By comparison with other times I’ve travelled through Singapore, the airport was empty this week. And the Auckland to Singapore flight was only about a third full.

If people aren’t travelling in general due to the economic turn down and the latest flu threat, then students probably aren’t keen for international study either. In New Zealand this is a big issue as many of our students come form over seas.

So many of our institutions should be turning seriously to eLearning as a way to capture that market. If the students aren’t coming to study, take the study to the students.

I will watch with interest to see how this pans out over the coming few years, which institutions will adopt this appraoch in an big way, and how will they fair?

What’s you institution doing? Is their eLearning approach expanding?

Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SINT3.JPG

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Here are some of the sites I tweeted about on Twitter this week, which didn’t make it to a full blog post.

• Classroom 2.0 Live! Beginner series - Go Wilde With Wikis. Presenter Sue Waters
  http://live.classroom20.com/classroom-20-beginner-series.html
• Why Kids Cheat and How to Stop It, by Rose Garret
  http://www.education.com/magazine/article/kids-cheat/?cid=90.191
• New Seesmic desktop out today.
  http://seesmicdesktop.com

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This arrived in my inbox tonight:

Impact: Journal of Applied Research in E-learning has been established to address the paucity of research publication avenues with a particular emphasis on e-learning in organisational and workplace settings. It is a fully online journal, and an official publication of the E-learning Network of Australasia (ElNet), Australia’s only national e-learning association.

The journal’s Web site is now live at http://journal.elnet.com.au/impact/ . As an active researcher/practitioner in the area of flexible delivery and online-learning, we would like to invite you to register for a free account at http://journal.elnet.com.au/index.php/impact/user/register. By doing this, you will be able to view open access content on the site when it becomes available, and will also receive notifications of newly-published issues.

One special, inaugural issue of Impact will be published in 2009, increasing to two in 2010, followed by quarterly publication in 2011 and subsequent years. We welcome contributions from authors across the globe. The theme of the inaugural issue is “Current issues and future directions in workplace e-learning: Mapping the research landscape” - the Call for Papers is available for download at http://journal.elnet.com.au/files/Impact_InauguralIssue_CFP_FINAL.pdf. General information about the focus/scope of the journal and guidelines for authors are available at http://journal.elnet.com.au/index.php/impact/about/editorialPolicies and http://journal.elnet.com.au/index.php/impact/about/submissions , respectively.

Thank you very much for your time! Please feel free to share this email with any colleagues who you think may be interested, and please do not hesitate to contact us at impactjournal@elnet.com.au if there is any further information we can provide you with.

Kind regards,

Mark J.W. Lee
Editor-in-Chief, Impact: Journal of Applied Research in Workplace E-learning Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Education, Charles Sturt University

Clint Smith
President, ElNet
Director, LearnWorks

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If you don’t want a picture of yourself on various blogs, wikis, forums etc. but you still want a picture you can make an avatar of yourself. One of the latest I come across, thanks to Jane’s eLearning Pick of the Day, is DoppelMe. On the right is one I created today.

This is early days for this service and I would have liked the option to change the shape of my face, but otherwise it’s fine as an avatar. You can change clothes, hair, expression etc. and there are a number of accessories you can add. Some of it requires DoppleMe Coins which you get by referring others to the site.

Now more interesting is the question of why people use a photo or an avatar. When avatars first became available in education LMSs I used to use a cartoon of myself quite frequently. I thought this showed students that I was humorous. Now I tend to use a photo, as these days I think it more important that people see me when they read what I say.

If you want to go the avatar route here’s a list of 27 avatar makers at Mashable.

So, what do you do? Photo or avatar? Why?

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Today I had my very first go in a kayak in calm waters just south of Coromandel. You’ll have to take my word for it but that is me in the photo.

I get sea sick quite easily (even on the Devonport Ferry if the weather is a bit rough) so you can imagine the conditions had to be just right for me to venture “out to sea” (just off the shore) in a kayak. I was using Gil’s kayak and life vest with her handmade paddle. Chris, Gil’s partner, came out with me and kept a close enough eye on me to ensure I didn’t get into any trouble, but was far enough away to let me feel I was doing things myself. I got the push technique going (you push with the part of the paddle that’s out of the water whilst pulling with the bit that’s in the water) and felt I had achieved something for a first go. I even managed to get out of the kayak without dunking my bum in the water.

Now what impresses me about all this was how safe I felt the whole time. I was in safe hands with safe equipment. Being watched to ensure I didn’t go astray but also being able to do my own thing. We had no set curriculum, but I was learning the whole time, much more than if someone had given me a whole list to tick off. And the timing was just right.

(e)Learning should be like this. Give students enough info to get them started and watch to see they keep on track, but other wise let them discover what they need. Too much learning is still about facts, rather than the skills needed to track down information and assess its usefulness in the current situation.

Now I know which I feel is more useful, what’s your take?

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I had the good fortune to be invited to a Lions meeting tonight. And even better luck to be sat next to a teacher who is the IT lead at her school. I’ll call her Anne as she doesn’t know I’m writing about her.

Anne uses the computers in her year 6 class to great effect. She told me about a recent project the kids had done on “leaders”. After exploring what a leader is - the kids thought rich, good looking, well educated, good - they were given a list of names of well known leaders. These included the likes of Helen Clark, Barak Obama, Adolf Hitler and so on. The students who chose Adolf Hitler didn’t know who he was, but thought his name was “cool”. They couldn’t believe what they found on the web about him and kept coming to Anne saying “Is this right, did this happen?” So they talked about how to find other sources and also about how just because it’s on the web doesn’t make it true. Anne showed them for example how Wikipedia can be changed, they didn’t believe it was possible until Anne showed them!

Now what’s great about this is that Anne is helping her class to find answers for themselves, make judgements about sources, and gain computer skills which will prove essential in their adult lives. They use the computer as a natural part of learning, not as a separate activity. I love it.

If you read this in the morning “Anne”, thanks for a great evening’s conversation Oh and Twitter can be found at twitter.com my twitter name is kiwicarol

Image: Student by pmorgan
Don’t you just love the look on this student’s face?

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As I noted in my last post I am preparing a new course. So this cartoon from Being Five really hit the spot for me:

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I don’t do plugs for my own work that much (well just a bit), but here is one for a new course I am doing:

Are you looking for ways to use interactive web tools to use in your teaching? But you don’t know where to start? Do you think it will take more time than you have? Unsure how to implement the National Digital Strategy in your school?

Let us take you step-by-step into the world of the interactive web. We will show you free (or low cost) interactive web tools that can enhance student engagement and learning, and provide meaningful ways to integrate concepts from lessons with your student’s skill development. These tools can also be used to communicate with parents and care-givers at home so they know what’s happening in their child’s class.

Click here to find out more about this practical, hands-on, online class that in just a few hours a week, over 10 weeks, will broaden your knowledge of what tools are out there and give you hands-on, practical experience of how you can incorporate them into your teaching.

Course Starts 18 May. Enrolling now

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Great article at Stuff today about Fendalton Open Air School, which has won international praise for its innovative use of technology.

The children write about what they’re doing during the day on their blog, they share photos and post video to YouTube. These feed onto the school website during the day.

Parents can comment back and the kids apparently love it. Not surprising as research by John Hattie show that feedback is the most important factor for student achievement.

The school also uses a blog to keep the board of trustees updated.

Not surprisingly, this initiative has noticed around the world.

Great stuff Fendalton!

Now, go look at the school site http://www.fendalton.school.nz/ to see a wonderful mashup of feeds.

Does your school do anything cool like this? Post a comment if you do.

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