strategy Gamers Association. (2009). Warhammer 40k rules test. Retrieved July 30, 2009, from http://rsga.forumup.com.au/viewtopic.php?p=723&mforum=rsga#723

Way, Walter. (2006). Online Testing Research: Informing and Guiding Transitions to Computerized Assessment. Retrieved July 30, 2009, from http://www.pearsoned.com/RESRPTS_FOR_POSTING/ASSESSMENT_RESEARCH/AR2.%20PEMwp_OTR_y06n01.pdf

Flickr

Greetings Bloggers,

During this entry I will talk to you about my experiences with an online program called Flickr (Flickr, 2009). This program is an online site dedicated to photo storage and gives you the opportunities to also display these photos onto other sites and programs such as this Blog. I found it to be an easy to grasp program which I believe is especially important for a classroom setting. As it is easy to grasp I find navigating the site a comfortable experience and I would feel confident in presenting this to a class of students, knowing they too would be capable of grasping this program.

If I was to utilise this in a class setting one of the options available I would like to capitalise on is the sites ability to sort and separate photos quickly and easily. If a class is taking multiple digital photos throughout the year I believe it would be important to have a program such as Flickr for students to quickly and easily upload these photos and sort them into batches. One batch could be for their science unit, one for their art, one for their maths, etc. Because this is an online site these photos do not just have to sit in a folder and do nothing, instead these photos can be shared amongst the class and even the school and students can also post their photos onto a Blog, the possibilities are endless.

Well to conclude this Blog entry I leave you with a photo I uploaded from my computer to Flickr and then, using Flickr, posted onto my Blog. It is a photo of six members of the Rockhampton Strategy Gamers, a club I am a committee member of. These gentlemen have just finished participating in a club event and are now posing graciously for the camera. It took me very little time to post this and it was as simple as finding the file on my computer, uploading it, allowing Flickr access to my Blog and then send it along.

Thank you for reading,

- Alex Ricks

REFERENCES:

Flickr. (2009). Flickr. Retrieved July 27, 2009, from http://www.flickr.com/

IMG_0223
Originally uploaded by AlexRicks1987

PowerPoint

Greetings Bloggers,

In this post I will be discussing with you my experiences with the Microsoft program PowerPoint and how interaction with my courseware helped to build upon this knowledge. I have a strong knowledge of PowerPoint and I am not too sure of why that is. I have used PowerPoint ever since high school for school projects and I have even used it at university. In fact, last term during my prac my teacher even had me create and teach lessons about PowerPoint presentations for the students. So by a large amount of trial and error and neccessity I have discovered as much as I can about PowerPoint. Although it is only until I have gone through this courseware did I realise how strong my knowledge of it was.

I logged onto the CQU Moodle Pilot (Central Queensland University, 2009) and accessed the PowerPoint courseware. While I did enjoy the humourous layout for the site I was taken to (Act360, 2007), and the langauge was easy to understand and the visuals provided were useful and effective for catering to multiple learning styles, for me, the site treaded over areas I was already familiar with. So while I can see how someone quite new to PowerPoint would find the tutorial useful, I found it only reinforced what I already knew. This does not mean I believe myself to be some sort of expert in the field of PowerPoint presentations of course, it just means that I am a person who does have the basics and even some of the more advanced steps to creating presentations within my abilities.

I was unaware on how prolific PowerPoint was in our modern world though, so it amazed me to hear how it has become such an important tool. So I am glad to see that I do have a strong grasp on the subject and that schools, such as the one I am working with, values PowerPoint and wishes its' students to learn about it.

Well normally in my posts I would give an idea on how PowerPoint can be used in a classroom and the one I leave you with is one I saw recently in a tutorial at University in Learning Managment 4 (EDED 11399 - Learning Management 4) where the lecturer was able to create a quiz using PowerPoint. The presentation had questions which a list of answers which were hyper linked to two different slides, one was if the answer was correcy and one if the answer was wrong. It seemed to be a simple, effective way of creating an interactive quiz without using the Internet.

Thank you for listening,

- Alex Ricks

REFERENCES:

Act360. (2007). PowerPoint in the Classroom. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from http://www.actden.com/pp/

Central Queensland University. (2009). An Introduction to teachers' Delivery Technologies. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=671

Voki Avatars

Greetings Bloggers,

Today I have been introduced to Voki Avatars at the Voki Website (Sideman & Sideman, 2007) which I discovered through the CQU Moodle website (Central Queensland University, 2009). I found the idea of a Voki to be quite interesting although I did find some difficulty in accessing the site through Internet Explorer. When I would attempt to log in it would not accept my details so for anyone attempting to use Voki I recommend using Mozilla Firefoz or Google Chrome instead, I have had no problems accessing Voki with either of these Web Browsers.

Now instead of typing out one of the ideas I had for utilising Voki in a classroom I thought I would instead allow this nifty Avatar inform you.

Thank you for listening,

- Alex Ricks

Get a Voki now!

REFERENCES:

Central Queensland University. (2009). An Introduction to teachers' Delivery Technologies. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=671

Sideman, A., & Sideman, G. (2007). Voki. Retrieved July 23, 2009, from http://www.voki.com/

Setting Up An E.Portfolio

Greetings Bloggers,

Today I am going to be talking about the e.Portfolio I have recently set up for Managing E-Learning. The particular site that I used to set this up goes by the name of Mahara, which was introduced to my through the CQU course ware (Central Queensland University, 2009). I found the instructions to be quite useful in setting up my account but I did hit a snag at first when it came to paying for the account. Although the cost is quite cheap I do not personally own any way of paying for things over the Internet so it took the help of one of my peers to get over that bump in the road.

After viewing the capabilities of Mahara I am of the opinion that it could be of use in a classroom context. The first thought that springs to mind is in a High School setting with regards to students setting up their first resume. I remember when I was a student at school it was difficult to find a format that I could easily understand and could be easily update and I think Mahara could fill this void. Mahara has its own resume building capabilities that I believe would be easy for students to understand.

In a Primary School setting it could be useful as a teaching tool for teachers who wish to show students information over the Internet such as Youtube clips or particular sites without risking exposure to unwelcome findings. Students would be able to visit Mahara, view the appropriate sites and clips and have a decreased chance of stumbling upon information over the Internet that teachers and parents would not want themt to.

These are my thoughts, thank you for your time,

- Alex

REFERENCES:

Central Queensland University. (2009). An Introduction to teachers' Delivery Technologies. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=671

WIKI's

Greetings Bloggers,

During this fine evening I have been investigating WIKI's. I was surprised to see that WIKI's are for more than just Wikipedia. Wikipedia is one of the few WIKI's that I have been in contact with and I had not realised that a WIKI had a use other than just conveying a lot of information about anything.

While viewing the Common Craft video (LeFever, 2007) I was impressed to see the idea of creating a simple, yet effective inventory list for a camping trip. I believe applications such as both of these could be effective in the classroom.

The idea that I would utilise WIKI technology with would be as simple as a K-W-L chart. As a class the students could have a topic and brainstorm what they already know. This information goes into the WIKI and then from this students add what they want to know. As the learning progresses students can update the page and add more questions they want answers to, so the learning can be more real for students as it's questions they want answering being placed in the WIKI. Finally as students complete class work or, even better, personal study the WIKI can be updated with they have learned. The end result would hopefully be a WIKi dedicated to a particular theme of learning with preconceived notions that students had, questions they wanted answering and then answers presented in their own words. Hargreaves (2001) explains that when knowledge is problem focused and demand driven it becomes more engaging for the learners involved.

Thank you for your time,

- Alex Ricks

REFERENCES:

Hargreaves, D. (2001). Creative professionalism The roles of teaches in the knowledge society. [Electronic Version] London: Demos.

LeFever, L. (2007). Wikis in Plain English. Retrieved July 21, 2009, from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

Setting Up An RSS Aggregator

Greetings Bloggers,

This post I will be discussing how I have set up an RSS Aggregator. I have discovered that RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication that is a single website that acts as a hub for several websites that you may view (LeFever, 2007). The particular website I chose to act as this hub, Google Reader, was chosen as it links with Blogger so you do not need to create a new account and to add the website you wish to follow it is as easy as copying the URL and pasting it into the 'Add a subscription; section of the site Google Reader (Central Queensland University, 2009).

I find the idea behind the RSS quite appealing. It is much like having a one stop shopping centre instead of going out to several different stores for everything you need. It is a simple yet effective tool that saves time and hassle when checking on web sites that have constantly changing information, such as Blogs.

One use that I can see for a schooling environment that I would look to put into practice is for Science. In today's Science classroom I use the Primary Connections website which advocates the use of science journalling in its assessment (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2007) and I believe a Blog could be effective for this task. Instead of having students keep a hard copy of a Science journal through their learning experiences they could instead keep a Blog Journal for their learning. I believe this would have several advantages such as being able to gain feedback from their peers about their thoughts and to view the entries of other students. An RSS Aggregator would also be an effective method for students to be able to keep track of an entire class rooms' Blogs.

It could also be possible to work with classes from other parts of the same town or further out that are completing similar units and collaborate together on an even larger scale. I think this could be an effective way for students to display their thoughts and gain feedback from both peers and teachers in a quicker, simpler way. As this would also make it easier for educators to keep track of their students work.

Thank you for your time,

Alex Ricks

REFERENCES:

Central Queensland University. (2009). An Introduction to teachers' Delivery Technologies. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=671

Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. (2007). Primary Connections linking science with literacy. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from

http://www.science.org.au/primaryconnections/index.htm

LeFever, L. (2007). Video: RSS in Plain English. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

Active Learning

Hey there Bloggers,

So I have been going over the information presented in this topic and I thought it was time I shared my thoughts on the matter.

Active learning seems like a really interesting idea that I would like to utilise in the classroom. The 'real world' aspect is something I value as I remember there being nothing more irritating in school than leafing through a textbook and wondering to myself, 'When am I ever going to use this?'

I do however believe it will take a very solid understanding of one's class to really get that connection. To have an understanding of what will actually be meaningful to the students in your class and then capitalizing on that.

I have always felt that the idea of making learning meaningful in a 'real world' context was important and it was nice to see that be affirmed by reading the text.

Now while viewing Active Learning I also took part in some testing to give myself a greater understanding about how I learn and I thought I would sure this information with my fellow Bloggers.

Personality:

My type is ESFJ:

Extroverted Sensing Feeling Judging

33% 5o% 25% 22%

I am:

• moderately expressed extrovert
• moderately expressed sensing personality
• moderately expressed feeling personality
• slightly expressed judging personality

I was not overly surprised by the outcomes of this test. Most people that know me in real life would agree I can be a bit of an extrovert (some may even call that an understatement) and I value sensing and feelings quite higly as well.

Learning Style:

Well the learning style showed me a few things.

• I have a moderate preference for being Active over being Reflective
• I have a very strong preference for Sensing over learning Intuitively
• I am fairly well balanced between Visual and Verbal learning with a slight lean towards Visual.
• I have a moderate prefernce for Sequential learning over Global learning.

Again I am not surprised by these results and I am happy to see that my view that 'Real Life' connections being important for learning is reinforced by my personal preference towards Sensing learning. I know that as a teacher I will strive to make sure my students feel a connection with their learning to the real world and as a student I will endeavour to make sure I can see the connections to my learning to make it feel worthwhile.

Well those are my thoughts and findings for now,

Thank you for reading,

Until next time,

Alex

Hello there Bloggers,

My name's Alex and this is my Blog. This is my very first Blog so bear with me if it's not perfect. I am a 2nd year student at Rockhampton CQU, studying a Bachelor of Learning Management (Early Childhood). I'm going for the three year structure so fingers crossed I finish up next year.

Rocky is my hometown and I grew up here with my Mum and four younger siblings (two brothers and two sisters). I spent a few years working before I began studying and I'm pretty happy with that. I think it's hard to go straight from high school into Uni (a type of school) and then be expected to teach at another school. So the chance for real life experiences is something I'm happy to have.

I am lucky enough to live with my fiancee who is studying Psychology at University and I'm pretty sure this is her last year before she starts her internship (which is pretty cool). I'm not a real huge forum goer or blogger and things like Facebook and Twitter are things I generally avoid so this is all fairly new to me. Interestingly though when I took the Netiquette quizzes I scored quite well on both of them so it seems the small amount of forum using I do and plain, common sense serves me well.

Well I'm sure anyone who starts to frequent this Blog space will start to learn all sorts of interesting things about me and my opinions as I start to look at this Managing E-learning courseware. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Catch you readers around next time, cya all later, I look forward to viewing your Blogs too,

Alex