View the eMagazine Supplement on Formative eAssessment in the Publications Section.

This video clip was produced using Flypaper, http://www.flypaper.net/, a free authoring tool that I'm currently experimenting with. Keep your eyes open for either an eBook or an overview in May's eMagazine. (Why not take a look yourself)

If you have any comments and/or contributions to make, please send them...

• ...using the Online Comment/Feedback Form or
• ...email the editor John Dalziel at support@rsc-northwest.ac.uk

The Regional Support Centre eMagazine provides news of funding, current projects, initiatives and examples of good practice in eLearning, and offers ideas and support for the HE, FE, ACL, WBL, 6th Form and Specialist College Managers & Practitioners, that are supported by the RSC here in the Northwest.

Note: - Although every care has been taken in the preparation of this eMagazine, no warranty is given by the author or the Regional Support Centre-Northwest as to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained within it and neither the authors nor the RSC-Northwest shall be responsible or liable for any errors or omissions. 

Building on the success of the 2007 conference, which attracted over 200 delegates from across the UK and as far away as Russia and New Zealand, the 2008 conference will focus on the relationships between research, innovation, and development. There will be a distinct spotlight on the concepts of learning environments and their elearning components - as they exist now, and as they might transpire as time progresses.

Keynote Speakers:

Les Watson, Freelance Educational Adviser, Interim Director of Information Services at the Royal Holloway University of London and Consultant to the Joint Information Systems Committee e-learning programme on Technology Enhanced Learning Environments

Eric Hamilton, Research Professor and Director, Centre for Research on Learning and Teaching, Institute for Information Technology Applications, US Air Force Academy

 

Call for Registration:

The conference is open to everyone working in further and higher education, both nationally and internationally. You can register a place at the conference by completing the online electronic registration form (http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/Sites/SOLSTICE/Form/Conference/Registration.htm).

Fees for the conference and evening seminar are detailed on the website.

For further details please visit the conference website at www.edgehill.ac.uk/solstice/conference2008.

This site is a service to convert your webpages to pdfs

I've had a quick play by converting last month's single page eMagazine into a pdf file; both flash movies and hyperlinks work but some of the interactive content (e.g. embedded web pages) are not converted. Have a go yourself at http://www.htm2pdf.co.uk/. 

Note: - Please note this service may terminate at any time.

Want to create your own ’safety’ sign for the entrance or toilet door?

Maybe for work?

Whatever the reason, Sign Builder can help you out. It is a simple online safety sign maker where you can create and customize your own printable safety signs. Choose sign type (Safety, ANSI , HAZMAT , Lockout signs) and use the provided sign builder to generate the sign. Once the sign is ready just save it to your hard drive and print it out.

Find out more at http://www.stclaire.com/go/industrial_signage/sb2/html. 

TimeMachiner is a mini-application that lets you, and/or your learners, email others in the future.

Use it to remind yourself, and/or others, to do something that you, or they, may forget; keep your future self on the straight and narrow, even wish your friends happy birthday...

...the possibilities are endless!

Features:

• Send an email and get it delivered on a selected date in the future.
• Send as many messages as you like.
• Free. No sign up or registration needed.

Check out TimeMachiner at http://www.timemachiner.com.

• Face-in-hole
• Images for fun
• It’s 3 am in the White House Poll
• Quotation
• Readers Digest
• So you think you've had a bad day!
• Whatever happened to Thomas the Tank Engine (animated)

In spite of my best efforts I didn't get a part in 'Star Wars'

or 'Gladiator'...

But Face-in-hole can be fun and, with imagination, educational...

Try it out at http://www.faceinhole.com/.

They can be used for a multitude of purposes.

Key skills, ESOL, Family Learning, Languages etc...

• - for generating stories / personal anecdotes ( The time I met Paris Hilton etc)
• - to practice a range of grammar structures. Learners could create images that can be used for 'used to' and learners could either ask about the experience or 'creator' can make up anecdotes to tell them. e.g. I used to play football for Manchester United etc.
• - get learners to create their own face-in-hole pictures, using their own images and then come to class and tell the class about their imaginary experiences.

Often when learners have to talk about their own experiences, they can't think of much to say. Hopefully these resulting images will stimulate their imagination and they can have fun making up stories and anecdotes.

You could even try to convince your learners that some of them are true! (I did appear in the stage play of Austin Powers!)

PS: -  I didn't save any of these, I used Snippy to capture the image!

• Application of Online Learning - NIACE
• eCPD - Atomic Learning
• Exploring Successful Learning Online - NIACE

The Academy is pleased to announce the 2008 eLearning research call is now available and funding to a maximum of £30,000 per project is available for up to 6 successful projects. This years call themes are:

 

1. Using technology to support the learning contract between employers, students and higher education institutions
2. Using technology to support student transition into higher education
3. Using technology to support assessment and the delivery of student feedback

For further information and a expression of interest form please go to e-learning research observatory page http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/elearning/elro

Dr Katherine Clark, Associate Academic Adviser Centre for Bioscience, tells us...

"The Centre for Bioscience, a Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy, supports teaching in higher education to improve the student learning experience in the biosciences. As part of this support we offer funding to practitioners for teaching and learning projects within higher education."

"We are currently offering grants of up to £3000 for members of the HE in FE bioscience community, this funding is offered to encourage the development, establishment or validation of innovative learning, teaching and assessment materials or methods. Deadline for applications is Wednesday 16th April 2008 further information is available from our website at http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/funding/tdf/."

"If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me"

Dr Katherine Clark, Associate Academic Advisor;

• E-mail: k.a.clark@leeds.ac.uk

• http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk

• Centre for Bioscience
  The Higher Education Academy
  Room 9.15, Worsley Building
  University of Leeds
  Leeds LS2 9JT
• Tel: 0113 343 1852
  Fax: 0113 343 5894

Manchester City Council has transformed their website and won the BT Online excellence awards to become "The Best Local Authority Website in Britain," (http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/index.php) as voted by over 27,000 members of the public - thanks to their Web 2.0 website, powered by the Jadu Content Management System (http://www.jadu.co.uk/site/index.php). Manchester also use the Jadu XForms Professional online enterprise forms system to manage service requests.

Winners in other categories include the BBC, Amazon, Google and Tesco. (http://www.btonlineexcellence.com/winners.php)

Lancashire County Council's Children's Services website
'whatnow.co.uk' (http://www.whatnow.co.uk/site/index.php)- another site powered by Jadu - also received fourth place in the 'Best Kids Website' category.

Read the Jadu News article at http://www.jadu.co.uk/site/scripts/news_article.php?newsID=51

I know this article is about learners in Canada but how do your organisations view the use of technology for study goups like this? 

"First-year student Chris Avenir is fighting charges of academic misconduct for helping run an online chemistry study group via Facebook last term, where 146 classmates swapped tips on homework questions that counted for 10 per cent of their mark."

Read the full article at http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/309855.

The online democracy charity MySociety has launched two new websites.

• 'WhatDoTheyKnow?' is aimed at making it easy for citizens to submit requests to public bodies under the Freedom of Information Act, providing provides users with simple request forms and the ability to browse previous requests:http://foi.mysociety.org/

• 'GroupsNearYou' is a search tool allowing people to find email lists, forums and social networking groups in or relating to their neighbourhood: http://www.groupsnearyou.com/

The government's £10.4bn skills agency, the Learning and Skills Council, is to be closed down - with most of the funds to be transferred to local authorities.

The plans have been announced by the government in a White Paper setting out the funding mechanism for the raising of the school leaving age to 18.

Read the full article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7300852.stm. 

All newly or partly built colleges will have to adopt wind turbines, solar panels or other renewable energy, under plans to cut global warming.

And all new colleges in England will have to emit no carbon by 2016, skills secretary John Denham has said. Read the full article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7318527.stm.

...students who cheat by commissioning essays from other students are proving harder to catch than other types of plagiarism.

Students are using websites to outsource their essays - inviting other students to put forward their most competitive bids for the work.

Read the full article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7302641.stm. 

Universities and colleges in England are learning their shares of an average 3.3% grant increase from the national funding council for next year.

Read the full article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7279755.stm. 

The number of students going to university has fallen since variable fees were introduced, statistics show.

The figure dropped back to 40% of the 17-30 age group in 2006/07 from a high of 42% the previous year.

Read the full article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7316533.stm. 

...to forge closer links between industry and higher education, says the government.

A White Paper outlines the government's vision for the UK to become an "innovation nation". Read the full article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7294278.stm.

A third of teachers struggle to use the technology schools are equipped with and want more support and training, the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) said today.

Read the full article at http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,,2248219,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=8. 

Tracking technology in the corridors of learning.

"Our goal is to ask what benefits can we get out of this technology and how can we protect people's privacy at the same time," says Magda Balazinska, the project leader and assistant professor of computer science and engineering at UW. "We want to get a handle on the privacy issues that will crop up if these systems become a reality." 

Read the full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/13/research.privacy?gusrc=rss&feed=8. 

 

Construction firms seeking building contracts in colleges will have to provide apprenticeships and training schemes for local people if public money is involved, ministers announced today.

It is the first time in any major procurement programme that companies will be contractually obliged to invest in the skills and training needs of staff, said John Denham, secretary of state for innovation and skills. Read the full article at http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/story/0,,2269099,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=8.

Penny Egan, executive director of the US-UK Fulbright Commission, on why picking the brightest students and supporting them to study at the top institutions is making the world a better place.

Read the article at http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,2269080,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=8. 

...a cross-government strategy, which is intended to support disabled people to do the things non-disabled people take for granted.

It makes a series of ‘new’ commitments:

• Demonstrating how to move resources from professional assessment & care management to user-led support, advocacy and brokerage so people get the right support to make decisions for themselves
  
• A regional initiative to develop independent living opportunities for older disabled people with high levels of support needs
• A national strategy to enable people to remain in employment when they acquire an impairment or their condition worsens
• An awareness campaign aimed at practitioners to ensure that health, social care and other services are delivered in ways which will give disabled people more choice and control over how their needs are met
• A new toolkit to assist the development of local independent living strategies for & with older disabled people
• Good practice guidance to enable people to have choice and control over their continuing health care

Read the press release at http://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/0/FB48BFBB7CBDB17080257401003E58F8?OpenDocument.

The Independent Living Strategy is published at http://www .officefordisability.gov.uk/independent/strategy.asp

Note: The Office for Disability Issues was set up in 2005 to help government achieve its vision of equality for disabled people by 2025. It works to make equality a reality for disabled people by:

* promoting joined-up government to improve policy making and service delivery

* involving disabled people in what we do and encouraging others to do the same

* being a source of evidence and expertise on disability for the rest of government

* promoting human rights and ensuring effective disability equality legislation

* communicating what is happening on disability across government.

Website http://www.officefordisability.gov.uk/

Press reports on 6th March 2008 suggest there are some misunderstandings of the purpose of HEFCE’s funding for widening participation.

Read the full article at http://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/lfi/DNWA-7CGN92. 

 

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) announced on 6th March 2008 that it will make available £7,476 million in funding for universities and colleges in England for 2008-09. This represents a 3.3 per cent increase in total grant over the current year (2007-08).

Read the full article at http://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/lfi/DNWA-7CGDK2. 

Full details of the recurrent grants and tables showing allocations to individual institutions are given in HEFCE 2008/ <http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2005/05_13/> 12, 'Recurrent grants for 2008-09', which will be available on the HEFCE web-site, www.hefce.ac.uk under Publications on Thursday 6 March.

These allocations are provisional; final allocations will be announced in July 2008.

• Internet Power - A 1995 Video Explaining the Internet
• Podcast: Economics Podcasts from the Royal Economic Society
• Podcast: RSC monthly podcast -
• Vodcast tool: Viddix
• Vodcast - Rich Survey

This month's Podcast Interview is with Emma Newbery about the use of MySpace at Blackpool and Fylde College

 

Emma Newbury, Programme Leader for BTEC National Diploma in Media at Blackpool and Fylde college, discusses how they have used the social Network ‘MySpace’ for advertising, communication and showcasing students work.

Emma discusses the use of the MySpace page which was set up to promote and support a film making course at the college, as well as mentioning the page set up to promote their new Learning Resource Centre. Emma explains how the site has attracted new students that traditional advertising would not have reached. She goes onto explain what “Pimping” the site means as well giving some ideas on how social networks, such as Second Life, could develop our virtual world.

http://www.myspace.com/filmmakingatblackpool
http://www.myspace.com/theloopcentre

The Interview can be downloaded from here

http://www.garageband.com/mp3/MySpace.mp3?|pe1|WdjZPXLrvP2raVa_ZG1s

 

Use this mp3 player to listen to the podcast...

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If you wish to...

• ...make any comments on our podcasts or
  
• ...be a volunteer for future podcasts (sharing good practice)

then please contact Kevin

He can be contacted by email
at kh@rsc-northwest.ac.uk

VIDDIX is a new video platform that allows users to add all kinds of webcontent to their video timeline.

Two panels...

• ...the panel on the left is used to display video.
• ...the panel on the right (iPanel) is used to display the extra web elements (links, images, flash animation, polls etc) that are connected to the video.

Take a look at this introductory video - unfortunately the embed code only embeds the video panel and not the iPanel.

I've no doubt that using the dual panel is going to be really useful for e-learning purposes.

Find out more at http://www.viddix.com/. 

iPods are not used for just for listening to music!

The Apple-developed music player now features all kinds of accessories to help you study better, and now other companies are in a rush to get their designs in sync with the iPod.

Learners in schools, further education & higher education learners and even adults are taking advantage of the educational benefits an iPod affords them. From downloadable podcasts to just-for-iPod study guides and applications, learning on the go has never been easier.

To find out about the many different ways you can transform your iPod into a learning device, check out http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/100-ways-to-use-your-ipod-to-learn-and-study-better.

Thanks to Lisa Valentine, RSC-Northwest's eLearning Adviser (Inclusion), for flagging this article. 

The jungle of e-learning related jargon seems to get denser every year. This a to z of e-learning is designed to assist you.

Go to http://e-learningzone.co.uk/atoz.html. 

ElectroCity is an interesting online game designed for education. Based around the SimsCity principle, users have to try to build a financially viable eco-city where all the inhabitants can also be happy.

There is a teachers section with some down loadable worksheets. Although aimed at 7 - 9 year olds, and ideal for Family Learning, it has great potential for use with non English speakers for language development;

Find out more at http://electrocity.co.nz/.

If any of you try it, please let me know how useful it was.

Note: - There is also a downloadable version of the game for those with slower connections and wonder of wonders there is both a PC and a MAC version. It's quite a small download too ( 1 - 2 Mb). You can find these in the teachers' resources section.

The Eye-Fi Card is a wireless memory card. It automatically uploads pictures from your digital camera to your PC or Mac and to your favorite photo sharing, printing, blogging or social networking site.

No cables, no waiting, no hassles. 

Reduces the staff development required to engage with 'evidence-capture-via-digital-images'. 

Find out more at http://www.eye.fi/. 

Knowtes is a flashcard-based learning community;

"Knowtes optimizes your study. By adding a card to your Knowtes memory, it becomes due at optimized intervals. The Knowtes Adaptive Learning Engine then adjusts how frequently you have to study cards in your memory based on how well you do on them. No more wasting time on cards you already know by heart. You can even visually watch your cards move from short to long-term memory as you study them!"

• Highly customizable interface
• Dynamic study graphs
• Embed your decks on your own web page
• Integrated music player (desktop library only)

Find out more at http://knowtes.com/.

A huge collection of Mp3 sound files from all over the world, the sounds have been tagged by country and described and a visitor to the site can take a sound journey around the world. 

Find out more at http://soundtransit.nl/index.html. 

For possible uses within education see Nik Peachey's blog at http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/03/soundscapes-from-soundtransit.html. 

Timelines.tv is a new and exciting on-line history resource provided free for the user. It offers a wealth of quality TV documentary, arranged on interactive historical timelines that put you in control of your journey through the past.

Find out more at http://www.timelines.tv/. 

A new way of organizing, sharing, and presenting web content...

• Provide a quick briefing, a simple tutorial or guided tour on any subject.
• Re-mix and re-package blog posts to encourage browsing and embedding...
• Create a guided tour for any website
• Bundle important course resources for learners

Find out more at http://slides.diigo.com/.

Krita is a painting and image editing application for KOffice. Krita is part of KOffice since version 1.4. Krita contains both ease-of-use and fun features like guided painting and high-end features like support for 16 bit images, CMYK, L*a*b and even OpenEXR HDR images.

Find out more at http://www.koffice.org/krita/. 

PicBite is a fast and easy way to comment your images online. Upload images and comment them right in your browser momentarily. No additional software or special skills are required. Find out for yourself at http://picbite.com/. This is one I did earlier...

Click the thumbnail below

or go to http://picbite.com/7190nuvdii/.

This has many applications in both teaching and learning.

Pikifix is the latest tool to join the online image editing tools. Like in the case with many others you don’t need to register to use it. Simply upload the image form your PC or get it from URL and you’re ready to go.

Features

• Resize and crop your pictures online.
• Apply dozens of creative effects.
• Add borders and shadows.
• Add custom text.
• Download and save processed images to your computer.
• Get embed code and use images on weblogs and profile pages.

Find out more at http://www.pikifx.com/.

We currently have, running on Auto-pilot, this month's storyboard of video clips (Looping approximately every 19:29 min) The clips are...

1. John Kovalic's Dork Tower 1 (00:55 min)
   - a short video; in this Dork Tower comic come to life, we learn that what Microsoft doesn’t know about you leaves very little to the imagination–and to your online privacy.
2. ACL Case Studies (RSC-Wales) (11:43 min)
   Our thanks to Esther Barrett (e-Learning Advisor ACL JISC RSC Wales) for giving us permission to show this video.
   
3. John Kovalic's Dork Tower 2 (00:53 min)
   - a short video; in this Dork Tower comic come to life, is the technology appropriate or is it technology for technology sake?
4. Design Coding (03:21 min) The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) is back with another marketing rap. This time he describes how web standards and proper design can affect the ranking and conversion of pages on your site.
5. Disgo Video Plus review (02:36 min) Zara takes a look at the Disgo Video Plus, the budget camcorder, ideal for capturing video evidence for eAssessment and eRARPA Portfolios; I've purchased one for my own use.

Why not take a look yourself and go to http://TVrscnw.notlong.com and watch the RSC-Northwest's TV channel

RSC-NW TV Channel, will aim...

to provide news of...

• funding,
• current projects,
• initiatives and examples of good practice in eLearning

...to offer ideas and support for the Higher Education, Further Education, Personal and Community Development Learning (ACL), 6th Form College, Work Based Learning and Specialist College Managers & Practitioners etc., that are supported by the RSC here in the Northwest.

...and to produce videos of events and/or training and to show them...

...so that those who are unable to attend face-to-face events, will be able to experience martini learning (any time, any place...)