20 video sites

One media that I am increasing making use of these days is movies. Whether they are screen capture, short clips or whole programs, I think can make for a really flexible and engaging resource that I can so plug them into our Moodle platform with ease. I suppose my principle source for this has been YouTube, but I just came across a useful list of 20 sites that provide content, in most cases its free and though with some they do actually include YouTube, I still think its worth tagging, anyway see what you think here's the link

Transforming the consumption of education

If you would like to publish your course materials on the Internet, but have no access to a virtual learning environment, then Nixty.com, with a promotion handle of ‘Empowering Education for Everyone’, could very likely be just the service that you are looking for. I registered as a user, had a good look around the facilities and the look and feel are good. Once in, you will find there are a whole range of courses already available many of them free. There is a course manager that allows you to set-up and manage your courses, where you can embed existing PowerPoint’s, Word files and PDF’s, setup quizzes, forums etc. In fact rather than me telling you about Nixty here is a link to setting up a lesson and another on using Nixty’s ePortfolio. In these days of inclusion and accessibility I am getting the feeling that the Nixty approach could be the start of something big. If you have used Nixty or have any views, then please feel free to post a comment.

regards Barry

Free eLearning Books

If you have not come across the eFrontiers blog yet then let me recommend that you pay it a visit. The site features among other things a really interesting and useful list of free books on eLearning. While some are limited chapter downloads others are the full version or their web based equivalent. The link for the books feature is here however I am sure tht you will find the blog has just as many other resource postings that will be of use and interest.

regards Barry

Project case studies arriving

With July well underway, the first of the eLearning project case studies have started to arrive. From the original group of proposals and for a number of reasons a few have dropped by the wayside. One was discontinued because the member of had their timetable changed so lost contact with the target group. Another member of staff left, which accounted for two projects and two more projects have failed to be completed for no other reason than available time. I think this last point is going to be an ongoing danger when you are looking at long term i.e. 30 hour projects for someone that already has a full timetable, and I shall need to factor this issue into the equation for futures proposals especially when somebody request a double project. Having said all this I will be getting a completion of the projects for Mahara e-portfolio’s, Comic Life and Open Simulator; though this last one was is in fact my project.

What form will the case studies take? Well in the first instance everyone completing a project will complete an evaluation document, there is an example of the template here so just click on the link. The evaluation will be placed into our Moodle vle along with any supporting reference materials such as screen shots, how-to guides, videos etc. When I have my own project material complete, I shall be posting a copy onto this blog so you may like to stay in touch for that. If you have any comments on e-Learning projects, then please feel free to post.

Kind regards Barry