eLearning at TIGS: Di Epoff’s Blog

‘10 STEPS TO GET TO KNOW 07′

STEP 1

Using the Microsoft online conversion tutorials: Migrating from 2003 to 2007

Copy and Paste the required url below in the Internet Explorer address bar. Dont use Firefox as Firefox wont read links created by Microsoft!

Microsoft Word:

http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/asstvid.aspx?assetid=XT100766331033&vwidth=1044&vheight=788&type=flash&CTT=11&Origin=HA100744321033

Microsoft Powerpoint:

http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/asstvid.aspx?assetid=XT101493271033&vwidth=1044&vheight=788&type=flash&CTT=11&Origin=HA101490761033

Microsoft Excel:

http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/asstvid.aspx?assetid=XT101493291033&vwidth=1044&vheight=788&type=flash&CTT=11&Origin=HA101491511033

Microsoft Access:

http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/asstvid.aspx?assetid=XT102389151033&vwidth=1044&vheight=788&type=flash&CTT=11&Origin=HA102388991033

STEP 2

The tutorial title page loads. Now Add this link to your favourites: Favourites menu > Add to Favourites (the site doesnt respond well to the Back button)

Click Start, and the tutorial window loads the old Word 2003 interface. If you undertake the specific task like you normally would - eg Edit > Copy, the window changes to a Word 2007 window and a little video shows you the steps, highlighting the key strokes with an orange box

The tutorial caters for different learning styles too! You can choose not to watch the video, but instead, however the mouse over the last step of an action and a little dialogue window will pop-up to tell you the steps in words

Note: to return to the 2003 tutorial, just click anywhere inside the 2007 interface after it has shown you what to do. Remember its not an application, just an interactive tutorial. If you want to practice on the real thing, open the Word 2007 application: Start> All programs > Microsoft Office.

STEP 3

Use the tutorial to find out how to do the following basic tasks in 2007:

Save As

Print

Insert picture

Format columns

Insert table and format it

STEP 4

Use the tutorial to do several tasks that are specific to what you might normally do with Word 2003 until you familiarise yourself with where things are in Word 2007

STEP 5

Discovering Word 2007: a guided journey

You will have noticed some key differences between the 2003 and 2007 versions

The main difference is the Ribbon at the top of the window - everything that used to be located in Pull-down Menus is located in Command Sets within the Ribbon. These sets have additional Tabs/Buttons/menus within them. Everything is much more graphic and easy to see.

Lets Get Started

Open Microsoft Word 2007 (the application): Start> All programs > Microsoft Office

Keep the tutorial in Explorer running in the background in case you wish to refer to it later

1. Open a new document that includes the following (you can copy and paste some from somewhere):

- two or three short paragraphs of text spaced under:

- one main heading, and

- two sub headings

2. Click on HOME menu. Each of the Home Command Sets expand to reveal more options than are visible (bottom left of window - click on arrow). Play with the first set

3. Position your cursor next to a heading on your page. Click on the Style Command Set and hover the pointer over one of the heading Styles: the heading on your page previews the style result. Once you find one you like, click on the Style button to cahnge the text on the page. scroll through body text options etc and experiment

4. Click on the INSERT menu. Position cursor on next line. Click on the Table button and drag out how many rows and cells you wish to include. The Insert Table option in the pop-up window allows you more options than are displayed

5. Click on the DESIGN menu and with the table selected hover over any of the many table styles to find one you like. Click to change. Play with the Table Style Options button and the Draw Borders etc to see what these tools do

6. Go back to INSERT menu and click Picture. Locate a picture file and insert it. Play with the Picture options: Picture Shape, Picture Border, Picture Effects and the Editing options: Brightness, Contrast, Recolour. Also check out Arrange and Size buttons.

7. Go back to INSERT menu and click the Smart Art button. Select from the many options in the pop-up window and then customise these in the Design menu: with the smart art selected (make sure you’re in the Design menu), try Change Colours, Quick Styles, Change Layout etc.

8. Go back to INSERT menu and click the Chart button. Select a chart style. An Excel pop up spreadsheet opens: enter data, add data or columns or rows and see how the chart changes. To edit data after you have inserted a formatted chart, go to Design button > Click Edit Data and the Excel spreadsheet opens

9. Go back to INSERT menu and click the Links button. Click Hyperlink. Copy the url of my Blog page and click back on the hyperlink pop-up window. Paste in the Address bar bottom of the window. Click OK. The Hyperlink is now a clickable url link on your Word page. To use a title rather than a long url, copy the url of the page - so copy my blog url again. In the hyperlink pop-up window, type Di’s Blog in the ‘text to display’ box and paste the url in the ‘Address’ bar. Click ok. Now when you click on ‘Di’s Blog’, on the Word doc, the blog will load in the browser

10. Now, on your own play with the Page Layout menu, to see where things are located and then go back to anything else that you noticed along the way

For those who prefer more detail, Microsoft has a great online tutorial with written notes. Click on the link below to go there (it works with any browser):

Microsoft Get Familiar with Word

Closing the Gap

In his article,
“Closing the Gap Between Education and Technology”, Chris Riedel refers to Mark Benno’s (Apple guru) claim that our students think in entirely new ways about technology and this is reflected in how they creatively use everyday technology.

Riedel urges teachers to see the value and learning potential of technologies that students use all of the time, and refers to a situation Benno encountered recently involving the use of an MP3 player:

“MP3 players, for example, do not mean by default that the student is listening to music. Recounting a recent experience in an airport, Benno reminisced about asking a college student sporting an iPod and a set of white earphones, “what are you listening to?”

Her reply: “Which ear?”

The young woman he was referring to had two MP3 players and was listening to a chemistry lecture in one ear and music in the other. “It helps me get in the zone,” she told Benno, who shared his amazement at the revelation. Kids use technology in ways many of us would never think of, he said.”

Riedel’s article is well worth a read as it highlights the growing rift between the way teachers currently teach students and the way students teach and learn themselves outside of school.

Traditionally, schools have held a privileged position as the prime point of access for education - places where students go to learn what they need to know to get ahead in the world. Riedel’s article makes me question how long this will remain the case. Benno claims that students don’t ask questions about how to use technology but ask which technologies they might access to solve problems.

They seem to learn the ‘how’ as they solve the problem - they are multi-tasking technological wizards.

Gen Y and the new Gen Zers are much more focused on what they can DO with information and HOW they can do it NOW, than ever before. And they wish to share this process, preferably with their peers.

Problem-based learning opportunities. Collaborative teamwork. Proactive learning. Communal interaction. Process-focused solutions. Visual, social, interactive technology. These point to new literacies, where focus is on what students can DO with information rather than the content itself.

There is a huge cultural shift happening and if we aren’t mindful and proactive, schools will lose their relevance in the very near future.

Profound cultural change implies pedagogical change: a fundamental shift from traditional teaching and learning roles, a re-evaluation of what a 21st century ‘classroom’ encompasses or even looks like and a restructuring of teacher-learner relationships.

Crossing Borders

In attempting to walk-the-talk, I have collaboratively set up an experimental Web 2.0 ‘ning’ social network for TIGS Photography students with a colleague, Kerry Short, from Wanganui Park Secondary College in Victoria - a school chosen for its similar background - a strong community of students who are passionate about photography.

Blended Learning

We have created this network to complement what we both do in the classroom: which is largely develop student-centred programs where students take the initiative in working through a quite rigorous program of scaffolded projects, largely undertaken at their own pace.

Our education.ning site.com site is called ‘Crossing Borders’ and it purposefully challenges stereotypical ideas about teaching and learning. Crossing Borders has multiple functions that contribute to strong educational outcomes and pedagogies: it includes a communal photographic gallery; home pages for students, classes and groups; teacher blogs; community events; information sites for students to access class information at home; tutorial videos made and posted by teachers; and the ability for all members to comment and talk to each other in a safe, transparent and managed learning environment. One of our initiatives is to invite a number of ex-students from both schools (who are now practicing as professional photographers in Australia and overseas). Several are already maintaining a presence on the site and have assumed the role of mentors for our students. This has generated lots of interest from our community of students in a short space of time.

How is it going after four weeks? Currently students are on the site in the evenings and weekends, they have posted photos, talked a bit about themselves, formed new friends, shared comments about each other’s works, posted discussion boards, participated in a community ‘event’, talked to students and teachers from the sister school, shared thoughts with mentors and have grasped the opportunity to interact and share their work and ideas faster than we ever imagined! Students are working well beyond the classroom walls, have accessed tutorials and sites that we posted but not covered in class yet!

Its an exciting project and I’ll keep you posted on its progress.<b></b>

Di Goodman (Epoff)

What does a Dream Library Look Like in the 21st Century?

Monica Watt has asked me to consider what an ideal or ‘dream’ library might look like in the 21st century. Well, I’m not a librarian, however after attending the Learning Technologies 2008 Conference two weeks ago, I have some ideas about what type of 21st century learning environments will create the setting for meaningful student engagement with any kind of learning process.

However, before we can answer Monica’s question, we need to ask more questions:

What is a library today?

A library today is quite different to what it might have been several years ago, as users needs have changed significantly.

What do library users need from their library?

If we dont know the answer to this question, then a library runs the risk of being unnecessary, redundant.

What do users need to do there?

Do they need to use the library as a resource centre? A skills workshop? A private space? A service provider? A help-desk? A classroom? A portal to global communities? An information hub? A social networking site? A learning community?

Most likely a library needs to be all of these things and more.

Essentially, a library  should help facilitate information access and processing. Yet today, most information is accessed online using computer technology rather than via print, and the ways in which this information is accessed and shared is changing minute by minute! So, libraries need to be adaptable and flexible to remain or become relevant to existing and emerging users. I think a library needs to focus more on teaching users how to process information, and this means providing the skills needed to process information in a predominately Web 2.0 online environment. This may be require a paradigm shift for librarians as the focus moves from information itself, to information pedagogy.

The 21st century library should foster 21st century approaches to learning.

George Siemens, of elearnspace.org,

explains that networks and connectivity lie at the heart of all learning today. Watch this YouTube video :

Library 2.0,

to understand what learners today face in terms of information overload. Are we teaching students the life skills they need to be capable of filtering and processing all this information? How can we help them safely and purposefully negotiate the complex information networks and communities they encounter online?  How can a library help them do this?

In their own time, our students use ICT to search, access and share information, predominately for the purpose of online social networking. This has accelerated to the point where it is almost out-of-control. Perhaps a dream library is a network of information that enables students to learn how to search for, access, share and use information wisely, ethically, intellectually, skilfully, and most importantly, in meaningful ways.

In his blog, Library Walls, David Bogardus

circles the same issue I am raising (also published in CSLA Newsletter). He asks:

“What is the ideal school library? How do we create a space that allows students to be constructive with the information and ideas stored there? How can creativity be archived for others to build upon? We need to go well beyond Dewey to access the answers.”

Bogardus, an American school librarian, reflects on how Gen Y students access and share information online, in much the same way as a gopher builds mounds: erratically and haphazardly, with play being the central focus. He refers to their use of MySpace.com to illustrate this point:

“I wonder if our students’ hunger for content and self-expression often lead them to adopt my gophers’ model. Students will invest days on their MySpace page if they feel it will have an impact on their dating life, but often overlook the connection between the pursuit of knowledge and the eventual lasting contributions they will be able to make to their future family and community. As librarians, we can help build bridges between the tunneling for information and personal success. Our best work may be realized when we work one-on-one with a student and connect the classroom content to this student’s own goals and aspirations”.

It seems easier to know what a dream library needs to do in the 21st century:

It needs to equip students with the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to process information using the technologies they need and wish to use in their daily lives. The role of the library needs to be active, rather than passive - it needs to direct students to make good choices in the consumption and distribution of information. It needs to help students filter and process, to link authentic learning experiences with the technologies they play with and need for their life ahead of them.

Tony Wagner in his article The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need–And What We Can Do About It

lists 7 essential skills for 21st century survival:

1. Critical thinking & problem solving

2. Collaboration and leadership

3. Agility and adaptability

4. Initiative and entrepeneurialism

5. Effective oral and written communication

6. Accessing and analysing information (I would like to edit this for our purposes: access, analyse, filter and process information)

7. Curiosity and imagination

A dream library should develop and implement pedagogies that help our students achieve these life skills. A dream school library in the 21st century needs to be more than what we have come to expect from a traditional library. It needs to be like a 21st century classroom: a dream classroom, that focuses less on delivering content and more on helping our students learn how to effectively learn with, and manage, information and technology.

Then what does the dream library need to look like to achieve this?

Wow! thats a tough one! That requires a few questions to be answered first. And then perhaps another post!

Late in term 2, all TIGS staff completed a comprehensive survey that aimed to benchmark teacher’s current attitudes, skills and needs in the use of ICT (Information & Communication Technologies): at home, in the staffroom and in the classroom.

Results are currently being compiled, to be used to help formulate an eLearning strategy for the TIGS Strategic Plan.