Live elearning

Back in 2004 I worked with Business Administration teachers on reviewing their learner guides. These guides are provided to flexible or self-paced learners for each unit (or subject) they undertake, and the current offerings varied between units and across different regions. The teachers decided there would be many benefits in reviewing the approach to learner guides – as some qualifications or units where changing anyhow, there was a need to review them in any case.

I’ve been clearing out some materials from my office and came across the butcher’s paper notes, and decided to document the process for future reference.

Session Outline
Here’s the session plan we used. (click for larger image)

We started out by taking a step back from the learner guides as such and explored the client groups from a number of angles. One technique I used was to source a range of images that related to business administration roles, and then the group selected those that fitted their client groups and those that didn’t. This lead to some interesting discussions about learner motivations and needs. Some of which could be addressed through the learner guide, many more that needed to be addressed through active facilitation and support from the teachers.

Client Group Profiling

(again click for larger image) This shows some of the artefacts from the workshop. You can make out some of the particular needs of different groups. On the one hand you could say this is stereotyping, on the other hand it gives a common language to refer back to – we could go back to these client group profiles and ensure we were not excluding any particular group based on design decisions that were made.

One part that was not captured in the artefacts was going through a whole bunch of learner guides – both those in use by the teachers, others from within our organisation and elsewhere. We collated a master list of all the types of ‘sections’ that were included in the learner guides. From this, and our profiling exercise, we then constructed a framework of what was to be included, and where in the learner guide.

The final design

(again click for complete, larger image)
as you can see it is all about what is contained in the learner guides – format and presentation came later. From memory, the stars meant the sections were mandatory, others could be optional, but that is not 100% certain.

PS: that was so much more satisfying than just tossing the notes – there’s a reason why I kept them at the time, it’s nice to get it archived and shared properly.

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From Read Write Web archives:

In this post, we will argue that each category – blogs, social networks and microblogs – forms a separate vertical. Each vertical is focused on a different type of user and serves to fill a different purpose in the bigger landscape of social publishing.

After re-reading this article (originally I just saved it here to come back to) I think I can frame it in terms of recommendations that could be made to our staff.

If your primary needs are to:

1. regularly add new material, that is longer than an SMS for example
2. be the sole or main author
3. produce content that others will read or comment on
4. organise things mainly by date or possibly category

Then a blog will fit the bill.

If your primary needs are to:

1. connect with others online
2. integrate lots of different media
3. organise things by their links to other things (rather than sequentially)

Pick up Facebook or Myspace or others

If your primary needs are to:

1. connect (semi-)constantly with your colleagues and network
2. keep it short and sweet like an SMS

Then Twitter or Tumblr is the answer

Of course, putting these tools to use in an educational setting, you might want to use all of the above – remixing the content from one into another etc.

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Via SCOTfeict

Given that we tend to lag behind product releases when it comes time to new versions of Office and Windows at work, it sounds like it’s a good thing this time

I think my theme for this week has been interoperability. Yet again, a Microsoft product making it difficult for the outputs (eg documents) to play nicely with other applications and systems.

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Now is the time of year when the glorious plans put together in the heady swirl of potential that is a blank calendar year need to be scoped out and brought into reality. Everything on the plans is solid, practical, exciting and demanding. When it is achieved it will make a real difference to how we go about our daily work and the effect and outcomes that our work has. I truly believe this – both from a very optimistic perspective, and also keeping in mind the changes that will need to be in place for the start of 2009 with the restructure of post year 10 education for the whole state. At present we don’t know what it will mean for our support teams and this will be a constant question for the foreseeable future.

Which means we better be in the best shape possible!!!

I’ve stuck some of the leftover book covers (see ‘The book stall’) onto my noticeboard behind the computer monitor to remind me of the ways in which I prefer to work = both because I believe they create good work environments and because those environments get results.

It’s great to map out ideas and dreams in amongst the practicalities, but without bringing those ideas and dreams into reality, we will end up in a worse spot – not the same spot, but actually further back as dreams are ignored and great ideas bypassed in the ‘busyness’ of our everyday lives.

On a more black and white note, my office is basically ready for 2008. There are a couple of piles of ‘stuff’ I brought with me into the office and role 12 months ago that I haven’t really touched since. Time for them to go and make space for what 2008 will bring.

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As part of my new year quest to keep my inbox under control, I have decided that if I have my morning tea in my office, I may as well read and filter through the many email or rss subscriptions I have. Many older updates have been deleted, and I’m now working through some more recent email newsletters.

One article which caught my eye was Hey Dude – where’s my (community) Data? from Graham Atwell (via Stephen Downes). It discusses the issues around keeping ‘Stuff’ online, and the various conditions under which many online services are provided free of charge, prompted by the decision of the developers of Elgg to stop providing the hosted service at Eduspaces. It raises issues about access to your own data, finding new solutions where it has been integral to the delivery of a course (old-fangled language I know), and also how data may be extricated and used elsewhere.

Last week in setting up this blog I thought about using Blogger or Edublogs to host it. Partly this thought arose from the notion that I should be modelling practices that our staff can take on board. Instead I loaded up a new version of WordPress onto the server and domain our household maintains, and was up and running quickly. It gives me the freedom to tweak and mod to my heart’s desire (or not, as the case may be. WordPress is rather brilliant straight out of the box). After this morning’s read, it also confirms a sense of control over the information I choose to put there.

And I will still keep using services like Flickr, because there are some beautiful advantages in an altruistic way. The more I load up there, the more in the creative commons pool for people like our staff to use in the their work. In this case, using a hosted service makes sense to me.

What implications does this have for our staff and students and their employers?

I don’t think it means we should only use those services provided in house – that would not meet the diverse needs of our groups at present.

I think it means we should ensure we know under what sort of conditions web-based services are provided and also, most importantly, ensure that we can fairly easily back up or extract our data if it no longer meets our needs, or ceases to exist. There are too many advantages of being part of larger, wider groups and accessing wonderful, new and emerging services to close the gates.

I think it means we should also actively support those services provided free of cost through feeding back to the user communities and such like.

I also think it means when a service is fantastic, and we can host it for ourselves without losing anything, and potentially gaining others (eg username/ password integration with other systems), we should actively pursue that with our tech support areas. Off to email them about the wiki they were testing last year. Apparently it was going into production/ live at the end of November. I think a month’s grace is reasonable…

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