Interesting Bits and Pieces

Working across two groups covering similar topics is interesting. Never quite the same but certainly worth linking. Rather than repeat myself though, check out a few interesting bits and pieces that turned up in my Google Reader this week from bloggers of interest to me.

Session 3: e-Learning Implementation Strategies

Clint Smith from e-Works, Victoria, gave an excellent presentation today on e-Learning Implementation Strategies. Clint explored the different types of e-Learning with us and while blended learning seemed to be the most popular, it was interesting to see others such as e-Training, Distance Education and Virtual Classrooms also being used by participants or their organisations.

Most importantly, Clint introduced us to the Designing e-Learning resource available through the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. It is an absolute winner and no wonder is consistently rated as No 1 by Google - well done Clint and his team. Here is a copy of the front page:

Our Communication Suite

Just reinforcing the different options for communicating as members of our QLD Managers in e-Learning LearnScope team:

This Blog: Use it for posting your reflections, your thoughts, your ideas, making a statement. Comment on posts but don't try to enter into dialogue. That's not the best use of a blog.

Our Wiki: For collaborative building of a collection of resources and links, etc that you can refer to as Managers of e-Learning. By being a member of our wiki you can add resources and links that you know about, sharing them with us all.

Our Wiki Discussion Forum: By clicking on the Discussion tab at the top of the wiki, you can engage in dialogue with your peers, exploring topics of interest further outside of our virtual meeting room.

Our Virtual Meeting Room: For our meetings and key presentations where we meet synchronously (10:30 am - 12:30 pm on Thursdays fortnightly).

e-Learning: Emerging Trends and Issues

Michael Coghlan spoke to us about the emerging trends and issues in e-learning on Tuesday, 14 August. For me, Michael's image below says it all where he has used Stuckey and Arkell's (2005) diagram of how a balanced approach between a culture of compliance and an enabling culture is required in VET, overlaid by the nemesis of many VET practitioners, the dreaded firewall, and overlaid again by Siemens diagram of Networked Learning. It's all rather messy at the moment. It works for some and overwhelms others. Some VET practitioners are passionate and immersed in e-Learning and social software and are making it work with their students (see the Frameworks Learning with Social Software research case studies); others are frustrated with innovators whitering under the pressure.



So, as Managers, what needs to change? How can it be less messy? What is your role as leaders and managers?

Joining our wiki

To be able to edit the QLD Managers in e-Learning wiki you need to:

1. Go to www.wikispaces.com and follow the steps for joining (do not do step 4).
2. Confirm subscription through your email, ie a confirmation email will be sent to you and you need to respond.
3. Go to our wiki and click on [Join this space] at top of Left-hand menu. An email will be sent to me and once I accept you as a member you are able to edit pages and join the discussion. This is because I have set up our wiki for all to see but only members of our team to edit.

We are using the wiki as a collaborative project space to build resources to support you in your role as managers. The discussion space available in the wiki provides a space for us to discuss and debate issues (an asynchronous forum).

Note: This blog is to post thoughts and ideas with readers able to comment. A forum such as that available in wikispaces is more appropriate for ongoing dicussion and debate.

Editing profile on EdNa

I have edited the Digest option in my profile to ‘daily email’ on numerous occasions but the moment I navigate away from the page it defaults back to ‘No digest (single email per forum post)’.
Is anyone else having this problem? Or do you have any other suggestions as the number of email alerts is becoming difficult to manage.
I have emailed the EdNa help to seek assistance.

Sharing Resources

I've just posted these resources on Cyberbullying, Blogging and Intellectual Property on the NSW Managers in e-Learning Blog - just as relevant to our QLD Managers.

Our First Online Meeting - Benefits of e-Learning

Our first online meeting took place on Thursday, 2 August. While there were a few hiccups with getting audio to work, we did manage to get sound from everyone except Ferdinand. Fortunately Ferdinand could hear us and use chat so wasn't excluded from the meeting. It did reinforce the need to test equipment before the actual meeting and logging on in plenty of time.

Our first hour was spent on the creation of blogs and wikis, and what benefits these have for both knowledge sharing within and across organisations, and for VET clients. To find out more about why you would use a blog, wiki or some of the other social software tools for teaching and learning, check out Pages 31-34 of the Networks, Connections and Community: Learning with Social Software report. There are also some excellent examples of social software being used in teaching and learning and for knowledge sharing and staff learning and development on the Report's research wiki. Other exemplars are available on the NSW LearnScope wiki.

We did spend a little time on creating a Personal Learning Environment (PLE)- to find out more check out Carole McCulloch's PLE wiki. Carole also shares a step by step slideshare guide on how to set up iGoogle. And discussed again why we should tap into the EdNA Network's Community Forum. Instructions on how to dictate how you receive EdNA Group messages are on our wiki.

It was interesting to see the shift in energy when we actually moved away from tools and focussed on the overall topic of The Benefits of e-Learning for our Clients. The atmosphere started to buzz. Unfortunately time was our enemy once again as we could have spent longer. Some of the benefits are noted below.



Some discussion took place on just how accessible teachers are and the need for boundaries etc. We might carry that discussion across to our wiki.

I just made it

While juggling work priorities I was a bit hesitant to make time and engage myself in this field of 'virtuality' of blogging, wikies, etc. I can see the future of near paperless resource centers getting closer earlier than later. Realities that may offer a lot of material for interesting change management studies.

Hope for the faint hearted?

Hi all

The trouble I have had arriving here!! The login I wrote down for iGoogle at the workshop did not want to work ... so I tried the "Forget your password" link. It did veryify that gerrygreen is in fact a username, and the password was successfully sent to my gmail account.

Given that a few months ago in another life I created a gmail account, I found my little black book kept for such things and voila! it logged in alright but no sign of the email containing my password. I don't know of another gmail account that I may have .... did one get set up automatically when I created the iGoogle account? It probably said that somewhere on the front page which I didn't read.

Anyway aren't I actually in Blogger?? Do the passwords for Blogger and iGoogle match?? It probably said that somewhere on the front page which I didn't read. I did have a Blogger account once .... eons ago in about 2004. God knows what the username and password for that is. It's probably dropped me from its social register by now in any case.

Anyway I tried an email account address password retrieval and now I am here ... but I suspect that what I have actually done is created a new account on Blogger. It probably said that somewhere on the front page which I didn't read.


Oh dear the tribulations of social software. I'm going off to iGoogle now to see what happens when I try to log in there. I have already tried the Elluminate log in thing ... successfully ... so my ego isn't totally destroyed (yet).

How unsocial can social software be? I ask myself. Oh for the days of a nice safe e-Learning environment with one URL and one logon.!!