Voki Avatars

Hi to you all,

I first saw these on the CQU E-learning website and was surprised at how much i actually took notice of the facial movements, partly to see if they were real for each word, and this encouraged me to listen to what was being said.

The link to create a character is quick and has plenty of options. It is versatile so that you can store more then one creation, and has the capabilities to export to your favourite social network sights.

This is a interesting tool for students to use on line, by creating a face or watching one so they can associate information. One of the biggest issues with on line learning is the loss of personal affiliation with content, this program opens up opportunities for distant learners, or the imagination of learning managers within their on class to allow their students to connect with more then just a screen.

Here is a link to a English teacher who is actually using this in her class, she has some good examples of possibilities. http://virtualhighschoolteacher.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/voki-use-speaking-avatars-to-engage-students/

Thanks for reading,

Shaun Morris

Virtualhighschoolteacher.wordpress.com sighted on the 28th july, 2009 at, http://blogsearch.google.com.au/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=Voki+Avatars&btnG=Search+Blogs

What is a full education?

Hi All,
I agree with comments regarding policing of the scale of access that is available to students regarding the net. There is no doubt that student learning spaces will challenge the way we as learning managers go about the simplest LMP'S. i cant help but think though that technology has overtaken education's offer to explore it, the perception that private schools are placing more trust or responsibilities in their students as apposed to the public sector, is a reflection perhaps on the resources they are provided with.

If there was a program that contained a nationally accepted degree of information outlined by the ICT Acceptable Use Agreements (Department of Education, 2008) that schools could implement in their libraries and systems, then students with the ability to tap into that, via their phones, pods, or personal computers could access the wealth of information that is relevant to their learning experience. At this point they are missing out on so many education avenues because of the there learning environment, discrimination??

In any case, there will be those who use the technology in the wrong way but, hands up who has manipulated a over head projector to portray more then it was designed to..

Its our responsibility as teachers, just like parents, to provide knowledge and the more tools we have to do so the better.

thanks for reading..

Shaun Morris

Department of Education, (2008) Web filtering policy. Retrieved on July 27, 2009. From http://www.education.tas.gov.au/school/health/websafety/support-for-parents

Blogs, Aggregators and RSS.

After starting my blog for this course I'm hooked, my goal is to have a live feed set up for assessment task two but more on that later..

By participating through a blog with your peers, students, parents or even your community, you are opening up a wider window of opportunity. This applies academically as well, as you can set tasks for students to reflect on the days learning experience, homework can be submitted via the link, you can encourage parents to participate and follow there child's learning journey and class mates can collaborate with instant information, perhaps shared in set forum like times.

Having an understanding of a blog means students and teachers alike can then attach other forms of ICT's, for example twitter forums, or places of interest that there follower's may associate to. As well as attaching information you can set up a tracking device known as a Aggregator, this will allow you keep track of your followers posting as soon as it has been submitted.

RSS stands for, really simple syndication and allows you to monitor blogs or websites that have also have a RSS feed. This enables a wide variety of chosen information networks to be fed to your blog, automatically notifying you of a new topic posted. This is great for any learning environment as it provides to the minute relevant information which has been chosen for the topic of interest, the wider the variety in the network the greater the diversity in response and post's, thus creating the possibilities for a broader learning experience.

Thanks for reading..

Shaun Morris

I created a blog.

Hi all, thanks for touching base..