Looking back, Moving forward ...

Image: mikwat




Well, our LearnScope journey has come to an end, but is the real journey just beginning? Let's take a moment to look back to see where we have been and how what we have learned might help us move forward.

The aim of this LearnScope program was for managers of RTOs across Queensland to gain an understanding of e-Learning, emerging trends and specific management issues relating to e-learning. To achieve this, individuals were to form a learning community sharing a 10 week facilitated face-to-face and online journey through a range of activities and discussions around e-Learning.

We started off on 17 July with a face-to-face induction. Almost a full quorum, lots of enthusiasm and a great opportunity for us to meet each other, to put faces to names. And perhaps to sort out whether this was a journey each of us wanted to take. There was an introduction to the communication tools we would be using - the blog, the wiki and virtual conferencing - and Sue Waters gave an excellent presentation in our first virtual conferencing session, on podcasting.


The emails started, the wiki was established and the blog was ready to go! And so, the online meetings began.


Our first session was about the benefits of e-learning for clients. Afterall, if there aren't any benefits why pursue e-learning? Between us we identified many. We also took the time to have a closer look at blogging and wikis so that reflection and collaboration could begin.


Michael Coghlan discussed emerging trends and issues in our second session. Networking and connecting are definitely on the radar, but not at the expense of some of what we already know. The options need to be available and the delivery blended to maximise learning.


Being aware of the trends and issues, we took the time to have a look at implementation strategies with Clint Smith. Clint introduced us to the outstanding Framework resource - Designing e-Learning which covers strategies, design and assessment.


For our fourth session, we had the privilege of having Nigel Paine joining us to explore leadership and e-learning, followed by an afternoon session with Jo Kay who introduced us to Second Life. Wow - what a buzz that day was!


Mobile Technologies was a special agenda item provided for us by Alex Hayes, who just never stops! Alex talked to us about the evolution of mobile technologies and drew together the stories of how mobile technologies are being used from practitioners from all over the world. Now SMS and mobiles really are the domain of the 'Net Gen', our younger students, and fast becoming that of more mature students. Go on, how many of us (grandparents included) text our children and grandchildren frequently!


Our last session was with Vicki Marchant who discussed with us the skills, issues and considerations related to staffing for e-learning.


All these sessions are recorded and available at on our Wiki Program.


So, did we achieve our aim?


Certainly the feedback from our last session where we took the time to reflect together, suggested that much was gained. That strategic perspective and the role of managers was achieved and a much better understanding of e-learning. That was the goal!


But, it is hard to meet everyone's expectations. Some wanted more on the 'tools' themselves, and others wanted to be even more strategic. From my perspective, and from the feedback of a couple of participants, the discussion and interaction between meetings was not achieved. Disappointing for those who wanted to engage more and explore some topics a little deeper.


I will admit to moments of despair wondering if any real learning was happening when only two participants took the time to reflect and share their thoughts on their learning.


Managers have a lot of priorities and their own learning often slips to last place as they deal with the day-to-day unexpected tasks to deal with, so certainly I understood the issue of 'time'. It is most unlikely also, that a new group will embark on discussion and open reflection until an amount of 'trust' is developed. So, the lack of interaction between meetings was not all that unexpected. If this was an enrolled course however, activities would have been developed to complete tasks together, perhaps as buddies or teams, and the expectations would have been different. Reflection and collaboration would most definitely have been expected.


I was delighted to hear that incidental learning has taken place. While our focus was not the tools, my strategy was to use some 'tools' that I felt might be useful in the workplace, to expose participants to them. I understand that a few blogs have been created and life is being made easier for some by using RSS. Remember, to have the time to learn you need to make life easier for yourself - reduce that email, navigate sites of interest better. RSS will do that so if you haven't had time yet, it is never too late.


Our wiki was not very collaborative. Apart from the discussion forum, all contributions were by me. This wiki will remain however, and can continue to have a life if you allow it to do so. YOU can contribute to it, use it as a resource and keep building it. It is a starting point at least.




And so, the next stage of the journey is just beginning. It is now over to you as a Manager of e-Learning to keep moving forward on the road ahead - Good Luck!.



Image: Michael.DK

Staffing for e-Learning

From Presentation by Vicki Marchant, Manager - Teaching and Learning Initiatives, TAFE NSW - Illawarra Institute.

Vicki explored the role of Managers in supporting staff implementing e-learning as well as the different skill sets required of managers, support staff and facilitators.

Certainly one of the pertinent points, I believe, is accepting and supporting 'a different way of working' for e-learning teachers. Do they need to be in an office at the institution or can they do it from home, or from the beach, or wherever? Do you need to be able to 'see' them doing their work? Staff could be facilitating online subjects anywhere in QLD, Australia, or indeed, overseas. This requires 'trust' and opens up so many wonderful possibilities. Timetabling could become more flexible, or challenging!

George Siemens says that a key role of managers is to 'remove the barriers' so that staff can do their jobs. (Siemens interview (October 2006) recorded by Parker, TAFE NSW – Illawarra Institute http://blip.tv/file/115037 ) Not always easy, eg ICT firewalls, but certainly understanding the issues and working with the different stakeholders is essential.

What do you think is the key role of Managers of e-Learning?

Innovate and Integrate

Marie Jasinski's research "Innovate and Integrate: Embedding Innovative Practice" conducted on behalf of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework has recently been released.

This report is a 'must read' for any organisation or individual wanting to pursue and embed innovative practice. And there are practical tools to support you.

Carol McCullogh is bringing introductory workshops to all States and Territories on behalf of the Framework so watch out for the dates for your workshop.

Marie Jasinski is well known throughout the VET community in Australia, as well as internationally, for her innovative practice. I, and many others, have learned so much from her over the years and I personally want to thank Marie for yet another outstanding contribution to VET and the wider education community.

Mobile Technologies in Learning

Last week Alex Hayes, NSW LearnScope Project Officer, innovator, occasional philosopher and artist, and probably much more (my descriptives and not necessarily Alex's) inspired us with his presentation on Mobile Technologies.

Alex took us through the last two years of the evolution of m-Learning referring to 'the romantic' definition -

“… M-learning is the exciting art of using mobile technologies to enhance the learning experience. Mobile phones, PDAs, Pocket PCs and the Internet can be blended to engage and motivate learners, any time and anywhere. …” (m-learning.org : accessed 22 August 2007)

What was particularly inspiring was how Alex invited users of m-Learning to tell their story with their responses forming the core of the presentation. Responses were international, from the different education sectors, from managers and practitioners, from teachers of literacy and the trades. One response which hit home for me was Graeme Wegner's (Primary School Teacher, e-learning coordinator and edu-blogger):

"M-learning is something that students are doing with or without their teachers. Only if we decide to get involved can we have any impact on that learning. Education can no longer afford to ignore the impact mobile technology has on our students and their lives. If we ask them to switch it off, then we turn off the relevance to the rest of their life………”

Reflections

Hi everyone

This is the first time I have visited a blog but had a couple of minutes spare and thought it time to put "pen" to paper.

I have enjoyed our Elluminate sessions. It is a wonderful interative tool and fairly easy to get the hang of.

The process of meeting at the same time and place via this style of medium has highlighted a few problems for me personally.

Yes Val, time is the major difficulty. I have set aside the session times but it can still be difficult to (a) be there on time! and (b) do nothing else for two hours in the middle of the day.

I would have really enjoyed learning some new technology. Even if I was not able to actually experience it but I would like to know more about using various technologies and tools eg uploading videos; how to facilitate an online session; how to make the learning interactive. I was sorry that I was unable to be present for the Second Life presentation.

I realise that I am able to explore some of these items myself in my own time (when I have some!!) and will do so. Thanks for all the suggested links.

One point I have noticed though is that there are problems with having a conversation when we are all on-line. It is okay when someone has the microphone but very difficult to have continuity of communication. I also find this with the typed points. It can be easy to lose the plot of what is being discussed or to have a point you wish to make missed all together.

What do others think?

Judy

Reflecting on Readiness ...

Last Thursday was a real buzz for me having both Nigel Paine's presentation on Managers Supporting e-Learning, and then an Introduction to Second Life with Jo Kay. You can see what resonated for me on my other Blog post, and I would LOVE to hear what resonated for you.

This post is more about my reflections on readiness. I've been pondering this a lot lately, noting Gerry's comments in our blog and discussion forum and noting the lack of comments from nearly everyone else. Even noting the less than overwhelming participation in our f/nightly online meetings although I have been pleased with the interaction in the meetings themselves. And so far only Gerry has reflected on the program to-date noting, among other things, how disappointed she has been in the lack of interaction between participants. What went wrong? Have I thrown too much at you, overwhelmed you, or are you just not ready? Perhaps it is a time issue - I am very aware of the different demands on a Manager's work time. Often your own PD is put aside to deal with putting those fires out,


Image: MonkeyMyshkin's







or getting ready to 'fly' in other directions.

Image: sretneva

My strategy has been to expose you to a variety of online communication tools, web 2.0 tools if you like, so that you are informed as managers as to what they are and how they might be used both in a business sense and for learning. To use the e-tools to learn about e-learning per se. Of course they're not all the tools and there's a lot more to e-learning than web 2.0, as Gerry says, but they are part of the emerging trend. Our meetings were intended to be about the bigger picture - the benefits, the trends, design and implementation, the role of managers, and staffing (still to come).

Why am I linking this to readiness you might well ask? Well, I am possibly way of track but one of the things that did resonate for me last week was that I was 'ready' to learn about something new. I had been exposed to Second Life before but was busy taking everything else in. This time I listened and I allowed myself to learn. Thus the reason for me asking if all of this has been a bit too overwhelming; too much to learn.

What could have been done differently? This is important as it is a lesson that you as Managers need to be aware of when implementing e-Learning and supporting your staff, the facilitators of e-Learning. Gerry has made suggestions. What do others think?

Mid-Program Reflection

image: Arnold Pouteau's Contemplation

We are actually over half way in our 10 week program, so it is definitely time to take stock and reflect on how things are going, and how they could improve. Here are four questions to get you started, but please feel free to add anything else:

1. What has been the most significant learning for you so far, from the QLD Managers in e-Learning program?

2. How have you applied in your workplace, what you have been learning to-date?

3. On a scale of 1-5 please rate your experience as a participant in the QLD Managers in e-Learning LearnScope program to-date. (1 being a very negative experience and 5 a very positive experience).

4. What needs to change in the remainder of the program for your experience to be better?

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.!!

Getting started

Hi everyone

Not sure if this is the right place to say hello but my other "hello" didn't seem to go anywhere. I am sorry that I haven't met everyone personally but then isn't that what e-learning is all about.

Hoping to get to "know" you all and discover many new things.

"Talk" to you all (I hope) on Thursday.

JudyV

What I've discovered....

I must admit that I was rather sceptical before attending this session - sceptical in an ignorant kinda way (which I guess is the worst type of sceptic to be). It's not that I didn't see value in elearning for other organisations, just that I was not convinced I would be able to find any place for this in our business.

Well I must say - less that one week later and I have created a wikispace at the request of some clients in South East Queensland who wanted me to facilitate a collaborative effort for human resource professionals (hrdandtraining.wikispaces.com - feel free to join in). I also created a blog - which I then deleted, intentionally. I didn't realise that blogs were a one way street and I'm not that inhebriated by the verbosity of my own exuberance (as my husband would say) - direct translation "I'm not yet drunk on the lound sounds of my own enthusiasm". But I'm not finished yet - I've also created an online doodle site for my management students and have already tested podcasts with video and sound. And all this inbetween my normal work load, feeding children and pets and doing laundry. Isn't it amazing how much you can get achieved when you really put your mind to it.

Loving this stuff. I now want to change my title to E-Learning Guru but I think I have a way to go yet.
Bring it on.

Great to meet you all

It was great to meet you all last Tuesday in Brisbane. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk about the Managers role in Toolbox implementation and I look forward to participating in future discussions on Managing e-Learning. Please contact me if you have any questions about Toolboxes or if you would like a Toolbox workshop in your organisation.
Cheers...Denise

Welcome to QLD Managers' in e-Learning Blog

This blog has been established for the QLD Managers exploring e-Learning through a 2007 LearnScope project to reflect and map their learning journey. The aim of this program is for participants to gain an understanding of e-Learning, emerging trends and specific management issues relating to e-learning.

The first step in our 10 week program was a face-to-face induction workshop held in Brisbane. It was a great opportunity for participants to meet each other as well as some of the key QLD Framework personalities - Leura Cathcart, QLD Framework Co-ordinator and A/LearnScope Manager, and Denise Morgan, QLD Toolbox Champion - as well as their facilitator, Val Evans (me)! Participants came from as far North as Mt Isa and represented both the public and private VET sector.

During the face-to-face workshop, Sue Waters from Challenger TAFE, WA, gave both an inspiring and challenging presentation on Podcasting from WA by meeting us in our Elluminate virtual classroom; challenging because most of the participants had only just entered the virtual classroom for the first time and were still 'finding their way' within the environment.

Social software was high on the Agenda for this workshop as participants created accounts with Google, Wikispace and EdNA - Google so that they can post to as well as comment on this Blog and also set up a personal landscape in iGoogle if they wish, Wikispace so that they can add new pages and edit key space on our team's Wiki, and EdNA so that they can participate in the discussions relevant to Vocational Education and Training, particularly through the 2007 Networks Community Forum.

So, let the journey begin!