The ANTA keynote, presented by Brent McArdle was one of the surprises of the conference for me. It was mainly about the training.com.au website and outlined some of the changes or enhancements due to be launched in August – September that will focus on the RTO as the user. The NTIS website is being overhauled, one improvement outlined is an online tool to tell you if a selection of competencies ‘equals’ a qualification. Brent also provided one of the more humorous quotes from the conference: “online discussion forums need a critical mass of nerds to make them work”.
One of the concurrent sessions I chose on Tuesday afternoon was a demonstration of Centra, a ‘virtual classroom’ product, presented by Tarsha Atkinson – Centra and Dayah Pethiyagoda – Learning Network Queensland. Videoconferencing featured heavily in the conference program overall, and by talking to various colleagues I discovered it is used extensively for teaching and learning in QLD. At TAFE Tasmania, our facilities seem to get used more for meetings and we have had some discussion within our section with the aim of finding out how we could make the most of what we have available to us. On a tangent, I have also been trialling the Flash Communication Server Videoconferencing whilst away from home, and it works surprisingly well on a dial up modem line, so that is a tool that could be used if TAFE Tasmania buys a proper licence when the trial expires.
Centra can be used one-to-many, many-to-many and one-to-one. Case studies are available on their website where you will also find links to a free fifteen day trial.
The charter of Learning Network Queensland (LNQ) is to provide infrastructure that enables delivery of education across QLD for distance learning. If a community has access to education providers, then LNQ is ‘not interested’; LNQ establishes centres that become a ‘campus on demand’ as the need from a provider arises. Also LNQ promotes to communities the options that are available to them and provide linkages to providers. One of their biggest jobs is to search for effective and appropriate delivery methods.
Centra functionality that was demonstrated:
· basic feedback - yes/no
· hand raising “I want to talk”
· surveys
Each user needs to be licensed so there is value in focusing on learning centres rather than individuals having at their residence etc. Centra requires a Windows Operating System presently, a camera and a headset. At LNQ Centres, students can use all the facilities free of charge if part of a learning activity.
Presentation pages can be pre-prepared, and then both presenters and learners can draw on the slides with basic drawing tools. The main part of the screen is a whiteboard, also this includes application sharing eg from websites which can be done by anyone taking part. LNQ suggests the use video clips in preference to live webcam for demonstration purposes.
I’m looking forward to trialling this software and evaluating how we could use it.