Digital Technology Lesson Plans and Learning Activities

May 14th, 2012 by maria

One of our greatest challenges in the adult literacy community in Canada is keeping a handle on what our peers and colleagues are doing across the country. In thinking about finding information and resources that could support Ontario practitioners in working with the Digital Technology Competency in the OALCF, I have set myself the task of finding what is happening in other provinces.

I started on the west coast and found this great collection of resources from Decoda Literacy Solutions in B.C. It’s a set of downloadable lesson plans and workbook activities related to Computer Use. There is a wealth of material here which could be used as is, or adapted by programs and practitioners as they build their own learning activities and task lists. It’s well worth checking out….

Thanks Decoda!!

Decoda resources

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Teaching and learning better Google search skills…

May 7th, 2012 by maria

I have just been exploring the  Google Search Education site – it’s aimed at teachers in the K-12 sector but there is a lot here that could be very useful to literacy practitioners and students.  Take a look at the  Lesson Plan section – it covers basic and more advanced searching as well as evaluating the credibility of search results. There’s also a set of very good Webinars on all aspects of using Google for teaching and learning.  I think there is much material here that could be helpful to practitioners who are working on  developing tasks in the Find and Use  and Digital Technology competencies in the OALCF.  It’s well worth checking out.

And to round things off – here’s a neat Infographic  Get More out of Google – with lots of tips and tricks…

Enjoy!

Tags: , ,
Posted in Internet | No Comments »

Switching to Google Drive … or not

April 30th, 2012 by maria

Over the past week or so there has been quite a lot of buzz about Google Drive - the just released Google option for storing your “stuff” in the cloud. In a way it’s a more sophisticated version of Google Docs. Google Drive allows you to store documents, photos, music, videos all in one place, it syncs will all your devices  and tracks changes so if you edit a document and save it you can see all the revisions made in the last 30 days.

I know that many people in the adult literacy field are using Google Docs and may be wondering about whether or not to switch to Google Drive.  There are pros and cons….  On the plus side you get lots of functionality and  5 gigabytes of storage space for free, on the minus side there has been some controversy about just who “owns” your files on Google Drive.  This CNET article, Who owns your files on Google Drive? offers a very clear explanation of the controversy and compares terms of use etc. between Google Drive and other cloud storage services such as Dropbox. And several commentators have pointed out that we should all take advantage of ALL the free cloud storage services, so it’s not either –  or…  check out The Everything Drive and Google Drive, SkyDrive, Dropbox? Heck use ‘em all!

If you want to check out Google Drive features  Google has put together a good introduction, click HERE to see a short video and read about all the features, or if you prefer take a look at the YouTube video, Go Google, Google Drive .  If you want to figure out how to use Google Drive  Edudemic has put together a step-by-step guide to how to enable it.  And finally, here’s a pretty good Google Drive FAQ

Tags: ,
Posted in Internet, Uncategorized, tools | No Comments »

« Older Entries