Ultranet Share N Tell
On the first Monday of each month, I help to present the online PD series "Ultranet Share N Tell" with Mel Cashen and Anne Mirtschen. The Ultranet is an online learning management system being used by government schools within Victoria that has been developed by the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.We have been running these session for just over a year now. Links to recordings of previous sessions we have held are available through the Guide to Innovation Ning operated by the DEECD Innovation and Next Practice Division.
Our October session was action-packed with lots of sharing from our participants. It was also the first session we held using the new Blackboard Collaborate. This meant that a number of us had to get our heads around where the tools we were used to using were located.
The session included:
A short chat about activities being undertaken during school holidays. Participants shared Teacher’s Games experiences, housework and cleaning, catching up with family, cleaning out RSS Feeds.
Jenny Ashby joined the session during her trip to Coolum. She talked about her experiences whale watching and mountain climbing during her trip.
Mitch Hughes popped in quickly to plug the upcoming Melbourne Teach Meet Sessionon Friday October from 1-3pm at Pascoe Vale PS. Scott also mentioned the great video explaining what a teach meet is that was put together through sponsorship from BrainPop UK
Graeme Henchel from the DEECD Ultranet Team at Central Office joined us as Wendy McPherson is currently in Arizona. He talked about current testing being done to OSL (Orracle Student Learning – The Learning Tasks section of the Ultranet) to improve. Should be released in the first week of Term 4.
Over the next few weeks the Ultranet Coaches space will be converted into a space for all lead users. New space should have about 4500 lead users as members.
Jenny Ashby asked about the possibility of receiving some form of notification when students post or add to a blog or wiki. Graeme mentioned about the possibility of using the activities portlet within the space. Possibility of e-mail notification in the future (but no promises!)
Scott made mention of an e-mail received from the Ultranet Team regarding a possible student focus group trial looking at the content landing pages. Trial would involve both primary and secondary students. Contact Sandra Phillips (Philips.sandra.l@edumail.vic.gov.au) at the eLearning Branch of DEECD.
Heather Carver, Ultranet Coach from Casey Central, shared her new blog titled “Ultranet – UltraEasy” . Will focus on the simple things on how to use the Ultranet. Discuss about exporting Ultranet Spaces as templates to save others re-inventing the wheel. Ultranet spaces are exported as a LAR file.
Estelle Pizer tweeted earlier in the week seeking ideas for a systematic approach to managing student portfolios templates or ideas. Mel Cashen talked about using the wiki template within the
DEECD Student Goals and Portfolios Design Space and as pictured on the slide in the session. Heather talked about creating nodes for wikis. A node is a way of combining 2 wikis together. She talked about moving away from nodes as they were not easy to use. Some schools replaced using a wiki with them creating a community space where the student creates, the teacher moderates and the parent is a member. Portfolio Community Space would be added to the portfolio eXpress space as an iFrame. Having done this with 800 students it was hard work with many steps.
Graeme expanded more about the use of nodes. Discussion about the use of portfolio space and that it should operate more like other spaces within the Ultranet that allow for pages and subpages.
Mel asked about how to go about creating a node within a wiki. Graeme has created a space titled "wiki display processes" that explains nodes. Within Ultranet wikis, there is a little spanner within the wiki allows you to create the nodes. Like all things within the Ultranet, simple once you know how !
Jodi Woodward and Mel Cashen raised the question about creating a space where we could all share our templates. Heather talked about the complexities of a separate space and the likelihood of people going to it to download. Discussion about greater promotion of great space and the inclusion of some templates within the Content.
Jenny asked about process to export a space. Graeme explained that some browsers have issues with exporting .LAR files. Might need to use Firefox as your browser as some other browsers think it may be a differnt file extention.
Heather promoted a new Collaborative Learning Space being developed around Melbourne Cup Day based on the Literacy and Numeracy Collaborate Learning Space.
The next Ultranet Share N Tell is scheduled for MONDAY 7th NOVEMBER at 8pm.
Session deatils and links will be posted on the Guide to Innovation Ning