Ministry of Education Meetup - Digital Assessment and The COBE Template

 Good morning!

I would like to report concerning a Ministry of Education Meetup of last Monday evening , June 7th, 2021

 I attach  images  with a report on the event (they appear on two important  Ministry of Education-affiliated Facebook groups centered on Technology and Innovation https://www.facebook.com/tikshuvil/  and https://www.facebook.com/groups/TechInnovationCom/about) and more

I was the presenter at a Round table, and introduced The COBE template, information about which was made available digitally by means of a QR. I also wrote a post on one of the Facebook groups about the Template (attached image)

The important point, I believe, is that I stressed the collaboration that brought about the creation of this Template, and the fact that we have come up with something that is already serving hundreds of teachers (465 have viewed the Template. I have to find out how many copies have been requested by how many teachers so far. And yet, I believe we will witness the real impact next school year).

The eLearning Podcast, Episode №21 — Kim Salinas, Elearning Experts

By Stephen Ladek -December 29, 2020

https://www.lmspulse.com/2021/the-elearning-podcast-with-stephen-ladek/

"For the veterans of the Moodle Learning Management System, my guest today may need no introduction. Kim Salinas, a Solutions Architect at Elearning Experts, is perhaps the most recognizable Moodle teacher out there. First with the Moodle Course Creators Certificate and now with the more comprehensive MEC, for years, Kim has been at the forefront of the efforts to make Moodle both more understandable and instrumental to learner success.

In this conversation we talk about:

The Moodle Educator Certificate or MEC, which contrary to what the name may imply, does not teach you how to use Moodle, but how to take your digital education to the next level—through the use of Moodle.

Digital Education Competencies, and why teachers everywhere should consider them essentials in our New Normal of learning

How the MEC is a milestone in the way Moodle and its Partners approach education and the ways the MEC itself is in continuous evolution

Why the MEC is not for everyone, but how partners like Kim and Elearning Experts are excellent guides into the marvelous world of Moodle

And if you want to understand how the MEC fits into the larger Moodle ecosystem, check out the talk by Moodle Founder and CEO Martin Dougiamas at the eLearning Success Summit."

Using Moodle Assignment to practice for the New Oral Bagrut Exam - COBE

Accessibility matters! The link is to the video on Screencastomatic. It provides the possibility of letting people read the transcription BOTH as captions on the video ("subtitles") and as a transcript next to the video.
https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cY1vo85FMe

Web Accessibility. We may be teaching a lot from home next school year (I hope there is no need for that, but it doesn't look that way). The Youtube option for the video I uploaded on its Screencastomatic version is also good as regards Accessibility PROVIDED THAT speech is clear. There are words that the app finds it impossible to convert from Speech to Text (for example, when I do not speak clearly, or when I use words that are not English, such as Mashov) I have been made aware that if I want hard of hearing pupils to get all the content. I know I have chosen a poor video example to show that, but then I guess since the video has to do with Bagrut, teachers may decide to watch it https://youtu.be/IgU1r1EEOmU

A message to colleagues of mine I have just posted

Hi! Sooner or later, we might find out that we need to go back to some Distance Learning. It is important then that we become aware of the importance of Web Accessibility, which does not mean just Text-to-Speech. Accessibility is about people: people who are blind or have problems seeing pages (color blind, can't see some backgrounds need alternative text on images and the like) on the Internet; people who are deaf or have hearing problems; people who are blind and deaf; people who have cognitive problems, problems decoding (Dyslexia) and more... And then we have "normal people" (whatever that is), that need support just like they do in the classroom. Zoom alone is not an option for them. It is definitely one option to be used with something else: A Learning Management System. The Ministry of Education gives teachers one very good LMS for free (as many platforms as you need). It's Moodle.  It "takes care " of Accessibility issues (it's a must). And the one for us, teachers of English, provides a screen reader, which the Hebrew one does not (and that is BAD). Moodle Mashov will take care of Accessibility on Moodle, too So even though I speak of Moodle, I am talking about people. We have the summer to get ready for the possibility that we might need to use an LMS for more than Blended Learning. Give yourself some time and learn Moodle. You will help people (Incidentally, I am not the owner of Moodle and/or have shares in Moodle... My pupils seem to think that that is so.) Best wishes.