Aim of the workshop
To introduce people to various social media tools and resources that can used for communicating with their mentor or mentee.
- Think how you are going to monitor all your different online accounts.
- Think about your online profile, how you want to brand yourself or appear online.
Image: 'blue daisy' *L*u*z*a* return to nature
www.flickr.com/photos/11599314@N00/590975150
www.flickr.com/photos/11599314@N00/590975150
Synchronous communication
Skype - free calls to anyone in the world who has Skype connection. Can also be used to make free calls to landlines. Can use instant message, voice and video communication.
- Sign up for Skype account.
- Add workshop participants to your contacts list.
- Search for a friend or colleague and add to contact list.
- Send a text message to a contact.
- Call someone on your contact list.
- Sign up for free Vroom.
- Invite a workshop participant to join you in your room.
- Send a text message to the other person.
- Use the audio function and talk to the other person.
- Write a message on the whiteboard for the other person.
Collaboration tools
Google Documents - collaborate and work on a document, presentation or spreadsheet.
- Make a Google account.
- Make a new document.
- Share it with other workshop participants.
- Edit your document.
- Publish as web page.
- Schedule your next meeting with your mentee or mentor.
Finding and sharing information
YouTube - web site for sharing videos
- Look for a video on how to use Skype, Elluminate or Google Documents.
- Look for a video about topics of interest to you.
- Look for a video related to provision of aged or community care services.
- Look for a video about mentoring.
- Look for a presentation about topics of interest to you.
- Look for a presentation related to provision of aged or community care services.
- Look for a presentation about mentoring.
- Using 'advanced search', look for images that have a Creative Commons license.
Some resources and sites of interest
- How to use Google Docs: Common Craft.
- Transforming aged care with technology: Ross Dawson.
3 comments:
Thursday 28th Brisbane
We had six participants. There was a range of abilities and knowledge from not knowing anything at all to people who used Skype on a regular basis. The main issues for me were:
1. Very important to team less skilled people up with more skilled people, so that they can be helped if I can't get to them.
2. Work from lowest common denominator - people with more advanced skills can go ahead of the rest of the class if they wish, but it's vital to make sure everyone knows what you're talking about.
3. Have a 'plan B' if the technology doesn't work. I could not get Google Docs to work properly so in the end had to make do with showing people examples of my work, and giving them ideas of how it could work in their context.
4. What I had planned was far too much for three hours so had to focus on what people would need for the eMentoring project ie how to use Elluminate and Skype, and how to use headsets and webcam. At the same time, I was able to have some flexibility, so showed people Google Docs and Doodle which really interested everyone. I ran out of time and was unable to talk much about YouTube, Slideshare or Flickr.
5. It is helpful for everyone to have email accounts before the workshop, but cannot assume that people do have emails accounts - so need to check this at the start of the session.
Should also say - it was well worth running through how to use headsets and web cams.
Also worth showing people how to download Elluminate, and discussing problems you can run into like firewalls and inadequate software.
Longreach 1st June
We had 8 participants - 6 people were in the project, 2 participants came along to support us and learn more about online communication tools.
From my point of view, the workshop was very difficult. I was using a computer laboratory run by Learning Network Queensland. They do wonderful work with local communities, but do not allow Skype or Elluminate to be used on their computers. Therefore, I was unable to get the participants to test their headsets or web cams, nor were they able to 'play' with Elluminate or Skype, which was the main reason for running the workshop.
I was able to hook up my lap top to the Internet and show people the tools, which was better than nothing. But it took nearly an hour for that to happen so I had to think on my feet and get people chatting about their attitudes to using the computer.
The only interactive thing I was able to get people to do was look at YouTube and how they would use it to find information related to mentoring and aged & community care. Even this was a struggle because it took ages for the videos to download due to slowness of the computers & internet connection. However, one lady felt it was really useful to see how YouTube can be used on a professional level.
What I achieved was to give people some ideas about how the Internet can be used for communication-Google Documents looked to be a tool that people were especially interested in. But it wasn't very interactive so I am a little disappointed. Lesson for me: have a back-up plan for how I can teach people about the Internet when I do not have full access to it.
Post a Comment