02 Dec 08 My Workshops
General
Social Media in Asia
Participants are usually technology/PR organizations interested in learning more about where and how to reach their target audiences. I have some experience here via my work at Global Voices Online where we constantly trawl blogs and forums around the world to figure out what people are talking about. I usually present a niche topic at regional barcamps and other events - most recents ones are 1) What Twitter(ers) to follow for events in South East Asia and 2)The Blogging Traveler - utilize the social web to travel smart.
Online Collaboration, videos and podcasts on a budget
The idea here is to utilize online tools to quickly build collaborative activities (using wikis or google documents) that helps groups work better. I have conducted some training for non-profits on how to use blogs, cellphones and inexpensive digital cameras to create podcasts/youtube based video content.
Education related
A big part of my work is observing how people in East Asia are using online tools and formulate training for educators to help exploit some of these technologies in their teaching efforts. These are some of the recent workshops I have conducted for educators.
Zoho Projects
Zoho Projects is a web based project management system that makes the task of keeping track of your project members and milestones easy. In this one hour session we will take you through the Zoho projects interface and set up a demo project.
Adobe Connect Now
Recently, Adobe launched an online service that lets you conduct a video and audio conference with two of your colleagues or students. The Connect Now service is free and provides features like chat, screen sharing and a whiteboard. We will try out this service in class and we will also show you how to use this service to get and external speaker or expert to show up “digitally” in your class.
Google Sketch-up 3D modeling tool
Sketch-up is a free software provided by Google that lets you and your students create 3D models . Unlike other 3D tools that have a steep learning curve, Sketch-up can be picked up in couple of hours. In this session we will get you started with Sketch-up by familiarising the interface and the drawing tools. We will build some 3D shapes. We will show you how to find tutorials and pre-built 3D objects that you can use in your models.
Audio and Video File Conversion
There are times when you encounter a digital file that you cannot play on your computer. You might have a video file shot on a mobile phone that you want to use with your windows movie maker or you might want to use a WMV file on a Mac. In this session we will demonstrate couple of audio, video and document conversion tools.
Evernote - Desktop and Mobile Notebook
Evernote lets you capture web pages, notes, audio clips and picture. You can archive this information in a way that be searched on your desktop computer or your mobile phone. In thi session we will show you how to set up evernote on your windows or mac computer.
Instant Surveys with Surveymonkey, PollDaddy and Google spreadsheets
Surveymonkey and Polldaddy lets you create online surveys via an user friendly editor. We will create couple of polls and surveys using these tools. We will also demonstrate a Google Spreadsheets feature that lets you create data-intensive surveys.
Better Powerpoint Presentations
Better Powerpoint Presentations
In this session we will look at making your presentations interesting and visually appealing. We look at some ideas from expert presenters on how they simplify the content in their presentations. We will also try out some add ons to powerpoint that lets you show live web pages inside your presenations and also embed live sms based surveys.
Using Online Media : Do’s and Don’ts
We end up consuming a lot of media from the internet in our notes, powerpoint files and other content we produce. Are we breaking the copyright laws? Are we getting permissions from the original sources? Are there online repositeries from where we can download media files without breaking the copyright laws? What is the right way of using a piece of music from the web? What accounts for fair use? In this session we will try to answer these and some other questions relating to online media. We will also introduce Creative Commons Licensing, a kind of licence that many online producers are using and that allows you some freedoms on using their media without even asking for their premission.
Youtube for Language Teachers
YouTube has become number one online destination for the youth in Singapore and several other countries. This session focusses on 1) Finding interesting videos on YouTube and embedding them inMel, 2)Creating your own quick pronounciation guide with YouTube’s live recording feature and 3) Building an online community where your students can quickly create their own videos and rate each other on their fluency and diction.
Online Translation Tools
Online Translation Tools
While not perfect, online translation tools offered by Google and other companies are fast becoming a helpful research tools. They let you get a general idea of say an article on a Chinese online web or a Japanese blog. We will introduce you to Google’s Translation tools and also show you a human translated Chinese-English webservice.
Micoblogging with Twitter and Edmodo
Microblogging platforms such as Twitter are becoming the space where people share knowledge and ask questions. Educators are also using Twitter as a non-intrusive communication platform. In this session we will help you create a Twitter account. We will also show you tools that let you search people’s Twitter postings. We will introduce Edmodo - A twitter like service that is designed primarily for education market.Microblogging with Twitter and Edmodo
Internet Messaging Tools
Internet messaging tools (MSN messenger, Yahoo Messenger, QQ etc.) are popular with students. There is a whole generation of people who use chat tools not only for communication but also as a platform for networking and learning. It is not uncommon to find MSN id on a business cards these days. In this session we will set up couple of chat accounts on MSN and Yahoo and figure out how we can use them with our students. We will also show you some use cases on how office workers in China use IM.
Using Skype in Class
Skype is a popular Internet-based audio and video communication platform. Once you have installed the free Skype client, you can make free voice calls to any other Skype user anywhere in the world.
In this session we will download and install Skype and look at some of the commonly used features. We will also look at examples of how educators are using Skype to conduct live interviews where they call an subject matter expert and their students interview the expert.
Google Collaboration Tools
Google’s collaboration features lets you create and edit documents with your students. Imagine planning an event or working on a proposal and being able to edit the costing and scheduling data online without having to email documents to and fro. You can assign team members for a documents and only they can edit it. Your students can create group presentations and all these documents can be shared online or exported to a word, excel or pdf format.
In this session we will try out these collaborative tools and examine some case studies on how people are using these collaborative tools.
Building Interactive Learning Materials with Powerpoint and Keynote
PowerPoint can be used to build interactive case studies that might help you improve your students decision making activities. In this session we will show you how to make non-linear interactive decision objects with PowerPoint.
Requirement: Windows Notebook (with Powerpoint Installed) or Mac Notebook (with Powerpoint or Keynote installed). Make sure that you are able to connect to the internet.
Making Video with your Phone or Digital Cameras
In this session we will show you how to create short (5 to 10 mins) instructional videos that you can host on Mel or YouTube . We will also show you how to convert these videos so that your students can play them on their mobile phones, ipods or the PSP - gadgets that are becoming more and more popular with students.
Still and Video Screen Capture with Jing
Jing is a new software that lets you capture images and videos from your screen and with just one click share it online or save it on your computer. It works on both Windows as well as Mac. You can draw and annotate over the stills and add narration while doing a video screen capture. The best part is that Jing offers free online space for you to share your captured content.
This session will cover
1. Downloading and installing Jing.
2. Still screen capture
3. Video screen capture with narration
4. Sharing Still and Video online
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