Notes from the Networking 2003 conference

Updates: Networking 2003 Archives

9.30am Friday

Tom Bentley, DEMOS ThinkTank in UK powerpoint presentation here

Demand for learning comes from higher levels of knowledge and general education. General fuzzier changes in society with increasing diversity.
Whilst men were quicker to take up internet, women have overtaken, connectivity is becoming a utility like electricity, in the western world which will influence the way in which we think abut learning,
Shape of the new world economy - ... read more

9.00am Friday

Janina Gawler, Chief Executive Officer, Australian National Training Authority

Environment shifting: Demographic changes, globalisation, outsourcing, technology, labour force change.

Baby boomers working longer, e.g. in mining industry - blue collar workers starting to work in information and project management, people change jobs more often, generic skills represent employability skills

The ways in which we engage with technology needs to be considered. We are already in the networked world - but how we act within it are still being worked out. Getting out and talk ... read more

4.45pm Thursday

Canberra Institute of Technology CIT Getting all subjects online

Moving a whole faculty online, 1.1 million ASCH, 20% through flexible centres.

The journey - started in 1999
2000 went to WebCT
2001 10% subjects in WebCT
2002 new Business Services Training Package and all subjects went into WebCT
2003 focus on staff skills in using WebCT, previously had been staff fiddling around and looking at it as a project based approach.

In 2002 put lots of material online but staff did not have the skills to use i ... read more

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 oppo ... read more

2.45pm Thursday

Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE - The Netlearn community

Seven campuses each with a range of offerings - staff needed to work together to be able to broaden range of learning options on each site.

Netlearn is a learning community where the needs of the learners are at the forefront of practice and supported by distributed delivery strategies - had to be a whole staff approach - after 18 months have 27% of staff involved including admin staff.
"We want to make lots of mistakes so we can learn lots of different things"

John Bell
Netlearn enabler group - was ... read more

1.30pm Thursday

Michael Coghlan - Finding your voice online Workshop session

Demonstrated a range of tools for VOIP and simultaneous text chat, interactive whiteboards etc.

Yahoo messenger webcam and chat service- free of charge but has some advertising. Both chat and audio are active at the same time.

Workshop had some initial difficulties to start with - working between dialup & broadband is not normally a problem with quality.

In written text start to form an impression - hearing the voice changes this to a more accurate picture

Yahoo does not req ... read more

10.30am Thursday

Steve Keirl - Ethics and Technology

Ethics and technology have an intimate relationship to the human being, cannot reference ourselves without reference to our technologies, ethics are a human construct - dependant on the existence of others.
However current people like Singer at Princeton are thinking that ethics are not ethical if they are not applied to the real world - need to be usable to guide our real lives.

Exercise - think about the first 5 minutes of your day - think of the technology that you engage with in that first 5 mins. - Has become invisible to us. ... read more

9.00am Thursday

Barbara Pitman talked about "A bit about Babies, Bathwater and Democracy" link here

Background in nursing in the territory.
Technology to be underlined by skilled people who understand the basic principles - thinking what is it that we are here to do, including enabling the end user - has to accommodate the needs of individuals in communities - a means to an end, it is what happens at the point of delivery that we can make a difference,
DIVERSITY - all communities are made of indivi ... read more

2.00pm Wednesday (4)

Using interactive games for reinforcing the AQTF - Standard 7.2

website with games for previewing - here or here

timed games that test a variety of knowledge about the AQTF for VET RTO staff. Final versions will be available in December, from the presentation it was unclear whether the templates be publically available on the FL site. Wait and see...

2.00pm Wednesday (3)

Fishing Industry New Practices Project

wanted to test the ideas in the fishing industry as that was seen to be a hard place to make something like this work.
context was narrowband, infrequent internet access.
Industry was being pushed to develop their own compliance regulations, and also starting to export so needed to comply with European union Regulations.
Used Janison software called satellite.
As well as initial training, workers also require re-training when AQIS inspections are failed.
LMS is loaded onto a laptop and course material ... read more

2.00pm Wednesday(2)

Pauline De Vries
Integrated learning options - aim to build a bridge between a practice firm and entrepreneurial small business
'Work studios'
Resources included Douglas Mawson IT support team and also Port Adelaide Business Incubator was the business partner.
Students were put into a physical place in the incubator - offsite to TAFE. Business Manager of Incubator was also a mentor for the new Practices Project
Stepping back from students is not necessarily desertion.
Within the project mappin ... read more

2.00pm Wednesday(1)

<b>YOLA - your online learning assistant </b>
Just in time learning assistant
- numeracy assistance for building trades especially for prevocational and early apprenticeships
Question was "How can we support the B&C toolbox and students can work more self paced - so to give help when the teachers are not available, first port of call?"

Want learners to focus on what they are doing in the toolbox - not replacing the content that already exists. Another concern was more shelf life and reusability of learning assets to support learners.

<a ... read more

11.30am Wednesday

George Lewin, inventor of the<a href="http://www.triton.net.au/front.shtml"> Triton workbench </a>and also founder of the <a href="http://www.tritonfoundation.org.au/user/">Triton Foundation</a>

Captivating speaker who attributes part of reason for success to the result of a lack of education so not fettered by rules and frameworks - part of innovation and invention
- No family background of woodwork or do it yourself.
Teacher had faith in him - could see his potential as a 13 year old - learnt a smattering of mechanical engineering as a motorbike ... read more

9.40am Wednesday

<b>Dr Evan Arthur How education drives innovation </b><a href="http://flexiblelearning.net.au/nw2003/presentations/Evan%20Arthur.ppt">link to ppt slideshow </a>

Information economy
Understanding how things work and using that understanding to improve production of goods and services' has always been an important part of economic development
Industries are being created and or transformed by innovations in understanding and application of those innovations to our world.
Development of an information and communication technology industry has b ... read more

9.10am Wednesday

<b>Jim Davidson</b> OTTE Vic <a href="http://flexiblelearning.net.au/nw2003/presentations/Jim%20Davidson.ppt">talked </a>about the FLAG objectives:
1. More learner centered
2. How can technology achieve this?

<i>Achievement over 4 years </i>
Teacher’s capability in flexible learning
Pool of resources
Collaboration within community- dialogue
Through Networking conferences have shifted the paradigm

Launched the Flexible Learning Futures discussion paper <a href="http://flexiblelearning.net.au/aboutu ... read more

Networking 2003 Conference

Overall Impressions: Hey, We're doing a great job and have some really interesting ideas about flexibility in TAFE Tas and have lots of pockets of innovation....

AND...

Opportunties out there: more of an organisation wide approach to flexible learning, not shying away from the challenges of online learning to enrich the learning experience, be prepared to take and support risky activity without recrimination if it doesn't work, plan strategically - know where we're going.

Postcards from the conference to follow....