Second Life

I know this means I will waste even more time playing on my computer when I should be studying ... but I have just signed up for an account on Second Life. Meet my new persona in SL ... Alison Ruissatel!

I've just discovered that there is a version of Second Life that links to Moodle - called Sloodle - so I need to go and play with that and see how it all works together. I'll keep you posted.

Fantastic PowerPoint

I've long wanted to improve my use of ppt for training - but this example takes ppt to a whole new level - Electric Power Jack training from Prometheus.

I think it is fantastic!

There are also some demos of how they get these effects

Wiki Educator

I've finished my WE basic training - and achieved the Wiki Apprentice level 2 - so far. I'm hoping to get Level 1 when our facilitator takes a final look at my wiki page.

You can see it here

http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Alisonmead

It's a good course (and ANYONE can do it) so I do recommend you try if, like me, you need to have wiki demystified. Of course all I have learned is the basic skills and now I need to start using them - or losing them - if I am really going to 'know' how to use a wiki. Now, where am I ging to find time for that?

My thanks goes to Patricia Schlicht - our friendly wiki guide.

WizIQ

Today I am taking part in a live online class using WizIQ

http://www.wiziq.com/

the class is
http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/226737-WikiEducator-OERs-Build-it-and-they-will-come

and anyone can join - 19.00 PST

I'll comment on the WizIQ platform and the class later ...

WE user page

I have my own user page in WE now ... it's not very exciting - but call it a work in progress.

I'm still playing around in my sandbox and learning how to do things.

http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Alisonmead

WikiEducator

I'm taking part in an online workshop to learn how to use WikiEducator www.wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops

WikiEducator calls itself an evolving community intended for collaboration and development of free content, OERs and networking.

I've been meaning to do this workshop for months and have finally found time to join. The workshop is facilitated by my colleague from COL - Patricia. Wiki has lots of potential for some of the collaborative projects I'm planning in my skills development work at COL.

I'm only on the basics of editing but so far, it's brought out all my existing reservations about HTML - beause wiki uses a completely different syntax ... ho hum! Better get back to learning the new formatting commands ...

my first video

Here is the video I made using Windows Movie Maker. I'd heard lots of bad things about WMM - like how it is not as good as iMovie. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't easy and took many hours of trial and error - but overall I would say that it's a tool I would use again.

I had to open an account at Blog TV in order to have somewhere to upload my video - click here to view the video.

The video is about our visit to Capilano Suspension Bridge - just after we arrived in Vancouver. The audio is a little faint - so you might find you have to bump up the sound level to hear my dulcet tones ...