Wednesday, November 08, 2006

What about a strength based approach to capability development?

Life Based Learning is a contemporary model for capability development in vocational and technical education. It proposes that learning for work is not restricted to learning at work. The premise is that all learning is interrelated so it is not easy to separate learning at work from other types of learning adults do. Learning is a multi-dimensional experience. Adults engage in a lot of learning other than professional development and much of this ‘extra-curricular’ learning influences our thinking and our work practices. Understanding a strength based orientation to learning inside and outside of work results in individual and organisational growth and development.

Want to know more? Then visit this site at:

http://www.icvet.tafensw.edu.au/resources/life_based_learning.htm

Coach Carole

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

voices from converge: the EGIT story

One of the hardest things for a LearnScope Manager is to find funding for some of the great ideas that staff come with for projects mid-year. By then, all the funding has been handed out to project groups and the cupboard is bare!



This year, however, I managed to find a little extra to fund a previously forgotten mid-year project – attending ConVerge. After last year’s excellent Eureka, how could I have forgotten?



A record (for us) eight staff were bundled into a Tarago (eight in a Tarago is also a record, we feel) and headed off for the big city. Six toilet stops and four Happy-meals later, we were in Sunshine. This upset one of the travellers, who thought we were going to the sunshine and was looking forward to Sea World, but all was forgiven as we booked into our luxurious 2 star accommodation. We even had our own bed.



ConVerge was excellent. Food was delicious, session timings spot on and presentations varied and informative. Keynote speakers were of a very high standard and we even experienced Coach Carole singing (ok, not everything was perfect!).



Our group was comprised of eLearning support staff and LearnScope project members.



Positives of the Conference for our staff were:



A feeling that Victorian eLearning had achieved maturity
The opportunity to network, especially with those outside our normal grouping ie teachers normally network with teachers and not with designers, administrators, etc.
Realisation that you are not alone in your difficulties and that others may have an answer for you
Opportunity to see others doing what you are doing – but differently.
Opportunity for us to have a four hour eLearning meeting in each direction!
Opportunity to immerse yourself in all things “e” for a few days
Great info sessions – difficult to access normally, especially for a regional TAFE


Looking forward to the Gordon in 07 - we already have staff keen to present! Will LearnScope be able to fund a double decker full of staff?

Paul Mlynarz

PS
Comment in the Tarago on the way home – “Imagine having Dame Edna Everage talking to us – pity that Clint chap missed it”.

Monday, September 04, 2006

September Stories: East Gippsland TAFE



LearnScope projects really do have legs!
Paul Mlynarz: East Gippsland TAFE

In the early days of LearnScope, East Gippsland Inst of TAFE (EG TAFE) wanted to develop an Institute-wide eLearning based conference.

As the Institute has 16 campus, scattered around Victoria in an area covering approx 1/7th of the state, it was not an easy task to get everyone together and interested – especially as the aim was to encompass all staff, not just teachers.

Supported by LearnScope project funding, the conference was successful and is identified as a major factor in getting the ‘e’ ball rolling for the Institute.

Six conferences down the track and it has taken its place as a major annual Institute event and provides, amongst many other things, a focal point for all things ‘e’.

Amongst the 2006 workshops, eLearning was well represented with:

• Digital Story-telling (fully subscribed)
• eLearning is here now but what is it? (fully subscribed)
• E-commerce with Ebay (2 workshops, both fully subscribed)
• The new TAFEVC – Vista (2 workshops presented by Clint Smith, eWorks)
• InfoTrac – online research skills
• Protecting your electronic archives
• LearnScope project groups

In a moment of madness, EGTAFE eLearning manager Paul Mlynarz agreed to provide light relief for the staff with his first (and last) performance as e-LVIS, king of rock and e-roll.


September Stories: VU #1




Forming, Norming, Storming, Performing?

Contact: Chris Jackson (Leadership and Small Business, Victoria University)
Tel: 9919 7902
Email: chris.jackson@vu.edu.au

Looking at the header of this template you’d think that this Good News Story should be about eLearning Opportunities.

Well have I got news for you.

The Learn Scope Project has turned out to be an important part of the development of a cohesive team spirit within the department. The department has only been in existence for a short time following a restructure and amalgamation of two former independent departments and is still located in two separate buildings in two separate suburbs.

The departmental team has been following the classic forming, norming, storming and performing process. I would personally estimate that we are on the verge of slipping over into the performing stage. However, with every major change we tend to slip backwards and forwards through the separate stages. There is a great deal of fear of the unknown involved in making lasting changes within any organisation.

Who would have thought that a project such as this would be a vehicle for team development?

The department has a varied mandate in teaching ranging from Traineeships in Retail Studies, Certificate and Diploma Courses in Retail Management, to Industry based Certificate and Diploma Courses in Business (Frontline Management) to Educational Leadership Courses in association with the Chair Academy of the United States. All conducted using various innovative delivery models, at present excluding Elearning modules.

The opportunity to participate in several eLearning development activities (thanks to OTTEs financial assistance) has been seen as an opportunity to extend our teaching boundaries, however our diverse needs have been creating some tension in the development of a new mindset that incorporates eLearning as a delivery strategy.

Having organised WebCT Training to be undertaken by selected staff members, which included both teaching and administration staff, it was with some trepidation that we all turned up at the appointed time and, thanks to our facilitator (Antony Marsh of Victoria University’s Quality Teaching and Innovation team) we started to look at eLearning in a different light.

Surprise, surprise we started to talk about teaching and learning strategies, even our normally reticent administration staff entered into the conversation and gave valuable feedback on their experiences as eLearning students. After the session we stayed back and started looking at how we could incorporate eLearning into our current offering.

More surprises, we actually came with a basic philosophy on how we should structure our eLearning offering, which we will present to our facilitator next session.

Oh, and we all went for coffee together afterwards and guess what the other members of the department have exactly the same problems as we do. While we’re not best friends, we have developed a mutual professional respect for each other and this bodes well for the future of the project.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

August Stories: ACPET


Welcome to the inaugral blog for the Victorian LearnScope bloggers! Let's get blogging.

ACPET Good News Stories:

First up we have a new batch of creative interim reports from our ACPET project teams. These are presented as digital movies and are all uploaded to the You Tube for ease of viewing. You can access them from the links below.

Western Health Medication Administration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkSorQ-pbcg

Integrity Business College Australasia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbAF1EYYRFE

BGT Engineering: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XMv0jmvQbE

Australian Combined Resources (ACR): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7chta62fJak

Thanks to Heidi Bradburn, LearnScope manager for the Victorian ACPET teams for these enjoyable and engagingly different reports. Here's a quote from Heidi:


Thanks Carole and a big thanks to each of the four ACPET Vic LearnScope teams for their terrific efforts in putting these reports together!

The teams at Western Health and Ballarat Group Training (BGT) are both learning to design and develop within a WebCT learning environment. Western Health, one of our ACPET Vic LearnScope Start Up Group RTOs last year, has a team focusing on flexible ways to educate over 1000 nurses in medical administration. The team at Ballarat Group Training will be building on skills they developed through their ACPET Vic LearnScope project last year with a particular focus on engaging engineering students with low literacy levels in online learning. Both Integrity Business College Australasia and Australian Combined Resources (ACR) have teams developing skills in designing for and delivering within the Live Classroom virtual classroom environment, including the use of video.

Well done to all four teams – looking forward to hearing more about the progress of your projects at ConVerge 2006 in October!


Let's here from your teams here in this blog.