Live elearning

Lifeline Eportfolio
Christopher John
Run down of purpose of organisation, how volunteers move through training as telephone counsellors. Staged approach, including induction and targetted training and a buddy process for new starts.
Explained existing approach to elearning to support class based activity. Masterfile got good uptake for discussions. Needed to build on what we already do, so dealing with units beyond pre-service training. Selected four units for eportfolio process. Recognised that the volunteers are already doing this stuff on the phones – aiming evidence could be gather in about five hours per unit.
Process. Making sure the volunteers were engaged, ran forums to help them understand what an eportfolio was and what it might be like to use. Identified ease of access off and onsite, not duplicating what they were already doing, knowing where they were in the process, how much left to do. Tell us what to do, we’ll do it. Seven tasks have been identified, were mapped to units. Then mockup in flowchart form. Very stable workforce and volunteer base. Obviously privacy issues were critical. Showed the flowchart. After that consultation, decided on Moodle over Masterfile because of cost issues. Demo of Moodle site. Grades section to show progress through tasks. Ability to export materials – useful if they want to show to someone else e.g. anther volunteering organisation. Major Issue was confidentiality, so call id is used to cross reference if needed. Simple process for gathering evidence. Next steps: now filling out all the areas and tasks ready. Will be piloting later in year. Other benefit, time reduction for assessor.

The Way e-Forward
David Dilger
Geographical challenges to being a national organisation based in Hobart. Large number of young workers in retail. Bakers – difficult to train in working hours. Franchise – having everything the same every time you go. So training outcomes need to be consistent. Getting to regional locations is very difficult, needed learning for retail and bakers and franchisees. When new franchises being set up, get around barrier of people having to move to Tassie for 6 months. Having difficulty previously with IP and elearning. Gloria Jeans – talked with them about how they went about it. Current Banjos process is time consuming and huge volume of work needed. Also messy work environment.

Gloria Jeans’ Developers were so concerned about losing their IP that it’s got really difficult and tangled! Need to make sure that all of the franchisees can get what they need.

Room for Improvement
Ben Crothers and Robin McLean
Two streams of project – classroom material and work placements. Materials need to be able to support learners in their work placement. DVDs and also RFID tags with learning tables. Pictorial cues with text fire up the video. Robin got a warm mention for his professional video production work Folded toilet paper video shown to merriment. From first trial, made a larger set of photo cards and numbered the sections, easier to read in larger font and larger image size. Multi layered way of doing and learning. Used technology in the classroom to make sure learners were Ok. Some didn’t want to use and others didn’t need to use. First short trial – didn’t get enough information to evaluate so will do more trials that inform more development or implementation. Woolstore can see value for general training. In Phase 2 might work on one of the units like OHS or Work with Colleagues and Customers. Evaluation is going to be the key, will be working with the Uni for evaluation.
Looking at options for wider use of technology e.g. through placing readers in libraries at end of project. Also will have one in place in the training room at the Woolstore (I think).