Tag Archives: educational technology

H5P

Numerous research studies support the foundational multimedia principle that people learn better with images and words, rather than words alone. While the inclusion of any graphics, in general, improves positive feelings about learning experiences it doesn’t necessarily improving learning outcomes. However, evidence supports that students who are exposed to graphics which are relevant to instructional goals do perform and learn better. Consequently, it’s important to consider how graphics function and which types are best aligned to instructional content and goals.

The following H5P interaction provides information about the different categories of graphics and how they function to serve different learning goals.

Adobe Spark Post

Adobe has been busy updating some of their software geared for non-professional online content creators. The Adobe Spark suite includes Adobe Spark Video, Adobe Spark Page, and Adobe Spark Post.

Adobe Spark Post is So Easy to Use! 

With Adobe Spark Post it is unbelievably easy to create social media posts and banners.  The interface is very intuitive. The colour selection is simple. Users can select colour schemes from the existing colour palettes. It’s even easier and faster to create social media content using Adobe Spark Post than it is with Canva. However,  Canva has more options for downloading formats. And as  Canva allows for more flexibly in design and layout as well as formatting options for the text. (See my Canva blog post for details.)

But for quick and easy posts, Adobe Spark Post is better. Here are a couple of samples of a social media posts I created in just a few minutes.
Adobe Spark-3

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Indigeneity, Technology, and Education

The ETEC 521: Indigeneity, Technology, and Education course was my favourite course in the whole MET program so far. I think it is because the content and ideas presented were completely new to me. If there was one course that I had to recommend to future MET students, this would be it. I thoroughly enjoyed this course.

Our class contributed to the research weblog  to the  research weblog. The weblog archive goes back to 2005, so you can imagine what an expansive collection of Indigenous education and technology resources can be found there. Continue reading

When Technologies Collide…

Infographics and ThingLink

I may be dating my self, but do you remember the old Reese peanut butter cup commercial—”You got chocolate in my peanut butter”? Well, if you do remember it, you will know the main premise is a combination of two things can sometimes produce something else that is really, really cool.

The same is true when infographics are used in combination with ThingLink.  Even though vision is our dominant sense, it alone, is often not enough for teaching and learning.By combining the two technologies, you are able to express ideas and key points more effectively. The combination of video (with audio), explanatory text and links to other resources, the learning becomes layered (encouraging scaffolding of instruction) and encourages an organic style of exploration.

If you are not familiar with using Adobe Illustrator, there are a number of online tools available to create infographics easily. Here are a few which are very intuitive to use: Continue reading

Pinterest for Education

PinterestPinterest has been around for quite some time now. And its been used in education in a number of ways. It’s a great way for educators to collect images, and links to websites in an organized accessible manner. The boards can be shared by e-mail, or by sharing the url. Also  Pinterest boards can be embedded into  HTML pages or linked from the Learning Management System. Continue reading