Singapore Workshops 31May-4June 2010 Intro

In May/June 2010 I shall again be flying down to Singapore from sleepy Chiangmai, in Thailand, to facilitate a week of workshops.

Details are all below and although they may seem to have an emphasis on the skills aspects it should be noted that throughtout there will be discussions about how these applications and tools relate to teaching and learning.

All sessions have a "hands-on" practical element.

I'm also hoping that we will all benefit from your own experiences ... the good and the not-so-good ... so please arrive with a willingness to not only challenge what I offer but also with a willingness to collaborate.

It will help if you can bring a (USB) 'thumb drive' for saving and storing file ... also feel free to bring your own laptop ... and if you have a 3G dongle to connect to the internet then feel free to bring that as well.
Also bring some headphones or at least some earbuds if you have some ... to listen to audio ... it's much more hygenic to use your own rather than public ones.

What skills are expected of those attending? ... basically that you have used email, can save files on a computer and have some experience using an internet browser (which you have if you are reading this) ... and have a willingness to try new things.

So PLEASE start now by adding your comments for each workshop you attend ... click on the 'comments' button underneath each blog post below.

Download Flier (pdf) | to book contact Synergyst in Sg |

Chris Smith .. in real life

Shamblesguru ... every where else on the 'net

csmith@csmith.info

www.shambles.net

(W1) Advanced Internet Applications

Monday 31 May 2010 9:00-12:15
Advanced Internet Applications designed to save teachers time

Do your Students already have Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis, Websites and other online resources .... and you are needing to spend great amounts of time online checking their work.
One of the tools to help with this task is RSS ... Really Simple Syndication ... in this workshop we will clarify what this is and also set up an RSS aggregator so that the work from the Blogs of all of your students can be seen clearly all on one webpage.

We will also look further at what an online "Personal Learning Network" ( PLN) is ... and how it might be visualised and quantified to save you even more time managing your own professional development.

(W2) A Social Network for your Classroom

Monday 31st May 2010 ... 1:45pm to 5.00pm A Social Network for your Classroom (inc. Virtual Worlds)

In the last few years Social (online) Networks have grown enormously in popularity with students around the world ... but these have not yet been adopted or used by many schools. In fact quite a number of schools around the world have blocked access on the school network to some of the social network websites like, 'myspace' and 'facebook'.

In this session we will look at what a social network site is and see some examples and discuss the pros and cons for a school community. We will also look at some ways of setting up your own social network for use with your class, school, or club .... or even outside work for your own family.

Finally in this session we will look at Second Life, a 3D virtual world that is a potentially valuable tool to support teaching and learning, more than half of UK Universities have a presence in S.L.

I will introduce you to my own Estate (3 SIMS) in Second Life designed to support the professional development of k-12 teachers ... http://internationalschoolsisland.info If you time before the session then have a look at the pages http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/infolit/socialnet and http://www.shambles.net/secondlife

(W3) Beyond PowerPoint

Tuesday 1st June 2010 : 9:00 - 5:00 (full day session)
Beyond PowerPoint

If students are bored with ppt then these alternatives will stimulate.

Are you or your students becoming bored using PowerPoint as the main tool for producing presentations ... are you or your students suffering from "Death by PowerPoint" or "PowerPointlessness"? .... then this session is designed specifically for you (or your students).

We will look at some of the alternatives for spicing up presentations and making them more exciting ... not only using software but also web 2.0 online applications.

The alternatives chosen are mainly free, can be learnt in just a few minutes by teachers with very little experience and make use of the slides you have already produced in your old PowerPoints.

We will also look at ways in which students can build and share their presentations collaboratively. In addition you will be shown where to find free (legal) digital resources for presentations (images, videos and sound files) .... and clarify how to copyright your own resources.
Please note that this is NOT a workshop about PowerPoint although we will be spending time at the beginning covering some of the mistakes students make when presenting and also ensuring we all have at least the basic skills of reducing file sizes and exporting slides.

Please bring a simple PowerPoint presentation with you to this session .... consisting of about 6 slides.

(W4) BLOGS ... in teaching and learning

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 : 9:00-12:15
BLOGS ... in teaching and learning
What is a Blog (Weblog), how do you make one and what can they be used for in teaching and learning? ... we will answer all of these and you will create one for yourself in real time.
We will also look at how to embed images, sound, video and PowerPoints into a Blog.

We will end the session looking at "Twitter" (micro blogging) ... which has (surprisingly) become a very powerful professional development tool for teachers.

If you have time before the workshop then have a browse around
www.shambles.net/web2#blog and http://bloggingvideos.blogspot.com/


Note ... you will need a gmail web account for this session ... if you do not have one then create one for yourself at mail.google.com/mail/signup before the session.