Constructing an elearning foundation for all

I will be presenting a poster session for the Best Practices in e-Learning Conference held by the University of Calgary from August 23-27, 2004. My presentation is 'Constructing an elearning foundation for all', and this presentation will explore the implementation of elearning foundation sites for all courses offered by the Institute of TAFE Tasmania, with the goal of providing additional support to students, and enhancing current teaching and learning practice.

This will be an exercise in leading through sharing and discussing the 'elearning foundation' strategy. I have decided on a poster session as I felt that lends itself more to a demonstration and exploration approach than a traditional academic paper.

It is an online conference, and workshops will take place in the week before the conference dates above. I have my eyes on the 'Adapting e-Learning to Different Learning Styles Workshop' and will be in Victoria that week, so I'll need to hunt out some affordable internet access to take part.

Arriving at Beyond the Break

Proudly wore my FLL name badge today - as well as the conference tag. Saw many others there too, and it was great to start catching up.

My trusty Palm handheld did a fine job today, as I arrived at Griffith Uni, I snapped these pics, then got into the more serious business of writing notes through many interesting presentations. At afternoon tea, I used the voice recorder when quizzing someone about their practice. I'll fill in the notes later, but am off to the conference dinner shortly, to 'network'.

Griffith Uni is really very very leafy.

Conference venue (or at least where lunch was found - very nice by the way)

Day One: Beyond the Break

After a strong coffee, Monday morning started with a predictable round of presentations about the future of vet: globalisation, current initiatives, changing workforce, individualised learning etc. Chris Robinson [Deputy Director General, QLD Department of Employment and Training] resisted the temptation to talk at length about the high tech future, reminding us that there has been huge growth also in the service industries in low level jobs and that they are essential to this new economy. A number of Future Directions projects managed by the TAFE QLD Centre for Innovation and Development are aimed at addressing these and related issues, so it will be interesting to keep a watching brief on the outcomes of these projects.

The first keynote was presented by Peter Scope of Cisco and Anthony Lupi of Positive Outcomes. Within Cisco, elearning is used as part of a blended solution to orientation and upskilling training for employees. It is built into their workforce optimisation strategies and includes reporting of skills mixes etc. One idea that captured my interest was the use of 'knowledge bites', these are 5 minute training chunks that are offered to employees by being scrolled across the bottom of their computer screens. I would be interested to know how mnay staff take up these knowledge bites and also how the materials are matched to the job roles. Anthony Lupi talked about the work that Cisco does in meeting the triple bottom line of profits, people and presence. Profit is obvious, people is the people internal to Cisco and external, and presence is the corporation's standing in the community.

Martha Goldman from Tropical North Queensland Institute of TAFE shared with us her experiences with classroom behaviour management. From the schools sector, training and processes are being adapted for VET = these include the use of peer observation, feedback and reflection on learner behaviour management techniques. The ten microskills that Martha outlined are clear, logical and easily observed, but the tricky part is the feedback and reflection and learning that must take place for skills to develop and grow in this area. Martha's presentation demonstrated for us just how well an experienced presenter and educator can engage an audience. I'd walked in not expecting to gain much based on the session title, but the strategies she described are ones that I can take back and share in my institute.
There's more to come from day one, but I must rest ready for the final day!

Day One: Beyond the Break Part 2

‘New Vocationalism’ is about the significant labour market transformation, and Stephen Darwin, from Canberra Institute of Technology, talked about the new ways that teachers need to work to address changing workplace realities and changing learner needs. CIT runs a graduate program in tertiary education, which is based on critical reflection of teacher educators. Old models of instructional design based on a behaviourist or cognitive model do not necessary meet all the current needs, so emergent instructional design practice along constructivist principles is now brought to the fore.
Looking through my notes from this session I have a note that ‘informal PD’ is important for staff, but no notes about what CIT provides in an informal manner, other than the plan to establish a community of practice for new teaching staff. Stephen provided several references to texts on instructional design and Chappell and Johnson’s 'Changing work, Changing roles for vocational teachers and trainers’.

The final session I attended on the first day was a workshop by Christy-Lee Hunt from the Institute of TAFE Tasmania about the evolution in her team’s teaching practice in Aged Care. Christy’s changes addressed two different problems: the demand from local industry that students on vocational placement should have entry level skills before vocational placements, and a particular group of students who were not responding to a problem based learning approach. A videoconference with Dr David Merrill was a catalyst in reassessing the delivery strategies, as was a LearnScope project that included an investigation of digital imaging. Merrill’s model of instructional sequencing provided the structure that the students seemed to be looking for, with a gradual progression from high levels of guidance upfront, to a more student directed approach over the timeframe of the course. Digital images are used extensively to set the context for exercises, and this works especially well where students do not have any experience in Aged Care and this introduces them to the realities of the industry.

Of course there was far more detail from each speaker, this is just a summary of key points that I heard from each presentation.

Toowoomba

There is a japanese garden just next to the University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba Campus.

Beyond the Break Day Two, part one

Day Two started with a presentation from Danny Calder of Optus who demonstrated using satellite links for broadcasting. Customers include Ford Motor Co, Centrelink, NT Ed Dept, NSW Ed Dept, and WA School of the Air. Trainers can do traditional presentations using video links, include powerpoint slides and audio. Interactivity is possible also through quiz and drawing tools (and I imagine many others that we would not have had time to see). An example of how the system is used for practical training was the use of mobile cameras in the automotive workshop to get under cars etc. There are no cost savings in this approach – but the added value of opening up opportunities that would not otherwise exist due to bandwidth and access issues.

Dr Deborah Harrison of Distance Learning US and Tandberg (a videoconferencing provider) talked about the ways that video conferencing can be deployed to improve services, collaboration and outreach to isolated communities. Lots of examples were given including:

· Museums and Zoos using videoconferencing to enhance the one day visits from school groups through pre- and post- visit activities, meaning that they can fulfil their educational role.
· Connecting new teachers with university faculty as a support mechanism in the early years of service.
· Linking minority groups in different schools together eg francophone students in non-french language schools in Canada
· Providing specialist and advanced education classes into American Indian reservations (not sure if this is the right term, please correct me…)
· Youth detention centres using video conferencing for detainees to continue their high school studies.
· Linking small localities to community colleges, and community colleges to universities.
These stories could be achieved through any number of videoconferencing systems, the implementation examples showed what can be achieved through the deployment of enough of the video conferencing units. I wonder what the inoperability of these systems is like? Can we be hooking into more of the existing VC locations in Tasmania? I like both the idea of a community having a centre, as well as individuals using desktop/PC based systems.

Lyn Ambrose (FLL 2000) of Southbank Institute spoke about 'Getting everyone online using sound planning processes' at her institute, starting with a quote: “The present is the father of the future”

Starting with some statistics to place her story in context:
· 450 educators
· 30,000 students
· largest TAFE in QLD
An issue faced by any TAFE is the reality that measuring against ASCH (student contact hours) is no good for online – as teachers going to need time to learn new ways of doing things.

Southbank’s journey into online learning began in 1996 ...

when the multimedia teaching team developed two units of the Certificate 4 in Multimedia, which was primarily a number of uploaded pdfs. The teachers had the technical skills to go ahead, and continued over the next 2 years to develop more units until they had a full Diploma of Multimedia.
In 2000 Lyn was a Flexible Learning Leader and used her time to visit many other educational institutes, and saw that the way forward was a strategic plan for the institute. To garner support for the plan, Lyn allocated tasks from the plan to ‘likely champions’. Upper management was involved through membership of a steering group. An extensive communication plan was developed and a specific communications officer role was created.
Some challenges for the plan were establishing a baseline, communication, changing roles for staff and learners, online community (CoP), elearn centres, IP & Copyright, incorporation into institute business plan, quality procedures for product development, marketing, service delivery, online learning helpdesk for learners.
Phew! A lot of work for a small team to accomplish.
Professional development for staff has taken many forms, at the start Lyn says they were on the lookout for free PD opportunities for staff, and ensured that all staff were involved, teachers, admin, finance, audit etc.
A lot of professional development is through communication and sharing rather than training courses as such. A monthly newsletter has a prominent presence and includes articles about online pedagogy, urls, celebrating success, progress reports. This is an institute wide newsletter, and ¼ of the space is dedicated to flexible learning. Liaison Librarians are dedicated to group of faculties and are the first point of contact with getting started online.

Breakfast forums are held monthly in Southbank’s training restaurants, limited to 50 people, 7.30-8.45am. At these sessions, finished products are demonstrated, people report back from conferences attended, guest speakers are invited, and it is also an opportunity to network. The group of people coming along changes over time.
Lunchtime specials are also now scheduled to capture a different cross section of the staff who bring along their own lunch, there are no more than 15 people per venue, and these sessions are scheduled on each of their three campuses. Focus is on technical skills demos, short sharp topics.
In addition to these ongoing events, there is an annual teaching and learning conference held inhouse which all teaching staff must attend. Blackboard (the LMS that Southbank uses) is trained over 2 days as a formal course.

Product development is taken seriously with a framework within which projects can be funded, but only if a return on investment can be shown.
Steps in the process are:
1. Submit business case (template provided)
2. Initiate project plan
3. Induct Subject Matter Expert
4. Appoint Instructional Designer
5. Set up ref group
6. SME develops content
7. ID develops resources in tandem with SME
8. Field test with sample group
9. Evaluate field test
10. Make necessary changes
11. Deliver product on CD to director of faculty
12. Input student details into LMS
13. Continuous improvement

Launch of products to industry happens when product development completed as Southbank sees it as very important to make it visible. The forms for the procedure so they could move forward. These forms include a Business case template, SME induction kit, Course planning document, feedback on course planning document for reference group, quality assurance, project plan, project handover document, market analysis, staff capability, product analysis etc.

The market analysis includes:
· Proposed market
· Benefits of an online approach
· Potential revenue
· Market readiness
· Experience in the market
· Marketing strategy and costs

Product analysis includes
· Availability of current content
· Training package details (eg soon to be reviewed?)
· Barriers to online
· Collaboration/ partners
· Upgrade of product
· Product - Holden or rolls Royce

Through the planning and analysis which the teaching team completes, a return on investment over 3 years must be demonstrated for the project to proceed.
That was the end of Lyn’s keynote address, but there is more to come from the site visit to Southbank at the end of the week.

Beyond the Break, Day Two, Part Two

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.

Beyond the Break, Day Two, Part Three

Michelle Spuler talked about “Collaborative Delivery within TAFE QLD”. This project was started in response to some drivers including:
· Increase variety of offerings
· Client equity and needs addressed cost effectively

8 institutes are working together on a number of pilots, and a toolkit for those wanting to deliver collaboratively has been developed. The pilots are basically all between regional institutes and also Opening Learning Institute (OLI). One of the cultural change issues was people working together across institutes, and a guiding coalition of senior managers from each institute demonstrates shared leadership for project outcomes. Each pilot group was established as a community consciously to facilitate collaborative work and this has been supported through professional development.

There is a toolkit available that addresses some of the issues that rose through the pilots, but is behind a username/password. It looks interesting, and includes a bundle of checklists, series of questions, and issues to be considered.

Victorian Flexible Learning Week

Victorian Flexible Learning Week (which lasts for a fortnight), kicked off with a one-day conference at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, just over the river from the city.

TAFE Frontiers do the organising - and also provided me with a free registration - yes, someone does win the prizes for surveys on websites.

Flexible Learning Week continues on until August 27, and presentations are progressively being added to the TAFE Frontiers website.

Labour Markets in Transition

Dr Stephen Ziguras of the Brotherhood of St Laurence started the conversation at Vic Flexible Learning Week with his keynote addressing the theme of Labour markets in transition. Pdf of a background paper available here.

Dr Z started with outlining current social and economic themes, the polarisation between work family balance, work rich and work poor families, non-linear life courses. Opportunities are being concentrated within families; due to a shift from past reality - from where one partner worked, now often in well-educated families, both partners work, frequently securing the more highly paid jobs. Opportunities have not necessarily diminished; they are now spread on a different basis through society.

Changing economic conditions have also meant that upfront training no longer is sufficient for whole career.
New risks are emerging:
· uncertain work, uncertain income, uncertain time availability, skills obsolescence due to fast pace of change, early retirement, mental health
· the strong emphasis on interpersonal skills in the workplace and the higher rate of change are placing additional demands on those in and out of the workforce. The uncertainty of casual work can negatively impact on young people’s social lives. Long term unemployed also have a higher incidence of mental health issues than the general population. Increasing social cost of the changing world.

The joint project between the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the University of Melbourne on policy formation is not just about economic aims, but also family and community focus - more flexible pathways for people to ease out of work where they want to, rather than being shut out suddenly. Fairer distribution of paid work -people working overtime and people without paid work.
The notion of “transitional labour markets” comes from Gunter Schmidt (Germany) who defines it as ‘periods during which people move between full time work and other activities such as caring, education and retirement'. These may include:
· Education and employment
· Employment and unemployment
· Precarious and permanent employment

People who are least likely to get into work are those with low skills and qualifications, are divorced or separated and have health issues.
Features of good transitions:
· Mixture of activities
· Contracted or legal entitlement to a pathways of transition

What has the Brotherhood of St Laurence been trying to do?
· Youth transitions program in metro Melbourne and Mornington Peninsula which addresses kids at risk of early school leaving – with the aim of reconnecting or maintaining connections with school or employment. Ongoing contact with a case manager maintains links with schools or other options eg TAFE courses or finding ways to link them into less formal or one to one programs.

Implications for VET of operating in a transitional labour market:
· One of key sources of innovation in industry are TAFE trained staff (Report from NCVER Innovation agents: VET skills and innovation in Australian industries and firms at http://www.ncver.edu.au/publications/1451.html). These tend to be the people at an operational and supervisory level, not those in management.
· Key educational pathways are needed for those at risk of social exclusion
· Flexible learning is great strength of the VET system
· Retraining in middle life is a challenge still to be met, eg for those made redundant through industry changes.
· Questions about generic vs. specialist skills - increasingly people need generic skills, and specialist skills need to change in response to changing environment.

One of the challenges for lifelong learning is how to fund it – Dr Z was talking here about more than just updating skills or a short course – the project has been 'toying around' (his words)with ideas of social insurance and learning accounts – which might be combination of personal, public and business contributions. They would like to see to most contributions go to low income earners (eg reverse of superannuation arrangements where the highest earners put the most in and get the most out of the system). It was also suggested that the learning account could be transferred when changing employment or could be converted leave.
The issue of funding the VET system was also discussed with a strong social equity flavour – eg for those who earn more, the fees are higher, abolishing upfront payments and establishing a HECS style approach of recouping cost when people are earning. Dr Z also suggested that some subjects should be fee-exempt for some groups.

Competing demands from traditional and transitional labour markets

After Dr Stephen Ziguras, Judy Bissland, Executive Director Educational Development and a 2000 Flexible Learning Leader at Swinburne spoke about "How Providers respond to industry needs".
Judy spoke about the need to respond both to the traditional labour market, as well as the transitional one that is emerging. Judy advised that VET still needs to serve the ‘heart of VET’ the traditional labour market, continuing to provide industry with skilled workers, and using the relative advantage of greater flexibility than the other educational sectors.

Tension between the student and industry demand, in addition to the lag in planning processes from state government agencies, requires that VET do their own planning and investigation. VET may be pushed into delivery in areas where staff may not be available, and they cannot offer security to staff. In the field of New Apprenticeships highly flexible delivery models are needed, but flexibility is not enough – they must also be high quality. To encourage entry into areas of skills shortages, VET needs to work together with industry, schools, careers advisors and so on to address the shortfalls.

The transitional labour market needs a different response; VET needs to respond to change from industrial economy to knowledge economy. We also need to focus on emerging skills needs as identified through research from VET sector. Industry needs staff that can learn new skills and adapt. Swinburne has been focussing on generic skills and innovation skills; some of the biggest challenges are in providing appropriate professional development for staff. This is something I would like to follow up in more detail in a second trip to Melbourne.

Industry's needs

Megan Lilly, General Manager Education and Training with the Australian Industry Group, previously Executive Manager at Business Services Training Australia spoke from the industry perspective. Megan explained that from industry perspective, transitional labour markets should also include from employment to employment - maintaining and managing skills sets and job transitions.

She argued that the wealth generating industries are still the production and manufacturing sectors, not the service sector. In addition there are no reliable indicators for skills shortages - many taken from newspapers, despite the reality that not all employers actually advertise. Vacancies do exist for skilled workers. Australian industry also faces some unknown challenges; the emergence of the Chinese economy will change the world economy forever - almost beyond belief. 37 new airports are under construction today!

The relationship between transitional labour markets and casual work
· Casual work not a problem in itself where people are voluntary casuals
· Casual work is really a problem where people can't progress beyond that and they want to.
· Casual work is a real alternative to no work.

Skills shortages creates highly mobile workforce with many options to choose from. Most people stay with their trade for about 7 years so need to consider that in planning to address shortages.

An example of an adopt-a-school program between the motorbody industry and schools was described – this was driven by industry where industry approached a school each to work on a solar car challenge project, focussing on year 9 at risk students. It involved a large time commitment and very strong involvement from senior management and has led to a strong relationship between schools and enterprises. Begun in 2003, the program has continued this year, has extended to formal workplace learning, school based apprenticeships, careers advice, and employment opportunities.

VET and transitional labour markets:
Focus from VET needs to be on skills formation not qualifications. There is increasing demand from industry for increased flexibility from the training system, more focus on the workplace, and a growing need for generic skills and employability skills.

Skills sets need to be reconfigured endlessly – structure around the component parts or job functions, not qualifications as the level.
Megan mentioned the “World class skills for World class Industries" report which is available from the Australian Industry Group website here along with many other publications. Another thing for my reading list.

Generation X and Y

Mark McCrindle, McCrindle Research was the ‘Gen X & Y’ representative, and spoke about community connections being changed and redefined. We have bigger houses with fewer people in them, so we need new sociological connections between people. Technology is now a mediator for connection. Places where people do come together is in education and workplaces, so social connection needs to take place here.

“Just-in-time loyalty" describes the loyalty Gen X & Y will give to their employer, if a better offer comes along, then they may well jump ship. This relates to their need for more meaning and a better work life balance than they have seen their parents have. Stress levels have risen, young people can’t afford houses at the same stage of life, so generation Y especially is living for the day. Nothing earth shattering in this presentation really.

A short panel Q&A session was held before morning tea

Megan felt that apprentice wages are a fairly significant disincentive to undertaking an apprenticeship. Many young people have aspirational parents who have pushed them to university and Megan felt this is linked to the 40% drop out rate at the end of 1st year Uni.

Q: what form of flexibility is most valued by industry?
Megan responded that the type of flexibility varies, but generally industry does not want large blocks of training, and for VET to be more adaptable in deconstructing and reconstructing learning pathways as needed.
Judy was asked how do you achieve that?
Do the things that the system is already doing, but more: listen to what industry clients need, taking learning to the workplace, do onsite delivery in workplace, ensure training is applied to learner’s role in workplace through projects etc.

Time for coffee and scones!

Generic Skills

Refreshed by a coffee, I attended my first workshop presented by Lillian Austin, a current Flexible Learning Leader, & Christine Hayes from Swinburne. Lillian and Christine have been working on a project to embed generic skills into existing resources and key learnings so far have been:
· Yes, it’s possible
· Use a whole of course approach to address all generic skills.
· Don't cram all 10 into the one unit
· Need to engage support services that are available already
· Generic skills need to be developed by learners over period of time and seen as a continuum.
· There is variation between units in how they address generic skills - some are quite explicit others more underneath or hidden.
The term generic skills may be better replaced with ‘employability skills’ as this seems to be more attractive to learners. Swinburne has also been using their Industry Reference Groups as guides in where generic skills should be addressed.

The process that has been followed is:
· Mapping from materials to generic skills to determine if changes needed
· In some cases no real change or small changes needed.
· Can overdo this though if trying to cover too many generics, so need to see where the generic skills are best addressed within a range of competencies.
· Sometimes required additional text to cover in written materials (often this would be given verbally in a f2f situation)
· Also have added extra information about generic skills and why employers like them

The team is still grappling with how to assess and record people's work.

A project report should be available during September from the TAFE Frontiers website.

On another track, the novel I took away with me was Jasper Fforde's "The Well of Lost Plots" which is a literary detective novel. In this second book of a trilogy (soon to be quadruplets?) much of the action is set in a world where plots are constructed, characters developed, dialogue is written and so on. Each character in a book is played by a fictional person, who start as 'generics' and then are trained to take on parts in novels. Sadly, if a novel is not published, the text is salvaged and broken down into individual letters to be re-used, the generics are auctioned off to traders in book parts and the cycle begins again. Generics are not happy to be generics, and strive towards developing a personality and getting more than a bit part in a story. Maybe employability skills would be better. Sorry Lillian, my notes about your presentation have got rather off track :-)

Case Studies

After lunch, the current status of the Flexible Learning Framework was examined - very much the information contained in the consultation paper, with no specifics about future direction. However there were a couple of case studies woven into this presentation:

Meat Safety Training in Industry using the Toolbox, by South West Institute
and the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia's journey to "consult and plan flexible delivery in alignment with the the competency based continuing education and training needs of the workforce."

Full complement of case studies is here at the TAFE Frontiers website. These case studies generally have enough detail to really get a feel for what is happening at various sites.

Tech Alert!

Eric Wilson, an IT journalist and software developer, spoke about some of the possibilities offered by various software solutions. He said that the private sector can get away with small simulations and games because they only need to address only small pieces of information and some basic quizzing rather than the scale of VET and our sectors's compliance requirements. He advocated materials that allowed both a sequential and random access pathway - for those in business, they need random access to access just-in-time materials, but these could also be built into a more ordered pathway for those with more to learn.

The Opportunities for VET as seen by Eric were:
- Small business is the greatest opportunity - time is everything (so if I can figure this one out we're made!!)
- Keep business benefits in mind eg "Do this course and you’ll be so efficient you and your employees will have more time."
- There is a real challenge going from the general to the specific.

Eric argued that VET should develop resources that address the specific context of the workplace, with the view in mind that when replacement staff are employed then the business can use the resources again. The resources would also feed into a 'commonwealth of resources', ie niche curriculum development.
This would enable VET to provide specific resources at a specific time to businesses once the stocks build up.

Chunking has advantages for employer, but some disadvantages for learner - eg learners only learn what is needed for their role, learners don't tend to get recognition for it, learners can end up not being skilled enough for moving employers.

Teaching Issues and Toolboxes

The second workshop for the day was presented by Lisa Waits of e-Works which is an offshoot of Kangan Batman TAFE and manages a number of programs for OTTE (VET Govt department in Victoria).

Lisa spoke about the transition of the ANTA Toolboxes into Learning Objects. Starting with an outline of the educational foundations of toolboxes which include:
- virtual workplaces
- immersive learning
- problem based learning
- facilitated, mediated learning experience
- collaboration is encouraged
- resource rich.

In the new Series 7 Toolboxes ...

... the development is moving more towards a learning object (LO) approach and Lise defined a LO as 'any digital resource than can be used to support learning'. It should contain a learign sequence of some sort, an activity, and a learning outcome, and will generally be smaller than a unit of competency.
Whilst new toolboxes are focussed on LOs, they will also be packaged in such a way that all resources can be bundled and provided to learners on CD as the current ones can be. Some welcome discussion ensued about how contextualised or decontextualised a resource can be, whether we should be contextualising, how small a LO can be withouth it being too small. No real answers were pinned to the table, but the general feeling was that we should not contextualise too far, or too little. Just how long is a piece of string??

Leadership as Corporate Capability

Talk by Professor Roger Collins for the AGSM Breakfast Series in Brisbane, 2nd July, 2004.

I stumbled across this talk on the web while I was looking for something, and luckily I was in Brisbane that week for the Beyond the Break Conference.

Prof Collins talked about the difference in dynamics between a team and a management group at the top level of organisations and the impact those dynamics have on decision making amongst other things. When organisational stability is needed a group will function, but when organisational renewal is needed, a team is vital to making it work. One of the great things I got from the talk was the Sigmoid Curve. This was not a concept or graphic I had come across before, and was timely as an announcement about a restructure back at work was due to be made that day! He also suggested that the focus of performance development should be at the team level as opposed to individual workers – to play to the strengths of the individuals yet to always keep in mind their contribution to the whole.

Most impressive was the followup from the breakfast session which was held in the pretty Customs House in Brisbane’s CBD. Shortly after returning to Hobart I received in the mail some additional readings relevant to the talk.

Sydney visit

Wow! Last week I was in Sydney and I feel like it was a fantastically productive and enlightening time.
On Monday & Tuesday I took part in a MindMapping workshop run by Mindwerx (http://www.mindwerx.com.au/) and was amazed at the immediate uselfulness of the information and activities. I've dabbled in mindmapping before but this really opened my eyes in how I could use it. Does anyone else feel like their head's going to explode because there's too much stuff whirling in it? Well, this workshop fixed that problem for me.

I don't know whether it was the concentrated workshop 'thinking about thinking' or something in the water ;-)
We practiced applying the techniques (so I mapped out what I'd still like to do in my FLL project amongst other things) and I've continued on since being back home. Maybe it's just appealing to the girl who likes coloured textas. And they even give a 25% educational discount. Highly Recommended.
Wednesday was courtesy of Terri Connellan who organised a fantastic day's program with teachers and head teachers involved in workplace learning. I met Susan Carter (Business & Admin), Clive Quilty(Painting & Decorating), Dianne See (Frontline Management), Leo Darby & Jenni Harding (ex FLLs)for lunch, Greg Murphy and team (Printing, Pre-press, Graphic Arts) and Connie Hart (Fashion). One common feature - sheer enthusiasm - what they were doing was exciting, client focussed and flexible whereever they could make it flexible. A key message from my day - institutions need to work hard to make sure that these people and their counterparts throughout any organisation do not get disillusioned or dispirited.
Thursday was spent at UTS talking with Geof Hawke - he is a Senior Researcher with OVAL (http://www.oval.uts.edu.au) and I gained some great insights into the 'big picture' of VET and workplace learning. One key topic we discussed was the growing conflict between workers needing to be generalists and their job roles becoming more specialised (underpinned by general skills such as communication or computer user) and what this means for VET - basically he sees it as VET needing to be more strong when negotiating with employers about the skills mix their workers need, which also prepares enterprises for the inevitable changes ahead. Heaps of papers are available on their site - themes are changing pedagogy, urban disadvantage etc. This is the group which did the High Level Review of Training Packages.
Gadget Girl Tips - on past trips I have travelled with a digital still camera, video camera, as well as a Palm handheld and a laptop. This trip I trimmed down and only travelled with my Palm handheld (which can take reasonable quality photos and low qual video) and a laptop (for internet access and video conferencing back to my family). Heaps easier to lug about on public transport! Photos are still high enough quality for my blog, and ok for printing out 10*15cm if I do some retouching.

Knowledge Management & Stephen Downes

Jo Murray asked about publishing, knowledge sharing and management.
* this recording has a fair bit of background noise.

audio file, 1Mb, MP3, 9:17 m:s, opens in new window.

Writing is seen as separate from what people are 'doing', which is part of the perceptual problem. Most of what they are doing involves consumption or production of information, [2:11] so the problem is not that they are not producing stuff, but the mechanism for collecting is separate from production mechanism.

[2:45] What we need are systems that help you create information while doing whatever you do. It's not about scanning computers for files and harvesting. Stephen's website grew out of a strategy for dealing with information. It can be very simple - as simple as it needs to be for the individual.

[5:00] The notion of sharing does go against current corporate culture, and this hurdle needs to be overcome. Maybe the term publishing is getting in the way.

[5:55] And the question that many of us in elearning have wondered over the years 'how long does OLDaily take to do?' No extra time beyond reading email, making notes about stuff found on the web = 1 to 1&1/2 hours per day.

[8:55] Capture information in a digital format - not pen and paper, but electronic formats.

Stephen Downes Workplace Learning

On Friday 1st October, Stephen Downes ran a freewheeling conversation/ workshop with people interested in elearning in Hobart, Tasmania.
This audio was recorded on my Palm Zire 72 and then a few filters were run over it in Audacity so that most of the background hum was zapped.

I asked some questions of Stephen about how we can integrate work and learning, and about the challenges of using elearning in the workplace.

audio file 1.7Mb, MP3, 14:58 m:s, opens in new window.

[2:30] Embedding learning into work processes using technology is possible. Tech that might help here is REST and RSS.
The question to ask is "how can we add learning into this, into anything?" Writing is frequently a key to this - whether people are writing or using writing. This relates back to Stephen's comments also about knowledge management earlier in the day. Embedding the knowledge management process into daily activity: embedding the learning process into daily activity.
[5:30] Control - who's determining how learning will take place? The objectives of workplace learning are supposed to be about improving ROI or business productivity. [6:30]While the learner's motivators are different eg earning money for holiday. Effectiveness comes back to making learning something a worker would do anyhow - something they want to do for their own reasons. These might be to make their job easier for example, or improves their employability. Has to be to the benefit of the worker.

[8:40] A quiet question was asked about ROI - apart from financial return and how that non-financial return may be measured. Stephen responded that the only relevant measure was the bottom line - but [10:00] the problem is that there is no real direct cause and effect relationship between learning and earnings, or indeed anything and earnings.
[12:00] Modelling a simulation of the business as well as you can and then you play with the inputs to model potential ROI, but modelling is not sufficiently sophisticated in most cases because of the inherent diversity and complexity of business operations.

Thanks to Jennifer Dunbabin and Elisabeth Todd for organising!

Stephen Downes - Personalisation of Learning

Stephen talked about Personalisation in Learning. I had asked what can we do now, with current tools?
Download file, 2Mb, MP3, 17:39 m:s, opens in new window.

Well, first of all it can't be done with the tools at hand.

To achieve personalisation in learning, the first thing is to be very clear about what the end point is - Exactly what do I mean by personalisation? Yes, it will be personal, and there will be some points of collaboration and difference. Once that end point is defined then every possible action can be tested against that end-point. This is really basic decision making and goal setting, but served as a useful reminder to define what I mean by 'personalised learning'.

[5:00] Stephen talked about his view of learner centred learning

So, my definition of personalised learning (for the time being):
- personalised learning is about meeting the needs of the learner, with reference to their best way of learning, and their interests. In the world of VET, this can include negotiation about how a learner will learn, what they will learn and responding to their needs and applying to and working in their context. This links into the discussion that followed on Monday 4th Oct about the right of employers to direct learning.

[7:10] How do you present the range of learning opportunties to a person, and create a mechanism where they can select from these opportunites, and then create an environment where they can take advantage of those opportunities?

The short answer is metadata. Or the long answer is a 'Resource Profile' which is between the resource, the learner (eg FOAF style metadata) and the context in which the resource is used. This is my take on the triad concept.

The challenge is, as always, gathering or creating the description. With a description of each of these points, then learners, contexts and resources can be matched up. The metadata should be retrievable by any part of the network. This idea is explored in more detail in Stephen's paper "Resource Profile" here.
The theory is that if you have any two of the triad (generally the learner and the context), then you can make a reasonable selection. Ideally the metadata will be created as the resource is created, is added to when the learner uses the resource including context of use, finally 3rd party metadata would be added in form of classification or evaluative metadata.

Looking to the future this idea would be extended from just-in-time matching, to [14:08] the networked environment suggesting, and adjusting suggestions about resources that might be useful. These suggestions would change over time as the user and/or their context changes.

[17:15] In building a network, the simpler the individual components the better it will work.

Summary of OCT 1

Peter Higgs provided a 'roundup' of the day's topics in summary form

audio file 344Kb, MP3 2:55 m:s, opens in new window.

Janine Bowes has done a summary of the day's workshop here in her blog.

Positioning Tasmania as a leader in the elearning industry

Talk by Stephen Downes, 4th October, 2004, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

General Intro:

Is education and training the future? Change the paradigm to enabling learners to provide learning for themselves. In this case, then education and training as
terms in effect become redundant. I find this an interesting notion - the
blurring of lines between activities that was talked about on Friday (here,
here, here and here), but really taking that step further to Stephen's view of
learner-directed learning which is not about a learner choosing how to learn,
with 'what to learn' still being at the discretion of someone or something else.
How we reconcile this with the qualifications structures etc is a puzzle.

What makes Tasmania unique? He believes this is where our leadership will come from - not from copying what has happened elsewhere. So he asks: What are we striving for? How do we measure the idea of a world leader? Is it size, people, money?

The basic structure of the day was:

• Role of Government


• Role of Industry


• Role of Education


• The way forward

Question and Answer sessions were interspersed through the day. These notes are fairly lengthy, yet not a complete transcript; there was a wealth of information, ideas and challenges to be captured.

Role of Government

Vision, Infrastructure, Exemplar and Networking were the themes for ensuing discussion.

Stephen found the Tasmania Together vision a bit vague in relation to education, so he went digging a bit further for education related ones - which he found in the 24 goals . The emphasis in the two ones he found worries him because of the focus on skills and linkages to economic development. He asked the audience: ‘Is this really what education is about?’ 'Democratic and civil society' Goal - maybe this is his reason for coming back to Tasmania?

Despite technology - proportions of online learning are still not high. But this is not really an issue because of the huge numbers of people who use technology for pursuing their interests. Passion and interest are the real, enduring drivers. Economic development will grow out of this and possibly in a better form than otherwise.

Infrastructure is not really a money maker, especially in the early years of rollout due to large investment needed, but it is the key to opening up the future.

What has Canada done?

- Backbone [CA*Net] has been very important which allows for the practical rollout of services. Fast, dependable, always on access. Have to have the highways.
- Local Access for Communities - provision to every community in Canada. Both for community to connect to Internet and also a place for community to connect with itself. Self-managed, funded to get it off the ground. Alberta connecting all schools, hospitals and councils are getting connected to broadband - the 'Alberta Supernet'.
- Services - provision of services online eg like our Service Tasmania.
Is infrastructure access only?
He thinks not - there needs to be something on the highway.
What educational infrastructure is needed?

• access to learning materials


• access to software and services (including software needed for the conduct of learning online, so the role of government to provide to all learners and institutions, does not mean a LMS for all, certain minimal configurations eg web browsers)


• access to instruction, mentoring and coaching (the personal element for human supports - for a remote learner this will often be a local mentor/coach and a remote teacher. The mentor/ coach acts as an advocate for the learner, rather than being an agent of the institutions. Clearly and unambiguously on the learners side, not in an assessment role.)

Government as an exemplar

Government needs to model the use of elearning services. Training needs to be made available to government staff through ICT - if the Government is using the technology it is promoting, then it understands in a direct way what works and does not work. Provides an alternative to the model of elearning that is normally promoted. Role for non-structured, non-linear learning.

Q&A session

Q: You had ‘networking’ on a slide, what where you going to say about it?
A: Networking is inherently important, but not sure how important at high levels. It is about ‘having a seat on the table’, and is a good way of exchanging information and ideas and the 'getting to know each other'. Developing specifications etc not the important part, but rather the conversations you have.

Q: We are paid to provide training, we work in an industry driven model, how can we do it?
A: I believe it is a myth that industry can direct training, where industry also tells government not to direct industry. Decisions should be made at the local level where they have their impact, because, you cannot at a central level, take into account all the parameters involved. It is simply too complex. "Industry are no more experts in learning than I am in building a 747". The decision-making should be distributed and localised. No-one person can get predictions right about skills shortages etc - proven time and time again. Relying primarily on industry for decision making input, creates risk.

Q: Government as exemplar in learning - How do we achieve that goal?
A: Not to provide good customers to local industry so why would we bother? Hard to prove value from learning (see here re ROI).

You mentioned people lacking specific knowledge or training needed to do their job - somehow workplace training seems to always focus on needs of the business. Decisions about learning are becoming more and more taken by the learner in a technology enabled world. Contradiction in motivators - focus on business specific skills and learner’s interest in learning. Government needs to get their head around the notion that you have to let control go to the learner, and that the return is not in the learning, but the employee gaining a greater personal benefit in working in that organisation. Greater skills, attitudes and capacities may be related to business' direction but some may not. And that has to be ok.

Q: Emerging term of 'client centred learning’ which refers to learner and employer who both have legitimate interests - What are your thoughts on this?
A: Client centred learning - learner and person who is paying for the learning. How does this come to be the case? Through access provision - ie without employment, learning not possible. If the artificial scarcity of this access is not maintained, then the person paying would not have this right. Access to learning should not be controlled in any way - through charging fees, restricting entry, or through employment. Especially where the money for training has come from government in the first place.

Balance is shifting to more like equity - mutual cooperation for mutual advantage.
Employers should make it clear what the requirements are to fill a particular position. It is advantageous for the employee to develop to make themselves to be more employable. Where there is an imbalance in decision-making then we will not get to this point.

Q: Implications of an ageing workforce implications?
A: Changing demographics are having an impact in Canada too. Lots of knowledge leaving the workforce. If you go to the idea of education being 'tapping into connections and networks', then the experts and mentors are available online. Maybe we should be encouraging those leaving the workforce to become the educators (experts and mentors).

Q: Role of Immigration?
A: Given free trade of goods and wealth, in a world of globalisation, people should be able to move freely also, which frees them from being restricted by the local industry conditions. People need to be able to follow the wealth that shifts around in a globalised, free trade economy.

Q: Bandwidth and content supply?
A: Content is becoming a commodity and there is an oversupply happening. If you have a commodity, which is scarce, then the price will far exceed its value. In extreme surplus, there will be no incentive to manage it (eg fishing grounds being exhausted because there were so many fish). Why do people do things? Because they want to. So much content being produced online for the same reason. The value of content (including software) declines by a 2x magnitude, what was $100 is now $1. So who is going to produce content?

Prevailing business model will be in the area of services that cannot be copied - people are buying experiences and that cannot be duplicated. This is micro distribution - eg concert tapes sold straight after the event only to those people who were there. This will create the post-digital economy - selling the things that cannot be duplicated.

Role of Industry

An ideal of a guaranteed wage for all Canadians came from the McDonald Commission (which also recommended free trade with the USA). The guarantee was meant to stop people falling through the cracks or a huge welfare system that costs more to administer than it distributes. What would this mean for industry? Would people work if they did not have to? The threat of poverty would no longer motivate people to work. Industry has to pay enough so that people will be inspired to goout and get skills so that they can be employed.

‘Education becomes knowledge based empowerment’

Government-industry partnerships need to be more than government providing the funding, a true partner, 'working with'.

Website to check out for those involved in the elearning industry – http:// www.elearningforum.com - based in Silicon Valley, elearning in this case standing for ‘emergent learning’.

One of the key principles of clustering is communication, and also autonomy at the local level which allows space for competition between cluster members. Mutual exchange of value - capacity and expertise.

We should be moving to a new model focussing on:

• services - brokering


• scarcity


• experience - don't look back, don't design on what has already happened if you want to be a leader.

Open source is about building capacity in customers not dependence. This idea could also be applied to learning and learners and their employers.

Loving Tasmania

Why do businesses stay here? They have no inherent attachment to place, but why? What is the 'Tasmanian Experience'? What are the intangibles?

Role of Education

Themes underlying everything
- network
- ecosystem
- innovation happens at the edges

Education's roles are to build skills and also, and more importantly, personal empowerment. When learning goes online , the learning can be everywhere, in the community and based upon or founded upon our experience. Stephen sees the Internet as giving mobility, to see further, to gather information as it is needed.
Challenge
- If institutions lost their monopoly on certification and government funding ceased to exist, what would our institutions look like?

New initiatives in elearning - future feed

Where are we now?

Elearning is really still 'tell and test' based on converting distance education to an online format. Despite the promise of mass customisation there's no practical way to do it - that results in unique experiences for unique students. To achieve this some standardisation is needed, that is, standardisation about how things interconnect, not about what they say/do/contain... standardised syntactically vs semantically.

The structure of the internet being a distributed network, with universal access for publishing, decisions occuring in an open-ended environment, should be applied to how we look at learning - one based on communication rather than publishing. A world in which learners are creating a lot of the content. Tasks need to be distributed by the teacher rather than the teacher doing it all - think of the discussion list for posing and answering questions.

Stephen drew some parallels between New Brunswick - e.g. building on current expertise,positioned to offer an alternative to monolithic elearning, network technologies, online learning content and distribution. But Tasmania does need to adapt to a distributed student centred learning network.

Q&A

Q: What do we do about non-high end learners and elearning?
A: On the bus trip to Strahan, every person on that bus, except for Stephen, had an electronic device of some kind - playing games, texting, listening to music. These people are able to adapt to the Internet, and using it for learning. The question is, why don't they use it then? Because it doesn't relate to their learning needs. Gen Y have little patience for instruction and manuals. Games are incredibly complex, but the learning is embedded in the activity. The issue with current online learning is that it is not well adapted to the learners, so online learning needs to adapt, not the learners.

Q: But aren’t the underpinning skills too complex eg Frontpage or computer games
A: Start out simple - choose the technology that has demonstrated wide adoption and quick implementation, for example blogs. Questions of intent and motivation come into this as well - is the learning selected by the learners? Technology is widely adopted, but not yet elearning technology, because it is not suited to them.

Q: Aren’t there risks in being too open, too learner-directed?
A: Need to distinguish between the credentialling and the education, when considering the growth rates in university enrolments which was given as example of desire for structure.

Q: Whatabout standardisation and learning?
A: Weneed to distinguish between different types of standardisation. Semantic standardisation eg curriculum, within certain parameters everyone receives same education, but this is only really appropriate where people have standard jobs, attributes, aspirations. And life’s not like that.

Papert has said - if it's foundational then the need for it will become apparent in pursuing the non-foundational. Wherever possible, this will be best done through application of the foundational to practical problems.

Q: But, how do you know what you need to know? And what about differences in learning styles?
A: Someone with research skills can identify what is needed to be known to solve a problem. We need to structure education for maximum empowerment and ability to think, reason and learn for themselves. 'Autonomous' does not need to equate to 'unstructured'.

Bringing it all together

RSS is chaos in action, there is no real agreement, multiple flavours, millions of users.

Compare that with IEEE Learning Object Metadata, how many people are really using IEEE LOM?

And the reasons?

Stephen argues that RSS is simple, only protocols about what people could agree on which was very little. Everything is optional in RSS, any tag could be left out, or added in. Even invalid RSS will work in the applications because the people designing those applications know the diversity and chaos.

Q: Should we drop everything and go to open source?

A: Not everything in open source is ready for the prime time. This talk is about having a direction and having a goal. Subtle, slight alterations. Each incremental step takes you closer to the end.

Future Directions

• small pieces
  loosely joined - applies to everything


• fast, furiously
  out of control - decentralisation


• content as
  vocabulary (the actual resources (text audio video etc) are becoming the new
  vocabulary, in addition to text, which forms a single idea as a package,
  non-linear, inter-related)


• Learning as conversation where process of learning is joined inextricably to living, and learning becomes the product.


• Wikis - very simple technology


• CMS - input screen, drop down lists, easy inputs.


• Blogs - no organising committee :-) like RSS.


• Check out http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp


• Wikis, Blogs and RSS have become the defacto semantic web


• OAI - journal articles online http:www.openarchives.org - uptake 435 insitutions participating with millions of articles. As an alternative to the Online Journal Databases. In Britain there has been a major recommendation that academics move away from the traditional journals and prefer open access publishing.


• RSS Aggregators
  can be found at http://blogspace.com/rss/readers.
  Bloglines includes a recommender service - if you add your blog to Bloglines,
  then it can start recommending others to you based on the content of yours.


• Edu_RSS - harvests about 300 feeds.
  Combined views from various sources to provide a wide view.

Stephen closed with a quote from Olegas Truchanas, a wilderness photographer who was involved in the Lake Pedder Campaign, on the side of a building in Strahan.

“If we can revise our attitudes towards the land and the earth if we can accept a role of steward and depart from the role of conqueror, if we can accept the view that man and nature are inseparable carers of the unified goal, then Tasmania can be a shining beacon in the dull, uniform and largely artificial world.

Innovation does not come from the top - it comes from the edges. This is why consultation happens, and where capacity has to be built. That is where ideas come from.

Net*Working Online 2004

The blurb I prepared for my presentation as part of Net*working 2004 Online to be held from 8-19 November by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.

"Through this presentation, participants will gain an overview of:
· Needs of Learners, Employers and Providers
· What is happening currently?
· What does the literature tell us?
· What can we do?
· What are the future directions?

Learners and employers need relevant, contextualised and flexible learning opportunities. Balancing the sometimes conflicting needs of business with the learner's motivations and interest requires skill and insight on the part of the training provider. Embedding elearning or online learning into workplace activity needs to be considered within the context of each industry, just how feasible this is will be explored and some potential applications discussed. Shining exemplars of workplace learning are founded on mutual benefit, with each party recognising their role and contribution to creating a learning environment. Capturing the informal and incidental learning in the workplace is one of the key challenges for training provider staff. Learners need to be supported to identify learning opportunities, and to seek resources and support from a variety of sources. The involvement of a supervisor or more experienced colleague is a key element to many stories of successful workplace learning. Mechanisms for promoting flexibility and true choice in designing a learning pathway are needed to ensure the best possible outcomes are achieved. Multiple and diverse tools and strategies need to be combined and recombined over time to meet the needs and aspirations of learners and their employers. Training provider staff need to be supported with communities of practice, ongoing informal and formal development opportunities and organisational structures that scaffold their practice. The area of elearning in the workplace needs to be explored further. Flexibility in workplace learning is not just about where the learning takes place. True flexibility takes advantage of all the possible options for learning, and combines them into a movable feast of informal, structured, ad-hoc, formal and incidental learning that permeates the workplace.