eLearning4schools.net

In my last post I talked about the latest in using Music for learning.

However, I felt it also important to highlight the usefulness of music in creating a safe and calm environment for learners to learn. It is vital that students are emotionally ready for them to start learning and if they are not then there is actually no point in attempting to get started as they will not be receptive to learning. We can get into why another time…..

…But for now it is important to understand that rituals can play an important role to prepare learners to learn and one thing that can get the brain into learning mode as one of these rituals is music.

It does not necessarily need to be any particular type of music although some genres may be inappropriate but will leave that for you to decide. I would stick to a handful of tracks throughout so a half term so the music starts to form part of a ritual.

To finish on I’d like to leave with you a website where you can select the music you want to listen to depending on your mood or that mood you may want to provoke in your students. Anyway dead easy to use take a look the site is Musicovery.com

“What are binaural beats recordings?”

Binaural beat recordings are specially generated sounds, designed to alter your brainwaves - bringing about different states of mind, such as happiness, creativity, or relaxation. They’re perfectly safe, non-addictive, and can be used as often as you like.

Many of us have heard of the Mozart Effect well this takes us one step on and could give our students the edge in focusing for class and revision tasks, for creating the right state of mind when they are problem solving or trying to be innovative or to give them a burst of energy!

“Tell me more about how binaural beats work…”

Let’s take a few minutes now to discuss the history behind binaural beats… and how they work in more detail.

For a long time, the scientific community has been aware that certain frequencies are associated with certain states of mind. For example, the alpha frequency of 8 to 12Hz is present when individuals are in the “zone”, in “superlearning”, positive-thinking modes. This frequency can be verified through an electroencephalograph (EEG) reading, and (more…)

We are all excited here at eLearning4schools.net. Today we have launched a new site to allow all those interested in forming a community to discuss and share ideas for the classroom in terms of eLearning. Its FREE so click here and sign up.

I saw this video yesterday and thought I would share it with you it really made me think about how technology should be used more creatively within the curriculum and how schools really need to be focusing on how to develop a clear strategy for eLearning.

This video is a must-see for every parent and teacher. Education guru Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity which is so often being pushed out of the exam led approach to the curriculum in the UK. It certainly made me think about how I could encourage creativity within my classroom.

Today I got back from a 3 day training course near Leeds all about Authentic Leadership. Basically the course gave you bags of time and the tools to explore your own leadership style.

Now I am not usually one for these touchy feely types of course normally prefer a hands on type of course. However, this course together with a recent Nuero Lingusitic Programming diploma that I have completed have really help me focus. Why am I telling you this!??!?

Well the answer is that it became so obvious and clear why eLearning in our schools barely scrathes the surface of what is possible. The reason is the lack of vision from the schools of what they want to achieve with eLearning. Having a clear vision is vital, what is eLearning going to look like? What is it going to deliver? What are the students and teachers going to be doing? How does eLearning help with communication? How does it help bring the world into the classroom? How will impact the school? How will the environment need to change?

I have been in so many schools where they are taking bite size chunks and just skirting around the edges and the reason they are doing this is because they do not know what they are aiming for and what they want the impact to be.

However, I have also been in schools that have the most amazing vision and ambitions but does not seem to get anywhere. So why is this? Well they have a vision but it does not fit with the values and beliefs of the leader and the other stakeholders who need to bring the vision to life. The vision just does not reflect the people or what they believe to be important the result is they have little enthusiasm to achieve the vision. The same thing then tends to happen as with no vision at all, and that is playing around at implementing eLearning with a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

In education the thing the vast majority of us do not have enough of is time to reflect. I found this course gave me some useful tools but above all it gave me time to reflect and really look at what I wanted to achieve and how I could ensure it was achieved.

To finish I would like to encourage all of you who are looking at implementing a small or a large project to take time out to reflect and really think about the vision and what you want to achieve and make this relevant to your own values and beliefs as well as to those of others in the organisation.

It has also made us think at eLearning4schools how we can actually help schools develop their own eLearning vision so keep an eye out for some new services coming soon!

We have all been there. Coming from a corporate background I can especially! The longest powerpoint I sat through had 347 slides!!!! Loosing the will to live just does not describe how I really felt with enough passion….but it was bad! However, now in my classroom occasionally I forgot all that I was taught and other teachers certainly have not been told in the first place.

So below is some handy tips…aimed at a corpoarte audience but still quite relevant.

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Seeing as our whole reason for being here at eLearning4schools.net is eLearning we thought we would try to outline what we feel eLearning is all about!

First of all “what we think it is all about” is a very important statement as their are so many varying points of view.   

This question normally elicits a variety of responses depending on the experience and background of the person involved.  So, here are some definitions of e-learning on the Web found by Google. 

We could write a long academic article covering all the different view points however we are all about cutting through the waffle and delivering useful information, guides and tips to you to make your job easier and save you lots of time to boot!

We believe eLearning simply means encompassing technology in the learning process whether it is in the delivery, activity, assessment or management of learning.  The important point to raise is that eLearning is about Learning supported by technology.

eLearning can include Learning supported by:

• Hardware that assists in the production and delivery of digital resources such as video, audio and animation
• Use Mobile technologies such as mobiles, MP3 players, MP4 players and PDAs
• Software that helps produce content such as MS Powerpoint, Audacity, Photoshop, Gimp to name just a few
• Online tools and technologies to help create, deliver and present resources such as blogging, conferencing, searching, and social networking and sharing sites
• Help to manage learning and assessment from marking to analysis of data e.g. Sims
• Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) that can help combine a number of the above technologies 

ELearning, therefore, could be achieved by using robots, programmable toys and interactive games; interactive whiteboards, the internet and digital photography; and by web-cast master classes, distance learning or on-line formative assessment. I feel the support for learning through real life experiences, for example communicating with real people in real time through video conferences, watching real experiments and videoing real-life experience are other significant contributions of e-learning. Its scope is infinite only restricted by our imagination and creativity.

ELearning not only encompasses hardware technology but also a multitude of opportunities presented by web technologies and services such as blogging, social networking sites and live streaming and broadcast services.  There are also opportunities to make more use of commercial and open source software as well as mobile technologies.  For a pictorial overview for my definition of eLearning please click here eLearning Overview

Welcome to our new blog based site!  We are excited about sharing with you our ideas for eLearning and giving advice, help and tips for successful eLearning across the school and in the classroom.