Category Archives: Strategies

These are the strategies linked to activities undertaken by students.

Using Google Drive and Group wikis for collaboration.

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“Another learning issue I have solved is related to collaborative learning.  This is solved by using Google Drive to share information and to collaborate as well as Group wikis on Moodle.” Andreas

Google Drive has Google Docs and many other file formats and apps that can be viewed from the browser or installed on a PC. Google has provided a YouTube video as an overview of the latest version of Google Drive.

A wiki is a good way to work on a project where there are many different areas to be discussed as these can be separated out, but appear all on one website with one web address.  Tabs can be used for the different areas as well as menu pages.  You can set up your own wiki even if you cannot access Moodle or do not have your own web pages – try PBworks as it is free and very easy to use.  You can decide who can edit the pages and you do not need to know any HTML.  There are more instructions on how to set up a wiki on the wikihow.com pages. Below you will see an image of some pages I have set up on PBworks.

pbworks sample page

Online project management to manage deadlines

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“I use online project management systems for managing deadlines for course work, assignments and deadlines for club and society activities.  I like to use ones that can be colour coded depending on the urgency and also where I can add alarms!”

Gantter project management

Gantter is a free Gantt chart project management system that offers some colour coding and easy ways to add tasks and resources.  It offers links to online calendars and iCalendar and Google which can send reminders, as well as exporting to Microsoft Project and to Google Drive for sharing with others.  Google have provided a YouTube video with an overview of Gantter

Microsoft Office and OneNote hidden text to speech command!

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A freely available way of using text to speech in Word, PowerPoint and OneNote and even
Excel is possible thanks to the Microsoft Office ribbon command menu.  You can select text and have it read back.  This idea does not offer all that specialist programs can provide such as text highlighting, pausing etc. but it is a quick way to hear how a word, phrase or sentence sounds when you want a quick check.
Adding speech in Word

If you go to Quick Access Toolbar in the ribbon you customise it by choosing More Commands – select ‘Quick Access toolbar’ from the menu on the left > Then go to the top of the right hand window and make sure you drop down the command list to ‘All commands’ otherwise you will not see ‘Speak’  in the list – Add it and return to your document.

Choose speech iconWhen you have typed something or have a file to read – highlight the text and select the new speech bubble that appears in your Quick Access toolbar.  The text will be read aloud in any voice you have chosen from the Control Panel > Speech recognition > text to speech. 

control panel screen grab

This comes thanks to Jean

iPod Touch to record lectures.

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“I use the iPod touch voice record function to record lectures. In addition to paper notes, this provides a means of revisiting lecture material for revision, especially if concentration fails during the actual lecture especially if I am very tired during a lecture.”

The iPod touch voice memos “saved in a Recordings folder on iPod in the WAV file format. If you enable iPod for disk use, you can drag voice memos from the folder to copy them.”

iPod voice memoMacWorld has a useful article about recording voice memos on the iPod and iPhone with some notes about the different versions and the extra accessories needed for some models.

iPhone dictionary so easy to use.

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“I like the iPhone’s dictionary – if you don’t know the meaning of a word on a website you just have to tap on it to get its meaning. So simple and easy.” Anibul

The dictionary was added for iOS 5 and it is important to just tap and hold on a single word to see the ‘Define‘ menu appear beside ‘Copy, Select All  and Speak’.  It does not work in all applications.  In messages the complete message is highlighted on tap and hold but you can use Copy and use Speak.

iPhone dictionary
iPhone dictionary interface

Subtitles for translating video content – English not your first language?

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“When you watch videos that are not in your first language – if there are subtitles turn these into your chosen language to help explain the content.”

turning on captions

YouTube has closed captioning or subtitles on some videos and the video called “How to extract YouTube Subtitles (Interactive Transcript) in 2 minutes [HD]” illustrates some of the difficulties that occur with automatic captioning – A Frenchman speaking in English and when you view the subtitles by selecting the small list icon on the bottom right of the video player you will see that some of the words do not match what has been said but you can also translate the words into your chosen language.  The results will be variable!  In this video you will see how you can take the transcript and improve the results.