Archive for February, 2012

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eLearning Resource: Engrade

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

From time to time, we come across various eLearning resources and we like to share the most useful resources with our readers.   Today we are going to share a tool for teachers who would like to use technology in the classroom.  This tool is called Engrade.  Engrade is a web-based tool that allows teachers to keep track of student grades and attendance, create, organize, and share assignments, and communicate with students and parents.   Engrade offers all of these benefits to education professionals completely free of charge and all information is stored in a private and secure manner.

Engrade has been around for nearly ten years and is used by schools and teachers in approximately 150 countries around the world.  There are over 4 million registered Engrade users and their membership base is continuously growing.  Engrade has always been a free service and will continue to remain free.  Engrade is able to offer its services for free thanks to the support of schools that choose to upgrade to Engrade’s premium service, EngradePlus, which offers advanced reporting and other customizations.

Getting started with Engrade is easy.  The signup process is quick and simple and the setup is intuitive.  The Engrade homepage offers links to brief video explanations of how to use the various Engrade features.   The first step in getting started with Engrade is setting up the grade book.  The grade book works and looks much like a spreadsheet, but you do not have to do all of the work of setting up the spreadsheet calculations or other desired features.  It is also easy to customize grading options such as categorizing assignments and giving different weights to assignment categories. You also have the ability to track student attendance using this same easy to use spreadsheet format.

While the grade book feature is practically flawless, Engrade offers so much more when it comes to teaching tools.  Teachers can create quizzes through Engrade.  Students can take these quizzes online and the quizzes can be automatically graded and entered into your grade book.  Teachers can also create amazing study tools for their students such as online flash cards and information rich wikis.  The homework calendar feature allows teachers to post assignments, events, reminders, and lessons in one central location online so students can easily keep track of class work.

Engrade also has several features that allow you to efficiently communicate with students and their care givers.  There is a messaging feature that functions much like any email program and it allows you to communicate with students and care givers in a secure and spam free interface.  Engrade also had a discussion forum feature, which allows students to participate in online discussions in which they can offer assignment ideas and advice to each other while garnering your input as well.  Care givers will love the fact that Engrade gives them access to their student’s grades and class information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

If you would like to learn more about Engrade or sign up for an Engrade account yourself, you can visit their website at http://www.engrade.com/

Career and Technical Education Month

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

In the United States, February is considered to be Career and Technical Education month.  This is a month when education professionals, students, employers, employees, and other organizations can focus on supporting and promoting career and technical education.  The phrase “career and technical education” refers to any type of training or coursework a person would participate in that teaches skills useful in obtaining a job or advancing in a currently held position.  Just because you may not be in the United States does not mean that you cannot benefit from focusing on career training or education.  In the spirit of Career and Technical Education month, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight two excellent career and technical education options that Gatlin International has to offer.

ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) Courses

In mid 2011, Gatlin International proudly began offering ACCA distance learning courses.  The series of ACCA courses offered by Gatlin International are will give you all the tools and knowledge you need to complete your ACCA membership. The ACCA is the leading international accountancy body; it is the largest and fastest-growing global professional accountancy body in the world, with over 320,000 members and students in 170 countries. The ACCA courses offered by Gatlin International include:

•       ACCA F1 Accountant in Business AB

•       ACCA F2 Management Accounting MA

•       ACCA F3 Financial Accounting FA (UK)

•       ACCA F3 Financial Accounting – International

•       ACCA F4 Corporate and Business Law CL (UK)

•       ACCA F5 Performance Management PM

•       ACCA F6 Taxation

•       ACCA F7 Financial Reporting

•       ACCA F8 Audit and Assurance AA (UK)

•       ACCA F9 Financial Management FM

•       ACCA P1 Governance, Risk and Ethics

•       ACCA P2 Corporate Reporting

•       ACCA P3 Business Analysis

•       ACCA P4 Advanced Financial Management

•       ACCA P5 Advanced Performance Management

•       ACCA P6 Advanced Taxation

•       ACCA P7 Advanced Audit and Assurance

Click on any of the course titles above to view a detailed description of each course.

Lean Business

Another excellent course category for advancing your career or taking your career in a new direction is Gatlin International’s Lean Mastery Courses.  Lean Business is essentially just what is sounds like: a business model that attempts to produce the maximum amount of benefit for the customer while using the least amount of resources possible.  Gatlin International has several courses in this category including Lean Mastery for Manufacturing, Lean Mastery for Administration and Lean Mastery for Healthcare.  These eLearning programs contain clear, concise information on transforming an enterprise to lean. With Gatlin International’s Lean Mastery eLearning courses, you will be able to recognize how the application of lean principles can substantially improve the operating and financial performance of any business.

Gatlin International has been offering online coursework since 1994 and is one of the world’s largest providers of online workforce education programs.  Enrolling in any of Gatlin International’s distance learning courses is easy and 100% secure.  If you would like to find out more about the courses mentioned above or view Gatlin International’s vast library of course offerings, visit the website at http://gatlininternational.co.uk/ and click on the link to the course catalog today.

Going Global 2012

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

Periodically, we like to make our readers aware of various events and conferences that those in the eLearning and education communities would find interesting or useful.  In just a few weeks, the British Council will be hosting an international education conference, Going Global. This conference series has been offering a discussion forum for professionals in the field of education for the past eight years.  The Going Global conference is beneficial to any eLearning education professional (especially those working in international education), government representatives, heads of institutions, policy and strategy makers, and many others.  Each year, Going Global attracts over 1,000 attendees from all over the world.

According to the conference website, Going Global offers the following benefits: provides a unique platform for knowledge sharing; connects local, national, regional and global agendas; provides a global network for policy makers and practitioners working in the field of international education; supports evidence led policy decisions deriving from research an regional policy dialogues; and supports global thought leadership. This year’s conference, Going Global 2012, will be held in London at the QEII Conference Centre from March 13 to March 15.

The themes Going Global 2012, The Future World and The Connected World, have a decidedly technological slant.  This year’s conference aims to address the idea that education can change the world with its ability to shape and connect the lives of the world’s citizens.  Included in the more than fifty sessions at the conference, presentations address a broad range of international education topics including Reshaping Education in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, India’s Excellence Initiative, The Future of China’s Education Market, The Rise of Latin American Economies and many others.

Still other sessions at Going Global 2012 focus specifically on education and technology.  One of the plenary sessions, Education: Connecting the Future World, focuses on the role of social media and the dissemination of information in the technologically advanced world we are currently living in.  This session will pose questions for future debate such as, “Does the immediacy and ubiquity of ‘new’ technologies of communication result in a deeper, and more empathic, understanding of cultural differences on a global scale? How do we negotiate an ‘ethic’ of educational and cultural collaboration in a world that is increasingly hard-wired for global security and surveillance, and deals in the soft-power of cultural stereotypes and racial anxieties?” Other sessions that address the topic of education and technology include: Bridging the Divide: Visions of Education Futures Through Technology, Institutions of the Future – A Technology World Café.  With the aforementioned conference themes, undoubtedly many more sessions will touch on the topics of technology in education as well.

Registration for Going Global 2012 closes on February 24, 2012, so there is still a few days left to register if you are interested in attending this conference.  Detailed information about all of the conference sessions as well as information on how to register for the conference, accommodations, and travel are all available at the British Council website at http://ihe.britishcouncil.org/going-global .

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