eLearning For Teachers: Di Goodman (Epoff)

Themes

Once you have your blog up and running, you may wish to find a theme that is more ‘you’, or suits the purpose of your blog.

For my blogging workshop participants, these sites have a host of WordPress themes that you can download free:

Blog!Oh!Blog!

wphemesbox

You can do a search on Google and find more

Email me any that you would like to try and I will get Andrew to upload them. Once that happens, you can select the theme from the Design Menu when you open your blog

Check that any theme you find is compatible with WordPress 2.6 by going to the following WordPress link. Search alphabetically for your theme. If its not there, find another! This site is also a good way to find a theme but its a slow way of doing it.

Themes/Theme Compatibility/2.6

Some tutorials for you to try

This post will help the participants in my beginners Blogging workshops. Try these tutorials when you are having a play with your blog.

There are a number of good free WordPress tutorial sites on the net. Note: we use WordPress 2.6 version. If you search for tutorials on the net, make sure they are for version 2.6

Open your favourite web browser, check you are connected to the internet and try these:

The following tutorials are screencasts: audio visual tutorials.

iThemes Tutorials

The following screencasts are from the Likoma Design website

How to Edit a Simple Post

Uploading Images and Captions

The following site has some comprehensive information about the features of WordPress. It will take you some time to read through it, however its a good way to learn all about your blog and what the various buttons and menus can do. It doesnt contain tutorials but does provide a concrete background to blogging

The author describes it as a beginners site:

Blogs@Baruch

1. Look for the button to subscribe to a podcast on the site,

or,

look for the website address to subscribe to (you’ll need to copy and paste this url into iTunes)

2. Open iTunes

3. Go to Advanced menu > subscribe to podcast > copy and paste url into the pop-up window

4. Click ok

5. You must be connected to the internet to receive the podcast feed

6. To view/listen: click on Podcast button in iTunes task bar > select podcast and play

Creating podcasts allows students to share learning experiences and contribute to new learning environments.

Whilst this requires some in-depth skills and knowledge, a good way to start to use podcasts is to access them as resources and information sites for your subjects and your students.

The iTunes store has lots of podcasts available, and is a good source of language podcasts. Some universities are now uploading lectures to iTunes.

Here are some interesting Podcast sites for you to check out:

edna

edna 2

iTunes

Douchy’s biology podcast

room 208

digital podcast directory

podkids australia

tech savvy girls

podcasting in education

australian podcast directory

the pod lounge

science and engineering podcast directory

nasacast

necc podcast

podcast 411

A podcast is music and/or video delivered or downloaded to your computer for you to listen to or view at your leisure.

‘Podcast‘ generally refers to audio. ‘Video Podcast’ (or ‘Vodcast‘) refers to the distribution of video files in the same manner.

A podcast is syndicated and sent out to a receiver ia a syndication feed (eg. RSS) otherwise it is just an audio file.

You can subscribe to podcasts so that they download automatically to your computer, and then you can upload the podcasts to your MP3 player or iPod..

There are a host of hosts on the net who provide free podcasts for you to download.

You can use free down-loadable software, such as iTunes, to subscribe to the podcasts (for no cost) and even have your podcasts sync-ed with your iPod to get the downloads next time you plug it in.

abc online have a great podcasting site called

dig: music with depth

where you canexperiment with listening to and downloading podcasts.

They also have

abc podcasts and vodcasts

on their general podcasting site.

So how does it work?

A podcast is syndicated and sent out to a receiver, otherwise it is just an audio file. So, you need a syndication feed to get it out there (such as an RSS feed)

Who uses podcasts?

A diverse range of people accessed podcasts in 2007-2008: mostly 12 - 55 year olds, both male and female (Kel Hathaway 2008).

Search engines - eg. Google.com

Dylan Hunter, of Fast Search alltheweb.com, explains that when search engines look for Web pages, they send out tools called crawlers (also known as spiders, robots, or bots).

These crawlers begin by finding a number of seed pages that include a lot of links. Crawler follow these links, retrieving the linked pages, then retrieving the pages that those pages link to, and so forth, until they come back with a raw index of pages.

Web Directories - eg. Yahoo.com

These sites are created by human editors who define categories, then assign different Web sites to each category. Instead of using searching techniques (although you can enter keyword searches), you drill down through a series of categories to find information about a particular subject

Meta-Search Engines - eg. Crawl.com

These visit multiple search engines, combine search results, and output a consensus of opinion. They should therefore perform better than any single search engine, although a little slower. They arent often used.

The following Search tips are taken from:

RobsSearchEnginz website:

A comprehensive and informative guide to searching techniques and new search engines you might wish to try.

1. Be Natural

Type in what you want to know, rather than a list of synonyms. Websites are written in flowing language, and search engines are being taught to understand the same.

2. Use Rare Words

The more unusual or uncommon the keywords you use are, the more specific the results will be. Taking a moment to think of a valid yet uncommon word is a valuable technique.

• Note: For a few engines the word order is important, so always enter the rare word first.

3. Reverse Questions

Search engines look for pieces of text that match your query. Web pages are more likely to contain answers than questions - so search for the answer. Phrase your query how you would expect the answer to read - the difference appears slight, but it makes a huge difference.

4. Dead Link Solutions

Try shortening the URL to the next subheading. Keep doing so until you get to the point that works. Then browse from there to see if you can track down the file that you want.

5. Use Boolean Phrases

Named after George Boole, Boolean phrases are a system of logical combinations, using words like AND, OR & NOT. It is best to always capitalise them. Use them when everything else fails

More Tips

Type the most important word first:

This often produces a more relevant search result

Automatic exclusion of common words

Don’t use common words and characters such as “where” and “how”, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Search engines ignore these words unless you specify to include them. They are called “stop words”.

Note: AltaVista and Google will find complete phrases, including stop words, when the phrase is “within quotes”. A phrase without quotes will ignore the stop words.

Example words: the of web a to in & is are “stop words”

“searching the web” contains two stop words: the & web. Consequently the search engine will only look for “searching”. If you are aware of this, you can add a more relevant keyword to narrow your search, like: “people search” or “advanced search”

Google will indicate if a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page below the search box.

If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a “+” sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the “+” sign) eg. [how +to post +in WordPress]

Google: Query Modifiers

[define:]

Will provide a definition of the words you enter after it, gathered from various online sources. The definition will be for the entire phrase entered (i.e., it will include all the words in the exact order you typed them).

[allintitle:]

If you precede your search words with [allintitle:] Google will restrict the search to sites displaying those words in their title

[intitle:]

If you include [intitle:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the title. For instance, [intitle:google search] will return documents that mention the word “google” in their title, and mention the word “search” anywhere in the document (title or no). Note there can be no space between the “intitle:” and the following word.

Real Names

The most simple of “advanced” techniques is using real names. The introduction of realnames.com

has made this easy as pie. Simply enter the name.

Its not all about Google: Choose the best Search Engine

Experiment with different search engines:

Use the advanced ones: they bring great results

If a search engine is not giving you results, try a different one

There are a host of great search engines on the net. Try a new one regularly - all of them have advanced search options you can investigate:

Exalead

Services the corporate sector, but results are the equal of Google. Comes with thumbnails previews & advanced results refinement.

Gigablast

This is a great search engine. Less spam. It features links to the Internet Archive, cached copies, the ability to report spam and more…It suggests alternative searches & has no ads!

Google Chrome is a brand new addition to the list of web browsers: you can download its Beta version free from the internet and give it a try

Google Scholar

Ask.com

Lycos.com

AltaVista.com

alltheweb.com

Yahoo.com

A9: Is a commerce search engine: go shopping, browsing for goods and products

Meta-Search engines to try

Selections from RobsSearchEnginz website

Crawl.com

Combines the results of MSN, Yahoo & Google, and very nicely provides a frame for viewing the results

ez2Find

If you wish to really go to the extreme, try Rob’s unique Meta-Meta-Search Engine
An excellent collection of engines are searched - MSN, Yahoo, Google, Ask, Open Directory & WiseNut. Fast results, clusters, nice layout. Use this!

• Surfwax - Uses Yahoo & MSN, plus some less useful sources. Gives unique info on pages found such as number of links, images, words etc. Allows you to focus on keywords, to find a more precise meaning. Heavy use of Javascript. Best suited to serious researching of rare topics
• Kartoo & Ujiko - have a unique visual display of results and clustering
• Xooda - works well if you select just the top 4 engines
• Twingine - shows Google and Yahoo results side-by-side. Very simple, very useful!
• TurboScout - a serial meta-search. A very quick way to search different engines, one at a time
• IceRocket - better known for its blog search, the web search has great results - although there’s nothing on their site now, it used to say it was powered by WiseNut, Yahoo, MSN, Teoma, Altavista, Alltheweb, Lycos etc
• Zuula - side-by-side results of Yahoo, MSN & Google, plus brilliant new engines Gigablast & Exalead
• GoYaMs - lets you alter the weighting of the Big 3 how you like
• Zippy - meta-searches the Top 4, with lots of related searches from each to refine things

Further Reading

There are some excellent books available to further help you with your web searching:

How to Find Almost Anything on the Internet : A Kid’s Guide to Safe Searching

Search Engines for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide

The Extreme Searcher’s Guide to Web Search Engines :
A Handbook for the Serious Searcher
Two chapters present general principles that apply to all search engines, the following ten sections go deep with usage guidelines for 8 major search sites, plus a dozen or so metasearch engines and others of interest. Emphasis throughout is on precise understanding of advanced search techniques

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Online Search Secrets

The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can’t See
This is the first comprehensive guide to searching the Invisible Web — the vast online resources that are ignored by major search engines — covering how search engines work, to why/where/when to use invisible search techniques, to case studies of several typical searches. Highly recommended for serious searchers.

Here are some helpful links to online tutorials. Click on the links, find the one that works for you and work at your own pace through each topic.

1. Here is a link to a good basic tutorial on using Microsoft Outlook: Millpen College Using Microsoft Outlook

2. Here is another site that attempts to make learning fun! You may prefer its step-by-step instructions:

ACTEN Media Microsoft Outlook Tutorial

3. Plant Administrations Outlook Tutorials provide quite detailed step-by-step workshops on each topic. These are downloadable PDF files that you can print and use while offline.

4. Microsoft Outlook’s own Help website

A summary of the steps involved in importing an audio file into Audacity

You must convert the file through iTunes if your files are not any of the following: WAV, AIFF, OGG, or MP3

1. In iTunes Edit menu go to > Preferences > Advanced > Importing > Select Import Using WAV encoder

2. Go back to the iTunes library & click on (select) the file, then go to the Advanced menu> Convert selection to WAV

3. A duplicate file will appear next to the original. If you cant see which one is which, go to the View menu > View Options > ckeck the ‘Kind’ box and then go back to the library to identify the WAV version of your file.

4. Drag this file to the desktop. You can then drag it straight into Audacity and it will load in the Track pane

To edit an audio file

1. Drag in from the far left margin of the track until you see a greyed out area the cursor will convert to a pointer finger - slide to the exact edit point

2. Do the same with the right side of the track

3. Go to Edit > cut

To add voice (recording with a microphone)

1. Attach a peripheral device if desired ( a microphone)

2. Go to the control panels (Audio/Sound) to check that it is the active recording device. Or, use the inbuilt microphone (it will not sound as good)

3. Click the Red record button in the toolbar to commence recording

4. Click again to stop

To export as an MP3 file

1. Go to File menu > export > selcet type eg MP3 and the destination folder

2. You may need to install the Lame MP3 encoder to Audacity first - its an “optional extra”. Follow the instructions at Lame Installation to download and install Lame.

Audacity provides a quick tutorial on the basic features in its Welcome Screen. if this has been disabled, you can find it under the Help menu. launch Audacity > go to Help menu > Show Welcome Message

Click on the blue links: Play Back; Record; Edit Sound; Export Sound & Burn to a CD to see whats possible. Follow the onscreen instructions

Audacity ^® is free open source software for recording and editing sound.

Features

Audacity is a fast multi-track audio editor and recorder for:

• Windows 98 and later
• Macintosh OS 9 (Audacity 1.0 only) and OS X
• Linux/Unix and other *.nix-based systems

Audacity supports several digital audio formats with support for 24 bit and 32 bit sample formats as well as 16 bit. Supported formats include:

• WAV
• AIFF
• OGG
• MP3

The Audacity Wiki (an online editable public resource and pages by multiple authors) contains tips, tricks and information about Audacity and digital audio. Anyone can edit pages to make them more useful or relevant. You can go there by clicking on this link:

Audacity online Wiki

Learn a bit more about Audacity by exploring links on this page: About Audacity

Where to get it

The Audacity program is available from the Audacity downloads page at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ .

Get your Music into Audacity

Option 1: Start with an audio file like an MP3 that you already have on your computer: import it by clicking Project > Import Audio. If the audio file is saved the wrong format, it will not import into Audacity. In iTunes, you can convert it through the Advanced menu. Select the file in the iTunes library > Advanced menu > Convert selection to AIFF > an AIFF version will appear in the library window. if you arent sure which one is which, go the View menu > View Options and check ‘Kind’ to display the kind of file first.

Option 2: You can also record music from records or cassettes (see Transferring tapes and records to computer or CD) or any audio that is playing on your computer. For example if you heard some music on internet radio that you thought would suit your purpose, you could (on Windows or Linux) record it into Audacity - see http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=recording&i=streaming . On a Mac, you’d use a tool like Audio Hijack to record sounds playing from an application such as your web browser to an .AIFF audio file.

Option 3: To import music from a CD into Audacity you need to extract the audio from the CD to a WAV or AIFF audio file by using a program such as iTunes and import that audio file into Audacity. see below for setting this up correctly.

CD–EX is a good free Windows program to extract CD audio.

Or you can use Windows Media Player if you are on Windows XP (click Rip > Format > WAV lossless, or iTunes (either on OS X or Windows). First set the “conversion format” in iTunes Preferences under Advanced > Importing > Import using AIFF (or WAV) encoder”. Click “Audio CD” on the “Source” pane on the left. Select the tracks you want to extract and right-click on them and click the option “convert selection to AIFF”.

On OS X, CD tracks should also appear as AIFF files in the Finder, so they can simply be dragged into Audacity or imported from the CD with Project > Import Audio.

[edit] Create your Voice Track

1. To create a voice track record it with your microphone on to a new track in your Audacity Project. As the voice recording will be on a different track from the music, it can after recording be edited entirely independently of the music (see “Editing and Effects” below).

To record with your microphone, you set the recording source to microphone in Audacity’s mixer toolbar input selector http://audacity.sourceforge.net/onlinehelp-1.2/toolbar_mixer.htm (or, if you are on OS X, you set the microphone as the default recording source in Apple Audio-Midi Setup). Then press the red Record button.

If you want to be really professional, why not do a level test of your voice before you record for real? Click on the downward pointing arrow in the right hand (red) recording level meters http://audacity.sourceforge.net/onlinehelp-1.2/toolbar_meter.htm and click “monitor input”. While speaking into your microphone as loud as you would for the loudest part of what you want to record, adjust the recording level slider (by the microphone symbol) on the Mixer Toolbar http://audacity.sourceforge.net/onlinehelp-1.2/toolbar_mixer.htm so the recording meters are almost reaching the far right-hand side (but not far enough to bring the red hold lights on). If the recording level meters are not visible, go to the Preferences and check “Enable Meter Toolbar” on the Interface tab.

2. To record your voice track while listening to your music track, check “Play other tracks while recording new one” in the Audio I/O tab of Audacity Preferences, and press the red Record button. The Preferences are under usually under the Edit Menu, but on OS X are under the Audacity menu. Note: obviously you must use tight fitting headphones to record while listening to a music track, to avoid your microphone picking up the music playback in your voice recording.

3. After you have finished recording, just press “play” in Audacity to hear the result – the music track and your voice track will be mixed together just as they will when you come to “export” the recording as a computer audio file.

[edit] Editing and Effects

The Edit menu allows you to do things like cut pieces out of the music where you don’t want it, and on the Effect menu to do things like fade the music in and out, and so on.

1. Select your track first, and dont apply effects whilst you are playing, recording or pausing the track. You can select all of a track by clicking on its Track Panel (where the mute/solo buttons are). You can select part of a track by clicking in the track and dragging to left or right with your mouse, or with the left or right arrow keys.

Another useful tool is the Time Shift Tool <–-> top left of the Audacity screen (hit F5 to select it). With this you can move your music and vocal tracks back and forth so you get the music in the right place underneath your words.

2. Make the tracks as loud as they can be without distorting. To do this hit Edit > Select > All and Effect > Amplify and click OK. Then go the Track Panel of each track and slide the -…+ gain slider on each track to left by the same amount to reduce their volume. This is necessary because you have amplified both tracks so when played together they will otherwise distort. Now hit the green Play button to play the music and voice track together and watch the green playback VU meter next to the red recording meter. If the red hold lights at the right come on, move both gain sliders further back by the same amount.

[edit] Export and Publish your MP3

Once you have edited your recording in Audacity, you need to export it as an MP3 which is a universal compressed audio format that will play on iPods and other portable devices (and will also be suitable for others who may just want to listen to it on their computer) and which will also be small enough to distribute via the web.

1. To export your Project to an MP3, install the Lame MP3 encoder to Audacity - its an “optional extra”. Follow the instructions at Lame Installation to download and install Lame.

2. Click File > Export as MP3 which will mix your voice and music tracks to an MP3 file. A dialogue box will pop up asking you to edit the ID3 tags. These are tags which most audio players can read which give information such as the Title and Genre of the track. There is a short podcast tutorial here explaining about tagging MP3s in Audacity: http://www.creativecow.net/articles/mcmahon_frank/pod1/pod1.html .

Uploading to a website (podcasting)

Option 1: Once your MP3 is exported to your hard drive, you can upload it to your website and create a link for it. You can create a simple download link which is just the web address of the file e.g. http://www.mypodcast.com/podcast.mp3 .

However, if you give a plain text link like this, what happens when the user clicks on the link depends on their setup i.e. whether this downloads the file to their drive or launches their default MP3 player.

If you instruct your user to right-click the link, this will always enable them to download the file to their drive.

Option 2: If you embed your MP3 in your webpage using “embed tags” you can choose if your MP3 plays in the background or if the browser’s media plugin appears in the webpage, which will give the user an on and off button to play the file in the browser. You can also choose whether to autoplay the file on page load or not, and so on. This page shows you how to use embed tags: http://www.webreference.com/js/column20/embed.html .

If you want to make a plain text link from which users can stream your MP3 into their default MP3 player, you can just create a text file with .m3u (or .pls) extension and paste into it the full web address of the MP3, then upload the .m3u file to your webpage.

Many podcasts are distributed with what are known as RSS feeds, instead of (or as well as) offering downloading or streaming of the podcast content. When read with a feed reader program, these feeds offer a summary link to (or direct downloads of) recently updated podcast content. You can read about creating .RSS feeds for podcasts here .

If you do not have your own server or access to a website, there are other ways to put your podcast on the internet. Online services like BlogMatrix, AudioBlog, Liberated Syndication, PodBus and Podblaze offer space to upload and store your podcast. Some of these services offer free hosting while others will charge a small fee for different storage limits. Please refer to the different web sites for more information. To use a hosting service, simply sign up for an account and upload your MP3 files.

Finally, don’t forget to promote your podcast on the major podcast directories and search engines, such as iTunes and Podcast Alley .

Voicethread is a Web 2.0 application that allows you to create and share digital stories over the net. This application is a great tool for getting students to build digital stories, or to annotate slides.

A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways:

- Using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish. They can even be exported to an Archival Movie for offline use on a DVD or video-enabled MP3 player.

A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world. Read more

To understand the breadth of what this application has to offer, view the What is Voicethread video

You can create a Voicethread in 3 easy steps: in one minute according to the website:

For an overview, view the 1 minute Voicethread video

1. Browse & Create images, documents and/or video. You can import from Powerpoint, Word, Excel or PDF, and Flickr or Facebook too.

2. Comment: use your voice - record with a microphone, write text etc

3. Share: invite, email, embed etc. there are privacy options

See a sample Voicethread here: Beach

Controls

You can set privacy controls and moderate any comments before they are published by checking the options

Setting up your microphone

- Click on the My Voice tab/menu

- Choose microphone settings button: for Mac or Windows and follow the prompts

Video Doodling

This is a great feature for annotating video clips or drawing attention to details in a clip. View the Video Doodling video for more information

Gickr is a partner Web 2.0 application to Flickr

Gickr.com lets you create online animated slideshows and share them online

Gickr is actually easier than Flickr to use. In minutes you can quickly upload images and create an animated slideshow that you can email to friends or link to a blog

Like Flickr, there are privacy options but the site warns you that once an option is set, it cant be undone

In the future you will be able to upload a Flickr set to Gickr, but for now its not functional. You will need to access images from your computer.

On Monday 11th August 2008, a group of 13 TIGS teachers and staff attended a workshop on using Flickr and Gickr.

Flickr is a Web 2.0 application that enables you to host and share your photos.

• Access all your digital images in one place.
• Show off your favorite photos to the world.
• Share photos with your friends and family.

In 3 easy steps they learnt to:

- Share their photos using Flickr

- Edit, crop, add fonts etc

- Upload and organise files

- Make things like cards, photo books, prints etc

- Explore

You can:

Take a Flickr tour to learn of its potential: FLICKR TOUR

To post to Flickr, use one of the handy uploading tools (for a batch), the web upload form (for bits and pieces), or send your photos or video in by email (great for cameraphones). As your collection grows, you can organize it into sets and see everything via your archives.

This site has links to all of the upload options:

Flickr tools for uploading

I recommend you download the Flickr Uploader 3.0 from this site, although you can upload via the normal upload button.

Click Download and then Open from the download window and follow the Wizard prompts to place the application in the Program files and a shortcut on the desktop.

Simply click on the shortcut and drag and drop files into the window. Set your privacy options then click Create A Set button. Be patient whilst they upload!

BUT….

You can only upload files smaller than 1Mb each

Do not upload more than 10Mb worth of files at a time

I advise you to prepare your files first so that you can upload easily and minimise your monthly upload quota (around 100 Mb)

Use Adobe Photoshop or a similar photo editing application to resize your images for the web:

PREPARING YOUR PHOTO FILES FOR UPLOADING

In Photoshop:

Open the file > go to Image menu > Image size and change the longest side to 750 pixels. This could be the width or the height depending on if its portrait or landscape format.

Then go to File menu > Save for Web and Devices. Go to the pull down menus to the right of the image and select > jpg and maximum. Click Save and save in a new folder called something like ‘Flickr Beach resized.

Note: Be careful NOT TO OVERWITE your original files!

UPLOADING FILES TO FLICKR

1. Click on the Choose button > select your files from the resized images you just saved

2. Click Upload. Flickr will show you how much memory of your monthly allocation these consume. It will take a while to upload - maybe time for a coffee!

Sometimes (most of the time!) the Upload button doesnt work well with our school network - it may be better from home if you have Broadband. However the single presentation upload feature is better:

Directions

Click the upload button and then click the blue link: Having trouble using bulk upload?  This allows you to upload one presentation at a time and works. the other benefit is that you can set the Privacy option here to restrict who sees the show. Fill in all of the details prior to hitting the Upload button at the bottom of the window.

Hi everyone

This is a summary of what we will do today in our Slideshare workshop:

We will:

1. Register as a slideshare user

2. Undertake a slideshare tour to grasp the basics

3. Browse slideshare to find some slideshows that interest us

4. Click on some slideshare tags to find slideshows related to specific topics that interest us

5. Setup our own Slidespace

6. Learn how to upload a powerpoint presentation and how to set privacy settings

7. Learn how to build a community: add Contact lists and Groups, and invite people to join

8. Learn how to stage and advertise events and invite people to come

9. How to add comments and respond to comments

10. Ask questions!

Slideshare is an online presentation sharing tool.

• If you, or your students create Powerpoint presentations, then you can host, tag and share them online in Slideshare. Your students can access them anytime on any web browser.
• Slideshare is also a great resource where you can share other people’s presentations.

Click on this hyperlink to go to slideshare.net

Click on the slideshare tour to discover several reasons why you might use slideshare

Click on Sign Up to register for slideshare. it is free. If you have already registered, log in by entering your username and password. Its a good idea to record these somewhere

Check out this slideshare presentation that reveals something of the power of visual presentations

You can browse hot Tags to find slideshows related to your interests or topics

This is how I found a slidecast on Podcasting

Or, alternatively you can enter a topic in the Search option

This is how I found a slideshow on Project Based Learning

This is a ’secret’ url to my private viewing of a draft slideshow I setup on slideshare:

DE eLearningDraft

These slideshare slideshows will help you set up your workstation correctly to avoid back problems, eye strain, overuse syndrome and repetitive strain injuries.

Ergonomics: Making your workstation fit you

Ergonomic tips for computer users

From Thursday 24th July, I will run a series of 4 workshops for beginners about the basics of using a personal computer (PC)

Maybe you never have had the time to take a basic computer class, and the books about how to use a computer are difficult to pick up let alone read. Or maybe you want to know how to use a computer to keep up with your children or your students, use email properly, research the net properly, download and organise digital photos, or print properly. Hopefully these workshops will help.

The topic I aim to cover on the 24th July is: How to operate a PC. Issues covered include:

- Inside the box

- Boot up

- User accounts

- Your desktop

- Manage and create files, folders and directories

- File formats

- Saving files to find them

We will be using a number of websites as sources of information: the main one from this post is Basic Computer Skills: Learn to Use a Personal Computer

This is a great beginners online tutorial for finding out everything there is to know about using a mouse. You will need to be connected to the internet to do this tutorial.

Click on this link: Mouse tutorial