ONLINE CHAT (Synchronous Learning) - FOOD

I was involved with an online chat about food - one of my favourite pasttimes.
Reflections: -
- it's hard to know when to "start" the chat
- it's hard to tell how the information may be taken or how a response 'reads' (either positive or negative, funny or real) as there is no body language or voice tone to tell
- you have to be a reasonably fast typist and reader (and speller) to participate
- can be frustrating that you can't reverse a spelling/typing errors or "interruptive" responses
- requires questioning and leading for a 'discussion' to occur, as there seems to be disconnected conversations going on. It is harder to keep a 'thread' of conversation going.
- would be great for distant or external students or for "meeting" with people in different locations to cut down on the travelling time.
- Well done Sally & chat participants.
Allison

Other's e-learing experiences

Peter Allen (Adelaide TAFE)
- reinforced "baby steps" for introducing e-learning.
- Email still a very valuable e-learning tool.
- Moodles - can have (alternatives):
* web pages for content (tripod)
* chat rooms (msn messenger)
* bulletin boards (quicktopic.com)
* wikis (seedwiki.com)
* quizmakers (surveymonkey.com)
- yahoo groups offer good platform
- blendedlearning.wikispaces.org website - excellent info on e-learning tools eg wikipedia, google scholar, gnomz cartoons commentary (www.gnomz.com), googlegroups (allows members to be added without them doing anything).

Kim Edgar (education.au)
- Has an article called "Kickstart to e-learning for small RTO's", which she'll pass onto Marlene for us to read.
- She introduced "Hot Potatoes" crosswork maker to other facilitators in her organisation and before she know it another facilitator was using it in class, and getting their IT students to make their own to demonstrate their knowledge of the "jargon", by producing the clues.
- overviews EdNAgroups (www.groups.edna.edu.au), which are free discussion forums for any educational group (see apply for a group & browse Edna groups). This website has a Cert IV in Business Admin discussion group, is a moodle, and is for the "facilitation and promotion of communication and collarboration for Australian educators".
- Marlene will advise of some some training being organised by Kim about the advantages for the EdnaGroup website.

Other Orange group sharing their Experiences/Terminology game
- Business SA has used a survey monkey investigating how much e-learning is happening in business
- tripod websites are good for linking other useful sites
- e-terminology game - terminology & definition on separate cards (each a different colour), randomly mixed - each person receives a term and a definition and has to find the buddy of each with the other group members.
- SCORM - scorm compliant - when e-learning objects can be used on any computer system/platform, computer compliant, works with everything

Making Small Changes brainstorming
- Discussed good "project" ideas for making small changes in our work environments related to e-learning.
- ideas for my own project:
* adding e-learning tools to the Cert IV/V in Bus Admin Janison Online, and/or
* Staff PD session on introducing an e-learning/e-business activity to other lecturers which they can implement into their courses - survey monkey? wikis (for strategic planning, group activities)? blogs? quizmakers? - Need a training session, good instructional notes for lecturers and their students, useful as homework exercises for students.

Karola Laventure (Leapfrog Training)
- Workcover has e-learning tools - able to get a Cert in OHS on line
- Bookmark into favourites useful websites as they are found
- prepare a report to staff to keep them informed of good ideas in e-learning
- do a lot of "risk/discovery" learning when experimenting online
- may need to consider "filters" for luid or explicit information available online.

Talking about Wikis

Quality Teaching Wiki:
Excellent defintions/explanations thus far - hard to add more - well done group. It was also a challenge to overcome the guilty feeling that you were "messing around" with someone else's work.
Applications are endless:
- for distance group work would be great
- checking track of a brainstorming session
- for keeping track of the development of aims and objectives or future strategies for projects, groups etc.
- Could be used as a "wish list" for enterprise bargaining, budget planning etc.
I've started one for a group I'm involved with and your invited to add to the development of this site. Please visit: http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/defining_ceres_sa/defining_ceres_sa.cfm

Exploring Online Learning Tools

- Created a survey at Survey Monkey - easy to use, hard to think of the responses to the questions. Not sure how link this to our janison website?
- A lot of websites requre that you "download" some software or require you to join their membership, these included: Quandary, TAC-software, Quiz Center and Hot Potato. I'll look at these again at a later date.
- Using the Blog to record my exploration in flexible learning during SA Startup Learnscope project.
- Used Puzzlemaker to make a crossword for my Cert IV's "Organise Business Travel".
Very easy to use, and I've save a copy in hope that I can attach it to our Cert IV online website.
- I've had a go getting back into my own website www.tripod.com - was a little confused about how to get into the "editing again" bit but managed to trip over something that allowed me to start editing.
- The SA Start up e-learning terminology quiz was rather hard and it didn't let me know what I got right or wrong - a little disappointing.

I believe that you need a reasonable amount of "online" experience to navigate and risk take about where to go next with some of the websites. Founding using dial up at home is very slow and time consuming.

As for my Project I'm going to get some of these online learning tools incorporated into my current Cert IV online website. The website is hosted by Janison so I'll need to explore/discover the learning tools this platform already has, as well as see what I can import. This will make my students' online learning experience a lot more interesting and interactive.

I'm going to work on the WIKI - Thingy at my next sitting.

Discovering useful online tools

Discovering useful online tools:

- SurveyMonkey - great to creating online surveys
- Hot Potatoes/Puzzlemaker - great for creating online crosswords, word searches, quizzes, matching exercises
- Quicktopic - great for a quick forum/decision making process
- Wiki - a webspace where brainstorming can occur with a group of people to develop something ie a definition.
- Blogs - a webspace for personal reflection.