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Be social

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Be Social

We don't get a lot of converastions here - unless it is part of a tutor lead exercise. For convesations we need to move over to Social Media. My preference is LinkedIn - using a member group of like-minds. There are groups on eLearning, and on the MAODE.

I am on Facebook, Twitter and even Instagram.

I'm impressed with Growth Tribe. So much so that I am looking to do a course with them. 



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Why I still blog here

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You blog a learning journal, dump stuff and notes for no one to see, and post other thoughts to share, even do tasks and socialise with fellow students for the duration of your course and you have then a resource that enables you to tap into what you studied, came across and learnt.

Ten years on I am looking back at what I learnt about MOOCs: Coursera and FutureLearn in particular, but other platforms too. Why? Because we have an urgent desire to partner up with a platform and get our learning out the world. Who do we go with? Who will want us? Coursera or FutureLearn? Udex or Udacity/ VirtualCollege or others?

Ten years on I am creating a Top 10 (or top 7) for digital skills. This is my starting point.

I did for a long time migrate content over to my external blog 'Mindbursts.com' but it has become where I have consolidated all kinds of content from different sources and platforms and something of a muddle as a result between elearning, first world war history, swim teaching and coaching and my teen/twenty-something diaries.

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Top 7 Digital Skills for FE Students

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Growth Tribe

Searching out a Top 7 list of digital skills valuable to FE students I used a number of sites. I spent time with three introductory 'talking heads' from the Head of Marketing at Growth Tribe and came up with these:

  1. Getting smart with social media. How to attract and retain more followers, influence them and sell more stuff. Engagement tricks and tips. How to go viral. Using and creating visuals, quizzes and video. 

  2. Digital Marketing. Skill up to sell stuff including your skills and talent. 

  3. Video Creation. Best tools, efx, platforms and approaches.

  4. Employment and career development. Best digital approaches to finding and getting work.

  5. Artificial Intelligence The future of your world is AI. An intro. 

  6. Design Thinking & Digital Psychology: people are the be all and end all of digital

  7. Digital Analytics: data rules  - driving continual change in the world

Can you think of others that must be here?

My first list came to 11. I merged a few, I missed out 'Smartarse with a SmartPhone - tips and hacks you have to know about.


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Enhancing the digital experience for skills learners

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 8 Jan 2020, 10:21

JISC logo

This is a reminder to me that JISC is an important 'got to' resource.



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T.H.I.N.K.

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Think beofre you speak

I don't often enough; do you? 

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'What's new about new media? Not much'

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Two decades ago I wrote a blog with this provocative title. I wasn't being a Luddite, rather I was playing devil's advocat and suggesting that for all that digital offered (in education) the fundamentals were the same: a teacher with knowledge passing it on to their students.

I need to revisit the topic with the same approach.

It is too easy to celebrate the headliners of digital education, not least at the Open Univerity with Open Learn and FutureLearn, and the myriad of learning management platforms and Apps, but when it comes to a student, especially in primary and secondary education, and in FE and vocational courses, how much is still, of necessity, knowledge and skills passed on by a subject matter expert? How can infectious enthusiasm be recreated in a digital experience? It can't? How do you develop loyalty and respect for a teacher and their subject through an App? 

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City & Guilds

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 6 Jan 2020, 14:59

City & Guilds Workpace Skills phtoograph of catering student

I have just become aware that City & Guilds produce digital content to support their C&G courses. This is what we need if departments can be persuaded to pay £390 per annum per course. What might this work out as? £10 a head? Akin to a text book? 

https://www.cityandguilds.com/techbac/workplace-skills

Topics covered taught at GB MET include:

Automotive

Technical Support and recorded webinars:

e.g. KS4 technical Award resources 

https://youtu.be/eMywyX1dfHU 

Beauty

Building Services

Construction

Early years

Engineering

Health & Social care

Hospitality

Travel and Tourism: 

Tourism and Business Travel

Travel and Tourism Professional

Its the resources and support that interests me. How much are these the FE equivalent of FutureLearn or Coursera?

https://www.cityandguilds.com/techbac/resources-and-support

Online teaching and support services [From the C&G Website:]

City & Guilds SmartScreen is designed to save tutors’ time, offer ideas and guidance on how our qualifications can be delivered. They can be used as either a front of class teaching aid or set for learners to work independently. Visit our SmartScreen website to view a full list of qualifications that are available.

As well as expert support through our advisor and consultancy team; we also offer learning resources that not only help to create engaging lessons but embed learning. Visit our teaching and learning website for more information.


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Back to big swim club teaching & coaching

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Mid Sussex Marlins Pathways for swimmers

I'm back at Mid-Sussex Marlins the Sussex swimming club I joined in June 2008 and from which I have had only a couple of breaks - a year at the Open University, Milton Keynes in 2011 and the last four months as the head coach at a much smaller club down the road.

This chart could have been drawn up by me. I like to reduce things to infographics like this. 

Today I was teaching four sessions: x3 30mins and x1 45 mins, our Grades 1, 2, & 3 and a Grade 7 group. I enjoyed slipping back into the routine: getting to know and remember the name of every child during the swim, having a teenage Level 1 assistant and working through a new assessment sheet for these 7 to 11 year olds.

I was impressed to see an Olympic Trials Qualifying Times notice on the wall.

I'll be coaching too - without the head coach responsibilities. 

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What\s it like to be Non-Binary and how should we respond?

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How to relate to non-binary people

Having given CPD on use of Planet eStream in the morning I attended a PGCE student talk on being non-binary. Knowing a few young people who have shown fluid feelings and behaviours regarding their gender I was interested to learn how to get this right. 

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The joys of research

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Buried in Ancestry and the British Newspaper Archive for several days I am finally venturing out to a library because the photographs in the 1916 newspaper article I am interested in are too black to view. The text is fine.

The Keep

My interest, for The Western Front Association, is on the 19 year old Pte William Gallard who died 27 January 1916. This is him posing for a studio photograph in Eastbourne with his father (sitting). 


William and Edward Gallard

William and Edward Gallard, son and father, 1915 before they went to war, William to the Western Front, his father to India.

Details HERE >  http://bit.ly/2FpaX9H

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Happy New Year

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Nancy's Bordello, Newcastle on Tyne

A gathering of those related to 'Granny Vernon' (1901 to 1984). From 7 grandchildren, there are 12 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren and their partners. Quite a story. 

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Props and costumes

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 20 Dec 2019, 11:33

Some of the really cool things our students learn to do. They then go on to work on mega movies and West End Musicals.

Props and costumes at GBMET


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Quick and easy interactivities for the classroom

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 19 Dec 2019, 14:17

Taking the MAODE there were few practical, classroom activities to put into practice in schools. The MAODE felt more like a precursor to academic study of elearning practices. I recall someone who had come from corporate training quit within weeks - unlike me, he wasn't hoping to make a career change. My career change still looks like a massive step backwards to the bottom of a low ladder.

Today we had a chance to consider and try some easy win, simple interactive tolls to 'gamify' the classroom giving students somethign to do - if they are wanting to have fingers on their mobiles anway. 

We had a discussion on that: should mobiles be allowed or not? Depends on the class. HE students are allowed their laptops, for some their smartphone IS their computer. Though the distractibility is high: follow that Tweet, respond to that email.

Our usual Digital Team Meeting quickly over with after an overview of what is going on in the college and the way roles will be defined in 2020 we took part in a teacher workshop on bringing interactivity to the classroom. Various platforms were used, and we were engaged and active throughout. Barely a moment to check emails, though I did try to tell Amazon where they could put a package as I will not be home much before 9:30pm

Peardeck, Nearpod, Menitmeter and Poll Everywhere

We would use interactive Q & A polling tool such as Pear Deck. Others mentioned include: Nearpod, Mentimeter and Poll Everywhere. Yet more (unwanted) toys I will need to have a play with.

We’d also need to download Jamboard and Padlet to our phones. I didn’t have my phone in ‘class’. My line manager needed her charger. In reality there are students (and tutors) who do not have smartphones. Provision needs to be made for them.

Having tried these we want on to explore creation and use of QR codes - as easy as creating a shortened URL and then some VR or augmented experiences you can reach on your ‘mobile device’.

QR Codes for elearning
There were some intriguing examples, however, with the skull and skelleton neither offer the level of focus a particular lesson might require. I have sat in lessons for Hair & Beauty where the focus has been the finger nail or the hair follicle. Neither of these items, albeit they are 3D, drills down to the fingernail or hair follicile.
Models and QR Codes

Off the shelf bodies I have bought are aimed at the Junior Doctor learning terms - so something bespoke would have to be created. Roll on sponsorship from a hairdressing chain. 
I've got some catching up to do. One the one hand I can master the complexities of Planet eStream and Thinglink, but what teachers are more likely to use are easy wins such as these:
Interactive Tools for the Classroom to try


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Appraisal Time

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What's your experience of a formal work appraisal? To what degree does setting objectivews for the next six months help or hinder? How much flexibility is there? And if the appraisal is sent up the chain what can someone say in summary who you rarely see and never work with say of value?

I've enjoyed the focus and hope to deliver on closer ties to creative industries, using platforms like Planet eStream and Thinglink, and even cracking on with Google Educator 1, 2 and Trainer certification - though  NOT through much use of Google's own online learning (videos, text and multiple choice tests) which I find forgetable and confusing. 

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Sports Nutrition

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3 images relating to ballet dancers' health, nutrition and physiotherapy

Though the Food Programme interview ballet dancers, nutritionists and physios at the Royal Ballet the lesson I took from the programme would apply to any age group athlete who needs to treat their body as a 'temple'. Uploaded to Planet eStream I cut two versions of the original transmission for relevance and length. I particularly liked the way food was referred to as a 'fuel' and how particular dietary habits were for the ballet dancers who had to cope with the rigours of training and multiple gruelling performances.


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The History of Coffee

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Collage of images relating to the history of coffee over the last 1000 years

This morning I have gone through an older broadcast with Melvyn Bragg on the history of coffee.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000c4x1

These things I gather up serendipitously in the car then dig out on Planet eStream to make available on he college network. Also readily available on BBC Sounds.

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Every Base Covered!

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Having shot a few short video interviews, and having had others sent to me some 5 were duly edited on Planet eStream and shared to view. Then further edited and from two interviews only 2 clips selected. I hope.

All to go into a Boardroom PowerPoint presentation.

Adding a Planet eStream plugin to PowerPoint appeared like an effort to crawl through barbed wire. Instead I downloaded the two clips and these can simply be embedded in the PowerPoint.

I go by the adage if it can go wrong it will go wong.

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Three steps forward and a ladder. No snakes!

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A successful day in JV's world of TEL. 2 1/2 hours with a SEND student and his Support Assistant clicking through 360 tours of the GB MET sites. It was wonderful to share his enthusiasms and to look at ways to follow this up by involving him in creations and additions to these.

Set of 360 images of the Mountbatten Centre, Portsmouth

An easy win too with Planet eStream, changing a student schema to a staff and uploading 4 campus shot interviews as 'College Network' and 'Staff Only' and made readily viewable in one place with the ability to add to these any variety of links or further content.

Still from a documentary on Bansky from YouTube

All this and as I complete three months doing the Social Media for Lewes Green Party I put up a piece linking to 'More or Less' on the Election in which the money raised by different parties is measured in time to count out a stash of £10 notes. No guessing for which parties come out of top. I was surprised to find the Green Party were ahead of the Scottish National Party though.

£10 notes

Should politicians be able to buy our votes in this way?

Ruth Alexander, BBC 4, imagined how long it would take to count the cash received by each political party at the rate of £10 note every sec: 

1/4hr: SNP

4 hr 20 mns: Green

24 hrs: LibDems

3 days: Brexit party

5 days: Labour Donation

2 Wks: Conservatives 


https://bbc.in/2LLuaWm 



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Grrrr ! Video upload and edit

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 9 Dec 2019, 14:34

The easiestthing in the world in 2019 to shoot an interview and get it online. Not so. I shoot on an iPad. Easy. I manage without an external microphone as that requires as special cable. Getting this 5 mins clip from an ipad to a PC proves a nightmare: not via USB cable, not by email or dropbox. Eventually I use iCloud and transfer 'drag and drop' style.

Then where to edit and how to share?

We use Planet eStream as our College Network so that is where I put it. But it comes out like this:

Interview by Shantheni Powell with Alan Baker on us of 'Crits' (Critical feedback) with illustration students

A couple of hours later the video has been upload as 'Mobile Video' - it is the right way up, but now when I try to load it into the editor nothign happens.

I revert to YouTube. This is easy to upload. I then go into the editor and am hit with the unfamiliar. I have a stab at it. All it do is trim of the opening 6 seconds .... and I am told it could take 24 hours for the edit to go through sad 

So much for simplicity. 

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An unusal and easy win

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Staff at Tizz's in Lewes enjoying the Christmas spirit of late night shopping.

Despite being a 'Learning Technologist' I put myself on the creative and instructional design side of elearning rather than the IT side of things. I don't take well to learning new platforms - but have to. My greatest motivation and drive is where I have a project goal that requires the software.

Today I have added a plugin to Wordpress which allows me to add 360° images. 

Algori plugin for 360 images icon

Here are a few shots I took at Lewes Late Night Shopping last night. 

http://bit.ly/2YmxgoZ 

The win is to be able to say to 'Creative Industries' here at GB MET who use Wordpress to create portfolios of their work that they can now include in these 360°shots too. 




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A quiz using Google Forms as part of Google Educator Level II

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In this age where an educator must do everything themselves or it does not get done at all I am trying to master Google Forms in order to create formative quizzes. 


Here goes:

 

 A quick quiz to gauge your basic knowledge > WWI 

 

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Working on the Nitty Gritty of SEND support

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Cerating a series of 360 Tours for SEND students is one thing - providing the level of detail that will support their curiosity and interest is another. With reading, though not understanding, often the issues, wherever possible Immerserive Reader is used on text.

https://www.thinglink.com/video/1246837831456784385

 

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Online Training for SEND Tutors

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 27 Nov 2019, 12:52

https://www.oltinternational.net/our-courses

Their UK base is a short walk from my college so meetings are easy to organise. The intention is to develop a project where we could work collaboratively. Say to do with Independent Travel Training. 

We met at The TES SEND Exhibition in London last month

An hour of sharing background and ideas regarding SEND tutor support and the potential for creating content for SEND students.

 

Shared ideas on:

 

  • Independent Travel Training

  • LRC induction

  • How to use a cash machine

 

Their tutor training products include:

 

  • Attachment and Trauma

  • Autism Spectrum Disorder

  • Dyslexia

  • Learning Strategies

  • Hearing Impairment

  • Hearing Impairment (FE)

  • Motor Coordination Difficulties

  • Multi-Sensory Impairment

  • Speech, Language and Communication Needs

  • Supporting Wellbeing and Mental Health in School

  • Understanding and Supporting Behaviour

  • Vision Impairment

  • Vision Impairment (Further Education)

 

Available here: https://www.oltinternational.net/our-courses 

 

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Interesting that Google do not consider testing for Mastery as important

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I fear that being required and assessed for mastery is the go to position too often. It doesn't result in buy in, or useful application of skills to solving learning problems. 

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Training workshops that were held after school!

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Ha! if it isn't during a teacher's sessional hours when the stdents are on holiday the training won't happen. And in the holidays they are not paid to come in. So what is the incentive to learn new tech skills other than for personal satisfaction, curiosity and ambition?

Just in Time Support for Teachers 

 

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