My Presentation for the OZeLive Conference

After a very long weekend on moderating sessions it was finally my turn to present. I had a small audience but they were fantastic! Thank you to them all for coming and participating. My session centred around web tools that can be used to support inquiry learning.
The interactivity of the session I was pleased with. I got participants to add to an polleverywhere.com poll which I turned into a word cloud to add their ideas for different tools.
I was really pleased with my session. I was worried it would go too long but I managed to keep on time. I was really pleased with how my session went and next year I won’t be so nervous!!

I’m Presenting at OZeLive

iampresenting150x150.fw It’s official I’m presenting. As a volunteer I thought it would be a great opportunity to share my knowledge with others around Australian and around the world. The OZeLive Conference will take place form 22-23 February 2014 and it is looking like a fantastic event with a variety of different presenters and topics.

My session is called Web tools for Supporting Inquiry learning. In this one hour session I intend to share a variety of different tools which allow teachers to easily  integrate technology into the classroom learning environment without too many issues. I’ve tried to choose tools which are simple to use and help make life easier for teachers who are guiding or supporting student inquiry in the classroom.

There are a variety of tools being presented, like Google Apps, Symbaloo, Thinglink, Pinterest, Story Bird, MindMup and more. See you there!

Visual Literacy and the Australian Curriculum

I often participate and sometimes present in a regular free online webinar with educators from around Australia and sometimes SE Asia. Every Thursday night you can usually find us in the Australia E-Series Blackboard Collaborate Room. This room is kindly shared with us by Steve Hargadon from Web2.0 Labs.

On Thursday 4th July I presented a session on Visual Literacy Tools and the Australian Curriculum.

The Australian Curriculum has a definite focus on visual literacy through the incorporation of the General Capabilities. Visual literacy is important in all areas of the curriculum. In the past I have certainly used visual aids like video, photographs, tables, graphs and diagrams but I have not explicitly taught my students that interpreting these visual tools is essential to develop deep understanding and that these skills can be applied in all areas of the curriculum. Visual knowledge is one of the four organising elements of the Literacy general capability. The key feature for students and and teachers in the visual knowledge section is that students need to understand how visual images create meaning. As teachers we must explicitly teach interpretation and creation skills.
In the webinar presented 4th July 2013 I shared with the group some useful tools for finding and creating visual literacy objects for the classroom. Below I’ve listed the links.
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