Evolution of Ideas

It has been quite interesting to watch the teams ideas and views of technology change since we started this project.

At the beginning of the project there were some comments along the lines of 'This isn't really going to be useful but we are willing to try something new'. Then 'Well actually yes I have some ideas of how i can use technology in earthworks'. Now once we have all had a go at Photo Story 3 and have seen how easy it is to use there is serious discussion and decisions being made about using this software to create learning resources for students.

These resources will lessen the amount of time that the teacher has to spend with new students catching them up on work the other students have already completed, but still giving the new student all the important information needed to complete pre-start checks of the machinery they are going to operate.

Oh and the other important thing is that we all are having a good time learning how to use different sorts of technology :-)

Just look at our movies!

At the team meeting last week members showed the Photo Stories they had created. They're not all finished yet but all were justly pleased with themselves. You can see these at our EdNA group site and vodcast on podomatic.

The consensus was that it would be very worthwhile to have a complete set of machinery pre-start stories: dozer, excavator, loader, crane, backhoe, skidsteer and forklift. These would ease the difficulties presented by the choice of units and rolling enrolment model. This allows every learner an individual program but is difficult for the teacher to manage. Prior to and during our next team meeting on 6 September each member will complete their particular pre-start story:

• Lindsay - loader


• Peter - dozer


• Cath - forklift


• John - excavator


• Wayne - backhoe


• Greg - skidsteer

There was much discussion of how learners would access these stories. MP4 players and PDAs were considered but cost and small size could make them easily lost. The section is now looking at buying a set of portable DVD players. The goal is to be ready to use these learning resources with a group of learners at Tibooburra in October.

Greg showed the interactive learning resources he had produced using the ARED tool. These were about whistle signals and rules for crane and dogging. Team members were impressed with what could be done but some thought the computer skills required were more than they are ready for and are going to continue with Photo Story. Three members are interested in giving ARED a go and took the user guides with them.

Neil, working on a story on assessing a site, suffered a digital disaster when the folder containing his carefully collected images was deleted. At least he knows now where to take the images. We're looking forward to seeing his story next time.

Hear all about it - plans and ideas

At our recent session team members explained what resources they'd like to create for their learners using Photo Story 3. Hear what they thought on our EdNA Group site.
Later in they evening they each spoke about how they thought moblogging could be used for teaching and assessment in Conservation Earthworks. Listen to their ideas on the Learnscope NSW blog site.

They really got into it!

Our team session on 26 July was a great success. Aftre team members each spoke about the sort of learning resource they would like to create, Lindy and Mel, from the 06 Racing into eLearning team, demonstrated on the SmartBoard how to use Photo Story 3.

Then the team members got stuck into having a go at it themselves and were amazed at how easy it was and what good products they'd created in only an hour or so.

After the dinner break Alex Hayes showed the team moblogging and recording for podcasting. The team members came up with some great ideas about how they could use moblogging:

Examples include:

• learner visual diaries


• recognition candidates evidence


• teacher in field conferring with colleagues on assessment evidence

People were also impressed with the ease of recording and podcasting.

Many thanks to Alex for pushing the boundaries a bit - a risk that's paid off.