Educator or Technologist? | The Next Step

Educator or Technologist?

Interesting discussion which highlights the real goals of educational technology / e-learning technologist / whatever, thats to say the focus needs to be on education and how to enhance it using the wonderful tools available to us.

Ancilliary discussion here.

Lessons that pass the sniff test | E-learning | EducationGuardian.co.uk

Chris Swingler, national projects development manager for the Assocation of Learning Providers (ALP), said e-learning will be vital for meeting government targets for growth in apprenticeships, and for plans to raise the school leaving age to 18. “It is expected there will be 90,000 more apprentices in the 16-18 age group by 2013, and e-learning is going to be crucial as there won’t be enough tutors and won’t be enough classrooms to accommodate this growth,” she said.

A survey undertaken by the ALP found that the majority of learners in apprenticeship programmes believe technology is having a positive impact on their learning experience. More than 70% said they are more likely to finish their programme because they are using technology. Bill Rammell, the further education minister, said in a recent speech that student satisfaction rose from 55% to 99% in colleges that improved their use of ICT.

Lessons that pass the sniff test | E-learning | EducationGuardian.co.uk

Chris Swingler, national projects development manager for the Assocation of Learning Providers (ALP), said e-learning will be vital for meeting government targets for growth in apprenticeships, and for plans to raise the school leaving age to 18. “It is expected there will be 90,000 more apprentices in the 16-18 age group by 2013, and e-learning is going to be crucial as there won’t be enough tutors and won’t be enough classrooms to accommodate this growth,” she said.

A survey undertaken by the ALP found that the majority of learners in apprenticeship programmes believe technology is having a positive impact on their learning experience. More than 70% said they are more likely to finish their programme because they are using technology. Bill Rammell, the further education minister, said in a recent speech that student satisfaction rose from 55% to 99% in colleges that improved their use of ICT.

7 Ways To Manage Your Email Like An Expert

Tip for Outlook users from Jay: If you receive an email that you want to address tomorrow, right click on it and drag it to your task pad. You can then assign a due date and a priority level. Heck, you can even assign it to someone else on your team. If you constantly do that, you’ll have a good task list to work from and a clean inbox. This will completely remove the constant inbox browsing that you’re doing now; not only is that habit unproductive but it’s downright frustrating. If it’s something that will take a long time or if it’s a critical task, drag it to your calendar instead and actually create an appointment with yourself to dedicate time to it.

Google docs forms are fantastic, but they can be a little quirky. Here is a clarification on how to work withthem from the Official Google Docs Blog

Friday, May 23, 2008 2:13 PM
Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Product Manager

We’ve heard plenty of great stories about how people are using the Forms feature of Google Docs and how it has really helped them collect information from friends, family, customers, employees and website or blog visitors. But (there’s always a “but”), we’ve also heard some stories about how people have been confused when trying to re-arrange questions or otherwise change the spreadsheet underlying the form. Yes, we’re actively fixing these issues, but in the mean time, here’s a guide to getting along with the existing quirks of the current forms feature… Let us know if we’ve missed something by getting involved in the discussion on the Google Docs Help Group, where we’ve re-posted this information.

First – the basics: Yes, there is always a spreadsheet underlying a form… If you started with the spreadsheet, you knew that from the start, but if you started with the form (like clicking the “Create your own form” link on someone else’s form confirmation), you discovered the spreadsheet part later (we hope!). Once your form is set up, form submissions get added to the spreadsheet at the bottom of your data – after the last row which has data already.

Second – the main source of confusion (and our fault): Generally, if you want to change the form, don’t try to do it by changing the spreadsheet…. just edit the form. The form controls the spreadsheet more than vice versa.

Here are the detailed Do’s and Don’ts to clarify how to edit forms:

Microsoft have entered the e-Learning creation arena.

The LCDS will offer:

What does the LCDS offer?

With the LCDS, you can:
Develop and deliver content quickly, while it is timely and relevant.
Distribute your content via the Web or in a learning management system.

Deliver Web content that conforms to Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) 1.2, and which can be hosted in a learning management system.
Upload or attach your existing content. (LCDS supports multiple file formats.)
Choose from a wide variety of forms for authoring rich e-learning content.
Develop your course structure and easily rearrange it at any time.

First impressions are that it is not very useful – the format is rigidly enforced and it is missing a lot of the hand holding features that we have come to expect from Microsoft products. That said, in time it could be a very useful tool.

Finally got it installed!

Not using the utterly useless live installer but rather from an .msi kindly provider at another blog.