Edubeacon

Elluminate has certainly become the tool of choice for online training and it has my tick of approval.  It’s an online platform that enables participants to communicate within the session, view a powerpoint presentation, share resources and engage in realtime chat.  The School Library Assoc of Victoria has been conducting training sessions with branches under the guidance of Judith Way with the intention of using it to support branches with professional development without the need to travel and the loss of time involved.  Fabulous.

This weekend I tapped into a live session on The New Features in Diigo 4.0 presented by Diigo co-founder Maggie Tsai.  The value of Elluminate, apart from ease of use, is the fact that sessions can are recorded so can be accessed if you miss them at the initial session.  Screening times can be quite horrific for this part of the world, so on the whole, I take these as recordings rather than participate live.  This week I braved the obscene hour and logged in live.  This introduction to Diigo 4.0 presented by Maggie Tsai is well worth a visit as she provided a clear explanation of features such as, how to set up an educators account, using annotations and the interaction between Delicious and Diigo plus more.  Social bookmarking is a powerful learning tool that’s being used at all year levels with students.  For teachers, it’s invaluable.

It’s worth checking out details of forthcoming sessions available on Classroom 2.0 Live.  Sue Waters of Edublogs is presenting Connecting via Blogging beginner sessions which could be a good starting point for some teachers.

Dept of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) is also doing a fantastic job here in Victoria by providing access to professional learning through the Virtual Conference Centre.  It runs on the Elluminate platform so offers the same options of participating live (my preference) or watching the recorded session at a later date.  You need to have registered to gain access to the session as the link is sent to you via email.  Using the RSS feed from the Calendar of Events is an easy way to keep abreast of what’s coming up.  Subscribing to their mailing list is another option.

It’s so incredibly easy to participate in these professional learning opportunities.  They are free and available to all educators.  Check with colleagues and see who is tapping into this very desirable way of learning with local or international peers.  Get on board with a group or get on board alone – it’s quality and it’s free.