LearnScope Start-up Workshop 3

What current team members are doing:

Sonya's comments on her blog:

• make it personal (as if you are talking to others)
• short and frequent
• links to work she has done

Judy Forbes' moodle site on vetsa:

• Children's Services Diploma
• Has news forum, profile

Guest speaker - Michael Bullock (1 year on from Start-Up)

• Managing Director of Subrosa Solutions
• Only a small company with not a lot of money BUT a lot of tools out there are free
• About changing people's attitudes
• Won't suit everyone or every course
• More open minded
• Make a decision to put in some of the technology
• Still meeting with other start up team members
• Went back excited about the different technologies

Baby Steps...2 years on...Sean Simper

• At Online Access College
• 15 years experience prior to Start up including Web Design business
• Taking ideas back to work, finding out what people were doing, continually flagging things that they should be doing better
• Organised an elearning expo (primary to TAFE staff sharing what they were doing with others)
• Kept looking for opportunities continually - flexible learning strategies
• Started networking with others
• Project - taking stock of elearning direction
• In project on multimedia online learning objects
• Looked at funding opportunities, finding people with a passion who spoke a similar language, conferences, online training, edayz
• Sense of an antenna - honing your skills - the who, what, where, how
• Be strong in your mind about what you want to do and go out and try it, communities, blogging, connect with other, training (you must be the driver), work out who you need to talk it, find the person to make it happen
• New project on research into podcasting
• Passion and drive
• (Marlene comments he was always there at everything she went to)

Sphere of influence

• Dropping a pebble in water - ripple effect
• You can influence things you are in contact with
• World sphere - so far out of our sphere of influence (but they affect us)
• Peoplele usually work on their sphere of influence and whinge about the world sphere of influence because they can't change it.
• Middle sphere of influence - break our of your sphere of influence and influence change in areas around you, eg, talk to your manager, get elearning on the agenda. It will ripple out and it will accelerate - "The surface of the pond has been disturbed".
• Push those walls and don't waste your time on things you can't change (the really big picture)

Introducing the e-learning guru

• Passion
• Risk-taker
• Determined & initiative
• Approachable
• A willing learning
• Skilled
• Willingness to explore
• Expansive & creative
• Energetic
• Persistence
• Prioritise
• Focused
• Non-threatening
• Networking

Guest Speaker - Robby Weatherley

• Capability Building Program Leader (Australian Flexible Learning Framework)
• Professional Development: opportunities to learn, progressing skill, creating new knowledge, application in context
• Strategies: workshops, mentoring, networks, coaching, conferences, conversations, dialogue, experimentation, reading, watching, questioning
• Expert centered learning
• Work based learning
• Life based learning ... adults learn from multiple sources, ie, leisure, family, work, personal

Speed Dating!

We had to sit in two rows facing each other and we had one minute each to tell the person opposite us how what steps we were now going to take to become an e-learning guru. After two minutes one row had to move down a chair so we had to talk to the next person. My thoughts were as following:

• Read our forums, make time to really look at links everyone else's provides
• Look and participate in other online communities at EdNA groups
• Share my journey with others at work, get their input

FINISH HOMEWORK BY 10am THURSDAY 27 JULY

My exploration

The following are extracts from my homework forum question where we had to discuss our explorations of the tools presented to us in Workshop 2:

• Skype: I have downloaded skype and have it working on my computer. I know we won't have permission to use this at TAFE but I still think I could talk to some of my students from home if they miss a class or need help prior to major assignments/tests etc.
  
• Wikis: I have set up a wiki for myself and jotted down some ideas I have been having about a project at work. I have also spoken to my manager about us using wikis for agendas for meetings so everyone can have some say (anonymously) about what we want covered at staff meetings. For students, ? use it as a brainstorming tool to find out what students know about a topic and maybe getting lesson feedback about what was good or bad about a topic and what they need extra help with???
  
• Live classrooms: I haven't managed to set up one of these for myself yet because THEY ARE BLOCKED ON THE TAFE NETWORK!!!!!! Elluminate was impressive when I got to see it in action at the Tapping into Social Networking for E-learning Online Event. It was possible for everyone to interact with each other in a number of ways, eg, voice, text etc.
  
• VETSA classrooms: I have using forums in an online classroom I have but haven't had any responses from students except for a very funny one from a student who had been busy celebrating our victory in the world cup the night before and couldn't come to class. I did have one other student who added some useful links but interestingly enough it really just ended up being a way for me to communicate on mass to the students and they seemed happy enough to get the posts emailed to them.
  
• del.icio.us: This is a place for keeping your favourites and sharing them with others.
  
• Podcasting: Attended an Apple podcasting in education seminar this week which was awesome. I think our students would love this as a way to receive and submit assignments. Unfortunately there are not equivalent tools for PCs!!! Must looks at Podkids and download iTunes to see what podcasts are out there. Also must look at subsribing to relevent ones.

LearnScope Start-up Workshop 2

E-learning tools, LMSs, online spaces and other resources:

• Survey Monkey for creating surveys.
• MeetOMatic for organising meetings.
• QuickTopic for discussion forums.
• Skype for making free voice calls over the internet.
• Seedwiki for creating a place where everyone can edit the pages (asynchronous).
• Tripod for creating free websites.
• LiVVe and iVisit for creating collaborative spaces.
• Quiz Center for creating puzzles.
• VETSA for free online classrooms.
• EdNA Groups for free staff rooms.

Thoughts so far ...

I can't believe 3 weeks has passed since our first LearnScope session. Where has the time gone??? I have done the required homework but still feel like there is so much more I could be doing. I wish I had a PAUSE button somewhere!

I feel the need to rewind and comment on some things from the first LearnScope session that have stuck in my mind:

• Allison commented on reproducing exactly what is done in the LearnScope sessions back in her classroom. This was a bit of a light bulb moment for me (doh!) - of course that is what we can do and probably should be doing. I think I have previously had the notion I could use the tools but had to come up with my own way of doing things. Whilst, I may well have to modify things to suit my students at least I have a complete working template to start with!
• I thought the exercise we did to define flexible learning was great and a good way to get everyone moving around etc, I must try this too! If I remember correctly we wrote down our definitions, passed them around and then in pairs gave them a score of seven. We did this five times to get a possible total out of 35.
• Encourage students to use blogs for learning journals also. Get them to share with other students if they feel comfortable doing so. Suggest to them to take their notes there etc.

I'm sure there is more and hopefully it will come back to me!

Orangies blogs

I thought I might put the links for the rest of the orangies' blogs in one place so I can easily find them. I hope nobody minds I have done this. Please let me know if you do.

• Tracy
• Joanna
• Kylie
• Sonya
• Annette
• Sylvia
• Daryll