LifeNtheUniverse

2008-01-05T05:34:00.000+10:00

Time flies & the New Year, 2008 is upon us! I thought I'd post for you a photo from my balcony here in Canmore, Alberta taken on Christmas morning - cool, huh?! :-)
I'll be posting much less frequently to this blog now as I've permanently re-located to Canada & am teaching there ...
I've posted a link to my new Canadian blog in the sidebar here & that's where I'll be posting more frequently from now on. And also I've put a link in to my Facebook site where I've got some photos posted. Feel free to have a look & send me some messages there too!
To all my 618 students from Semester 2 2007 - well done on your final projects - I'm sorry I didn't have time to post to each of you individually -but I may find some time over the next few weeks. I hope you were all (mostly) happy with your results?! :-)
So Happy New Year to all my past students & to other colleagues reading this!

2007-11-07T05:12:00.000+10:00

Well, it is certainly about time I posted here again! I have settled in to my new home in Canmore (well, temporarily until January, at least) and am enjoying the rather cool weather (so far had one night when it went down to -11C?!). It is a little chillier than I'm used to, but I was expecting that ... in a sort of way ...

I am about to start marking the final projects of my 618 students & I'm looking forward to seeing what you have all put together - & what your "reviewers" have to say about your productions ;-).

It snowed here again on Saturday night and Sunday, turning even the ugliest parts of town (& there aren't many of those) into a winter wonderland. But now it has mostly melted again, ready for the next snowfall which is predicted this Friday, I think. I'll see how long the snow lasts then?!

2007-10-15T15:27:00.000+10:00

Such a long time since I've posted??!! I feel blog-deprived :-) Here I am in Canada now - in Edmonton till tomorrow, then I move on to Canmore in the eastern Rockies - where it'll be a bit colder, I fear?!

Hope you all are moving along with your projects - I've had email from some & guess you others are just not communicating because you're not making much progress with the project. Don't forget that the wiki is a good place to ask questions & post ideas & help that you've found!

I'm putting here a photo I took a couple of days ago here in Edmonton - at sunset ... they are still on daylight saving here, which is rather strange for me, a tropical person, cos the sun doesn't rise till about 7.30am or later, but it doesn't set till about 6.30 ... And it doesn't really move across the sky- I have a view out of my hotel room in one direction & I can see the sun all day?!
... Not as serious a dysjunction as Alaska last year though :-)

I'm looking forward to seeing the online projects as they get posted - but won't be able to have a look at them for about a week or so. And guess what? It looks like I may be teaching a course collaboratively with University of Iceland?! - how cool is that?? (literally!) 8-}

2007-09-22T08:47:00.000+10:00

My last workshop with the Technology & Second Language students went well last Saturday. It was a full, but useful & exciting day, I think ...
So that was my last workshop at QUT?! Mind-boggling! Now I have the (enjoyable, though time-consuming) task of looking through everyone's webquests and giving them a grade. It will be difficult as they have all done such good work!

And this will happen in between having some leave time during the semester break & packing, packing, & more packing ...

Have to remember to breathe & relax from time to time :-D

2007-09-12T19:52:00.001+10:00

All the webquests are coming in now & there is just as much creativity and variety this semester as in previous semesters! Even people who thought they would never be able to do it have successfully created interesting & colourful webquests and put them on the web! Once again I am stunned and humbled at the capacity of students to make such learning leaps in such a short time - & in such diverse areas as learning theory, instructional design, and linguistics, as well as various content areas!
Now I am wondering how I'm going to be able to mark them all before I go - as well as do everything else I have to do ...?? At least it will be an interesting task- unlike packing :-}

2007-09-03T09:45:00.000+10:00

The second work shop went well last week & every -one seems to be on track to get their Webquests designed & put together. There are some very good ideas being develop -ed & I think most of them are over the first big learning "hump" of what to do, the peda- gogical bases of web- quests & how to put the pieces togeth -er. This week & next will be telling times, I think - when we shall see some amazing progress & some fascinating new projects. I look forward to getting notifications about them as they are posted ... :-)

The day after the workshop, I went up to the mountains with my friend Jane to relax & breathe some good, post-rain rainforest air, listen to the birds & also managed to see a beautiful sunset!

2007-08-21T17:29:00.000+10:00

Hah - rain at last!! I saw a rainbow on my way home from work this afternoon & nearly drove off the road - it was so beautiful & it's so long since I've seen one! Sadly, I didn't have my camera, so I couldn't get a photo ...
This Saturday is the second workshop for this semester for technology & second language learning - should be fun! ... hard work, but fun :-) Wonder what food I should bring for morning & afternoon tea (read: energy boosts) this time ...?

2007-08-17T14:22:00.000+10:00

The first workshop seemed to go well - lots of students & everyone has created their own blogs & posted something on the wiki site, so we're moving! Some people don't seem to have adopted their blogs as their own yet, but we have a drop-in session this afternoon, so I hope to spread some enthusiasm then ...

The first assignment is a webquest & I don' t think many people have actually read up on what exactly a webquest is or how to create one - so I'm expecting lots of questions this afternoon! I'll have to draw their attention to the webquest worksheet & the readings on that, as well as Atomic Learning & the Dreamweaver tutorials. Lots of fun & exploration ahead!

2007-08-04T07:17:00.000+10:00

So, this morning is the first workshop for my new semester of technology & L2 students. I'm excited and anxious at the same time ... how well will they respond? Will they enjoy the classes? Will they be able to find & learn to use good tools that will help them in their current or future teaching?

I'm looking forward to showing them some of the great software that is out there now & helping them understand how to use it ... so we shall see how this semester develops ... ?! :-)

2007-07-27T22:45:00.000+10:00

All of a sudden, a new semester has begun?! I met my Technology students this afternoon & they seem like a dynamic & interesting group of people - & a broad ethnic mix too! So I look forward to teaching them this semester. Although it's a few weeks ago now, I had a great time at the EdMedia conference in Vancouver, so I want to share a photo or 2 of that. The first workshop will be next Saturday, & that looks like it will be fun!

2007-06-19T00:07:00.000+10:00

Well, slowly I'm working my way through all my marking ... just about half-way there I think.
Some of the final essays in my assessment subject are really glowing & others needed more reading - oh well that's the way it goes, I guess.
For myself, I really need some time out from the coalface for a while, & a total change of scene - hopefully I'll get this in Vancouver next week. I'm looking forward to some new faces and new ideas since I haven't been to this particuar conference before ...
Oh, & 2 past students have got together in Japan - & good to see too! An interesting & different perspective on the effectiveness of technology for facilitating collaborative endeavours! ;-}

2007-05-30T04:07:00.000+10:00

Back in Brisbane & teach again today ... But here is a photo taken in Texas, near New Braunfels, about 20 mins drive from San Marcos, just before the CALICO conference. It was a wonderful experience - lots of good people, good ideas & good contacts to take away & network with. And on the day after the conference it rained so heavily I got wet just waiting under shelter - It has been so long for us in Brisbane, that I'd almost forgotten what real rain is like! :-)
On the day before the conference started I was lucky enough to get a lift with some friends around the surrounding area which strangely has a strong German history - hence the name New Braunfels.

2007-05-22T14:04:00.000+10:00

Well, one conference presentation & 1 guest presentation down, 1 more conference to go & then I can go home ... Starting to get a little travel weary - & I think the idea of having to wake up at 4am tomorrow to get planes to go to the next conference is a little daunting ...
Hopefully I'll be able to sleep on the plane!
Lots of great networking done so far & much more to go, I'm sure!
And I'm looking forward to meeting up with other Nth American colleagues who I only see once a year! At least it won't be snowing in Texas tomorrow, as it was here in Calgary this morning?!

2007-05-09T06:11:00.000+10:00

YAY!! Solved: the mysterious case of the disappearing comments feature at the end of my posting 3 ago ... suddenly wthout warning the comments feature just disappeared - it was still in the template, just disappeared from the main display ... but now I've discovered the "post options" dropdown menu at the bottom of the posting box that strangely set itself just on that particular posting to "hide comments" ?!

So now that's fixed & I'm happy again! :-)

2007-05-09T06:00:00.000+10:00

The workshop went well last Saturday - there are some very interesting and well-designed projects happening & we went through a discussion of the webquests. So by the end of this week I should be able to post links to the new, revised versions here. Once again, I was proud & humbled at the same time at the great leaps in knowledge & understanding my students have made - not to mention skills developed over the last several weeks?!
On Friday we will have another drop-in session - the last for 3 weeks, as I'm going away for 2 1/2 for these conferences in Canada & Texas. But I feel quite confident that they now have the skills to continue working on their own & that their final projects using Hot Potatoes & other assorted media will continue to develop well in the meantime. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have produced when I get back! Of course I won't be out of contact while I'm away - just in (very) different time zones! :-)

2007-05-05T07:03:00.000+10:00

This morning we are having the last workshop for this semester - always a sad (& hectic) event! The students have put up their Webquests & they are so creative! Once again I am humbled by how much thought & effort they have put in to this project ... And they will be such a useful resource for their teaching too!

I'm wondering when I should take the step to change my blog over to the new template versions. The fact that somehow the comments option disappeared at the bottom of my last blog posting is cause for concern, but until this semester is over, I am reluctant to change my blog in case I lose some of the valuable links I have embedded! Dilemma ... :(

So this morning I am fooking forward to our discussions & feedack on webquests, working wth audio & video & the vagaries of putting Hot Potatoes exercises up on line ... :-P

2007-04-19T23:44:00.000+10:00

I've been suffering from blog-
depriv-
ation over the last couple of weeks - firstly because there just wasn't any wirless connection I could pick up from my tent?! :-) Then I got back from camping at Mon Repos, & just couldn't organise my time to get back here?!
So I thought I would add in a photo to show where I've been, before I go to the next dropin sesion for 618 tomorrow aternoon. I wonder who will come tomorrow & who wil just be virtually there?

2007-04-05T23:53:00.000+10:00

Well - I just thought I'd make one last post before the Easter break. I'm off tomorrow morning (4am?!) to take my boys camping ... I am taking my laptop as we'll have a powered site in the campground beside the beach, but there's no internet connectivity in my tent ;-} I'm looking forward to having a few days break - from connecting, not from thinking - or maybe I'll be doing a different kind of connecting ... watch this space! I always find the beach a good place for fomenting ideas, so another reason to look forward to the time.

2007-03-31T16:51:00.000+10:00

Another mind-stretching workshop completed ... I am continuously amazed at how different each one is. This is a good thing as it reminds me how different every individual student is. And they always surprise me with the understanding they gain and impart, and the high learning curve they are willing and able to achieve! This time we were joined by Dr Norm Vaughan at the University of Calgary as he shared with us some of his experiences and reflections on the forms and usefulness of webquests and inquiry-based learning. This discussion stimulated some interesting questions and ruminations afterwards :-)

2007-03-28T14:44:00.000+10:00

I'm just starting to prepare for the second workshop - my how time flies! :-)
This time we will be focussing on creation & functions of webquests & other associated ideas. But the highlight will be a live discussion with Dr Norm Vaughan at the University of Calgary, using ELive. He'll be talking us through how his students created their Webquests & what they used them for.
My students seem to be taking up the wiki & blog challenge & starting to post - it's also great that some of my past students are taking an interest in this semester's activities again & interacting with them! :-)

2007-03-05T11:27:00.000+10:00

The 1st workshop for this semester went ahead well, I think. I'm concerned that so few students are enrolled, though ... and I wonder why. But those of us who came had a great time & learnt lots, which is the aim of the activity - apart from enjoying some delicious morning tea snacks :-)

So now I start planning for the next one & getting ready for questions in the 1st drop-in session which will be this coming Friday. We didn't mange to have an ELive session with University of Alaska this time, because of a local conference over there, but we have high hopes for the 2nd workshop when Dr Norm Vaughan from University of Calgary will be talking to us about WebQuests & his students' experiences.

2007-03-02T13:13:00.000+10:00

How time flies! A new year, new semester, & tomorrow new students in the 1st workshop for Sem. 1 2007! Very exciting ... Unfortunately we won't have quite the excitement this time that we usually have in the 1st workshop since the University of Alaska CDE people are busy with a local conference this weekend, & can't do a live presentation for us. But I should be able to organise something for the next workshop. And in the next workshop we will be able to (virtually) meet Dr Norm Vaughan from University of Calgary who will talk to us about webquests, blogs & wikis, & how he & his students use them in Calgary.

In December I had the opportunity to present at the ASCILITE conference in Sydney (photos above):
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney06/
proceeding/onlineIndex.html

And tomorrow the first workshop will happen, we'll learn about the history of Technology Enhanced Language Learning, begin to talk about Social Networking software & learn how to create & maintain our own blogs & class wiki ... I'm looking forward (with some anxiousness) to working with a new group of students and seeing how they develop and learn all these new skills and understandings.

2006-12-11T07:20:00.000+10:00

So here I am on the trip Seattle to Fair- banks ... seems surreal to be actually going to this place we have had such fun contact with over the last year or so ... I thought you would enjoy a couple of photos of the scenery of the trip up, from the air - so here they are! More later when I download & process them.

2006-12-11T06:55:00.000+10:00

So time flies & so much has hap-
pened?! Here I am in Fair-
banks with The
CDE people, doing some visiting & thank
-yous for the help they have given me over the last 2 semesters, to help make my course more interesting and provide some really distant experience :-)
I met Chris, our workshop instructor, f2f for the 1st time, gave him a little Australian something from all of us (see photo) and today I am off with a group of other people from the CDE to visit Chena Hot Springs ... & bathe in the water ... who would have thought?!
http://www.chenahotsprings.com/

I hope to have some more photos from there later to post here :-)
In the meantime, here is a photo of Chris just after he received our thank-you gift - I think he was a bit embarrassed that we thought he was such a drinker that we gave him 2 Guritno shot glasses ;-}

I was also lucky enough to meet the VC for Rural, Community & Native Education & presented her with a greeting gift from QUT.

2006-11-22T05:39:00.000+10:00

Phew! All the marking is finished - yay! Now begins the tedious business of collating everything, putting the right bits in the right boxes, uploading & sending off. So the results should be up by the end of today & then I'll send out my detailed comments and feedback to everyone - probably not till tomorrow.
There were so many good sites and creative ideas - some developed and some just waiting for a bit more time to reach their full potential. Yet all students did such a good job & made such monumental progress along the bumpy, pot-hole-ridden, sometimes slippery, sometimes gloomy, track to techno-pedagogical confidence and competence. Well done everyone! It's been a pleasure watching you create & achieve!
Now, enough of the poetics for today (or probably for a long time to come, I hear you all say!) :-)
My next project, after sending out everyone's individual feedback, will be to post the links to the final projects here on my blog & begin the process of hosting & posting all the projects (webquests & online modules - this semester & last) on my own webspace ... this ain't gonna happen overnight!
So watch this space for further developments ... and eventually a URL to view them all.

2006-11-01T09:26:00.000+10:00

Well, the guest lecture with the ITBL course at U of Calgary seemed to go well - certainly I've received thanks from Norm about it, though no contact from any of his students ... but maybe they're still getting used to the technology & using this kind of social software for educational rather than just personal purposes ...? Certainly they seemed to be impressed (as was Norm) with the design (and obvious reflective effort) of my students' webquests from this semester. Well done, once again 618-ers - you are now internationally renowned :-)

It was fun to be doing a presentation from here in Brisbane where it was 25C & I thought it was a cool day. While in Calgary it was -13C & they had had snow ...

2006-10-31T09:39:00.000+10:00

This morning I'm talking with the ITBL students at University of Calgary - all being well?! You never can tell what the technology is going to do, of course, so we'll just do what we can ... It should be fun! :-)
Hopefully a couple of my 618 students will be able to join in too - who knows?

So we'll see what students in Calgary think about what my students have been able to do & their uses of the tools for teaching. I'll post more later after I've met these people ...

2006-10-28T05:58:00.000+10:00

The last drop-in session came & went, my students asked their last questions, & panic & frustration was still high about getting final web-based projects looking just right & working just so ...

On the one hand it is gratifying for me as a teacher, that commitment is so high. On the other, it is frustrating for me to be only an on-looker at this stage. I have to just trust in the strength of the community of help & support they have built up among themselves - which seems to be working for most of them - certainly for those who have been most active.

And I keep reminding everyone that when I come to mark, I'll be looking for pedagogical rationale for what has been produced, reflection on what was tried, what worked, what didn't & what might be done differently next time. I'm looking for reflection, learning from experience & reflection & thoughts on plans of action about the usefulness and appliciability (or otherwise) in their own contexts and for their backgrounds, of the projects produced and the tools that have been learnt. And, of course, I keep in mind the starting points in the course of each individual student in terms of experience & expertise with technology ... some have had higher & steeper learning curves than others. Some have focussed more on the technology side because that is where they felt weakest - and this has caused a mixture of frustration & a sense of achievement. Others have focussed on the pedagogical side and gained some insights ... and experienced confusion. Still others have tried (sometimes precariously?!) to keep a balance between the two ...

And I feel humbled by the efforts & commitment of every one of them.

It has been an interesting experience for me this semester & I can't wait to see all the final projects as they are starting to be posted. I am also looking forward to reading the rationales and self- and peer-reflective commentaries as they are posted too. What a great, hard-working, enthusiastic group of people it has been my pleasure to work with this semester!

2006-10-20T14:20:00.000+10:00

I was just cruising through some of the HP tutorial sites hoping to find a solution to Julie's picture problem without having seen the problem in action :-) when I came across this site of Andrew Balaam:
http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/rgshiwyc/school/
curric/HotPotatoes/UseHotPotatoes.htm

If you follow the link to the word document, I think it contains all the information that is necessary to solve picture problems (hope you're reading this Julie?). So I thought I'd post it here rather than in the comments cos I know you're all strapped for time. I'll also post it on the wiki.

Hope someone brings a camera tonight cos I forgot mine - we need some celebration photos, I think - to show that we all actually *made it*!! 8-}

and of course, don't forget the food & drink so we can make merry ...

2006-10-16T13:15:00.000+10:00

Jacarandas! It's that time of year again with the flowering trees in full bloom around Brisbane. If you're a student & getting stressed about final assessment for the year, DON'T LOOK!! This is a beautiful one just outside my study window.

I've just finished chatting with Norm at University of Calgary about the talk he wants me do with his students and it sounds like fun. We used Elluminate Live! with text chat, audio, webcams & desktop sharing & I'm feeling much more comfortable now about doing this. I showed him a couple of my students' webquests & he wants me to share these with his students too. So this means my students will certainly be gaining an international profile?! :-)

We had an interesting drop-in session last Friday with Basim joining us in chat from Oman to ask about some problems he's been having with the Hot Potatoes activities and Dreamweaver. So I hope that's sorted now. No doubt he'll be in touch again with any further questions he has. This Friday will be our last formal session together, so I hope everyone's travelling ok ... I know there were sighs of relief all round when I announced that there would be an extension for the final projects - except for me, cos this means I'll have less time for marking. I guess if we expect the students to burn the midnight oil to meet deadlines, we can too?! Hmmm ... I think there's something wrong with that line of reasoning?

2006-10-09T09:15:00.000+10:00

I've been having a wonderful time marking the students' webquests - does that sound strange? There are so many good ideas & they really seem to have "got" the point of how to construct them - from both the pedagogical and technical perspectives. It's great having such a responsive, hard-working group (again?!) :-)
It's also been good to see this semester's students making use of the projects, tips & hints of students from previous semesters, and also some students from last semester also interacting with this semester's students, giving advice, answering questions etc (special mention to Robee!). It's like a community extended across time, where one semester segues into the next. Great stuff!!

2006-10-03T00:03:00.000+10:00

Wow! Life never seems to cease to amaze me ... apparently my students nominated me for an online learning and teaching award - which I won?! Sometimes things like this happen and just re-affirm for me how exciting and involving teaching and learning can be ... Thanks everyone! :-)
(more later when I've recovered from the shock ...??)
I wonder what to spend my millions in prize money on?? ;-P

2006-09-21T17:38:00.000+10:00

Tomorrow marks the end of Week 10 & we have a 1-week teaching break. I hope to use this time to have a good look at all the exciting webquests that have been posted & get to the bottom of some other piles of marking for other courses I teach ... and finish writing a paper & ... & ...

But in the midst of all that I plan to actually do some reading - some even for pleasure, I hope?! And I also plan on catching up with friends I haven't seen for a while during these last several hectic weeks of getting this course up & running.

We said our f2f good-byes this week to one of our students, Basim, who's now gone back to Oman, to continue his course participation from there - so that should be interesting!

Summer feels like it's just around the corner with 28C today?! Where did winter go then??

2006-09-16T16:54:00.000+10:00

The third and final workshop for the semester is over - yay! another exhausting but very profitable day, I think ... Everyone worked hard & seems to be making impressive progress.

All students have now posted their Webquests, so I'll be adding links to those over the next few days ... Then I have the task of marking them?! Sure I have grading criteria, but so many of them have done such impressive work, I'm not sure how to apply the criteria. So this will require some further thought. I've also posted some reflection questions on the Discussion Forum to see what individual reactions different students have had of the process & their impressions of the task & of webquests. More interesting information.

My students are also looking forward to giving and receiving comments in their blogs from Norm's students in Canada. It will be intersting to see if/how this develops.

2006-09-12T10:03:00.000+10:00

In some time out last week end I found this flower in the midst of a whole patch in the windswept sand dunes - couldn't resist taking a photo & posting it here for reflection ...

This week links to the student Web quests are starting to sprout like mushrooms on the students projects page of the class wiki, so it looks like we have some go-ers! always a relief when the light breaks through & success is achieved ... Now it's back over to me to start moving or copying them all on to my own webspace so that they're all viewable from the same location & by the big wide world, not just within QUT.

I hope that Norm Vaughn's students in Calgary will be starting to exchange blog comments with my students shortly - it looks like they will be starting on blogs next week, so that should be exciting - for all concerned!

Our last Saturday workshop will be this weekend, when we will be exploring the vagaries of electronic portfolios, collaboratories, Hot Potatoes for web-based activity creation & media such as Audacity & Movie Maker ... should be interesting! I'm also planning on having some problem-based focus group discussions on their experiences so far in this mode of delivery for this unit, and some further discussion about the philosophical and methodological issues surrounding the uses of technology for language teaching and learning ... interesting times ahead!

2006-09-05T06:32:00.000+10:00

I have been busy reading and commenting on my students' blogs for this last week, & watching their progress in developing their wiki as a community space. It seems to be shaping up as a place they feel they own and feel comfortable posting to, which is good. One of my students has already posted a link to her webquest and others are coming close - this is exciting!

It's also good to see that many students are doing the reading for this unit and posting their reflections on these in their blogs too. In fact it is interesting to watch the way different students are using their blogs and tailoring them to their own take on what they are for and how they should be used. I think there is almost some evidence accumulating for some culturally-determined differentiation, though of course personalities are also an influencing factor. Watch this space ...! :-)

I'm now going to try to establish a working connection with a colleague at the University of Calgary in Canada ... to try to get his students working and communicating with mine. I think this would provide all concerned with a stimulating learning environment as they hopefully swap ideas and experiences across the Pacific.
More on this next time.

2006-08-28T10:16:00.000+10:00

The drop-in session on Friday seemed to go well ... and things seem to be coming together for most people. There are an interestingly large proportion of students this semester who have decided to learn & use Dreamweaver or the geocities website building tools rather than going down the Questgarden path - for which I am grateful. After my experience last semester with trying to explain how to get their webquest pages complete with all their images, animations etc saved down to their local university server, it will be a relief not to have to hassle too much with this. It is such a tedious process.
I may have had some influence on these decisions :-)

This whole process also reminds me that I probably need to make up a basic worksheet explaining how the directory structure works on computers, how local machines link to servers and how the web and the internet mediate this structure. For people who have grown up only knowing and using the web, & using the xp/2000+ versions of Windows, I guess the whole directory and tree structure is less than transparent.
This may be a task for next semester.

We are grappling at the moment with the complexities of embedded features in web pages, the need to have an index.html file at the top level and the necessity of having all the files associated with a single site located in a single folder in the same directory, on the local server ... as well, of course, as the structure of webquests, the importance of having a task that requires their students to change or transform the information they find on websites in some way (to avoid plagiarism in addition to the good pedagogical reasons), the evaluation rubrics and the rationale on the teacher's page.

Because of my need to grade the webquests, this latter is now serving 3 purposes: 1. to provide me with the information I need to be able to grade the webquests from a pedagogical perspective (reflections & rationale); 2. to give other teachers & classmates enough information about the objectives of the webquests & what students they are designed for - so they can decide whether these would be useable for them; and 3. for more thoughtful students to use to understand better the purpose of the webquests and what students might learn through doing them.

2006-08-22T06:50:00.000+10:00

After the workshop on Saturday, I hope that community cohesion will now start to build, as it didn't seem to be forming yet. There is a critical mass of students who are active, so I'm hopeful that these will draw the others along with them.

In this semester, there seems also to be more student-instigated emphasis on forming groups to work on the 1^st project (possibly because of a real deadline) :-)

A worrying aspect of this group is that they seem to be less inclined to go ahead and take the initiative than the previous students … perhaps it's till early days, but they seem to need more direction from me about what to do, how to do it & when to start. It may again be a function of the fact that this time I have set deadlines ... of well ... win some, lose some ... :-( Or perhaps it is also an effect of a totally different group of personality types with different learning and cognitive styles. I guess time as the semester progresses and I have time to analyse their responses on the questionnaire, just exactly which factors are most salient will become clearer.

I'm struggling with limitations of the QUT server/system access (lag in our faculty at least between pedagogical innovation & technical provision) and on Saturday during the workshop several students weren't able to see their QUT server space for their web pages - apparently because the system was being updated during that time.

I had a wonderful birthday though! Someone in the class found out & I was presented with a lovely bunch of flowers & a chocolate mudcake - which didn't last long, but gave us the energy to carry on for the rest of the day :-P

2006-08-21T12:47:00.000+10:00

Well, the second workshop went well on Saturday - I think?! I'll wait to see what my studetns have to say in their blogs. There were certainly lots of questions & I think lots of learning - the learning curve is still steep for almost everyone ... including me! :-)
I'm now about to go & give a presentation on the changes to the course that I started last semester ... so I plan to have some more time later to post on that & the workshop.

2006-08-18T14:38:00.000+10:00

OK - so I've been really slack these last few weeks about posting on & updating my blog ... what can I say, except that life sort of overtook me?!

Tomorrow is our second workshop & should be full of exciting things to do & learn - & hopefully we can have some good discussions about Webquests & what they are all about. I see that some students have been posting questions on the course OLT discussion forum, so I think it will be time.

Also time for everyone to start getting active on their blogs & to see what can be done on the Wiki page ... interesting times ahead.

2006-07-24T14:38:00.000+10:00

I had an absolutely exciting time on Saturday in the first workshop with the Sem 2 students!
This is a bigger class than last semester, which I really noticed when I was trying to chat with Chris, Curt & Shauna in Alaska at the same time as going around to the students who needed help, to try to keep everyone going at the same pace while Chris was explaining the intricacies of creating blog accounts and editing our wiki.

The only glitch was the fact that Uploading Files had not been enabled (I should have checked this beforehand, but I wanted the students to come to a "virgin" page) so we couldn't put some of the photos I took up on the wiki on the day ... so I'll have to show them how to do that next time we meet. It's now been fixed - Bruce, our local Tech support person answered my email (above & beyond the call of duty) on Saturday night, so I've now been able to put up a few of the photos. :-)

2006-07-22T13:56:00.000+10:00

2006-07-21T22:36:00.000+10:00

Well, tomorrow is the big day - first workshop with my new group of 618 students. I think I have done as much preparation as I can - now all that remains is to go with the flow and let the gremlins (not my students!) do as they will. I hope everything goes well! 8-} I find I am looking forward to starting this new class, with a little trepidation too ... how will they respond to this style of course, will I and they be able to work well together, how will they learn, adapt? How can I best guide them though the experience of this unit? Do I have available the tools and support that different members of the group will need? Tomorrow the next adventure will begin to help answer some of these questions.

2006-07-14T12:40:00.000+10:00

I'm in the process now of frantic-ally preparing for CLN 618 for Semester 2 which starts next week. I had a panic when I doscovered only at the beginning of this week that the Wiki hosting site for Sem 1 won't be available in semester 2 :-( But it looks like the tech people (or 1 person in particular) are coming through for me to provide Faculty-hosted space for semester 2. So now I'm trying to negotiate WWW access to the wiki so that it can actually be a collaborative space. We will see what happens on this one.
So far the students enrolments for Sem 2 are looking good, and I find that, in spite of being sick, I am actually looking forward to teaching this unit again this semester. Last semester it was so much fun - for me at least - though a lot of hard work for both the students and me.
I must remember to put up the link to this blog on the LMS site so that students can start to access it from the beginning.

It also looks like the live online workshop with University of Alaska will go ahead again too, so that should be another great experience for this semester's students. This means, of course, that I have to go to the Elluminate site and study up on the new version of the software and the new features. I have been contact ed by one of the Elluminate reps about running throughthe new fetures with me online, so hopefully my request and timing to do this will come off & I'll be properly prepared for next Saturday's workshop!

2006-06-14T00:18:00.000+10:00

Well, it's been a while since my last
posting so I thought it

was about time I put up some of my photos from my trip to Montreal.

On the day after the conference ended, the weather was fine & I was able to walk down to the St Lawrence River & see blue sky & flowing water.
The first photo shows an interesting variation on the average inner-city habitation boxes.

The second is a building old-style Montreal. The clock stayed at 10.30 the whole time I was there! Below is a fountain in the airport in Vancouver. I thought is captured beautifully the relationship beteen the city and the water around it - the bay & the islands.

2006-06-02T10:19:00.000+10:00

Here I am back in Brisbane ready to join in the last 2 sessions with my students. The 2 conferences were very interesting and inspiring - & my students' posts on their blogs & the wiki were well received. It was great being able to open up the sites & find so much student activity, with comments being posted on each others' blogs & the Wiki just growing organically into a very student-shaped community. Great to see!!

Something I have found most exciting is the way my students have just taken the tools and used the spaces to make them their own. And such a sense of community - with support, suggestions, tips - very sharing rather than competitive, which was one of my (hidden) aims in the changes I made to the design of the course.

Something else that came out of the focus group discussions was that they would like deadlines for assignments. This was one aspect that I was curious about - whether they would take advantage of the flexibility to do some things in a different order - but one did mention that they felt directed to do the Webquest first - probably because that was one of the main items in the second workshop. I'll have to think more about how to do this next time - whether to make hard deadlines, whether to make the assignments in a specific order, whether to leave the timing open, or whether to give them guidelines - perhaps some recommended timelines that will help them get the work done in time, but not compulsory or hard deadlines. I'll see.

I think I'll also post another set of summary reflective questions on the discussion forum about their perceived benefits of the structure of the course, the assessment pieces, the tools & support, as well as the good and bad aspects of the final assignment.

I'll include some of my photos here from the conferences when I have a chance to download & process them. Photoshop will be hard-worked this weekend, I think!

2006-05-22T07:38:00.000+10:00

My last day in blue Hawaii - also the name of a rather toxic alcoholic (so i'm told?!) beverage available for sale in the local ABC stores (convenience stores). Tonight I fly out to Montreal for the CADE conference - looking forward to meeting some more like-minded people there.
i did my presentation at this conference (CALICO) on Friday & as I had a live internet connection I opened up my students' blogs & our wiki page & was very pleased to see so much activity going on - & Kazu's new webquest published!

http://www.webquest.org/questgarden/lessons/20664-060331180138/index.htm

Way to go guys!! :-))
It was wonderful to be able to show some of your hard work over here to people who apprecite all your efforts.
Now to finish preparing for this next presentation at CADE on Wednesday.

2006-05-18T08:56:00.000+10:00

Sitting here in my hotel room in Waikiki, Hawaii preparing my presentation for Friday & wondering how my students are going ... 4 of them still haven't posted their Webquests. A bit worrying ... I might have to (shock, horror?!) resort (no pun intended!) to sending individual email messages to remind them of the Friday deadline help them get their focus back ...
I'll post more later when I get a more reliable internet connection & maybe hear from my students :-]
This connection has already dropped twice since I've been typing this message & i'm sure I don't type that slowly?!

2006-05-12T06:23:00.000+10:00

Thought I'd better finally add my photo to my profile since my students have & have shown me where to find out how to do this :))
No more excuses!!

2006-05-12T05:47:00.000+10:00

The last workshop went really well - everyone I expected there turned up all enthusiastic and ready and willing to work hard. They have produced some interesting WebQuests and are now starting to work on learning the skills for the final asignment: to put together a unit of work using online activity templating tools. This assignment is going to require quite extensive reading and they will have to put in some intensive practice in using the various tools and experimenting to get it how they want it.

We had an illuminating discussion of the purposes of blogs vs the class wiki - they were confused about what they could or couldn't post on the wiki - so very few people had posted anything?! I then created a Community Portal page so that we could all post our hints & tips for modifying blogs and creating WebQuests. Some students had come up with very useful tips which have now been posted - yay class! :-)

What became clear to me for future offerings of this unit is the need for some form of instant messaging (a push technology rather than a pull form) or maybe even a class-wide sms-ing system to notify everyone about reminders. This would help keep everyone on track as well as serve to notify everyone when new information was posted on any of our venues - I could use it as the default & then the more self-directed ones (or people who have been organised enough to set up automatic notification of some form) could opt out if they wish ... something for me to think further about ...

2006-05-05T09:15:00.000+10:00

Tomorrow is the last workshop for this unit & things are starting to fall into place. I've lost one student - she just let me know yesterday that she's decided to downgrade from the Masters to the Certificate courses and so will not need so many units - so she chose mine to drop. I still haven't heard from the other students whether they'll be coming or not - or what stage their projects are at ...
It will be interesting to see how they are going - whether their lack of communication is because they are working so hard (on this or other units), whether they are too embarrassed to contact me because they are falling behind in terms of getting things done for the semester deadlines, or whether they just don't feel the need to contact me ... or maybe they've been in contact with each other?!
I've managed to organise logins for an online e-portfolio site for them to start experimenting with digital storytelling with media - I hope they get as fired up about this concept as I have been. It seems like a wonderful tool for language learners - and teachers!
I'll have to post some more discussion questions on the LMS, but I'm putting off doing this until they respond to the last one I posted ... I think the discussion forum has been lost in the flow of other forms of electronic communication. At least most of them are using their blogs actively, including posting comments on each others'.
And I've been seeing far too many dawns lately ... I'm sure it's not good for me! :-)

2006-04-30T12:31:00.000+10:00

Well, the mid-semester break has come & gone & so far only 1 student has posted a WebQuest - one of the 2 assignments for this semester. This is a bit worrying ... apparently they seem to be struggling with organising their time & timing. This was always going to be a problem, but I was hopeful. So now I'm going to have to start doing some reminder messages. I'm also re-scheduling the last workshop from June to this weekend, if they can come, to try to get them all back on track before it's too late. Otherwise they'll end up with 2 assignments looming & not enough time to do either of them justice. I deliberately left the due dates for the assignments open, & also left the decision up to them as to which one they did in which order, but they all seem to be working on the WebQuest 1st ... without having looked at the demands of the other assignment yet.
Three other students have been in communication with me about their WebQuests, so I am hopeful that they will be able to track back to a workable timeline, but I've not even had any communication from the others. What particularly worries me is that most of the students who have not been in communication are international students, & so may be preferring not to communicate at all because they feel they have fallen so far behind - or because they still do not understand the task fully & are reluctant to ask for more assistance. I'll see what response I get from my reminder messages this week.

2006-04-04T15:02:00.000+10:00

LifeNtheUniverse
Well, the second workshop has also gone well. I'll be posting more photos of this one when I have had time to process them. A few students had, as I expected, not done anything much since the last workshop ... I think it will take some of them a bit of time to get themselves organised and learn the skills of budgeting their own time & making their own deadlines and timelines - not an easy or quick skill to learn. Hopefully they will all learn these strategies before they run out of time to complete the 2 assignments - since I have set no deadlines for these, except the obvious one when semester ends.

2006-03-30T13:52:00.000+10:00

It was a relief for me in the first worshop when all the students cooperated enthusiastically and seemed to "click" - helping each other out with the technical bits & asking questions ... lots of questions ...
With the assistance of staff from the CDE we ran through how to create and edit Wiki pages, how to create and edit our own blogs and had a short guided tour of the deep north and how teaching can happen using tools of technology, and how communities of learners with their teachers can form and be maintained.

2006-03-30T13:39:00.000+10:00

Well now I can totally sympathise with my students when they complain about not having time to do their regular blogs, reflections etc. Here I am in Week 5 of the semester just getting around to making some new additions.

Workshop 1 went very well way back on March 4th with the Center for Distance Education at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

And already on Saturday 1st April the second workshop will run ...

2006-03-03T18:44:00.000+10:00

The stark browns and dusty greens of Central Australia contrast with the blue of the sea off Waikiki, Hawai'i. So contrast and strong visual images are also important.

2006-03-03T17:59:00.000+10:00

Staring at these rocks - the Devil's Marbles in Central Australia has provided me with inspiration some of the time ...

Something about how long they've been there and how little they've changed over 1,000s of years puts the changes I'm making into perspective. Small, slow, but dramatic change producing starkness and beauty together.