Share your bookmarks

You know how you collect all those web site addresses in your Favourites or Bookmarks folders in your internet browser? Great - if you're using your own computer, that is. But they're never there when you want to show someone something but can't quite recall that address.

I've been putting some course materials together for a new class and was just thinking what a drag it was having to list them again when, by chance, I came across a file called 'bookmarks'. Opened it and up sprang a complete list of all my bookmarks as a web page with active links you could click on and go. It wasn't up-to-date but was what I wanted.

Now I do have friend who is pretty psychic but even she couldn't have managed that. It's actually something that Firefox does that I hadn't realised. In the Bookmarks menu is Manage Bookmarks. Just use File | Export and it creates a list of them all. So a few seconds later I had a new up-to-date list ready to roll.

If you have a whole bundle of assorted links and don't want to share them all then you can delete some and it makes sense to sort them into order before the export bit. The file created can either be copied to a USB drive to use somewhere else or the smart option is to copy them onto your own web site if you have one. In colleges, you could either upload the page or copy and paste its contents into a new web page on a VLE. This works fine in Moodle, for example, and requires no special skills.

That saved me enough time to write this, too!

two to the twentieth

That's what one million forty eight thousand five hundred and seventy six is, by the way. Quite why Excel uses that I have no idea.

=sum(A1:XFD1048576)

In Excel 2007, worksheets can have up to 16,384 columns (column XFD) and 1,048,576 rows - that might seem excessive but mega-Excel users were regularly coming up against the current 256 column / 65,536 row limit.

Thanks to the nice guys at Office Watch for that one.

What they didn't comment on was what one does when a student accidentally hits Ctrl and the down arrow, types something, or worse - hits the spacebar - then realises his or her mistake and either scrolls (Level 1 students), uses Ctrl+Home (Level 2 students) or puts the cell reference they meant to go to in the name box and hit Enter (Level 3 students) forgetting to erase whatever data went in row 65536 and wonders why so many sheets are coming out of the printer.

Row 1048576??!! Just never, ever let them put borders on the whole sheet, folks, OK?!

Option Three

You can't really argue with the Government's requirement that all FE teaching staff should be qualified and, if we're going to have a date for this to be effective then 2007 is as good as any. What I do argue with is what they regard as 'qualified'. At a medium sized FE College somewhere in England the CPD team got all the staff into the lecture theatre and listed the options available: all required at least 4 hours a week on what would be in most cases a two year course.

In the room were people who had been teaching for years, had consistently produced excellent success rates, could evidence good understanding of students' needs from SPOC forms and EV reports. Whilst one or two were types who wanted to spend best part of a day on the finer points of pedagogy, and even writing long essays on the topic in their spare time, the vast majority sat there wondering why there wasn't an Option Number 3. I decided to wonder out loud.

"Why isn't there an Option 3?" I asked. "Where it is abundantly clear that someone is first rate, or for that matter even reasonable rate, could there not be some kind of short assessment process, coupled with observations and something like a recommendation by a highly respected and qualified expert in the field, for them?"

Encouraged by what sounded like supportive but still anonymous, mumbles, I continued. "A bit like a driving test, really. You can spend weeks having lessons from an instructor but you may just naturally be good and/or have been running around without a licence and suddenly realised you need one. If you know your stuff then you just book a test and, all being well, pass and off you go again."

I realised that someone would spot the fact that that particular individual had been breaking the law by driving without a licence for years but couldn't quickly think up another suitable example. Someone did, which brought a bit of light relief to the session and also gave the presenter a few moments to figure out what to say.

Unfortunately, a few moments weren't long enough because after a few moments and a second or two, the supportive mumbles became more distinct. The presenter was a lovely person, very passionate about her subject and very knowledgeable too although she is pretty scared of new technology and was looking nervously at her laptop screen which was now displaying the Windows logo screensaver in its drunken lurch mode around the screen, also magnified and giving the audience who weren't too bothered about losing Monday afternoons and evenings something to watch while she thought. I noticed the union representative scribbling away and could easily make out the words Option Three, even in her appalling writing. She underscored the words twice, quite hard.

The presenter looked at me as if I'd just asked her to demonstrate how to download an mp3 file, extract a small section and add it as a sound track to her PowerPoint show. I mouthed "Sorry." I did like her, really.

"There isn't an Option 3," she said, in a way that should have had a full stop after it. "You have to do one of our courses, or pay for one of the other University ones."

The union rep added a big question mark, going round and round the dot with her pencil.

"Don't you think there should be?" someone else asked. "It could be a tough assessment process if you like but I'm sure we'd rather do that than waste, er, spend, all that time on studying something that we either know already or maybe don't know but don't need to know as much as some other skills that we do recognise as needing. IT for instance."

I could see where this might be going and was just getting all enthusastic about the chance both to sell my ILT sessions planned for the following week and make friends with the union representative who hadn't talked to me since she discovered I voted Conservative some years ago when I remembered that not only were Monday afternoons my ILT session days but also that practically all the people in the room were booked in to find out how to use Moodle, make their pcs do what they wanted, or try out useful new resources and applications.

Then the dunken lurch Windows logo disappeared and the screen went an unusually bright pink colour, with a small box with some strange message in the centre. "Oooh er," said the presenter, instinctively looking at me, as if I were the only person in the room who might be able to breathe life into the equipment.

While I was fiddling around with connections and various keys in a way that probably looked as if I knew what I was doing, the presenter whispered a genuine "Thank you." followed by a quiet "Must come and see you on Monday. You know what I'm like with all this technology."

"Not unless you can find an Option 3." I replied. "I'll be on this flaming course! But maybe we can fit some e-CPD training into it somehow. You know you've got to keep your portfolio up-to-date on using technology to enhance teaching and learning and all that now too."

"Oh no!" she exclaimed. "Do I have to?"
"Well, your minimum 30 hours a year professional development has to include some e-learning."
"How much?"
"That depends . . ."
"Depends on what?"
"Well, let me see. You want me to have 180 guided learning hours this year on something that isn't going to make much difference to anything other than my ability to get another job. I want you to spend a few hours that you know and I know could make a huge difference to the way you do your job, and will give you more confidence and no more SPOC comments about lesson materials not being on the intranet . . ."
"You want an Option 3 . . ."
"Uh huh. It's what a colleague of mine would call a 'no-brainer'"
"You'll have to change the Department's thinking on that. They specify approved qualifications and levels and all that. It's all in the White Paper."
"With really well-respected people like you backing the idea, it's worth a try."
The screen burst into life again and the audience applauded, a bit sarcastically, I thought, as I returned to my seat. The presenter looked out across the faces in the rows, scanning us all.
"Look, you should enrol on one of these courses," she started, "and I can't promise anything, but . . . "
That but nearly brought tears to my eyes. It was like one of those wonderful twists in a film when you think you've figured out a somewhat disappointing ending and discover that the next half-hour will keep you guessing after all.
" . . . if some of you could help me put a proposal together, we'll see if we can find some way to get another option. We'll also need someone with experience at negotiating with senior Civil Servants and some good contacts elsewhere in FE."
Quite why the union representative turned and smiled at me I have yet to find out. I suppose if she helps us win she'll expect me to reinstate the political levy on my subscription. A small price to pay, though.
I think that must be the first time so many people have enrolled on a course at the same time. I think that must also be the first time so many have also signed with their fingers crossed.

Web tools in action!

That's in [space] action, OK. Not inaction! Had great fun putting a whole set of instructions and samples together to illustrate ways to do something useful with a few of the web tools I am always going on about.

Everything's available at this link. For this first effort I have concentrated on the more well-known (and hopefully pretty permanent fixtures or I'll be embarrassed later) tools but used Pageflakes as the final destination site. So there maybe something you haven't seen. Whilst it's been put together for colleagues in FE Colleges, there's no reason why the same principles couldn't be used for a personal site.

eCPD Framework - Unit 11 evidence suggestions

If you're doing a Q project this year, or trying to figure out how to gather evidence for Unit 11 of the eCPD Framework being developed by LSN, then a site I've put together for discussion purposes at a meeting this week may be of interest.

It's not going to set the world alight and isn't particularly inspirational but as I have gone to the trouble of giving quite a bit of thought to the various criteria, and what a project team will be expected to do, I thought I might as well share a long day's work.

The site uses one of many wonderful free open source templates that come with Stylemaster, an excellent and free to try CSS management and design application. I may have chosen one of the least pretty but it does the job nicely. Access it here.

Blackbored

Just caught up on the news about Blackboard trying to copyright the Learning Management System. It's not April 1st but I suppose it is still the silly season. Unless all this is a clever joke, you might like to join the bandwagon and complain as the idea of heavyweights suing the butt off Moodle, or discouraging people from contributing to its development, is alarming. I thought WebCT was taking them over anyway - so what is this all about? Odd. Anyway, sign the petition, do.

Boldly quizzing

Pete from West Herts asked me how to do surveys in Moodle and that reminded me that I'd left out of Webtools the excellent and really simple free online surveys tool, available, aptly enough, from freeonlinesurveys.com.

Moodle's survey tool I found pretty incomprehensible at first glance, and didn't seem to me to be a survey at all. In fact, I recall using a quiz in the end which seemed more or less the same thing! Rumour has it that Moodle have improved the survey. More when I'm convinced.

Thank heavens for 'Restore'!

Either McAfee or Internet Explorer or both created panic for me on what should have been a blissfully peaceful day. First I got an upgrade invitation from the PC security people. Announced as a 'major upgrade' that would protect my computer from virtually everything other than spilt coffee, and as the firm had produced some stuff I've had good experience with for about eight years, I happily went for the download. Nice interface, all seemed well. Then the installation window said it wouldn't work because I had Adaware and Zonealarm lurking on my hard drive. I'd forgotten all about ZoneAlarm which was a free firewall application I'd used in the days before Microsoft and McAfee had anything. Adaware was great and free and just worked. I liked that but reckoned I could always download it again. Adaware uninstalled itself perfectly. Not so ZoneAlarm, which took a few tries to get rid of sufficiently to convince McAfee that it wasn't functioning any more. So, restarted the installation, which wasn't as obvious a process as it might have been, but it did it's stuff and up came the new service centre (after umpteen restarts to remove the old and start the new!) Whether I liked it or not, McAfee then proceeded to organise my computer, cleaning everything it could lay its hands on which was indeed everything including the parts one wouldn't normally attempt to reach. Took ages. Another restart. For some reason best known to those who know me well I decided that I might as well get the IE7 which, whilst still in Beta form is as close to final version as you can get. As soon as that started installing Microsoft announced that I should disable my antivirus services so I did, which the new McAfee centre loudly objected to but obliged, reluctantly. IE7 continued apace and, after another restart looked good, very good in fact. For a dedicated Firefox user, that was a compliment indeed.

Just in case something had sneaked in while McAfee was disabled I did another scan but all was clear, 278611 items examined later. Now I can't remember if it was then or the next day but the whole world slowed to a crawl. Sites appeared only after several minutes' wait, pictures creeping onto the page just like they used to do in the dial-up days but even slower in my view. That was in Firefox so I tried IE7 but that was no better. I struggled to do what I was in the middle of, restarted, made more coffee, tried cooling the system down, unplugged everything and even went to surf on my son's old machine to see if it was Tiscali on the blink. No, his whizzed away. Lucky he wasn't around to laugh at my plight, or want breakfast, lunch, tea or dinner as I could see this was going to be a long job.

Hoping it would all sort of fix itself, I asked the new McAfee service centre to check and clean. Shouldn't have done that as it presented me with all sorts of pictures and boxes to tick if I wanted them ignored in lists of things that might need attention. You figure that one out. Probably a triple negative.

In the middle of all this I tried to check my mail. No luck. Nothing connected. All accounts had the wrong user names, server addresses or other details. Who'd changed them? Not me.

Finally, I gave up and found just one restore point available - that was odd but I guess McAfee had swept away even those! I went for that anyway and hey presto! All's back to top speed again. The old McAfee program needs to be told what can and cannot access the internet which is a pain and I had to reset all the e-mail logins but they're mostly up and running now.

I may tentatively try one or the other once more but whether I'll have the courage to do both is uncertain. For a while, though, I'll stick with familiar old stuff - not like me normally but I couldn't stand that slow down for any longer!

QDVD3

The 2004-05 Q Project DVD is now being distributed to colleges. Drafts from the recently completed 2005-06 Q projects for the Eastern Region can be seen here and work has started on sorting out all the copyright problems, getting videos compressed and making links work for QDVD4. Target release in Autumn.

e-CPD

Dates are being finalised for the first staff development sessions, at which selected Q Project teams and e-advisers will receive training and information. A team is also working on some on-line resources and some welcome clarity as to what all this really means is developing. My summer homework is to try and put together an example of what a portfolio might look like for Unit 1. Once I have the details for the October sessions I'll publish them here.

Web tools!

Find all the best free and advert free tools that are out there for you to use. All you need to do is think up some ways to get them into your lessons. Click here for the pages Tim Rawe and I used at the Fair. And here's a direct link to that cartoon!

Q Projects 2004-05 DVD

They're full of good ideas and materials if you can lay your hands on a copy. Available at the E-learning Fair 7 July and to be distributed more widely very soon.

Staff ICT Skills assessment tool revised

Made some minor adjustments to the speadsheet version to fix some text that didn't fit into boxes and change the feedback sheet layout slightly. Seems to work better now but there's still no feedback on topics where a certain combination of responses (hopefully unusual!) is given. Going to roll out at College very soon so that'll test it thoroughly! Still hoping someone will convert it all to a much nicer web base. Couple of students could do it if I can get them in but football may well delay that!

Even though you may get a message about macros, there aren't any in the latest version so ignore it.

If you've no idea what I'm talking about or have forgotten the link, here it is.

CPD Framework for e-learning

Drafting a leaflet for practitioners has helped me understand a bit more about this. Although there may be wholesale amendments before it's issued, some of you may find it helps figure out what this is all about. As the Framework document that is currently available is pretty big, I've also whittled down the unit descriptions to the essentials and published my drafts in html and doc formats. Did the same for the new teaching standards too which I have to admit to not having read before. All available from my filing cabinet but do remember they're only my interpretation of what's being developed and not official!

LSN Q Projects and eCPD grants: update

Q Projects are back! Applications are invited by LSN for Staff Development Managers to outline a project or how they propose to use the eCPD framework to develop staff e-learning skills as part of their continuing professional development. Meetings are being arranged to explain the framework in late June and early July. However, the application form outlining your proposal and the framework units being utilised, is stated as being required to be received by LSN 10 days prior to the event you propose to attend. The Eastern Region event is on 23/6 so that's a tight deadline! To help, I'll try and publish some of the units that are most likely to be relevant and any clarification I can get on this. See the files section for a copy of the eCPD practitioners' application form.

Why am I doing this?

In case you hadn't read the intro above, this all started because I wanted 'normal' people to be able to add content to a web site without having to learn new tricks or buy expensive software. This web log itself is merely a vehicle I can use to join what someone types in Word or some pictures they've got in Picasa to a web page that they couldn't edit directly.

The software that joins things together is a combination of weird stuff we don't need to understand that links Blogger to Word or Picasa and an application that 'reads' my ramblings on the web log posts, translates them into something a web site can understand and then displays headings or headings + a few lines or even pictures, if I'm lucky, on the web site page. Because I haven't any money to spend I'm using free, open source, applications and trying them out. Some seem better than others. This may result in you getting blank bits or seeing a slightly different display from time to time. Sorry about that but hopefully I'll get the combination right soon and it'll settle down into something that will be really useful.

What's really nice is the way these posts can be picked up by netvibes.com and pageflakes.com too. Just thought I'd mention it, as I'm expecting a few visitors who might now know how I go on about them elsewhere! Don't mean to bore those of you that do.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Hmmm. Anyone who wants to join in, just let me know via design@ahi2000.com or maybe even comment on the web log itself.

Rain stops play at Peter's Pond

The live broadcast ended some time ago. I hadn't noticed because you can still see great highlights at the link I mentioned in the earlier post. So it's still worth visiting - and maybe the rain may have stopped now anyway!

Becta 2006 Review

Lots of data here and interesting commentary on the impact of ICT and ILT. Whilst the prime focus is on schools, there are many references to responses and data from the FE and ACL institutions. Full pdf document available here.

LSN: professional development opportunities being launched soon!

Somewhere in practically all reviews and reports being released are references to the need to incorporate ILT in professional development. LSDA started to address this with their ePD 'framework' (and Q projects) and it would appear that LSN will maintain development of the 'framework' with individuals creating examples of how they would propose either to promote or deliver good practice for us all to share and learn from. Invitations may be issued soon to those in the FE and ACL community who would like to suggest how they might contribute to this development with some grants being provided to assist with costs of releasing selected staff accordingly. Watch this space for more details!

Test from room A107

Test from room A107

Successfully downloaded and installed the Blogger toolbar in Word on a random machine in A107 using student access. Good

Agency links

Updated logos and list of the main ILT / e-learning agencies and departments, with some links for Scotland, Wales, NI and Eire now too, available on the Q2 links page.

Lesson Plan and Scheme of Work tool

I recently asked for help in making this task simpler for staff, with the emphasis on avoiding typing entries over and over and also creating a format that can be used effectively on-line. One or two very interesting offers from colleagues in the sector which I'm working on. In the meantime this simple Excel tool may be of interest.

Peter's Pond

Here's something completely different! A good quality camera sending a live video stream of activity at a pretty popular refreshment pool for wild animals in Namibia. Best time to view seems to be early morning but there's nearly always something to see. With live sound too, it's quite amazing and a timely reminder that not everything goes at the pace of our lives here. You don't need to teach Geography to use this in a lesson - I'll find a way to include it in all of mine at some point or another.

Link to National Geographic Live Feed

Write on-line

If you'd like to try a new way of collaborating on a document, or sharing one with colleagues, give writely.com a spin. Easier than a blog (but you can still publish to one as well) and faster loading on a decent connection than Word 2003. This could spell the end of the Word e-mail attachment!

An Inspirational Spiral

Several people have asked to borrow a presentation slide I use which illustrates how apathy about e-learning might transform into something more useful. So here it is - (and now it shouldn't run automatically!)

Google Desktop2

I wouldn't be surprised if several of you haven't yet managed to get as far as reading about Google Desktop Search amongst my ramblings. Well, never mind because they've now produced a new version which includes a Sidebar from which you can access all sorts of things as well as being regularly distracted from whetevr you're supposed to be doing.

See it at this link and wonder, like me, just how long such developments can remain free. Amazing.

Learning Landscape

Now, doesn't that sound so much more pleasant than Environment? That's part of the name for something that ELGG have created. It's a place where you can store files, share things and reflect in private, amongst friends on in public. A bit web log (sorry, I dislike the word blog for some reason) like but with rather more attraction, and even easier to set up, than the Blogger option. I haven't described it terribly well but you really should take a look. It's all free. This link will take you to the set-up page and this to my first feeble attempts at adding content (old articles so don't get too excited!). Nice simple link, though.

BBC On-line Archives

Here's a good test - if you can't think of a way to use any of these resources in a session then perhaps you're missing the point of all this ILT and e-learning stuff . . .

Forget all the complicated stuff - use a few of these to brighten up your next lesson (or get students to use some!) Surprise yourself. Well done Auntie.

Staff Skills assessment?! (updated)

Thought I'd ask a simple question recently. Has anyone got a way to assess staff ICT skills that is modern and with tasks that bear some relation to the jobs they're actually doing most of the time? I was almost embarrassed to ask as it was the sort of thing people would expect me to know about. Needn't have been. Very little response and nothing really new. Hmmm. So I've done my own! Bit clunky but access it here.

Now, where was I?

In case you forget where you should be when, and even why, here are a couple of sites that can help: planzo and meet-o-matic. Meet-o-matic is great for meetings when you are trying to get a group of people to agree a date. It doesn't look very smart but it does work. I've been using it for a couple of years but may not need it now that I've found Planzo. Now this looks awful but you can make it look better quite easily by choosing some better colour combinations than any of the standard sets offered, and it is very very smart in action. If it weren't for all the others sending you Outlook tasks and meeting requests, you could easily do without Outlook now and, of course, as very few of us have Outlook out of the office anyway, it may just be time to try and persuade colleagues to change to Planzo instead. Take a look (and don't get put off by the ghastly colours - you really can improve them later!) It comes from the Frappr stable (where you can see photos and profils of many of the Further Education ILT Champs and other groups) and is also, like most things I recommend, quite free.

A great time to be in this business!

It really is all happening. The Holy Grail of anyone being able to publish stuff on the web just by typing on a page seems tantalisingly close. A whole raft of wonderful new web-based applications are being trialled and we get to use them for free. I didn't even get time to write about Google's Page Creator when along came Pageflakes and the cool Netvibes. Now I've discovered 9cays and, well, the whole web scene is changing. 9cays is all about communication: you send an e-mail to people and their replies get accumulated on a web page they can all access, with simple facilities for getting others involved, developing the strand and leaving it too. Forget the distribution list or the cumbersome ones someone else has to set up for you via JISC or whoever - this one you can just start.

Pageflakes and Netvibes are remarkably similarly remarkable. One is now my home page - they're that good. Again, quite free. You can create a page that contains the panels of your choosing, from news feeds, feeds from your own blog, other web pages of your choice or a range of smart tools like clocks, searches and more. You can move panels around and, and this is the bit that makes them special, add your own text to as many panels as you like too. Pageflakes has the edge on content and the fact that you can have several pages comprising a pretty useful 'site'-ful but Netvibes has the better design and functionality in my view.

Google Page Creator basically does just that - provides you with areas in which you add your content, including images, then select from a variety of templates and when you hit the publish button you have a web address and a pretty decent looking site.

All these allow the inclusion of a nice facility to show your Flickr images or fine Flickr badges featuring your or someone else'd collections. . . oh, didn't I mention Flickr?

Lastly, for probably not very long, go to Wink and tag these and a whole lot of other pages you find that suit a particular need and they'll get stored in your own area for quick future reference or, indeed, as a selection for others to view, with a selection of similar sites, tagged by others via Wink, which have similar content but you perhaps missed.

OK, so it wasn't lastly . . . I forgot box.net where anything that's still what is rapidly becoming an 'old-fashioned document and needs to be stored somewhere, can be stored and accessed by whoever you care to give access to - and none of the processes require anything other than a reasonable recent computer and common sense.