Classroom Management at Preston College

Maksud Ibrahim is an ICT lecturer at Preston College. In this podcast he explains how the college makes use of their classroom management system to monitor and control what students have on screen during lessons.

Maksud explains some of the features of the system including the ability to view everyone’s screen from a single computer, blocking internet access, only allowing students to access selected software and websites, one to one and one to many chat and sending files between computers.  Maksud goes on to discuss how he has pushed the limits of the software so that it not only works as a classroom management system, but can also be used to deliver presentations in areas where interactive whiteboards are not available.

Click below for a transcript provided by CallGraph.biz

Audacity at Lakes College West Cumbria

Chris Johnson, an eLearning Mentor at Lakes College West Cumbria, discusses how the college has used the free audio editing software Audacity.

Chris explains how he has used this software to provide audio feedback for learners to listen to via their mp3 players or mobile phones.  Chris explains that although you can do allot with audacity, you don’t have to be an expert to use it.

eBooks and Library Management systems at Bolton Sixth Form College

Mishka Fielding is the Learning Resources Supervisor at Bolton Sixth Form.  In this podcast she discussed how they have made use of ebooks though ebray, and how this has been incorporated into eclipse.net, the library’s information management system.

Bolton Sixth Form was recently named as one of the top 20 FE colleges, and the top Sixth Form College for ebrary usage in terms of number of page views.  Mishka explains how students can create their own ebrary accounts where they can create their own collections of books which they can annotate and save specific chapters.  Mishka points out that using these ebooks, which are cover to cover electronic copies of books ranging from GCSE to Degree level, can save the college money and allow every learner to have personal access to the same book at the same time.

CORRECTION:
In this podcast Mishka claims the ebrary system give the college access to 80,000 books. This was an error and the correct amount is approximately 3000 however new titles are being added on a regular basis.

PSPs at St Helen’s College

Gill Black from St Helens College explains how they have been using the PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld gaming devices for capturing and playing different types of media.

Gill explains how these devices came out of the MoleNet funding stream and why she finds them better than some other devices for capturing and playing back video evidence.  She explains how easy to use these devices  to display PowerPoint presentations, screen shots and photographs as well as capture high quality video and sound.  The device can also play flash content from the NLN materials, store and playback podcasts as well as display 3D augmented reality images via a system called Second Sight.

Free Online Tools at Carlisle College

If you subscribe to this podcast via iTunes or another podcast directory service, you will have to re-subscribe next month due to a change in our podcast host providers. Further information will be available here and at www.rsc-northwest.ac.uk next month.

Sarah McGrath from Carlisle College discusses how they have used the free online tools Prezi, Bubbl.us & Wordle

Sarah McGrath teaches Key Skills within the IT and Business department at Carlisle College. In this podcast she explains the benifits and uses of the free online tools Prezi, Bubbl.ys and Wordle.

Prezi in an online presentation tool, which can be used to create linier presentations, similar to PowerPoint, and non-linier presentations in which the presenter can zoom in and out of a page to display slides of text, images, video and audio. Sarah explains how students have used it to create hidden slides around the word teamwork.

Bubbl.us is an online mindmapping system which allows learners to easily create, share and collaborate on brain storming mind maps. Sarah has used this with learners to come up with fundraising ideas.

Wordle creates word cloud images from pieces of text where common words appear larger than smaller words. Sarah has used this to quickly analyse feedback from learners.

Sarah goes on to explain that the collaborative features of online tools such as these has led to learners working together between lessons which means projects have a head start before they reach the classroom.

ClaroRead at Wigan and Leigh College

Julie Worthington and Jane Walker from Wigan and Leigh College discuss the use of this inclusive technology.

Originally Posted 8th September 2009 at http://www.rsc-northwest.ac.uk

Wii Fit at Trafford College

Anita Appleton, Head of department for Supported Learning at Trafford College, explains how they are making use of the Nintendo Wii and Wii Fit with learners.

Originally Posted 30th June 2009

Netbooks

David Beaumont from The Manchester College discusses Netbooks. What they are and how they are being used.

Originally Posted 1st June 2009 at http://www.rsc-northwest.ac.uk

MoleTV and Ourtube

Peter Edge discusses how these projects have made digital video available for The Manchester College and the wider community.

Originally posted 1st May 2009 at http://www.rsc-northwest.ac.uk

Interactive Whiteboards

Nicole Johnson, tutor at Stockport College explains how she uses an interactive whiteboard to engage learners and teach from the back of the classroom.

Originally Posted 26th February 2009