Welcome to the Wonderful World of Wimba! (Part Two)

In last week's post, I introduced you to the new Wimba Collaboration Suite that our district has just added to our Blackboard Learning System. As you learned then, the Wimba Collaboration Suite consists of four of the latest and most dynamic collaboration and communication tools available to today's online learners. We are so excited to be able to provide this suite for our Clay County Bb users!

This post will be about Wimba Create, which is another outstanding tool from the Wimba Collaboration Suite. Wimba Create was formerly known as Course Genie, and it is defined as an add-on for Microsoft Word. By using Wimba Create, you can convert your existing Word documents into styled web pages. This can be done very easily, and the great thing is that you don't even have to understand HTML or know how to design web pages. Please listen to my new podcast called "Wonderful World of Wimba - Episode Two" to learn more about Wimba Create!

Don't forget to use the comments below to post a comment to my blog. If you are interested in the upcoming training that Bill Ralls and I will be holding on any of the Wimba Collaboration Suite tools, please let me know by either emailing me at rpaine@mail.clay.k12.fl.us or leaving me a comment here on my blog.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Wimba!

The School District of Clay County, Florida now has an exciting set of collaboration and communication tools called Wimba Collaboration Suite. This suite includes the latest and greatest tools available to online learners, and it's now inside our Blackboard Learning System. Wimba Collaboration Suite consists of the following four programs:

• Wimba Classroom
• Wimba Pronto
• Wimba Voice
• Wimba Create

This post is dedicated to the first program called Wimba Classroom. Wimba Classroom helps teachers and students build relationahips by combining interactive technologies with instructional best practices. Click on the player below to hear a podcast that will tell you more about Wimba Classroom.

Podcasting in Education - Intermediate Course

The Spring '09 Podcasting in Education - Intermediate Course for our district begins Thursday, February 26, 2009. In this course, the participants will be flexing their podcasting skills to create a new audio-based podcast, and they will be creating their own blogs in order to use audio-blogging to promote their newest creations. The course will run through Thursday, April 2, 2009. Once everyone has successfully completed this course, they will be ready for the third and final course in the trilogy of three podcasting courses that the SDCC is offering to all employees. By the end of the third course, all participants will be "Certified Clay County Podcasters," and ready to start publishing school/work-related podcasts.

SDCC Podcasting in Education Update

The Podcasting in Education training continues in our district as we begin the new year. We have 15 participants who are currently learning how to create their own podcasts using Audacity and LAME Encoder. The course is a blended mix of face-to-face sessions with an online Blackboard course. Within a few short weeks, I hope to have some new podcasts to share with you. Don't forget that this training is open to all employees in Clay County. Once a person succesfully completes the three courses, he will become a "Certified Clay County Podcaster" who can produce and promote district approved podcasts to use in his classroom or work setting. If you are interested in taking this training, please contact me, Ruth Paine, at rpaine@mail.clay.k12.fl.us and I'll be glad to help you get started.

We have several people who have already completed the entire training and they are creating podcasts. Please click on the link below to listen to one of our Certified Clay County Podcasters in action.

Check out this podcast by Linda Schriver, the ESE Technology Specialist for our district. She has has created a podcast on using the automated IEP that we use in our district. Go Go Gadget!

Free Online Expert (LearnKey) Training

Our district sponsors free online training through the Online Expert (LearnKey) Website at http://clay.onlineexpert.com/elearning. This training is offered to all SDCC employees. There are a variety of courses, some of which include:

• Office 2003 Applications (Outlook, Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint)
• Office 2007 Applications (Outlook, Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint)
• Design Applications (Adobe Acrobat 7.0, Web Expression Basics, Dreamweaver 8, and Photoshop CS2)

These are just a few of the courses that are available. If you would like to take one of these online courses, go to the LearnKey website at http://clay.onlineexpert.com/elearning and sign up for an account. While registering, you will be asked to choose a course on which you would like to work. Please email me, Ruth Paine, LearnKey Program Facilitator, to let me know the name of the course, and I will assist you with the required follow-up documentation. Click on the following link to see detailed information on how to sign up for a LearnKey account and about all the different online courses that are offered. You will see that each course is worth a specific number of in-service points, and if you need to recertify, you can use this online training to do so.

Click here to view more details on the SDCC LearnKey Training

If you have any questions, please email me at rpaine@mail.clay.k12.fl.us and I will be glad to assist you. I hope you enjoy the training.