Useful tips to give elearning a human touch

eLearning is undoubtedly the way to bring learning close to individuals interested in being taught anywhere, any time, and about all kinds of fields one can imagine.

However, sometimes we might make the mistake of leaving elearners to their own devices and forget about the fact that they are real human individuals, real learners who need to feel that there is somebody behind the learning portal.

Courtesy of eLearning Infographics, here you are a list of tips to humanise your eLearning initiatives and, of course, your eTeaching.


Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics

Enjoy and be happy!

For a wonderful 2015, full of happy sincere authentic collaborative learning and teaching!

Thank you to all who, whatever the way, have been supporting me throughout 2014, which undoubtedly will always be a year to remember!

Badges: Game, Reward, Professional Digital Credentials?

You are invited to join me for the free live class 'Badges: game, reward, professional digital e-credentials?' on October 4 2014, at 16:00 Spanish time.

Check your time around the world.




This free live class is part of the courseware of Moodle MOOC 5, hosted and coordinated by the team from Integrating Technology 4 Active Lifelong Learning from 1 to 31 October 2014, and I will be glad to share with you my experience and viewpoints on issuing and gaining badges at Moodle; connecting with your Mozilla BackPack, accepting your badges, creating a public collection and sharing your digital badges with the world.

Badges, Game, Reward, Professional Digital e-Credentials ?

Uploaded by María Jesús on WizIQ Tutorials

My warmest thanks to Dr. Nellie Deutsch for inviting me to be a Moodle MOOC 5 presenter. I hope you enjoy it and find it interesting. Looking forward to meeting you all there!

IATEFL Young Learners (Children and Teenagers) Special Interest Group (YLTSIG) Webinars 2014-15

The International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) has a number of Special Interest Groups (SIG) which give teachers professional development opportunities including the chance to share knowledge and best practices in key areas of English Language Teaching and Learning.

Among those Special Interest Groups, the Young Learners and Teenagers SIG (YLTSIG), like other SIGs within IATEFL, is led by a committee of volunteers who arrange discussions, organise conferences, produce publications, maintain a web site and organise events for teachers all over the world.

Meet the members and join the network for IATEFL YLT SIG on WizIQ!

Twice a month, starting 7 September 2014, you will have the opportunity to attend live webinars and connect with some well-known educational inspirers that will generously share their knowledge and experience with any teacher insterested in EFL and innovation.

Don't miss the opening webinar, 'Superhero Activities, Tools, & Apps to Empower Children', with @ShellTerrell, undoubtedly an amazing season debut and an extraordinay chance to grab awesome ideas for your back-to-school lessons. Bookmark it in your calendar: 7 September, 17:00 CEST.




Humbly following, there comes my webinar, 'The timeline of an-econnected story', on 14 September, 18:00 CEST, when I will try my best to share the experience of an e-connection that starts in a University classroom (URJC) from Madrid, with a group of future CLIL teachers taking a Master's Degree on The Use of ICT and Web Resources in Primary Bilingual Education, which spreads towards real CLIL classrooms and students, to design digital storytelling together. 
You are invited to join and have a taste of what will happen at the webinar by reading The timeline of an econnected story & Bringing Colegio San Gregorio and BookMe-Library together.

Autum is not autumn in October any more. No dropped leaves scattered around playgrounds in October this year, but blooming up storytelling trees with Aaron Sherman and Rebecca Ray from Storyboard That. And if you may think November is the time to be indoors and lie back, Dr. Christel Broady might talk you out of that comfortable couch by leading you towards free virtual communities; then, if you like, indoors you may stay while opening a window onto Buenos Aires, where Susan Hillyard is based and will be ready to tell you more about digital storytelling and oral tradition.

Stay tuned for the end-of-the-year webinars brought to you thanks to WizIQ,  IATEFL YLTSIG, and their incredible online events and website coordinator, Dr. Nellie Deutsch as well as for the promising series in 2015. 

Over twenty presenters are now booked, so 2014-2015 is certainly a dream school year already, and surely a year of special interest for all those of us who are hooked to professional development.

Thanks ever so much, Dr. Nellie Deutsch, for bringing so many educators worldwide together, and for this new chance to share!

CLTV - KQED "Do Now"

Highlights from the June 12, 2014 Connected Learning TV webinar on KQED "Do Now" (#KQEDDoNow / #TeachDoNow), part of a month-long series titled "Looking Closely at Student Work in the Digital Age."

By #ConnectedLearning @TheCLAlliance

Thanks ever so much for the webinar and the mention!

#DoNowAbstract #DoNow_urjc

Storifying the sixth twittering participation of the students at URJC Master's Degree for The Use of ICT and Digital Resources in Primary Bilingual Education in #DoNowAbstract.

Related posts: Where do you find Everyday Art?

Is Celebrity Obsession Bad for Us?

You are invited to take part in our final Do Now: Art And Popular Culture before summer break, twittering about the article entitled Is Celebrity Obsession Bad for Us?

Read the post carefully, watch the video clip and draw your own conclusions. When you are ready to post your impressions, opinions, comments and so forth on Twitter, please start twittering on a regular basis, about this topic.

Start all your tweets with @KQEDedspace and end them with our hashtag #DoNow_urjc. Respond to your peers, and retweet all those posts that you regard worthwhile.

Be creative, illustrate your tweets, include multimedia content, use your imagination!

Lots of other students from all over the world are also twittering about this Do Now and they will be using 

#DoNowCelebrity, so it would be nice if you focused on that hashtag too, apart from our own. In order to manage that, you may use a tool for real time tracking and organizing your Twitter, such as Tweetdeck.

Photo at the top, by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

#DoNowGreen Round Up

Time for #DoNowGreen is up now, and so the team from @KQEDedspace have published the corresponding Round Up: Green Spaces Brighten up Communities.

Within the past fortnight, students around the world discussed the importance of creating and preserving green spaces using Twitter and the #DoNowGreen post. Besides, at URJC, we also used #DoNow_urjc to connect with the rest of the students and join the debate.

Students all over the world were presented with prompts such as the ones below:

• 'Are there areas in your neighborhood that could or should be transformed into green spaces?'
• 'Are there existing green spaces that should be preserved?' 
• 'Take a picture of one of these spaces or simply take a picture of plant life growing in an unexpected area'.

Our work at URJC has been highlighted once again by @KQEDedspace, for which we are humbly honoured and thankful!

Congratulations to @Cristina_RubioC, @EvaGarciaPaton, @TheRealJWelk, @ngonzalezba and @sanmiblanco21! Proud of your work!

#TeachDoNow

Summer Learning: #TeachDoNow MOOC


Learn more about Twitter and other media sharing applications through the first ever free #TeachDoNow MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). 

This course, organised by KQED Education, is designed to help educators learn to promote social and civic discourse with students around science, news and the arts. 

Course starts July 7 2014.

Full information at the Course Blog and Google+ Community.

Where Do You Find Everyday Art?

Jodie Mack

From 7 to 20 May 2014, you are invited to take part in Do Now: Art And Popular Culture twittering about the article entitled 'Where Do you Find Everyday Art?'

Read the post carefully, watch the video clip and draw your own conclusions. When you are ready to post your impressions, opinions, comments and so forth on Twitter, please start twittering all along this coming week, on a regular basis, about this topic.

Start all your tweets with @KQEDedspace and end them with our hashtag #DoNow_urjc. Respond to your peers, and retweet all those posts that you regard worthwhile.

Be creative, illustrate your tweets, include multimedia content, use your imagination!

Lots of other students from all over the world are also twittering about this Do Now and they will be using #DoNowAbstract, so it would be nice if you focused on that hashtag too, apart from our own. In order to manage that, you may use a tool for real time tracking and organizing your Twitter, such as Tweetdeck.

#DoNowGraffiti Round Up

Time for #DoNowGraffiti is now up, and as usual, after every scheduled Do Now, the team from @KQEDedspace are bringing out their weekly update, this time entitled 'Graffiti is an Art Form only in certain cases'.

Our work at URJC has been highlighted once again, this time thanks to the tweet below, by @alcalop14

We are humbly honoured, very proud, and thankful!

Where are all the green spaces? Here you are some of @pablomaster89's favourites

#DoNowGraffiti #DoNow_urjc

Storifying the fifth twittering participation of the students at URJC Master's Degree for The Use of ICT and Digital Resources in Primary Bilingual Education in #DoNowGraffiti.

Related posts: What Does Graffiti Look Like in Your Neighborhood?

Where Are All the Green Spaces?

Sidewalk flower in Oakland, CA
photo by Joel Wanek

You are invited to take part in Do Now: Art And Popular Culture from Thu 24 until Wed 30 April, twittering about the article entitled 'Where are all the green spaces?' for a late celebration of Earth Day.

Read the post carefully, watch the video clip and draw your own conclusions. When you are ready to post your impressions, opinions, comments and so forth on Twitter, please start twittering all along this coming week, on a regular basis, about this topic.

Start all your tweets with @KQEDedspace and end them with our hashtag #DoNow_urjc. Respond to your peers, and retweet all those posts that you regard worthwhile.

Be creative, illustrate your tweets, include multimedia content, use your imagination!

Lots of other students from all over the world are also twittering about this Do Now and they will be using #DoNowGreen, so it would be nice if you focused on that hashtag too, apart from our own. In order to manage that, you may use a tool for real time tracking and organizing your Twitter, such as Tweetdeck.

#DoNowVenn RoundUp

After the #DoNowVenn posts are done, the team of @KQEDedspace are bringing now this new DoNow Roundup, in which  the students at the URJC Master's Degree for The Use of ICT and Digital Resources in Primary Bilingual Education have been taking part, as usual.

Once again, as recently posted here regarding former DoNow initiatives within the Arts and Pop Culture, our participation has been quoted as outstanding, for which we are humbly honoured, very proud, and thankful!

Photo by @joserro_ge

A Venn Diagram Can Be Art Depending On How You See It

Linked posts:

Can a Venn Diagram Become Art?#DoNowVenn #DoNow_urjc Storify

What Does Graffiti Look Like in Your Neighborhood?

photo by James Prigoff

You are invited to take part in Do Now: Art And Popular Culture these two coming weeks, from Wed 09 until Mo 21 April, twittering about the article entitled 'What does Graffit look like in your Neighbourhood?'

Read the post carefully, watch the video clip and draw your own conclusions. When you are ready to post your impressions, opinions, comments and so forth on Twitter, please start twittering all along these weeks about this topic.

Start all your tweets with @KQEDedspace and end them with our hashtag #DoNow_urjc. Respond to your peers, and retweet all those posts that you regard worthwhile.

Be creative, illustrate your tweets, include multimedia content, use your imagination!

Lots of other students from all over the world are also twittering about this Do Now and they will be using #DoNowGraffiti, so it would be nice if you focused on that hashtag too, apart from our own. In order to manage that, you may use a tool for real time tracking and organizing your Twitter, such as Tweetdeck.

#DoNowVenn #DoNow_urjc Storify

#DoNowSelfies RoundUp

After the #DoNowSelfies are done, the team of @KQEDedspace are bringing now this new DoNow Roundup, in which  the students at the URJC Master's Degree for The Use of ICT and Digital Resources in Primary Bilingual Education have been taking part, as usual.

Once again, as recently posted here regarding #DoNowArtist, our participation has been quoted as outstanding, for which we are humbly honoured, very proud, and thankful!

My most sincere congratulations to my #ictclil_urjc students and our most sincere thanks to @KQEDedspace and Matt Williams for giving us this great chance of interacting with loads of students from all parts of the world.

Read the full #DoNowSelfies RoundUp and check out how students from the whole world can connect using Twitter.

Quoted at KQED Education

For the last months, since February 2014 actually, the students at the URJC Master's Degree for The Use of ICT and Digital Resources in Primary Bilingual Education have been taking part in various DoNow Art and Popular Culture activities, by invitation of @KQEDedspace, as you may have been reading in this blog, which consist of twittering about current affairs posts using the #DoNow_urjc hashtag apart form the DoNow post hashtag itself together with other students worldwide.

After every two weeks, once each Do Now is over, the team from KQEDedspace compile nice Roundups that highlight the most relevent tweets as well as the most outstanding conclusions by the Twitter students participating in the groups.

Well, our participation in the #DoNowArtist activity has been quoted in one of those Roundups, for which we are both very proud and very very thankful.

Read the 'Art Should be Judged Independent of the Artist' Roundup that summarises the 'Can we separate the Artwork from the Artist?' DoNow activity and enjoy our #DoNow_urjc #DoNowArtistStorify embedded in it.

“We should separate the art from the artist like Frank Sinatra. Accused of ties with gangs.”

Tweet by @nebeker_thomas

My most sincere congratulations to my #ictclil_urjc students and my most sincere thanks to @KQEDedspace and Matt Williams for giving us this great chance of interacting with loads of students from all parts of the world.

'As you see, guys, the effort is worth it. Keep it up!'

Can a Venn Diagram Become Art?

You are invited to take part in Do Now: Art and Popular Culture from 30 March to 7 April 2014, twittering about the article entitled 'Can a Venn Diagram Become Art?'

Read the post carefully, watch the video clip and draw your own conclusions. When you are ready to post your impressions, opinions, comments and so forth on Twitter, please start twittering all along the aforesaid period about this topic.

Start all your tweets with @KQEDedspace and end them with our hashtag #DoNow_urjc. Respond to your peers, and retweet all those posts that you regard worthwhile. Illustrate your tweets with multimedia elements, be creative.

Lots of other students from all over the world are also twittering about this week Do Now and we are all using #DoNowVenn, so it would be nice if you focused on that hashtag too, apart from our own.

In order to manage that, you may use a tool for real time tracking and organizing your Twitter, such as Tweetdeck.

Image by Chris Johanson seen at KQED