Deciding on my LearnScope project

For my project I have been trying to decide between an online classroom or an online staffroom using EdNA groups. Marlene posed the following questions to me in the Workshop 2 homework forum on Projects to try and help me make a decision (my responses are in bold):

• Which one is more likely to bring immediate value? Either
• Which one is going to take the least time for the initial setup? EdNA staffroom
• Which one will be the easiest to promote within your work team, to get them on board with what you are trying to do? Online classroom I think???
• If they were both ready now, which one would you use the most? Online classroom
• Which one will be the most FUN to set up and get going! EdNA staffroom
• Which one are you attracted to the most (as opposed to the one you feel you should be focusing on.) EdNA staffroom

For the purposes of this project the EdNA staffroom may be the best in regards to scope and time required, however … we are in an unfortunate situation where our numbers have dropped and the online classroom will most likely benefit the students more so that is what I will undertake for the project. The main benefit for producing an online classroom is to allow us to still offer the Applications Stream of the Certificate III in IT at Port Adelaide. Currently there are not enough students to warrant running this course in the classroom on a continual basis but I think it would be a real shame to pull it from our offerings when it will be a pathway into the Certificate IV in Website Design which I am hoping we will start running next year.

At this stage I haven’t got very far at all as I have found it very hard to decide exactly what I would do for the project and also to define the scope of the project. This has been further compounded by the fact we are also implementing a new training package next semester and the competencies and how they will be bundled has only been finalised last week. As it stands, I still do not have the textbooks I need to start planning or teaching the new subjects after the holidays (and therefore have no resources for any of the subjects to put online)!!!!

Another problem I have faced is that I will not be teaching the competencies for the Applications Stream until Term 4 when LearnScope will be finished. To put this online in Term 3 I would have to rely on other staff teaching the subject to give me the resources they develop each week. This puts a lot of pressure on other staff members and does not allow me the opportunity to see firsthand how effective the online classroom is and what modifications need to be made. (We will be using it in the classroom in the first instance next semester).

As a result of all these issues I have decided I will put some other competencies online for my LearnScope project. There are also some common competencies in both the Applications and Network Administration Stream of the Cert III that if put online would make it much easier for our part time students as well as having the resources online for our full time students. I will be teaching and developing the resources for these competencies so I can modify them as needed as a result of feedback from my students. The hope is that I will continue on developing the online resources for the Application Stream after LearnScope has finished.

One of the other considerations for this project and any further online development is the platform on which the online classroom(s) should reside. As TAFE use Janison it seems likely that is where the resources will end up once they have been bedded down. For the purposes of this project and the resulting time constraints I feel it would be wiser to use a VETSA Moodle classroom in the first instance. I am however concerned about duplication of effort so I will have to try and create reusable content wherever I can.