KEYPAL : Activity

A CV in elgg

Thu, 11 May 2006 10:42:50 GMT

Hi Dave and Ben

As our keypal pilots are coming to a close I wondered if the possibility of having a CV part to elgg is still on the books. I know it would interest out pilot groups and would be a nice 'end product' to the work they have been doing with elgg. Any info on that would be appreciated thanks.

Angela

A few requests for elgg

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:27:25 GMT

Hi Guys

I'm just writing up an article for ePortfolio Québec (I will post it although it's in French) and have been reflecting on the use of elgg in our pilots. The feedback from our different groups highlights the following needs:

The possibility for users to contact other users i.e. in the form of a message box as in Acadamici. When a user already has a blog posting this can be done through a comment in their blog but if they haven't other than making them a friend it seems there is no way to connect with them directly. The young adults in our groups have said they would like to be able to make direct contact in one form or other.
Categorising blog postings. As in KEYPAL we are using the elgg ePortfolio to demonstrate keyskills it would be useful to be able to create categories for blog postings (a bit like with edublogs I suppose). The keyword tagging does enable you to group postings but it would be useful to be able to have an index/archive for postings under certain categories (categories to be defined by user). May be this is something that can be done when elgg is installed locally - not sure.
As I already mentioned to you Dave having some 'structured' templates would also be very good for this young adults i.e. a CV

Otherwise all the rest is great...thanks again!

How to get our young adults to write entries into their blog?

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:34:00 GMT

Well it seems that the 2 groups using ELGG in KEYPAL (DRK in Germany and SIAE in Slovenia) are all having difficulty filling that first "white page" . They have all completed their profiles with interests, likes, dislikes etc. but they have not yet managed to put a post in their blogs. When we discussed this in our audio-meeting this morning the reasons put forward were:

lack of confidence of this particular group of young adults (with no formal qualifications)
the need for something more structured to get started with and feel like they are making progress
they have difficulty with writing skills particulary if it is open in nature i.e. not structured questions/anwers as in the profile

So what suggestions do you have to help them take this first step towards posting content, thoughts, reflections, news in their blogs? Please put your suggestions as comments to this posting! Thanks

Elgg features in community spaces

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 11:01:06 GMT

Hi, it is great to see the additional elgg features such at the RSS feed aggregator and the calendar in my own personal space. However I don't seem to be able to find the same features for the community space ( in this case KEYPAL). Am I overlooking something?

Plan B young adults hit the headlines with their ePortfolios

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 14:43:30 GMT

Bravo to the team at DRK for their work using ELGG with the young adults at Plan B and to the tutors supporting them.

I quote Carsten in the article: These ePortfolios are being introduced as part of the European wide project Keypal whose Bremen representative is the German Red Cross. “Those young people who experience major difficulties when they have to go to normal schools are the ones who find it extremely difficult to assess their own skills adequately,” explains Carsten Floemer, social worker and Keypal project manager.

To view the ePortfolios of this group please click on Carsten's photo and you will see them in his friend's list - in German of course!

Inviting members into this community

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 14:49:59 GMT

This is a question more to Dave and Ben then anything. I tried inviting some of our KEYPAL partners into this KEYPAL community using the 'invite' function. However I notice that you can't invite them if they are already registered on ELGG. How can you invite an existing user into your community?

Thanks

Angela

The benefits of blogging

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 14:30:23 GMT

I encourage all the KEYPAL partners and piloters to read this blog post about the educational/intellectual benefits of blogging and hope it will support your use of ELGG in the pilots here I summarise below the benefits:
1. Blogs can promote critical and analytical thinking.
2. Blogging can be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking.
3. Blogs promote analogical thinking.
4. Blogging is a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information.
5. Blogging combines the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.

Welcome to the KEYPAL Community

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 13:59:15 GMT

Hello all KEYPAL partners and piloters!

This is to welcome you to the KEYPAL community space on the ELGG platform and I hope you will all contribute to this weblog so that we are all updated on your ePortfolio development in the scope of the KEYPAL project.

All the best

Angela
KEYPAL Project manager