Our First Online Session for the year!

We were delighted to see such a good roll-up at our first online PD session for the year on the Ning. Hopefully, those people will now feel a little more confident about using it to get information, resources and to join in fascinating discussions! We were also delighted to welcome Pat Grosse the EMentor from Hume and Shauna one of the Hume eleaders to the session. As you are probably aware, our region has joined together with Hume to become the North East region .

If anyone was not able to attend the session and wants some help in joining the Ning please let me know and I will help. This month in the Ning the topic is about using Microsoft Tools and this includes One Note, Microsoft Server. Microsoft LYNC as well as the usual Office tools so pop in and join in with the discussion. Tell them about your favourite Microsoft tool!

Next month is our month in the Ning. The topic will be "Adventuring with images and voice" so keep an eye out for that one!

Our next fortnightly online PD session will be Christine leading us through setting up a Quizlet. Make sure you get on board for that on 26th Feb at 4.30 pm!

Lynne

Still Plodding Along

Wow! Well done Maree.The bar has been set pretty high now. Maybe I'll be able to slip underneath.

Had a good meeting last week with the tutor and class members and support workers who will be using the blog I am creating for them. They are very enthusiastic and looking forward to learning new skills,. We used a large part of our Commonwealth equipment grant 2012 to buy ipads  and they are very excited about the possibilities of using them to capture images which they can play with before posting to the blog. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I will be able to invite you to join to see for yourselves. It is frustrating that they are only with us for a couple of hours a week.

Enjoyed catching up in the online classroom yesterday. Hope to see some of you at the Transport in the East expo at Mooroolbark Community Centre on 25/2. For details check out getmeabout.org.au/expo .

Completion of Project - Well done, Maree!

I have just spent an enjoyable evening at a tutor meeting at Pines Learning.

The highlight was the presentation that Maree did to demonstrate and explain the Google doc she created for a number of tutors to use to complete the A-frame documentation for a new pre-accredited course that begins next week.

She used the data display to show us the Google doc and demonstrate how to use it. She also distributed notes on how to use it. None of the other tutors had previously used Google docs and their interest was demonstrated by the in-depth questions that Maree answered very well.

Maree has completed the project set for her last semester and produced an online document that will be in use at the centre from next week. Her answers to the questions she was asked showed that she had done a lot of research and demonstrated her knowledge of Google docs.

Congratulations, Maree, and thank you. I will be one of the tutors using the Google doc and it will make our work easier.

I look forward to working with Maree this semester on her new project.

Maree is our new Google docs guru!!

Google Cloud Connect & Drive sync

Have been working in Google docs uploading an AFrame and converting it for collaboration with other tutors during 2013.  During this process I have come across Google Cloud Connect and Google Drive for Mac/PC for syncing files. 
It seems that with Google Cloud Connect, all Microsoft files created end up in the cloud. Has anyone used this or Google Drive sync and found them really useful?  If so, would appreciate some feedback.

Using iSpring quiz

After EMR PD Day last Wednesday my head was full with all the wonderful tools that I could experiment with over the Christmas break. Thank you Karen, Lynne and Christine.  I particularly got excited about using iSpring added to Powerpoint.  While on the website downloading, I came across iSpring Quiz, liked the sound of being able to produce quizzes and also downloaded the free program.  Today I have produced a simple bookkeeping quiz to try out on a class on Friday.  Creating the quiz is so easy, and I can see multiple uses for it.  After a few tries at publishing in different formats, found that publish to web is easiest so that it automatically opened up in a web browser.  I will get busy next creating something for other classes.

Convert uploaded files to Google Docs

Spent some time this morning figuring out why others could not edit my uploaded Word file in Google drive.  Didn't realise that uploaded files needed to be converted to Google Docs file before being able to be worked on collaboratively.  Also found that it is easier to share a folder, rather than individual files. Hopefully this now works!

Using Google Drive to upload files

Found it somewhat confusing, but finally able to upload a folder with 2 files to Google Drive, in the hope of collaborating with an A-frame Course and Session Planner.  The confusing part is that, even though I was in Google Drive (from Googlle Docs) the suggestion was to download the program to sync files from any device.  I didn't download anything, but was still able to upload the folder, which didn't happen until I selected the link "Java test page" in the Help.  I found the Help to be a very good step by step process. Have added the link:
https://support.google.com/drive/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=2375004&parent=2799517&ctx=topic
Next step is to collaborate with others to add and edit text.