Seán McHugh

minimax: minimum effort - maximum impact

All too often, the use of computers ends up making more work not less. Is there a way to manage this powerful resource to get the maximum result with the minimum amount of effort? All too often what we get instead is maximax, maximum effort, maximum impact, or worse minimin, minimal effort, minimal impact. During this session I plan to share some ideas on how exactly to achieve minimax... how can we get the maximum result, with a minimal amount of effort.

Audience: Anyone who has ever spent hours creating a resource they only used once... maybe twice.

Strand: Digital (and Information) Literacy, ICT, IT, Computer Technology... any more?

Session Focus:

• Demonstration of how to utilise shock wave files 'swf' (flash) files. Find a site with good flash content, and learn how to extract it from the page and run it on its own... any school can build a library of this kind of media. (Samples attached)

• Unlocking Adobe Acrobat: Making the most of the scanning to PDF using copiers, how to edit scanned documents, crop, rotate, extract, tidy up etc. How to turn a scanned document, like pages from a book, into a document with selectable text. How to easily annotated over scanned material in front of the class with the IWB... without using the IWB software.

• How to easily extract youtube videos to build a video library for your school.

• How to utilise existing interactive web content for use seperate use with an IWB that can also be used easily on any standalone computer for 1:1 use, or to use for homework.

Useful info :: (links will open in a new window)

A site for downloading youtube videos (and others)

http://www.splandoo.com/

Dropbox Public link to download a 'starter pack' of 'swf' files.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/981876/swf.zip [60MB]

Dropbox is a really useful web tool, think of it as a free 2GB thumb drive, on the web. If you use this link to get one for yourself, we both get extra free space.

http://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTk4MTg3Njk

Make your own Prezi

http://prezi.com/

Biography:

My teaching experiences span 14 years, predominately in London, Malaysia and for the past eight+ years here in Singapore. I grew up in West London, before my family emigrated to the west coast of Ireland. After completing my secondary education, I returned to England and studied Art and Engineering through Industrial Design, before undertaking a Degree in Three Dimensional Design. So far in my 40 years I have been: a farmer, builder, double glazing fitter, security guard, mechanical engineer, welder, security grille fitter, warehouse labourer, carer in an old people’s home, swimming instructor, driver, carpenter, motorcycle mechanic, painter decorator, singer, actor, web designer, a camera man, video editor, house parent, youth worker, before discovering the wonderful world of teaching. These experiences required a broad base of academic, practical and of course technological skills, which provided me with excellent opportunities to develop a skills set and inquiry based approach to teaching that has proved invaluable. I am a Primary School Digital Literacy Facilitator at UWCSEA.

Seán McHugh - smcqs@yahoo.co.uk