Learn To Use ICT & Multimedia Tools

Multimedia Training Videos is a series of completely free and open educational resources for learning a variety of multimedia and ICT tools.  It has been created by members of the MSc in Multimedia.

Sets of training videos are provided that take you through Flash, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Director, Audacity and HTML. Very useful for any web design class.

A set of Student Tools Videos is also provided although this could just as easily read 'Teacher Tools Videos'.  This section covers info links, second life, Delicious, mind mapping tools, searches, creating surveys, RSS and Blogger. Great for some professional development!

There is even a nice tutorial on using Twitter. A list of useful External Training Videos Links is also included.

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4Quadrant TO DO List & iGoogle

I recently came across the idea of the 4-quadrant TO DO list while watching the excellent Time Management lecture from the late Randy Pausch.

Quad1 - items which are both urgent and important. These activities need to be dealt with immediately.
Quad2 - items which are important but not urgent. These don't have to be done right now.
Quad3 - items which must be dealt with right now, but are not important.
Quad4 - items which are neither urgent nor important.

The idea is that you complete Quad1 first and then Quad2 next. People go wrong by completing tasks in Quad3 after Quad1 before they get to the tasks in Quad2. In fact the theory is that you should not need to complete anything in Quad3 or Quad4, at all, because these items are NOT important!

This got me thinking as to how I could incorporate the 4Quadrant list in my iGoogle page as I already use Google Tasks for my linear TO DO list. Turns out that it is not too difficult. ;-)

You can easily add multiple instances of Google Tasks to iGoogle and you can create as many new lists as you wish. Position them side by side and hey presto, you have your 4-quadrant TO DO list.

Ideally, I would like to be able to resize and add a background colour to each of the Task Lists but, nevertheless, I think this layout will prove very useful for my work TO DOs!

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Google Apps Just Keeps Getting Better

I just love the way Google Apps keeps getting better and better.

Just recently, there was the inclusion of 'upload and store any file' from Google and then came the addition of Aviary integrated directly into Google Apps.

Now, Google Apps very nearly provides the complete one stop solution for covering the FETAC Level 4 requirements in Information Technology Skills and Computer Applications.

It makes it so much easier for the students when they only have to sign in to one account and everything is in one place.

Information Technology Skills Module
Docs takes care of the typing speed test, wordprocessing and file management sections. Sites takes care of the theory section, while Gmail covers the Email section.

Computer Applications
Docs takes care of the spreadsheet section and Aviary takes care of the graphics section. The only thing missing, now, is the integration of a suitable free database application.

Here's hoping it won't be too long....

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Education Futures Course Starting Soon

There is a nice opportunity for some online professional development coming up shortly.

The Education Futures Open Course will be starting on 19th April 2010 and will run for 8 weeks. Dave Cormier and George Siemens, who are running the course as part of  the Certificate in Emerging Technology for the University of Manitoba, explain what it is all about:

What is the next wave of technological change? What can educators do to prepare and anticipate trends? Using a method called “future thinking,” this course will look at a variety of trends and provide a series of potential scenarios and future directions. Participants will be actively involved in tracking critical trends, exploring their educational impact, and plan for ways to prepare for important changes.

Being an Open Course anyone can join in as Dave and George examine the possible futures for education! Time permitting, count me in. :-) How about you????

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