Audioblogging within Beyond Text Workshop

This was my first recording via audioblogger in a NSW Learnscope Workshop with Michael Coughlin. I have been posting notes to my wikispace http://vivevans.wikispaces.com/Beyondtextws so watch this space... as it evolves

Startup Team Live chat summaries 12th & 19th October

Hi Startup Team & readers,

Just finished our official 2nd last live chat …. Can’t believe we are at week 19 of our 20 weeks together! Time flies…..

This week in the live chat 19.10.05

Robyn Jay (NSW LS project officer) joined Paul, Michael O, Danielle, Dominic and I and we were able to share some of the following websites. There was drinking of virtual champagne to celebrate.

Sites shared

Paul shared his achievements in uploading photos to his Blogger http://tandemcollege.blogspot.com/ using firstly Picassa which caused some problems so he changed to Flickr with successfully loading the great photos of his kids on holidays J We toasted Paul’s perseverance and eventual success!

Here are my Flickr photos – some of the startup team at the 2nd face to face workshop Viv's Flickr photos

Michael O’Hara shared some brilliant photos that he & his partner took on his blog… stunning colours & photography. Most impressive!! see http://criticalmasss.blogspot.com/

Danielle shared with us again her stunning Blog – Learning Addicts at Parramatta colldge

We discussed the issue of encouraging responses from Blogs. Interestingly Danielle had invited a Literacy teacher to use her blog and a class of student tried posting a comment for the first time on a computer.

Other useful tools discussed were

Do join the NSW Learnscope Edna group… and go down to section 5 to get the excellent Learnscope Newsletters that Robyn creates each month. NSW startup team were in the first edition J

Survey gathering tools… Survey Monkey and www.zoomerang.com both free to a limited extent. We briefly discussed how you can send out the survey to participants via Survey monkey. But here is a screen capture from the help page that may assist Paul but not all these features will work if registered free. Make sure your survey is Open ready to publish (image looks like a box that opens up on the left side of your screen when logged into survey monkey.

The week before 12th October we explored Cool websites

Geoff Kaye joined us briefly and Michael, Danielle & I checked out some cool websites

We checked out www.writely.com with a Webquest as a warm up and discussed how you can use all sorts of tools to enable students to explore key on line information via this method. Could also be called an online scavenger hunt.

Vivian shared a document she had published on the net using www.writely.com

‘How to use ScreenHunter’ and the same content was published via the writely website to her Blogger http://vivianevans.blogspot.com with one press of a button. So a pretty useful tool!

For the Fuel conscious amongst Danielle shared http://petrol.racv.com.au/inc_postcode_search_results.jsp where you can enter in your postcode and find out the cheapest fuel. Handy site for these days. Did not work on all postcodes but it might work for you!

Michael I lost that fabulous film review website… could you send me the link?

And we finished on these notes….

From both weeks I realise that there is a concern and a desire to continue the networking so as part of the session in the live final week’s celebrations we will discuss what other networks you could be joining to keep the information flowing.

Note that this posting was published to the Blogger using www.writely.com

Cheers Vivian vivevans@hwy.com.au

How to use the image capture tool 'Screen Hunter'

Using ScreenHunter

I find ScreenHunter is a fabulous tool for capturing images on the computer.

How & Why I like to use ScreenHunter

I use the images captured to make clear step by step instructions in Word documents; layering pictures to create one (eg a collage), creating screens for powerpoints, for creating virtual classroom whiteboards images, capturing collaborative whiteboard brainstroms and much more. They images are clear and of a small byte size. This is really handy for me on a slow internet speed to send and upload files. Image capture is fast and easily filed to a folder of my choice.

How to use ScreenHunter

A. Firstly download the free resource at

http://www.wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter_free.htm

B. Once downloaded ScreenHunter needs a quick set up to get it working effectively for you.

This is how I setup Screen Hunter to work for me.

• Open ScreenHunter
• Select the ‘To’ tab
• Select the options as appears in the screen below.
• You do need to have the folder you want to store your images in already created before you get to this point
• Simply select the folder icon below and select the folder you want your images to go to.

Now you have selected where your captured images will go. Next we will work out how you will capture them.

C. How to Capture the Images (Please see screen image below to see what I do.)

Firstly you need to select the 'From' Tab

• Start - Choose a hotkey via the drop box
• Capture What - I choose the rectangle area so I can capture small parts of screens
• I tick the Include mouse pointer so I can use the mouse pointer to show key features

D. Now that you have the To & From sorted let’s take the final steps.

1. Select Standby (Located at the bottom of the screen image above)
2. Move to the screen where you want to capture an image
3. Select the hotkey on your keyboard F6 (as chosen in the ‘From’ tab earlier)
4. This will bring up a + symbol that you need to click and drag across the image you want to capture. When you let your mouse button go a message will briefly pop up to say your image has been captured and detail the folder and title… for me called screenhunter001 which will increase the end number the more I create. You can always rename the file later.

I would really value your feedback on these steps so that I can improve them or if you like what you see :-) Please email me vivevans@hwy.com.au if you have any suggestions or comments on how you use Screen Hunter or any other similar tools.

Cheers Vivian Evans

Consultant Specialising in Facilitating Online Communities

Test run working with Kerry

We are testing to see if we can both log into the my Blog via DiscoverE and both post a message.
I discovered that you have to keep the follow me mode off to both post... so far so good.
Viv

Posting a Blog from home... adding a favourite website

Hi interested readers...

Now is the big test that I can do a posting without the help of Leigh and so far so good

Some favourite websites of mine that you may find useful

Screen Hunter is a brilliant program that allows you to capture images from your computer screen - This is particularly useful for teaching online or creating step by step instructions.
As yet I can't give you a picture example as it looks like I need to master the Hello or another graphics program but here is the URL http://www.wisdom-soft.com/ Follow this link to the Screen Hunter & make sure you select the free version.

Once you get the hang of how this program works it is really quick and easy to use!

Any queries or comments on this program please post in the Comments box.

Cheers Vivian

Reflections from Face to Face Start up workshop

Hi Startup team and other readers :-)

This is my first go at Blogging and it looks pretty interesting so far.... thinking of the potential here.

I'm part of a great team and it has been really good to meet others in the team face 2 face.

What have I learnt so far?
Control N opens up a new internet explorer window
How to set up a blog spot
and a Google group

Viv