3.30pm Thursday

Hunter Institute of TAFE - ITALIC (Institute Teaching And Learning Innovation
Centre)

Working with teachers about wider learning products and integration into what teachers do. Stretching the boundaries with multimedia, resource development, eg when creating an interactive cd-rom it is not to replace a module but to work alongside the teacher in developing competency.
Using students to complete the video and sound work. Developing a showcase of the projects they have worked on.
Mentoring program - staff are given opportunities to develop online skills, alignment of the all projects with the necessary professional development.

How we work - started as an idea April 2000 out of a partnership with Microsoft about pedagogical issues of elearning. Then established a centre - March 2001. Momentum and expansion of the ideas moving into new areas.
Critical Mass - centre moves out and things grows around it, critical mass when Board agreed to support a steering group - high level support, $1mill
Refinement Phase - working with the Board - had to change from production work to focussing on teaching and learning,
Evaluation - OK to go ahead

Change invoked - had 30 projects to start with and 2 staff, very fast start,
Are at the point today where faculties are setting up their own innovation units - use ITALIC as a support for them.

Corporate world focus on improvement, which pulls us back from innovation.
Structure - 4 managers, 2 rooms, have about 750(?) people working on 120 projects, fairly good return on investment, what holds it together are the people with specialist staff - about 70 contractors drawn in on needs basis,

Product development cycle - concept paper - one page outline, have a philosophy of never rejecting an idea - guarantee to progress peoples ideas in some shape and form.

Idea capture - currently fairly passive. Using Knowledge Services Framework - (Sharepoint) rather than intranet.

Moving to a more active process where a range of themes are active and will ask for staff responses, automate the entry into the knowledge service framework, Question>email broadcast>response (to server)>review>reward.
Use Australian Business Excellence Framework as the structure for the information architecture. Have had this setup for 2 years and it is taking a long time for people to put their stuff in it.
Includes calendar, email, websites and documents from within the system. Treat it as the desktop.

Team playground - part of MS Sharepoint - communications and knowledge sharing environment, going down path of setting up one for each project involved with announcements what’s on, discussion areas, also includes ten RSS feeds coming into the area idea propagation, eg EDNA feed, (they worked on the Everyone Online access and equity project)
Use movable type for this model for some other projects, which means that it can sit outside of the firewall and outsiders can use and outsiders can view also worldwide.

KS - how is that indexed?
If putting things up then it is tagged and version controlled.

Concept papers - start to see trends in the ideas that come forward, eg student induction and orientation, ITALIC role is to put people together, have a matching budget for external funding, also support projects that are put forward that do not receive external funding, may be smaller or differently executed.
Boat Building had developed a model for their delivery that then ITALIC looked at potential for application to other settings > First step was to put paper-based guides onto the Internet - text based, also incorporated VC and email and telephone response, using fax for exams, put document camera at the other end and let students use it. Used LearnScope funding to support the training that was required, students can start to enrol and learn online, possibilities in China and NZ - who knows?

Learning model:
Mixture of model of live and self-paced and a range of materials is used, students travel a fair distance, VC, classroom, web based training, simulations, online mentoring, peer and workplace support. Some live, some self-paced, documents, CD-rom, diverse content sources, personalised learning, learning support - mentoring peers apprenticeship.

www.hunter.tafensw.edu.au/showcase/casestudies
Refer to summary handout or website.