YOU TUBE - a personal favourite. I now use lots of You Tube clips to add value into my training materials so that my training will become more interesting and participants will be able to understand certain concepts better. A take home lesson from this would be when I was inspired by Seok Binn to do a video taping of myself reading out part of our Mission Code Name presentation slide. Actually did not have any knowledge on how to do it. Had to learn through trial and error as well as managed to get a step-by-step instruction on how to do so in You Tube.
How To Make a Video for YouTube Uploading Videos on YouTube.flv
(don't know why the You Tube clip couldn't be downloaded despite trying to do so for more than 8 hours. So I guess you'll have to search for it yourself, while I figure out what happened later)
So what I did was looked at the above video, followed it to the "T". Checked out other information, found out that I had to download ImTOOMP4Video Converter so that I can convert .MOV to MPEG-4. Tried twice using .MOV (which is direct from the my digital camera) to upload into You Tube but after nearly 2 hours, each time, an error message will pop up. As I was unable to upload with .MOV, that's why I tried to convert the file into MPEG-4. Before that, I also checked on the length of the video (thinking that it could be a reason why I couldn't upload) but found out that my video was less than 10 minutes and the size was definitely less than 100MB. So, why couldn't it be uploaded??? It was quite frustrating. However, through sheer perserverance, I tried and tried and tried and guess what, finally, I could upload the YOU TUBE and everything turned out fine. HOORAY!!
Another useful site is SLIDESHARE. The contributors to slideshare are real gems. I've also found a slideshare (refer to earlier posting) that shows very clearly on how to share slides and upload into the blog.
MINDMEISTER - A great tool to use when brainstorming as it captures all ideas and team members can use Mind Meister simultaneously. Our ALS has used this rather effectively. The only concern is that the trial period expires pretty quickly and our mindmaps will not be accessible after that. One thing that we could do is to save it in another file and work from there.
ELGG - I know this was like a "monster" experience for some... but for me, ELGG worked fine. I love the idea that one can post up questions up on the discussion board and other members could comment on them. That way, learning takes place. I know I can use this in one of my existing classes... but the very thought of getting them to sign up and use ELGG faithfully is another matter. I know ELGG has many functions that we haven't truly explored yet.
WIKIS - sad to say, I haven't really been using this, but I think this comes in handy especially when one wants to capture important words/concepts that could be easily accessed.
AUDACITY - lovely tool to record conversations, discussions, recording of singing, etc. I definitely will experiment this and learn more details on how to do editing on the recording. Now that would be my next challenge. I need to know this so that when I develop new training materials for my English programme, I can use Audacity to develop listening recordings/scripts.
GMAIL - never realised how useful GMAIL is. It's better than YAHOO, with more functions. However, we were wondering whether is it true that shared documents cannot be amended simultaneously by different set members? If not, functions of shared calendar, shared documents, online chats, etc. really come in handy.
I believe there are more web based technologies... but the above are the ones that I used and will continue to use in future.
HI Jo,
ReplyDeletethis is revision for me... will have to ask u for help and support. Some of the wbt u mentioned above are alien to me. have yet to try...Audacity n wikis, u-tube. now i know where to find the IT Sifus.
The available technologies are only as valuable as to the creativity that is applied by the user to achieve its intended purpose and goals. The saying "use it of lose it" is very valid therefore if there is no reason to use it, the knowledge/skills will be lost. Always ask people to find 101 ways to use a particular object in encouraging new ways of thinking outside the box not just obvious.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree with you more, Alex. That's why, I'm trying my best to use what I've learnt as much as possible as well as to explore on other elearning tools. But do you know what happened the other day when I was testing out using Skype to teach the Taiwanese students who were on quarantine in their hostel?... My worst fears came true - Though Skype was a great tool, but the internet connection was atrocious. Line kept breaking up, videos can't be seen, voice breaking up and unclear... ended up, both parties got so frustrated. What could've been a real success on elearning, turned out to be a truly frustrating process. However, there were certain moments when everything clicked and I could see the potential in it. Sad to say, only for a short few minutes.
ReplyDeleteFrom what you describe it seems to be a bandwidth symptoms. To you use Skype successfuly, always check the hardware and software. First the minimum requirement for any audio and video conference is a broadband fixed line running at least at a minimum of 2Mbps. Their computer should at least have enough processing memory and reserve harddrive memory, most of the later laptop etc should have. Run the latest version of Skype. Closed down any other program running in the background only have Skype running to reduce demand on bandwidth and on the CPU especially computers that have poor specs. If possible use the network cable instead of wireless connection. Wireless connection is a poorer connection with potential inference and drop in connection. Avoid too many people sharing one single single router or IP. The more people there are online at any one time the more demand there is on the limited badnwidth available. If you are going to use Skype often enough it is worth subscribing to it, to enable you to use landline or mobile/handphone connection as a backup should those with poor internet connection be unable to use their Skype to participate in a group conference. They can still use Skype for text communication and watch Utube etc just that they will be talking through their phones when participating in audio during the group conference. I hope the above provide useful tips for using Skype and alleviate the frustration you exeprience.
ReplyDelete