More Impacts of e-Works project

Well thinking about the outcomes of our Learnscope journey this year I have come to realise we have effected more people than just our students.

On the 27th of September our Learnscope team was invited to give a presentation and show our Photo Story work at the Primary Industry and Natural Resources (PI&NR) Faculty Forum. This is where all our PI&NR teachers, part time teachers and support staff gather together to see what everyone else is doing from across our institute. (Which covers nearly half the state). We had a fair turnout of staff come to the presentation.Teachers ranging from Animal Studies, Horticulture, Agriculture and some of our promotional staff.

After the presentation there was a lively discussion on the uses of Photo Story 3 and other technologies and how they can be used in our classes.

This opportunity has enabled us to get the word out to other staff members that this new technology is not scary and mostly it is easy to use. Although like learning anything new some guidance may be needed to get started.

The make up of our Learnscope group which has included members from a number of sections within PI&NR has also been a positive thing. I also teach in the Environment section and I can see a lot of advantages in using software like Photo Story, ARED and Adobe Connect to improve our classes and create new learning material for our learners. I have been telling and showing teachers I work with what we have been learning in the e-Works project. These other teachers don't only work at the Orange campus but at a number of different campuses. Neil is also from a different section to earthworks. He has been able to see a number advantages to using the skill he has learned in the e-Works in his Horticulture classes.

So it is a bit like 6 degrees of separation. Learnscope has shown me/us a wide range of new technologies that are available to us to use. We have then taken what we thought was good and run with the idea and then passed it on to our colleagues around the state. Hopefully they will think about it and use any ideas they gain from us and use them in there own classes and so on.

Tales of Tibooburra

It dates back a bit now, but Greg's Tibooburra trip went really well - learners used the DVD pre-start check resource on the protable DVD players and responded very well.

Many were from the dog fence maintenance crews or National Parks. The "boss cocky" of the dog fence really liked the idea - he thought his crew could prepare ahead, spend less time in the classroom and less time away from work.

The assessor had a bit of an adventure on his way to Tiboburra, his vehicle swept of a causeway in a flash flood, follwed by some hours spent on the vehicle roof hoping that someone would come along (and that the flood would subside rather than rise). While his (near new) vehicle was wrecked, he continued on to Tobooburra and did the scheduled assessing!

Try it at Tibooburra

They're loading the gear on the truck right now and heading for Tiboburra.

Greg's got the portable DVD players, the DVDs with the team's movies and a microphone and laptop to record learner response. Good luck!

More than ok

The team did a fantastic presentation about their learnscope project to the PINR Full Faculty Forum last week. It was a very popular workshop selection. They showed the resource they have produced for students to use on portable DVD players. Then demonstrated how easy it is to create an instructional movie using Photo Story. They created one on "How to make a cup of tea"! We'll get it on podomatic when the team return from their well-deserved break. Unfortunately the attempt to record all the audio of the presentation on an mp3 player for podcasting didn't work - too many menus and steps to go through for recording voice - I'll have to get an easy to use digital voice recorder for this purpose.
Earlier this week I presented to the Regional ICT Conference on this Earthworks Learnscope project and led it into use of web2 tools in education. It seemed to go well - they asked questions, requested a progress report on web2 use for teaching and learning at their next conference and asked for URLs. I was also asked if I could talk about this stuff to the regional schools conference (yes). It was interesting that these people, the staff who support ICT for TAFE and schools in western NSW and must have great computer skills, generally appeared not to be particularly aware of what is happening on the internet and certainly aren't engaged with it. Their focus is on maintaining our hardware and supporting corporate systems. Only one or two have a background in education, so the potential of the internet for teaching, learning and assessment is not clear to them. But the Regional Manager is aware and interested enough to have invited me along to give the educational perspective and his crew responded well - cause for optimisim.

It'll all be ok on the day

The Earthworks Learnscope team met again yesterday evening. Tomorrow they will be presenting a workshop on what they have done to the PINR Full faculty Forum. So the purpose was to prepare for that - a great way to confirm their own learning. There was a lot of shuffling about with leads, a lot of laughs and I'm sure it will all be ok on the day.

Learnscope Regional Event 1

Hey Everyone

Just thought I would do a quick post about this event while I am here. This is turning out to be a really interesting day. We have had guest speakers from South Australia, New Zealand and the United States. We have had some lively arguments about e-portfolios and whether teachers or students drive the need to create them.

It is the first time that i have actively used Adobe Connect and it seems like a really good thing to look into using with our face to face students and external students. May be a way to combine the students doing a class face to face and allow for the external students to listen in and participate.

Anyway hay to go now because we are starting again :-)

The latest

The Earthworks team met again yesterday evening.




The section has just purchased 4 portable DVD players to use with students, particularly at remote locations. Team member Greg had put the machinery pre-start checks movies onto DVD with professional looking titles and a great menu. Everyone was really excited to see their work on the DVD players the students will use.
The players also worked through a TV and data projector and can be used as mp3 players. Learners will be able to view the pre-start check movie for the machine then go out and walk around the machine while listening to the audio about the prestart check and do it.

Viewing their work to date this way members became more aware of some of the problems needing attention or improvements which could be made. These included improving the script to avoid repetiton (like "Check the ..." on many slides), getting a better balance between music and voice-over volume, better use of words on the screen and using slide animation to focus attention and place in context - but not too much. John gave some good advice here from his experience in media production. It's on a podcast at http://www.pinrpod.podomatic.com/ . He's spending a lot of time on the script for his movie.

The team will do a presentation on their project to the PINR Full Faculty Forum on 27 September at Dubbo. We'll meet again the evening before to finalise the presentation and, if time permits, do a basic intro to creating interactive Power Point presentations. Doing a presentation for others is a great way for the team members to confirm and review their own learning from the project.

I'll be presenting on the project to the Western Region ICT Conference in Dubbo the following week. It's a great opportunity as ICT have not shown a lot of interest in the past in how the ICT systems they support are used for learner outcomes.

I'm have a hard time trying to post to podomatic and blogger today - our systems keeps blocking - grrrr - very frustrating.