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=== TEACHING WITH GOOGLE EARTH === Check out How to Teach With Google Earth which includes many examples of how educators are using Google Earth. It’s a little bit ‘high school oriented’ but many VET contexts might still find it useful. Here are some examples of how Google Earth is being used in education (eg Renewable Energy), and a User Guide if you would like to know more. Great way to engage students!

PEP UP YOUR E-LEARNING WITH ANIMATIONS [[image:http://saframework.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/screenhunter_16.jpg?w=73&h=73 width="73" height="73" align="left" link="http://www.xtranormal.com/"]]
Speaking of engaging your students, Xtra Normal is a unique service that enables students to create animated, narrated movies just by typing the dialogue then dragging and dropping characters and set elements into the movies. It’s really easy, and they even have an education-safe version. How about forgetting about that boring assignment, and tell your students that they have to present a movie version instead!



MAKING WORD CLOUDS – WHAT’S THE POINT?
At right is a word cloud of the SA E-learning Newsletter (all editions)…and it is obvious that I use the words Moodle, know, learning, check, like and Twitter, f//aaa//r to often!!! It’s an example of a Visual Data Analysis tool called Wordle which “..//.is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text//.” But what’s the point? Check out 10 Uses of Wordle for Learning for a list of ideas and then try it for yourself.

TEXT vs AUDIO…..LEND ME YOUR EARS
I’ll start by telling you about Read the Words…a little tool I found which turns text into speech. I thought this might be handy if you have learners who experience difficulty with text for whatever reason…they could just paste in the text and have it read to them! But then I got to thinking that audio is a good alternative to have in your learning materials anyway, to cater for different learning styles. So perhaps start with How to Create a Podcast for e-Learning which is a great guide, and then check out Tips for effective use of audio in eLearning. Finally…in case you haven’t seen it before…here is a link to the TAFE SA Podzone which has a wealth of examples.

=== “I WISH YOU COULD SEE WHAT I’M SEEING!” or…HOW TO SHARE YOUR SCREEN === Today I had an issue with a spreadsheet (I’m actually not very good with things like that [grin]), but unfortunately the colleague who usually helps me was on the other side of the city. I had it on the screen in front of me and I phoned and tried valiantly to explain what I was seeing, but it wasn’t easy to explain. Enter….**Join.me**! So what is Join.me exactly? //” It’s getting a second or third pair of eyes on your presentation from across the hall or across the continent. It’s instant screen sharing with anyone or everyone to get stuff done, quickly.//“ I grabbed the unique link it gave me, sent it to my colleague, and in 5 minutes my colleague saw where I was going wrong, and my problem was solved. I could even give her control so she could show me what I should be doing! No downloading. No logging in. No problem.

HOW TO CREATE A VIDEO OF YOUR SCREEN [[image:http://saframework.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/screenhunter_06.jpg?w=150&h=47 width="150" height="47" align="left" link="http://screenr.com/"]]
Many trainers have to show learners how to do something on a computer screen, even if it is just how to log in to the RTO training area to get their resources. Wouldn’t it be great if you only had to do this once? **Screenr **is a very simple, easy-to-use tool for creating screencast videos. You don’t even need to register in order to use Screenr (but if you want to save your recordings you do need a Twitter account (easy to get)). It’s all free…nothing to download.

=== AN ALTERNATIVE TO BORING FORUMS === WallWisher is basically a ‘web page’ that you can set up and invite people to post messages, expressing their thoughts on a common topic easily. I know…sounds like a forum but this is much more visual, flexible and ‘organic’. Take a look at this Demo Wall to get the idea, or check out the FAQ. Why not get your students (or family) to post their holiday plans! In 2011 I am determined to get more organised so I’m thinking I might use it for my own To Do list. [grin]

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