Ports Creating A storm

2003-11-26T12:43:00.000+11:00

Donna Clarke - Outreach Co-ordinator Mid-Hunter

Outreach goes out into the community and deliver programs, though some programs are delivered on campus.

"We fill a lot of the gaps, that maybe TAFE is missing for some reason. We do a lot of work with youth at risk, and that is probably where we get a little more adventurous. (The biggest key) is the staff, and the right staff. When you find them, you can't let them go!"

One problem faced by the Outreach youth at risk programs is to find staff who will work with teenagers. However, they have still been bringing the students on to the campus, particularly in the exciting program called JUMP, which is 'adventure based learning'. Donna says that this is fantastic for this particular group.

They are pushing this cohort towards Outdoor Recreation courses.

"Youth at risk, they don't want to be in a classroom! We take them out; they're doing abseiling, rock climbing, white water stuff. They're doing a cliff jump. So they are doing a lot of stuff, and It's about them on their own little self-discovery tour, It was about their confidence. You see the group dynamics change enormously after they've been out on a jump...the quiet ones shine and the bullies back off, they don't want to jump. We're looking at giving them a couple of modules out of Certificate II in Outdoor Recreation, and even further down the track, offering it, if we can't find a Faculty to do it. There's so much ecotourism around, in the Hunter Valley it's really a growing industry and its something that they are really keen about."

"At the moment they do one day in the classroom for what we call the CGVE Prep - preparing them to do their School Certificate at TAFE. There is a huge problem with young people not doing their school certificate - they aren't breaking the cycle. And then they get to out into the bush on the second day. I'm hoping next year to extend that and make it a three-day program. We couldn't this year, as we couldn't get the staffing for the three days. The more time we can get them with us, the less time they are getting in to other stuff."

The face-to-face classes are done off campus, in the spaces of other providers. Donna is very clear on the fact that it is highly important to build good relationships with other services and providers, and that much of the work of Outreach would not be possible without these partnerships. In addition, these relationships must be two way.

"We don't want dead end partnerships. We want real partnerships where we are not the ones doing all the giving. I've been letting people drop off who have been using us - and they do - and trying to build a stronger relationship with the ones that are working with us."

In these face-to-face classes, students can to an extent, decide how they will do the study. In one case, the student come in to collect the work and goes home to do it, and returns the next week for marking. This is because his home situation is such that he would prefer to be home as much as possible.

In cases like that, a member of staff will visit to the home to give extra tutorial support. There is quite a bit of individual case management.

"...You can't do it any other way...whatever way we can get to them, we try to make it accessible."

Another program the Outreach will run is about minimising vandalism in Cessnock. To date the council has put in the usual methods, like security at night, in order to control the young people who are hanging out and causing damage. The Outreach program acknowledges that the young people need to feel more ownership in their community. There are a lot of vacant properties in the Cessnock main street, as a lot of business have moved out of the area due to the vandalism problems. The Outreach team approached council about getting a cheap rental on one of these properties, in a partnership with the Outreach program.

The students still have their one day a week of 'normal' classes, and one day practical stuff, but it is based in that location of the shopfront in the main street. The practical stuff will be about cleaning up the building, painting and doing the repairs on the shopfront and then spreading that to other shopfronts. Teachers from sections such as plumbing and carpentry are accessed, and the students gain these kinds of skills. Donna knows that some of the culprits of the damage are in the group. The intention is that they will be far less keen to see damage done to these spaces otherwise they will have to clean it up over the subsequent days.

Eventually, they would like to turn the shopfront into an internet café and a space for the kids to go. And then do hospitality skills so they can then provide cheap meals to local kids that don't have accommodation.

At the beginning of each period, Outreach holds information days where students come in and can negotiate things like attendance, times - whatever parameters are negotiable in a class.

Of course, there are restrictions, and most frustratingly, budget is the main limitation. Basically money and staff are the main barriers to doing all the things they want to do. Much of the funding for additional programs is found externally.

"One of the pressures I get is I have all these people wanting me to do courses for them, and I would love to help them all but its not in the budget. You can't do it all. Sometimes they (programs) are solving the immediate problems, they are not looking down the track far enough and it can do more damage than good. You can set them up to fail if you don't look at the big picture. We try to have a holistic approach to every course that we do."

The Mid-Hunter Outreach budget is around $90,000 and they cover the huge area of Dungog all the way down to Wollombi. They have a bank of 16 notebook computers that they can use and take around to all the locations they service.

Another solution Donna would like to see in TAFE is the creation of a teacher's aide position. Where they need two staff members, Donna must use two teachers, which is very costly and not necessary. A teachers aide would be able to do the job, which is largely supervisory and one of mentoring. The one teacher can do the teaching.

One of the good outcomes from Outreach programs that deliver VET modules is that they serve to feed students into the traditional course, These students would not succeed if entering directly to a Certificate II or III course - and many faculties are dropping their entry level courses (the Certificate I or Statement courses). Outreach programs give them easily digestible chunks of learning, and also builds their confidence, both in learning and personally. From Outreach, students can often feel comfortable and be better prepared to enrol in mainstream courses. As such, it would seem that Outreach is a good way to increase TAFE access to suitable clientele. 64% of their students go on to further education (though this survey was done in the 90s)

"You have to know so much about the other parts of TAFE...we have to know what's going on. That's the same for disabilities and all the other Access and Equity. You have to have a lot of contact with other sections to be able to get the best for your students."

2003-11-26T12:42:00.000+11:00

John Atkins - Teacher Horticulture
"We've got this lovely facility to develop a really good blended learning facility, with a number of different strengths. We've got horticulture, but we've also got vet nursing and equine studies available as online courses...here we've just got space, and its like an open palette and with 8 million dollars coming in (for capital works/buildings) and half a million for online delivery (TAFE Online Horticulture course) we're really gearing up to do something quite different and innovative and you've really got to drive it."

In an interesting piece of history, the Kurri Kurri campus was previously a juvenile justice centre, where the detainees were students during the day. This is why the campus has a pool and large hall used as a gymnasium - these are relics from those days and now are handy facilities.

Currently, the campus hosts a lot of residential/block release type students who will come for a week or weekend to do face to face lectures in the big hall and then use the grounds for their practical work.

Currently, classrooms are being refurbished. One we looked at had network connections all around the room (for internet/network access for computers). The way of the future for fitting out classrooms!

"We'll have online resources sitting in the classroom, with ample space for soil activities and for plant identification, teachers will be able to use the data projection tools for delivery and the room can take up to 40 students." The classroom has been re-purposed from a mining classroom to a blended delivery horticulture classroom.

In addition to the blended delivery classrooms, Kurri will soon have a flexible learning centre. John had seen the flexible delivery centre at the Hamilton campus (for Tourism and Hospitality) and knew that was what he wanted!

"So we wanted to create a spot that was close to other facilities that student can use. Just there is the canteen, a little further up is the computer room and the library (which is being refurbished as well)."

"What we envisage is, we want rooms where people can dissect animals for veterinary purposes, they can shave dogs, they can study soil, identify plants, learn their weeds, recognise their pests, all in the one building. And now, they can do it flexibly. There will be 4 PCs, there will be tables and benches...this room will be open 2 or 3 nights a week, and weekends when required. The students will come in, we'll have resources there so they can study several modules at once. If they want to look at plants, they're available, if they want to do their soil pracs, that's available. They'll have someone here who is capable of assisting and mentoring them with their online study, they can do practical aspects here under supervision if they need it and its after hours, for the time that they want. So to a certain extent they can cherry-pick the process of how they want to study."

"Trying to get the teachers to shift from nice neat programs where they work in a certain way, to that idea where one person does it all is really a big culture shift. The things that will drive it will be students saying we want it, so we've already started canvassing students, taking a lot of anecdotal stuff. As they come in and do classes, they'll have the odd questionnaire, very informal. 'If you couldn't get time off work (to study) what would you need to do?' "

John and his team have found that doing a more flexible form of delivery can reduce attrition rates, which threaten the continuation of a course to its completions. This would allow students to work as well as study and continue their personal lives with minimal disruption.

One example John gave was of a group of Parks and Gardens apprentices who worked for councils. This cohort are very strictly monitored for attendance, with sign off at the end of the TAFE day and so on. Most were computer literate. For one particular module, their teacher (with John's assistance) found the module online, and put the students in front of the computers, without putting too much pressure on them. They were simply asked if they like this way of study.

"They hit the chat rooms, they hit the instant messenger really fast. Without prompting they picked that up...that teacher then took them back to the computer lab each week for half their session and they just progress through their module that way...They all passed the assessments really well, the answers they gave reflected the online learning really well. The practical aspects had to be well managed but they had the underpinning knowledge from online."

"There were two students who weren't comfortable learning in that manner. I think they had a pretty strong emotional barrier to their learning anyway, and were intimidated by the whole environment. So then we had the apprentices saying 'I don't need to come to TAFE to do my online learning'. I had one student email me and say "I've finished all these modules, can I just do the assessment now'. She wanted to fast track her course."

However, for plant assessments to be done, a member of staff needs to collect the specimens and so on, so at the moment it is not feasible to do these kinds of assessments on demand. Rather they will be timetables at the relevant times of year, with students being able to book in to the relevant assessment event at the time that suits them best. That is a limitation in flexible delivery of horticulture, that the plants for identification are not available all year round. John is looking at electronic means of doing this, and notes that scanners work very well with plants. He envisages using Questionmark perception with an image of the plant so that students can identify the plants in a quiz environment.

The behavioural and attendance hassles for that Parks and Gardens group declined significantly and they continued doing subsequent modules (where available) in this more flexible way. However, it is not possible to send them through all modules in this way as the whole course is not developed and online, to date. John said it is really hard to say no to the students who would like to power through their course online, and to tell them it is not available. Hopefully, with time that will change!

"Next year, every group we get will get shoved in front of the computers, whether they want to or not. They'll have a compulsory induction and we'll spell out to them that if they want to go to our flexible learning program and do their courses that way, they have that opportunity."

John took us down to the nearly completed new library building. There would be 8 PCs there.

Another idea the team has for 2004 is to reduce block release commitments for students who travel to the TAFE to study several times a year for a week at a time. Online delivery of theory will help reduce the face-to-face hours that students are required to come to the campus. The key to this (as students are coming from quite far away for block release) is to have students in employment by half way through their course so that they can have a forum for picking up the practical skills they require to get their certificate. This, says John, is the key to blended delivery: the workplace. Having a workplace will allow those who have not been in the industry before, to gain the practical skills they require without coming to a campus, whilst doing the theory online. However, when they do come to the campus, the students will do group work, in order to build their team skills and have them build relationships with fellow students. John acknowledges that this is an important aspect for many students, and the accommodation available on the campus, helps facilitate this when the students come to study for a week at a time.

The section has created a lot of its own delivery tools, including a good bank of plant images. However, there are barriers to sharing these resources (not only with eachother, but to the wider TAFE horticulture community), as many staff members spend a lot of time doing their preparation of resources. It is hard for them to see the personal benefits of putting their resources into a public share system/server. John's idea was to have log in access to the resources only to those that want to share. If you don't share, you don't get access. The online team is also developing good relationships with other Institutes, where they share resources. For instance, one Institute has a microscopic digital camera which takes very fine, magnified photos of plants. John's team has formed a relationship with them and has access to their images.

"There is a definite evolution, in our part time teachers in particular..."

In addition, John's team are leading a change for other sections, like Primary Industry and Construction. These sections are now seeing what Horticulture are doing and perhaps coming around to the idea that flexible delivery is what the students want and is actually a way of attracting students. It is becoming increasingly competitive in the VET sector and we need to come up with ways to attract students to our courses. Flexible delivery can do that. It is also important that the leadership is there, that the managers are willing to support the changes.

"The sell, of going online, has got to come with a lot of reassurance."

2003-11-26T12:41:00.000+11:00

Nicky Campbell - Head Teacher - Ageing and Disabilities
Michael Rayment from Disabilities is often referred to, but was not present at this interview.

Disabilities Trainees
In disabilities, they have 50 trainees, who are employed. When they begin the course with the Institute, Michael will go to the trainees workplace and collaborate on a personal learning. Michael gives the student an overview of the course and suggests the kinds of things they might like to do for their portfolio. The students will then create a portfolio (documents from a supervisor, statements form others, documents they have created themselves) that is the tool that gives them recognition of any learning to date. It is up to the student to put together a good porfolio - the more evidence the student gathers, the less modules they will actually have to do. Michael then assesses that portfolio and they are given the relevant RPL (recognition of prior learning).

At the moment, only a small number of clients (employers) are using the project idea. To use the project as a method of completing course requirements, a trainees facilitator/teacher speaks to them about their role in the workplace to see if any work projects align that with the Certificate 3 modules. The TAFE facilitator, the student and the employer all collaborate on how a work project can help the trainee reach all the outcomes for their course and still allow them to be on the job.

Nicky admits the mapping of the modules to a work project can be quite time consuming, however, if the student is still in the workplace (rather than being off at TAFE) the employer is much happier. The students is fulfilling their course requirements in a "lived experience rather than at an abstract, intellectual level". At a Certificate 3 level, if students are just reading through the course material it can give students more barriers than benefits.

A facilitator assigned to a trainee has only 15mins a week to spend with their trainee. They may not see them each week and then one week see them for an hour. Nicky lets the facilitator and the trainee negotiate how they will use that time, be it face to face, by phone, weekly, monthly etc. She will pay the staff 15 mins a week for each trainee, regardless of how the time is used.

Students are allowed to select electives from 30 options.

Nicky does find this method of working with trainees does create some management issues. "I don't want to take away from the flexibility of it, but probably put in some more structure, just in terms of those timelines, because what tends to happen...the employer starts putting more and more hours/shifts, asking them to do overtime and that impinges on the students ability to get through their study. Because its done quite flexibly because the learner has responsibility for their own learning and they can slip behind. The employers perceptions of the trainees needs are often different to the employers perceptions of the trainees needs." The project concept helps meet the goals of both sides and industry are very clear that this is the delivery that they are after.

Soon the students will have access to modules online via the ANTA Toolboxes. Michael has done the relevant professional development (Introduction to Teaching Online and Janison Training through the Institute's training department) so he will be able to run these modules online in 2004.

Aged Care Trainees
The Aged Care trainees/client group prefer to come to the campus and sit in a classroom, along with regular enrolled students (those without traineeships). At this point, there are no flexibility options. In 2004, Nicky intends to have two kinds of classes for this course, There will be a 40 to 1 ratio for two classes, which will be an information giving session (lecture style). Each student will need to purchase a flexible delivery pack, to self pace themselves through the course content. They will then attend the 10 to 1 class ('learning communities') for support in completing assessment tasks and getting through the content. Some students will be fast-tracked (after initial interviews and gauging of RPL) and not need to attend the learning community classes for certain modules or learning outcomes.

Currently there is an aged care web site, which is simply a list of resources. This will support the learning communities, and Nicky envisages one day that she will not hand out any paper based resources. Rather students will access the readings and further information online, from websites. Nicky had inserted the website into Janison, though now she is not convinced that it was a good idea. After all, it is simply a web directory of resources, that will direct students straight to resources, rather than the students having to do a web search. This resource would work just as well, and be simpler to run, as a flat website.

Nicky will not look at online delivery for Ageing until at least 2005, when the TAFE Online product will be available. "But I am still scratching my head about how I am going to offer an online alternative, when I'm already paying for a face-to-face delivery. That would mean I am paying for two forms of delivery, when I'm only funded for one."

Though Nicky agrees that flexible delivery is educationally sound, she has found "my teachers have been very stressed out and I am questioning the quality of some of the completeness. When we do modules, we deliver everything that needs to be delivered, but when we deliver holistically there may be gaps in the learners knowledge." Nicky is referring to the delivery as perhaps not always being complete. Students still have to address all learning outcomes in their assessment events, meaning that the student does learn all they need to learn. So if there are any gaps in the delivery, it comes up in the assessment and the student will receive spot tutoring on that topic. Its a lot more work for teachers to prepare when they have 3 modules to deliver at once, rather than consecutively. It can be hard to know where they should start. Educationally this flexible delivery style is superior, but its hard on teachers. Nicky will pare this model back a little in 2004 to relieve the stress on her staff.

Its also hard when delivering several modules as a block of learning to break that block back apart into each module, for entry into the CLAMS system.

"I am probably at a point now where I am very aware of the information that is out there in terms of the fact that we should be moving to mixed mode, we need to be flexible, we need to accommodate all the adult learning principles in terms of making learning relevant and meeting that persons needs and not making them sit inanely through sessions that they are not remotely interested in. And making sure that whatever it is they prefer to learn with is what they get to learn by. I feel at this time that I am aware of all those things, but I just need to the time to get down and do it...with the holistic delivery, we implemented too quickly. There's so much to do, there is a much greater demand on accountability and managing appropriately and making sure everything is really tight. But like anything, if its good (flexibly delivery) its hard work"

2003-11-26T12:40:00.000+11:00

Glendon Pryor, Teacher ICT.
In IT, blended delivery works best, its hands on. It also works very well with the Cisco Academy, which is run by Glendon and his colleagues, from Glendale. (Cisco is the technology that runs the internet, and they are bigger than Microsoft. Cisco develops the curriculum and materials, gives the RTO access to cheap equipment etc for a nominal fee). Students still come to class to get the interaction with their teacher and fellow students and the hands on side of their learning. The ICT Faculty are looking at ways they can use this model in courses other than Cisco.

This will suit students who, as Glendon says, 'suck up material', allowing them to go at their own (often quite fast) pace. They want to make the class time more valuable, rather than having a teacher standing up the front reading content to students. The students can also have more power to self-pace their learning. The Faculty runs tutorials and practical sessions, which students can access in order to get extra help or do tests. Tests can be done at the students in these sessions, at whatever point they wish.

"We had one guy did semester one and two in three weeks. So if you're really motivated, and want to work at 3 o'clock in the morning for 18 hours straight you can."

The Faculty also hopes to reduce duplication, where teachers are all developing teaching materials, and interpreting the curriculum in different ways and delivering in different ways. Many of the staff are geographically dispersed, with IT being delivered on most campuses in the Institute. This duplication of materials is, of course, a waste of the time of the staff with many creating materials for the same topics, over and over. As Glendon says, "there is so much material out there already developed, textbooks...what we need is a better way of getting that information out of the textbooks into people's heads."

Like many other people our team had spoken to, the ICT team are looking to have students do the 'rote learning' off campus, only coming to class to reinforce the learning or to do practical components. One of the tools they are using is a Jeopardy game show format (as part of the Cisco course), which tests students on the basic concepts (the theory) in a fun way and the students really take to it. This method also explores the idea of the teacher as a game show host - real culture change! Games seem to work well with Glendon's younger male students, who like the competition - if they do badly in the game one week, they really strive to improve their knowledge the next week. The team hope to apply this concept to courses other than Cisco. Glendon finds that the students get so keen about the Cisco course delivery (online, game based, interactivity) that their other (traditionally delivered) topics can suffer. This is a testament to the power of the online teaching tools.

"They can read the boring stuff at home. When they are in class we try to make it as fun as possible, but at the same time they are learning something. If you served it up and lectured it, people would be dying in the back!" Glendon's team also find that they can have their time freed up to develop materials, as students are off campus when digesting the dry information.

2003-11-10T16:41:00.000+11:00

Great post below Viv!

Anyhow, to conclude my Networking report...

The last day of the conference was a bit sparse and more of a wrap up. However there was one speaker who was interesting, mainly in how he quantified a lot of the stuff we might have ehard, but not been able to interpret. Tom Bentley works for Demos, which is an independent think tank from London. He has also had the opportunity to advise within the Uk government on topics such as democracy, education, institutional change and innovation. His presentation looked at the increasing demand for education and how our institutions and government are responding - or not! Factors he looked at included the ageing populations, rising use of the internet and the way we work. One part of the presentationthat engaged me was about the newly emerging emphasis on self-fulfilment, which is something I had heard of beofre. That our Generation Y are yearning for more meaning in their lives, rather than material aims. Its something that I hope is true, though as my colleague Leigh noted, that is not what we see on the surface, Rather we see teens wanting the newset latest gear and brands. But then team-mate Viv countered that she, as a counsellor, sees this yearing all the time. The reason they look to these brands and new gear is the search for meaning - and it is also why we see so many broken young people acting up: they are looking for community and meaning in their lives. Anyhow, I am hopeful that we can learn from this trend and try to address it in our work. I think ideas like a more 'pastoral approach' to teaching young people can help...

The rest of Tom's presentation is interesting, as it tends to look at the TRUTH of education (and its flexibility) rather than focusing on the 'promises' as we in the flexible learning field tend to do.

One other point of interest was the pamphlet distributed to all participants at the conference. It is called "Your future, Your Choice: Flexible Learning Futures". I don't know that the pamphlet itself is that interesting, but rather the opportunity it presents. It is "a discussion paper inviting businesses, employees, learners, trainers, communities, training organisations and governments to join a national conversation to shape the future of flexible learning in Australia's vocational education and training system". There is a discussion being held on the Australian Flexible Learning Community where we can all participate and add our two cents.

And that, my dears, is my networking experience...

2003-11-06T17:34:00.000+11:00

I've just learnt a new skill on top of the thousands I've already seen/practised today. I wrote up all my thoughts on the blog and forgot to post!!
So take 2 (I'm really into film-type lingo now). My learnscope day started when I met the guys and we went thru how to set up a camera. Joe walked (and I mean literally) me thru the finer points of how to set the tripod, camera, tape, level, first minutes of tape should be black etc etc etc. he even tried to show me how to roll a fragile cable/cord that plugs into the camera but given my missing plumbers brain cells (ie the practical/technical gene) he kindly let me off that fragile task. Anyway enuff practice and off to hamilton to film Garry Sewell head teacher bakery. In the car the wonderful task-oriented Kylie set us to divvying up tasks rather than contemplating our navels and solving the worlds problems. Kylie suggested I film but given the missing-brain-cell thing and my disability with fragility I was very very happy to stick with what I know-interviewing people and putting them at ease. That done and having a marvellous candidate to practice on in Garry it went off without a hitch and I learnt so much about the importance of putting people at ease in the fil-game. joe had talked about the crew not talking to the interviewee much so that they connect with just one person and this happened. its incredible how much there is to think of. Joe and Lee set up all the stuff, Kylie organised the students and got them to sign release and Aaron (a new team member) watched over us and helped Kylie film the film crew. While the guys were setting up I spoke to Garry about what to expect and also reviewed the things he had told us last time we met. I also helped him summarise a-la-Lee into 3 main statements,
1.What motivated you to do what you did?
2.Describe what you did
3.How did you do it.
Each statement had to be in 30 secs or less and Gaz thought that would be really hard for him given his naturally talkative nature, but he did it brilliantly and didn't yell once despite being made to start again a few times. Its really hard being in front of a camera and even the most confident person finds it scary. My palms were sweating and I found myself empathising with Garry as I was having flashbacks to a child protection conference and a drug and alcohol forum I had to speak about on nine news a few years ago!!! Anyway he came thru well as did we and now we have done it once we will get it down now to a fine art. Chatting to the students in the classroom was great fun also as was eating bread and chocolates freshly made. No wonder Joe likes his job! I just want to know at the end do we say something corny like "its a wrap" and can i say it. That'll do now until next time.
V i V
\___/

2003-11-06T16:53:00.000+11:00

OK, its the end of another day...I only seem to get time to do this once everything else in the day is done. sigh. anyhow...

The next day of Networking, I kinda wagged in the morning. Well, I was doing some 'networking' and having morning tea with one of the reps from a company that ITALIC is doing some work for. So I didn't go to the morning sessions. I was a bit cynical after the previous morning's sessions which were not so interesting.

The afternoon program was crazy, quite the opposite of the sessions where all praticipants were in one big room. At any one time there were about 6 events on, which I think led to a bit of 'participant fatigue'. This is a term we invented in my time organising the National Young Writers Festival: if you have too much on at once, people become overwhelmed and their learning is diminished and they wander around with glazed over looks in their eyes.

Anyhow, I managed to get to some stuff. Like "DAM! The Complexities of Digital Asset Management in a Multi-media Rich Development Environment". The Development Environment in question is the Australian Army's training resources development arm, and the speaker was Flexible Learning Leader, Captain Harley Doughty. He was looking at how they could archive and index all the materials and resoucrces they have, using tools such as metadata and resource management systems. What struck me was the sheer amount of resources they have (they are based in Pitt St, Sydney) and the efficiency with which they were able to develop VERY rich training tools. For $125,000 they had developed a literacy tool aimed at Yr 10 level, in order to be able to make keen, prospective recruits elegible to join the army (which requires a minimum of Yr 10 qualifications). Very savvy. They develop using 3D, video, flash and have very rich training programs for all levels of the army's employees. HAve to be seen to be believed...and I may well do so, as my colleague, Leigh Blackall met with Harley, who said we were welcome to visit their facility. Exciting!

There were also Round TAble sessions in the afternoon. This entailed, yes, round tables, and a person having a particular topic. If you were interested inthat topic, you would join them and other interested folks at that table and discuss the topic. I went to one called "Demystification of the learning object paradigm" as I am interested in LO standards - they are confusing and no one agrees and every has a different idea of what they are. Ian Kenny was running this session. He has a project called "VET Learing Object Repository", which is looking at setting some kind of guidelines for LOs. I asked him what would make people follow these standards, when there were som many standards being bandied about. It was more about guidelines and I found the guidelines he was proposing to be intuitive tools to help develop sensible stuff. The characteristics they defined for a good LO were:
1. Discoverable
2. Interoperable
3. Contextable
4. Editable
5. Reusable

It was ian's opinion that people would interpret these guidelines in a variety of ways. Then he would evaluate how the guidelines have been applied. I must admit, I am getting over standards and guidelines...not that we shouldn't have them, but there are so many!

I then went to a very inspirational session on Open Source. I went partly because I had met the presenter, Marty Cielens on my visit to Douglas Mawson Institute. And he was fun! So I went to his session, on my beloved open source. The key thing I remembered was his comment that in using open source, he was able to have a domain and a content management system online in one hour for only $70, using open source. Yeh! He reminded me to get into great free tools, which are usually much more flexible than their fee-paying, licensed couterparts. Here are some:
Moodle - a free course management system (developed by an Aussie!!)
Hot Potatoes - a free quiz/crossword/question creator, and these exercises can be sent out over the web
Arachnophilia - free HTML web page maker...kinda like Frontpage. Has its own built in FTP!
Open Office - free office software, with things that are like Word, Excel and Powerpoint. A little bit of Access too.
Audacity - free sound editor
Task Tracker - like a project manager, and it even plugs into MS Project.

I've got to dive into the open source world more...

So that's most of the stuff I saw, and again its the end of the day and I have to go before I fall asleep...

2003-11-05T17:47:00.000+11:00

Networking 2003 - Flexible Learning conference, Leura Blue Mountains, October 22 - 24 2003

Two of our team were lucky enough to be able to get to Networking 2003. Fromt he link, you willbe able to access presentations given at the conference, but to date they have not appeared...

You can also check out my comments on the Australian Flexible Learning Community by checking out my discussion thread (see my name, Kylie Rowsell as the thread author).

Anyhow, here is my Networking Diary...

On the first day, all 650 conference participants went to the same sessions. A big hall with a speaker out the front. It was hard to relly meet people or have discussions on what was said. Through the opening address (Jim Davidson, Chair of FLAG) and the second speaker (Dr Evan Arthur) I did actually fall asleep. I was trying to be good, but it was a bit boring. Though I did enjoy the end of Dr Arthur's presentation, but I will be darned if I can remember why...once his presentation is loaded to the Networking site I will elaborate.

Lunch and morning teas were strange, as there was a tiny foyer space for everyone to jockey for tea cups and fresh coffee. Lunch was presented in cardboard lunchboxes, like a big airline meal.

After lunch the very entertainnig George Lewin (founder Triton manufacturing. He was an engaging speaker, and I suppose he was invited in order to show us all how to persist in what we believe and not to let the 'big boys' stop us. George had had many knock back from 'proper' manufacuters before going out on his own and then proving them all wrong - his vision was key. As well as his caddish charm...

IN the afternoon, I had a look at some of the New Practices projects case studies. First I checked out "Framework for Rights Enabled Learning Object Exchange Trial". This session was interesting in light of my work in looking at Learning Objects (LOs), both in terms of useability and a job I am working on for the Learning Federation. This project looks at:
- digital rights management (DRM), which is about both the user and the cretor understanding their rights
- creating a 'rights offer template" which will help all creators of LOs to make their DRM easier
- developing a Learning Object Xchange, which will give teachers LOs they can use without fear of IP/copyright hassles. Nice...

The AVEC Esprit project looked at the bahviours and emotions of young people to increase the partnership between teachers and young learners. Merv Edmunds has a great project here! Its a bit hard to explain, so check out the link, but it is about awareness, emotional management, creativity and visualisation.

Visualisation: What would I look like if I was successful at this task? This kind of query helps young people vision what can happen then work to making it happen.
Creativity gives a feeling of power. Creativity does nt have to be 'real' or have a 'point'. The kids are made to ask themselves "how can I think about this in a different way?"
Emotional management. When young people become frustrated and angry (in training, or any setting) their emotional temperature rises and blocks the clear thinking in the brain. Factors in this are: brain patterns, physiology (stance, breathing, posture - educating people to be aware of this and change this and they can not maintain the negative emotions) and language (what they say and how we interpret it).

The project was about the relationship and needs of both teacher and students, neither of which are met when there is agression or misunderstanding between the two. It was quite inspiring and the students were given very creative projects to help them think differently. They were also asked to re-develop teachers paper-based notes into online format. What a situation of trust and belief!

XML Tool suite project, for peer-to-peer collaborative learning environments was pretty fun. It was pretty much a look at how Grooove can be used to manage and collaborate a class. They also created some pretty cool role pays within that software, which is probably a newish way of using it.

Next was a woman from the ABC who is doing a project to prepare organisations involved with online community activities to deal with issues like privacy, safety, defamation and so on. Basically, they had reserache dthese areas and then developed an online course for moderators of online communities. This was brought on by the fact that the ABC run tens of online discusisons and communities and have to ensure everyone is safe and protected. The ABC had found a lack of trained staff, as well as a lack of information on the role itself. So the course they are developing comes from the Film and Multimedia Training Package, the unit of competency called Prepare and participate in an electronic media activity. Great stuff, innovative and I would love to see the course sometime. One interesting sideline is that they cannot give real life examples of online threats from cyberstalkers, or innappropriate posts, within the course. This is so they don't offend anyone...but not very 'real life' for the learners...

Well, its time for me to go home, so I will type up more another day...

2003-11-05T16:27:00.000+11:00

Team visit to Belmont Campus 25th September: Part Two - Childrens Services

Children’s Services has always been involved with Flexible delivery, working in the past with OTEN. It was still print based, however, and the students would come onto campus on a Saturday. They have moved towards ‘mixed-mode’, and the ESD created 15 modules and loaded them into a Janison platform. In addition, TAFE SA had developed a Children’s Services Toolbox, which Belmont Children’s Services have laoded into the same Janison platform, as an additional resource for their students. So these are the tools used by the staff to date to deliver the core courses in a flexible way.

The staff team have a Reframing the Future project looking at the systems and structures to allow the professional development and the section capability to come together, in order to meet the demands of clients in the area of flexible delivery. This includes things such as a tracking system to be able monitor the learning of all students no matter where they are in the course.

Ourimbah campus currently has 9 groups going through the online learningware, and Belmont campus has 2 groups progressing in this way. Students are given time-frames as to when they should finish certain modules, but they can choose to move faster if they like, or indeed slower.

The staff use eResources, where resources, such as course handbooks are uploaded. The team are encouraging students to take more responsibility for their learning. However, it has been noted that this may not be totally equitable as access to a printer may be non-existent for some learners.

A most interesting development in the delivery of this course is the introduction of a two week period where teachers facilitate a process of looking at each learners needs. This may include recognition, previous experience and current work experience and is a process of customising a course to the needs of the learner. From this will be individual pathways for students. In the past the staff have taken on individual pathway students, but each staff member had developed their own systems to manage and track the progress of these students, who were each attached to a teacher for the duration of their enrolment. These systems were accountable, but not particularly shareable with other staff.

There will still be full-time face-to-face options as many learners come direct from school and need that contact to develop their confidence. But for the flexible stream of students, there will be options on whether they would like to attend night or Saturday classes. There would be compulsory workshops, and it would be up to the students to book in to the workshop that best suits their timetable.

The full-time students still have the opportunity to use the online resources, but for them it is like another book, another tool. They do not do the assessments etc online.

An interesting piece of feedback Sonia had received from one Saturday student, who was exposed to the online resources. She has a young child and having paper is just a nightmare. The inference was that her child will mess up her papers, and attempt to draw on them etc. With the online resources, it allows her to work without having her child ruin her work. This method suits not only her learning style but also her lifestyle.

However, there is another Mum, who is more of a mature aged Mum who finds more safety in the paper based packages. She does not trust the computer, and if it crashes she does not know where to find it. However if she has a bad day with the paper based learning, she knows she can return to page 23 the next day and get on with her course. This could also reflect the computer literacy and techy confidence of this particular student.

All this student feedback helps the section improve their course over time.

The team is looking at different models of course management. One manager following one course all the way through, or perhaps different specialist taking particular modules. However it is found that a student needs consistency, so perhaps a model of following a student all the way through is the way to go. Especially when looking at different RPL considerations and work requirements.

There are limitations, especially in so far as spaces. Children’s Services is housed in a former primary school that was closed down as it was not suitable for young children to be in. There are no computers, and currently students use the office computers. It is difficult to envision any capital works to improve the building at this stage. Until a couple of years ago there were only two computers for many, many staff. The flexibility of booking computer rooms on elsewhere no the campus is not easy, as labs are usually fully booked all year.

The team were savvy in to getting into various loops with other areas in the Institute. And in particular the resource that is Steve Waye helped them as well. He was always sharing with the team any discoveries he had made.

“We always had an understanding that we wanted to do better things for our students and provide more options”

2003-11-05T16:26:00.000+11:00

Team visit to Belmont Campus 25th September: Part One - Electrotechnology

Yet another team visit, all piling into the car and visiting one of Hunter Institute’s campuses. I think that is another good thing about this project is that we are able to travel to the other campuses, giving us more of an appreciation of what is going on ‘out there’.

This visit was to Belmont campus to see Steve Way (Electro technology) and Sonia Liddiard (Children’s Services), both of whom use approaches a little different to the usual ‘chalk and talk’…

Traditionally, these courses are delivered to apprentices from the electrical industry in face-to-face mode, one day a week fro three years. In addition, they may have to help those electricians who have been in the industry get their electrician’s license.

Early on, the electrical section had realised the failing in module based delivery, or ‘monkey see, monkey do’ style of delivery. Students soon worked out the minimal work required to pass each module, so the learning done was not up to scratch. Or as Steve put it, they had “been trained but they hadn’t been educated”.

About five years ago, a need was identified to crate individual streams of expertise, where students could create a pathway that allowed them to specialise exactly how they needed to. In the past, students had been put into one of two streams to become specialists. This was the catalyst for a move towards a more flexible delivery. To date, the online/screen based stuff is mainly catering to the core requirements of qualification. Steve says it has been hard to get all the written content online, as the move to authoring online (via HTML, Flash or within Janison) is quite a big leap for teachers, and possible more so for the electrotech staff who are in the older computer users age group.

To convince staff within the section that it was possible to have their courses online, was Steve had to be most tenacious in getting funding and lobbying where he could. Stage one was obtaining $50K for converting the old staff office into the computer based training room (which you can see pictures of here). Stage two was obtaining $250K from various sources for development and major works – a redesign of the whole section’s spaces. Steve believes that his section is ‘leading the charge’ for the state in electrotechnology going flexible. Part of the funding was used to fund a server for Belmont, which is available to other sections at the campus if they would like to use it. The server is available only on the campus, rather than internet stuff.

The power of animations have been used to demonstrate processes and concepts to students, such as how a two way switch works. Previously, Steve said it would have taken students two weeks to understand the concept, now it takes two seconds. Now with the animations, the learning is almost immediate, or defintitely much quicker! This makes the learning more real to the students.

The Learning Support Centre is where the students do their practical jobs, which are linked to the theory components delivered online. These practical exercises are set, and in line with industry demands. There is some leeway in the jobs they are given, in that the student is given a job and must work out themselves how to achieve the results required. It’s also worth noting that this centre can be used as a normal classroom, as some courses may require ‘normal’ lock-step, face-to-face classes. The space is flexible, with a dividing wall that can be opened, so you can have one big room or two smaller rooms. The space is fully cabled for both PC use and electrical equipment use. However, not all the ‘wish list’ of the Electro tech project was delivered, as the building budget went over, eating into the equipment budget.

Its an overall approach is blended learning, as the theory is delivered online and students can come in and do their practical components in a flexibly timetabled space, or on the job. There is a portfolio arrangement where students can take photos of their work to prove they are able to do each competency, as well as using workplace assessors.

If students go over the theory work in their own time, remote from the campus, it enables them to spend more of their on campus time doing their practical learning. There are also workbooks which work alongside the online components and on the job tasks.

One of the tools the staff use to communicate with industry is a profiling system. This helps dispel the mindset of industry that apprentices learn everything about their trade at TAFE, when in reality 90% of the learning occurs on the job. The profiles are a log of the work that students are doing in the workplace, helping tick off different additional competencies. It is better than a log book, as it generates its own reports, and no staff need read onerous log books. This is an internet based too, which helps record what they are doing on the job over the 4 years of their apprenticeships. This system produces reports and graphs so you can monitor that a student is doing the full range of tasks on the job, rather than being relegated to a single facet of the work. Steve works with the Janison company on developing this tool. And the students love it! In general, the students are male youths and they are OK with their computer literacy.

The journey started as basic webpages on a local server, to now having all the material loaded into the Janison platform, available outside the Institute (on the internet) and using Questionmark perception (a piece of software that creates and administrates quizzes). The dream is for the Janison platform to ‘talk’ to Questionmark. At the moment staff have to do a fair bit of recording to be able to closely monitor student progress, to keep track of the Questionmark results and student progress. Too much keeping of excel spreadsheets, which is additional work for all. They want a LMS that manages all aspects of the learners progress, not just delivery of content. The fight continues!

The intention is that there are short video demos of simple processes. However, early in the project, the team was ‘burnt’ with the purchase of a video system that Steve described as a ‘dud’. To date, no videos have been produced despite the purchase of some good cameras and other equipment. Money is now a problem. We had suggested to Steve about industry sponsorship, however he indicated the industry is not responsive to this. Currently they have 5 modules online, however there are holes in that, including where they would love to do demo videos.

Steve has taught himself the technologies he now uses, and he had “never used the internet five years ago”. ITALIC funded two years of release for Steve and another staff member to develop the course. There is plenty of content developed, however the issue is getting that content online and developed.

In an interesting development, night students can fill in a form to pay their enrolment fee by credit card, without having to attend the ‘usual’ enrolments in the set times, which are usually during the day. And again, we heard that CLAMS was not the most responsive system when it comes to flexible delivery. The dream is that Janison, Questionmark and CLAMs can all be linked. As Steve put it, “That is the utopia…”

There is now a Head Teacher of Blended Learning being employed in the section. This has been created to allow the course to be developed further, and has the support of the Institute Board who recognised the amazing work going on in the Belmont electrotech section. However, this is a temporary position, but the idea is seeded and will hopefully grow.

Steve’s rallying call “If you yell loud enough, long enough, they’ll start to listen!”

2003-10-17T12:54:00.000+10:00

VIV's THOUGHTS ON MEETING AND PROJECT
Hi Kylie, Joe and Lee
Here I go on my first post. Summarising(in my usual lenghthy way) what I'm thinking might help me as I'm still overwhelmed re the magnitude of what we intend, but also I'm mindful of Kylie saying just go along for the ride with the process as we need to with learnscope. Its hard for me to not jump straight away to things like, when do we notify teachers given their severe time restraints at that time of year etc etc etc. Like I said at our meeting this week this is such a big learning curve for me!

And you had a good focus question Joe, in getting us to think about what we each individually want to achieve from this project. For me - Firstly being energised by being around really arty creative people again and away from task oriented-problem solving thoughts, and secondly getting to learn to use some amazing tools that will really impact on my learning, and last but definitely NOT
least looking at ways to help our students by looking at their needs first!

I'm really excited about trying to make a video and a media rich website to capture the ways our amazing teachers are already trying to attend in innovative ways to student learning need. From my experience with teachers they are eager to do this but are at times impeded by the 'system'. Seeing these creative teachers find new ways to use the same resources and use the system to create richer student focused learning is an inspiration to me. So guys I am really glad to be doing this and am looking forward to our next visit to Glendale next week.

Thinking on Joe's report about the workshop, I got so much from talking to the other people attending the workshop. We had only 4 TAFEies on our table and the other 4 were private enterprise so to get an idea of what they can achieve within very strict budgets was mind boggling. Some other projects going were online learning packages for students with cerebral palsy and other disability-Spastic centre; OH&S&W online learning for Horse racing industry trainees/apprentices-Racing Board. The Marie Jasinsky stuff that was really useful to me was 'Knowing the NO's and Why'-identifying gatekeepers and what role to take with them. I really liked some of her descriptive language in her handout describing characters in the stakeholder roles. One that stands out for me is a 'vociferous laggard'-
I run into so many of these in my field!Ways to approach characters is really handy. I had heard alot of similar stuff before but it was nice to be reminded. The most important thing for me is even just giving people awareness that things can be done differently is huge and that is what we will do with this project-just for us and hopefully for others thru the goodies we may create.

2003-10-13T13:46:00.000+10:00

Great reports Joe! I would like to add that the Music Dept spaces are freaking amazing! What appear to me to be professional quality studios, vocal booth, video/sound stage thingy and more. It had that amazing 'new studio' smell. As a muso, I want to get wet in the studio pond they have there. Have already enquired about students doing assignments with local musicians as their 'client'.

2003-09-25T15:33:00.000+10:00

INSPIRED MINDS WORKSHOP by Marie Jasinsky

On Friday 12 September, Viv and myself (Joe) attended a workshop run by Marie Jasinski, who is on our sister Learnscope Project at the Douglas Mawson Institute. Viv and I drove down to Sydney together on the Friday morning for the daylong workshop.

Many of the people at the workshop were from various institutes around TAFE NSW, with a dominant amount from Hunter Institute.

The day began with an interesting group activity where ideas were discussed between 2 people, these ideas were then collaborated into a group of 4 people and then finally into a group of 8.

What I got from this exercise was a demonstration of how the group dynamics of people can work towards a positive outcome. Ideas were developed and re-worded based on the evolving group dynamics.

Flexibility played a key role in a successful team environment for this exercise as, most of the time, people’s goals were the same, it was just a matter of ensuring that as the group grew, people’s different word structures and definitions could be accommodated into an accepted whole.

After the group exercise, Marie presented a lecture on ‘innovation’. The lecture examined steps towards successful innovation within structured organisations.

Viv and I meet a range of people who are doing innovative things in their respective faculties throughout NSW.

People from all facets of learning are adopting flexible learning strategies. Some of the interesting areas I was fortunate enough to discuss include engaging in video as a learning tool for illiterate students, the development of on-line learning for mechanics, and the use of DVD for multiple language learning possibilities.

Viv and I will probably spend quite a bit of time discussing elements of this trip at our next debrief session.

2003-09-25T09:27:00.000+10:00

TEAM FIELD VISIT TO MUSIC DEPARTMENT AT NEWCASTLE CAMPUS
MONDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2003

Kylie, Leigh, Viv and Joe attended the Music Department of the Hunter Institute at the Newcastle Campus on 22 September 2003 to interview the head teacher, Jane Groeneveld, and full time staff member Christina Sykiotis, in order to discover ways in which the department have adopted learning strategies that are moving towards learners designing their own learning.

OVERVIEW OF MUSIC DEPARTMENT
The Music Department currently has 350 enrolled students. Apart from Jane Groeneveld, the head teacher, and Christina Sykiotis, the only full-time teacher, the department has an additional 25 part time teachers and one technical assistant. The department does not have a clerical assistant.

The department is based at the Newcastle campus and has recently been refurbished with state of the art equipment as well as various rooms and studios designed specifically for the Music Department.

NEWCASTLE MUSIC EXPO - 2002
In 2002, the Music Department students organised a one day music expo where industry practitioners both locally and nationally were invited to provide a series of guest lectures and workshops.

The expo also incorporated local music industry businesses such as Lathams, allowing students to gain access to various staff and resources that they may be dealing with in their musical careers.

The third key function of the expo was to encourage schools to attend. According to Jane, this was successful as there has been an increase in the amount of out of school students interested in the Music Department at Hunter Institute.

NEWCASTLE MUSIC WEEK - 2003
This year, the Music Department have expanded their involvement in Newcastle music industry by solidifying a relationship with the ABC Music Awards as well as running Newcastle Music Week from 26 October to 31 October.

The aspects of last years one day expo have been expanded upon and many new additions have been included including the various musical theme nights which will run throughout the week. Each night will provide a different musical theme and flavour including, world music, jazz, and punk.

Guest speakers range from local industry professionals to internationally recognised artists and professionals including the drummer from Midnight Oil, Katie Underwood, and sound engineer Roger Sommers.

Jane and Christina advised that the students are organising the whole event, including the selection of speakers, venue bookings, and all production management issues.

Music Week will be based in the cultural precinct of Newcastle, with most events happening at City Hall and Wheeler Place.

Based on Jane and Christine’s comments, the organisational aspects of putting together a week long music festival in Newcastle seems to have opened up a whole range of learning possibilities for students. For example, some students are now putting together multi-media packages together for the various bands and musicians playing at the festival.

The students are also making valuable industry contacts as a result of organising the festival.

By placing a sense of trust in the students and giving them a sense of empowerment through organising the festival, students have willingly taken on new learning techniques despite financial adversities, for example, students wanted to attend the Australasian Music Business Conference in Sydney however, tickets were $450.00. Subsequently, the students organised a series of music workshops in schools as a fundraiser. As a result of these circumstances, the students have structured their learning curves by making the decision to go to a conference and by becoming ‘teachers’ themselves, passing on their knowledge to school students.

Students also did grant applications themselves and as a result they received financial assistant from Newcastle City Council, Art Start, and have also received in kind promotional support from NBN Television, BMG, U-Turn, EMI, and Drum Media.

The proposals were put together by the students and then checked by staff before going out into the community. Again, this learning technique provides students with a greater sense of empowerment as well as a more personal sense of accomplishment in the learning process.

COMMERCIAL WING
Jane expressed an interest towards developing a commercial arm to the Music Department both on-line and face to face.

In terms of on-line, the department are looking into the development of courses which do not require face to face hands on instruction such as knowledge of copyright issues. Jane believes there is a potentially strong market in Asia for on-line copyright law subjects as they have similar copyrights laws to Australia.

In terms of face to face, Jane is interested in extending the Music Department hours to accommodate a commercial arm that will inject more money into the department.

With 350 students enrolled in the department and a growing number of people interested in doing to the courses available in the department, the facilities would need to operate outside standard business hours to accommodate the commercial courses.

There are restrictions to this proposal at the moment, primarily, a limitation on granted hours to the TA’s as well as an uncertain policy structure towards commercial courses within the TAFE system. A risk management assessment would also need to be incorporated into the development stages of this proposal.

BLENDED LEARNING
Jane is in the very early stages of trying to develop a learning structure which is a learning system that allows students to browse through all the available subjects and choose which ones will suit their individual needs.

This structure would be available to both enrolled students and commercial students.

The department is also looking into the adoption of blendered learning, mixing on-line subjects with face to face learning.

Jane acknowledges that not all aspects of the Music Departments subjects can be taught on-line due to the hand-on requirements of expensive equipment which is based in the department.

TOUR OF THE PREMISES
The meeting ended with a brief tour of the Music Department facilities. In this brief tour, students and teachers were engaged in a range of music industry practices including studio recordings, engineering, and music video production.

2003-09-22T09:52:00.000+10:00

And of course, there are photos from our Hamilton visit, here!

2003-09-18T14:10:00.000+10:00

I had some notes on this visit, I would like to add (Kylie here...) in regards to our focus questions.

What are the barriers to these innovative delivery methods?
- CLAMS (the student management system used in TAFE) does not always suit the new syllabus (this seems to be a common complaint for those doing 'different' deliveries)
- teachers who have been on staff for some time need to change mindset from 'chalk and talk' which is quite a challenge, but not at all impossible for them.
- totally free use of computers; there must be a staff member present at all times in the Flexible Delivery Centre; limits to out-of-hours access.

What input can students have to the method of delivery/course?
- student feedback survey on course completion
- students can use any product they like to demonstrate some learning outcomes; they make their order and convey it to the ordering section of the Faculty (again, achieving some learning outcomes) who then have the ingredients in the classroom at the next lesson.
- those who have been baking for some time, but have not had training to date, get interviews which help them work out what they need/want in order to become accredited; their customised course is then in place

What scope is there for students to be involved with curriculum design?
- very little as 'bread is bread'. That is, there is not a lot of variation in the industry, so perhaps not much scope.

Also, Gary mentioned that to date, the students (who are typically males in their mid-late teens) love the course. They get to use the computers, get out of the classroom (when visiting local bakers and doing their assignments)...

The savings from decreased face to face delivery have been used in resource management (development and re-evaluation) and learning support (eg teacher who is available to students for help with assignments and learning literacy).

And very inspiring stuff - Gary is an energetic teacher who seems to really care about his students' success!

2003-09-18T13:37:00.000+10:00

ON 16/9/03 Leigh (project officer ITALIC), Viv (Newcastle counsellor) Joe (Hunter St - Film studies teacher) and Kylie (project officer ITALIC) conducted our first visit within the Institute. The intention is that we capture what is already going on in the INstitute as far as learner centred course delivery. We don't expect to find a lot of incidents of learners designing their own curriculum. But we feel that those who are using very student focussed methods of course design and delivery are already down the path. It is felt (well, Jock, our project facilitator postulated this thought) that it is still a couple of years away when co-design of courses is an accepted and implemented concept.

Our first visit was to Hamilton campus to visit Gary Sewell (Head TEacher - Bakery) and Peter Enderby (Tourism and Hospitality teacher who develops much of the material delivered online by this section). Leigh used the voice recorder we have access to, and created this report...

Field Visit: Gary Sewell – Head Teacher of Baking at the Tourism and Hospitality Faculty.
Gary and the Baking teachers have been implementing radical changes to the Baking course over the past year. Gary talked our group through the types of changes that have been implemented.

Rationalization
The course has been drastically rationalized. Looking closely at syllabus learning outcomes, the course modules have been combined to make the course more effective and efficient.
The course has been reduced in time from 2 years down to 1 and enrolments have increased by 20-30%. Face to face teaching has also been reduced but the nominated hours to finance remains the same. The face-to-face savings have been redirected towards developing learning materials, online course materials, or sending teachers out to the students who are conducting blended and flexible learning. Module pass rates for students have increased to 93%.

Alignment with Industry
Right from the start the faculty has adopted a highly transparent and consultative approach to industry with regard to the changes being made. Mistakes and successes are published alongside each other equally.
The course has been more closely aligned with industry and the types of experiences that students are getting in the apprenticeships. Where as before TAFE did not recognize prior learning in this fashion, TAFE became a bit of an irrelevant requirement to the students, the current course now recognizes past learning and experiences.
IN the beginning industry became alarmed by the timeframe and module combination changes. They thought the new course would deskill their workers. But the course started sending learning packages back with the students for them to do in the workplace. This has shown industry that quality learning is taking place. The course is also sending out a newsletter once a month to enlighten industry about what TAFE and the course is up to.
A major industry partnership has been established with Bakers Delight through an MOU with all TAFE training being delivered to the specific needs of Bakers Delight. Students from the Bakers Delight chains come to TAFE every fortnight instead of every week. Students continue study in the workplace. Gary recognizes that this partnership does propose a problem to the integrity of the over all course, as non Bakers Delight students do not participate in the customized course.

Business Simulation
The dominant factor behind the new course is a baking business simulation. The students have to run ordering, profit and loss, customer feedbacks etc. This simulation covers all the learning outcomes and these outcomes are assessed holistically. Students also conduct theory subjects by going out into the local industry and surveying health and safety procedures, figure out recipes for products, develop standard operating procedures etc. This has resulted in a far more engaged student group who are more enthusiastic with their previously boring theory subjects.

International Students
International students have started coming into the Bakers course taking up residency and work-based training in local industry. Local industry has been very supportive of this as they see the initiative as an opportunity to gain free labor.

Field Visit: Peter Enderby to look at the online development work he has done
Peter accepted us down in the Hospitality and Tourism computer lab to show us the work he has been doing for the Faculty's online developments. In particular he showed us work done for Bakery and Commercial Meat prep.

Peter has done an enormous amount of work getting content online and into stand alone medium such as CD. The division is seeing commercial value to the products as industry expresses interest in purchasing CD. Peter’s motto these days is to keep it simple.

Peter commented about on the types of problems he is having with his development work, identifying video as a key one. He has spent a lot of time looking into video compression technology. He has found that too many students do not have the required player to see many of the videos he has produced, so he has decided to use the Flash player to publish video. He sees this player as generic enough so that students will not be expected to download more than just this player.

2003-08-18T15:35:00.000+10:00

I was sent some photos by Marie Jasinsky of me on my visit. To share them, I uploaded them to the Yahoo! Photos facility, which lets anyone upload photos to the web so everyone can see them. You must first register as a member, but then it is very easy, user friendly stuff.

Go to my Yahoo photos site and click on my Work album (there are no photos in the other albums, so don't worry about checking for photos of my pets...)

2003-08-18T13:12:00.000+10:00

Thanks Kylie for the very comprehensive update on your visit to Adelaide.
Certainly raises some areas for research and reflection for our team... perhaps we can break down some of this at our next meeting and take it from there?
I have had some ideas around re focussing our project further and yet trying to allow the capture and progression of ideas "outside" the core project pathway... will elucidate soon.
Jock

2003-08-15T11:16:00.000+10:00

Adelaide Ports CReating a Storm team-exchange

Report Chapters
I don't expect they will be read in their entirety, so I am including a menu so you can pick bits to read.

MIND Media - about their unit
Torrens Valley Institute: Peta Pash - new media incubator
Torrens Valley Institute: Rob Denton and his Key Competencies - employability skills model
Douglas Mawson Institute: Pene Davey - innovative management
Mardi Dwyer, FLL and her Hospitality Teens - the needs of 15 - 19 year olds
Robin Jay, FLL, and eee-literacy - best practice in ACE
Michael Coghlan, FLL, loves Voice Online - new tools made easy
Marc Prensky Takes On! - the digital game-based learning guru!
Ports Creating a Storm – Adelaide Style! - overview of the Douglas Mawson team's project
Day Three – immersion in incubation - learning model: incubation

Interesting Links
This is a 'low-fi' presentation of my trip, so you don't have to read stuff.

Port-ability the incubation project, which is part of the New Practices fund
Peta Pash profile
Marc Prensky's homepage: game based learning
Info on Virtual High Schools
Michael Coughlan Flexible Laerning Leader (FLL) in Voice Online
Silicon Chalk new product from developer of WebCT
Robyn Jay FLL in online literacy best practice
Digital Storytelling, BBC Wales
Hyperaction doing cool stuff with digital storytelling
Frances Bunji Elcoate doing media rich literacy stuff
Mardi Dwyer FLL looking at 15 - 19 year olds
WestONE the WA VET mob
Kate Fannon former FLL
Marlene Manto heads up Learnscope SA.
Marie Jasinsky's web site.

2003-08-14T13:35:00.000+10:00

Day Three – immersion in incubation

This morning I was able to join Mardi and Marie at the work studio that had recently been formed as part of their New Practices project (Port - Ability: Integrated Learning Options, Skilling people, growing business, building community) won from Flexible Learning Framework. The students in this project are retail and tourism students who have previously been in the practice firm at the DMIT Port Douglas campus. Now they are in an office located in a business incubator, and their set up is known as the work studio. The students are in a supported environment, dealing with real clients. One of their jobs is to promote Adelaide as a favoured study destination, and they are working with two other businesses within the incubator. These businesses have training as a core business.

In addition, the work studio will offer IT help to the other businesses in the incubator. This side is taken on by some IT students.

The students are supported in several ways.
· The manager of the incubator is there to guide them and advise
· A TAFE teacher who delivers theory to them, as part of their Certificate IV courses
· By project team members, who have their roles clearly spelt out

I was able to sit in on the project team meeting, which focussed on the processes of the project, and as such, did not involve the students. My notes follow:
· there is not a lot of big industry in SA, so small business really drives the economy of the state.

· Many young people go interstate to find opportunity. Pauline de Vries said that most families she knew of would have at least one child who had chosen to go interstate to find opportunity

· This New Practices project is very big, and has many layers to manage: ANTA, students, staff, the incubator, AQTF…

· Teachers who resist this kind of environment feel stress as they would be taken out of their secure environment, and have to deal with different/new and possibly more, stakeholders.

· There is also a fair amount of pressure on the students due to the different environment, off-campus. The projects put them under pressure to perform and make the deliverables as promised to the funding body.

· It would be easy to get lost or influenced by one stakeholder or another. Therefore there is an increased importance in having a clear vision and really sticking with goals and objectives.

· It is important to give the students space to explore and make discoveries. If they are lead by the hand to make a ‘perfect’ business model, they may not learn the realities of a real business experience. It’s a fine line to walk, so that the students still feel supported, but are not stifled in making their own journey. In experiencing these realities, the students will become better employees and insightful business developers.

· To ensure the lines are drawn correctly, the team acknowledged they needed to document their exact roles, as the students were becoming confused as to who did what in the Project team. It was decided to ask students to create some protocols for the project team, based on how they would like to be supported. It is so important to have the students co-design their environment, protocols and resources.

· Lynn is the business manager of the incubator (there are probably 30 businesses in the incubator) and provides support and mentoring to the tenants. IN the case of the DMIT project, Lynn ensures that the plans and objectives are validated and tight.

· It was noted that competencies compete with the needs/wants of the business – the students are doing Certificate IV level in either Retail Management or Tourism. The challenge was to maintain focus on the core business.

· It is important to ensure the students are a good, cohesive team before bringing in ‘extra’ factors eg MYOB accounting system, which the students would have to learn.

· It’s a great pathway for students, practise firm through to work studio. An interim step might be to have the business simulation/work studio idea run on campus with full support before sending them out there.

· The meeting turned to the topic of getting local businesses on board. Many say they would love to be involved in such schemes but can’t find the time. Pauline sells it all on the basis that SA needs to develop wealth and hold onto its young people, to ensure the sustainability of their business. Wealth needs to be created locally (eg via young business, entrepreneurs, mentoring) to ensure the longevity of the very businesses who can’t find time to support such schemes. Pauline says (not exact quote) “Who will buy their products if they can’t afford them?” Implying there will be a gap in wealth if we don’t start supporting our young businesses and business people.

· Like many, Douglas Mawson Institute is struggling. The Project team felt that in order for the campus to survive, and indeed thrive, it really needs to look at doing more and more learning in this way.

· In innovative project teams, the talk almost always turns to the issue of support and response form management or peers. We must keep plugging away, being a voice to remind people that these projects are wonderful, successful and definitely worth jumping into. We never have time, you just have to dive in! Staff need to share the philosophy of well rounded, student development. In the long run, these projects can actually ease the pressure on our time.

2003-08-14T13:33:00.000+10:00

Ports Creating a Storm – Adelaide Style!
IN the afternoon, the Learnscope team from Douglas Mawson had a meeting, to which myself, Mardi and Robyn were invited. I was invited to join the brainstorm, as our Ports Creating A storm project runs in parallel with the one at DMIT – it’s a sharing relationship. Mardi and Robyn were great to have in the meeting so that we could get even more ideas from wider areas of expertise.

I began the meeting with a talk about my visit to Loganlea, as well as trying to give a picture of where we were with our end of the project. At this, I sucked. It was hard to enunciate what we were going to actually do. Though I did manage to get across that our project was looking at cognitive tools that could be delivered on screen, for a learner to design their own learning path.

From there, the DMIT team began to nut out their strategy to be able to involved learners in more formally designing curriculum.
- They will have students involved in the questioning from the beginning of the project. Ask what student expects from the course – what are their expected outcomes? The information thus gathered would become the assessment criteria for their course, over which they feel a stronger ownership.

- Survey what kind of skills already exists in the lives of the student: home life, work, personal…

- The survey would need to be done by students already in a course. Those not yet in a course would have difficulty approaching their futures. So surveying them with questions like “What do you want from the course?” is too intimidating.

- When selecting groups to work with, it is best to use groups that are already cohesive – this will better suit our project, which is not time-rich.

- One model is to interview, individually, several times over the course, and with the same interviewer. This encourages the student to be frank, when they are more familiar with the interviewer.

- Enticement could be via payment in CD vouchers or similar.

- It is important that the students understand the larger purpose behind the survey. That is, they know what the Ports project is about.

- Ensure questions are open, and the team was going to use Mardi’s questionnaire as a basis.

- The team decided that their aim was to ‘improve methodology of interviewing/working with students to co-design their learning.

- Set the agreements of the survey beforehand. Eg students can write and spell how they like; this help get real answers.

- There could be a variety of open questions delivered in different ways:
· Survey
· Conversation
· “draw your school” type exercises
· small discussion/peer groups
· one-on-one
· foody treats help pave the way, too!

2003-08-14T13:32:00.000+10:00

Marc Prensky Takes On!
For one hour, we had a teleconference with Marc Prensky, who is an expert in digital games based learning. The format was a question/answer session, so we had prepared some questions beforehand. I have not written down the questions, but rather some key concepts that I took from the discussions.

· Marc was asked how relevant this stuff is right now, or whether he expects learners to become gamers over time, as the Digital Natives become the norm. He sees his work as research and development that is five years ahead of what is actually happening.

· For game based learning to be successful, the educational games need to have the same level of intensity and engagement as ‘normal’ games.

· The gamers of today have a great model for learning. They play the game collaboratively, often getting together face-to-face, or in online communities, to reflect on their success and the tactics used by other gamers. From this reflection, they improve their gaming and try to apply that to the next game. All this happens almost automatically, and within their own tribe.

· Tribes are collaborative learner (gamer) created groups. See any kind of online community (forums, email groups, newsgroups etc) and you will find this kind of interaction. They are individuals, but with a community to support them.

· Computers can’t (yet) replace the empathy of a good teacher.

· Marc is a member of a group called Digital Multiplyers, which is a non-profit organization who explore ways to close the digital divide. Marc talked about the cheapness of mobile phone technology, and how, realistically, these circuits can be printed on cardboard and housed in really cheap plastic and dropped out of planes. He sees the mobile phone as the best chance, at this stage, to close the digital divide due to their cheapness.

· Closing that digital divide means looking carefully at learners’ goals and creating tools that work in their world. Then we can bring in the learning we want them to have through that kind of introduction.

· Looking at how young learners communicate with each other can help us seed these ideas and start to introduce e-life to them. For example, are ‘our’ learners using instant messenger, or SMS or do they hang out and watch TV with their friends? That can help us create the tools that work in their world.

· The use of a single point to distribute to many, again with mobile phones, was another of Marc’s ideas. His example was of an Indian village, where only one woman had a mobile phone. No one else could afford a mobile phone, but many could manage to afford the cost of a call. So one phone in a village gave a point of access to many villagers. This concept is probably similar to having public access computers in libraries…but cooler!

· There are virtual high schools in the USA

2003-08-14T13:31:00.000+10:00

Michael Coghlan, FLL, loves Voice Online
The FLL from Douglas Mawson Institute for 2003 is Michael Coghlan who is looking at the use of voice online. Michael’s vision is that using more voice online will enrich flexible delivery and should be relatively free and easy to use. He pointed to several free online tools that are immediately available, particularly from one of his ‘sponsors’ The Learning Times. He reiterated that these tools were free, instantly downloadable and very easy to use.

Michael’s presentation had been put together for another event, so he skimmed through some parts of it. One of these parts was about how radio, telephone and internet can exist in symbiosis, creating a system accessible to most. For example, learners could dial up a call centre and be ‘patched’ into a voice online event, even without the internet. Radio could also be used to widen accessibility, though I did not catch how this would be done from an online source event.

One of the creators of WebCT has moved on to develop a new tool, which is called Silicon Chalk and until I check it out, I am not sure what it is.

Michael really stirred the emotions of the group with his story of a presentation he made at another campus, which I think was regional, rather than in Adelaide. He had been asked to arrive half an hour early. When Michael arrived, the techie fellow asked what he was going to do. Michael let him know about what was in his presentation. The techie went out the door, returning a few minutes later saying that it was all systems go. At the completion of Michael’s presentation, the techie again left the room for a few minutes, and returned saying that all the systems were locked down again.

This techie had, in a few minutes, set the firewall to accept the voice online connections that Michael was going to make. At the end of the presentation, he locked those permissions down again. The point of Michael’s story was to imply that it was indeed possible to manipulate firewalls in a simple fashion without all the fuss we are used to. If we can do these things at all within our systems.

The assembled group was fascinated by this. They mentioned how they, as well as innovative colleagues, often had to work from home simply because the Institute systems would not allow them to use the technologies they were investigating/implementing.

2003-08-14T13:29:00.000+10:00

Robin Jay, FLL, and eee-literacy
Robyn Jay is looking at literacy in VET and ACE, and is very keen that the sector moves on from alphabetical literacy. Like many in VET, she feels there is more value in teaching learning literacy. Her main focus is on best practice in the ACE sector where eLearning is used.

Many online resources are very text heavy, which from the outset alienates/excludes literacy students, or any learner with low literacy. Clearly there is a market for online resources that are media rich and teach literacy skills.

In her FLL year so far, she has seen some great projects that look at media rich literacy assistance:
· BBC Wales’ Digital storytelling project
· Hyperaction, Wales
· Juvenile Justice – Project Nuff Stuff in Darwin run by Frances Bunji Elcoate

2003-08-14T13:28:00.000+10:00

Day Two: FLEXfest!
Upon arrival at the Conference Room at the Port Adelaide campus, I was treated to presentations from three Flexible Learning Leaders Robyn Jay, Mardi Dwyer and Michael Coughlan.

Mardi Dwyer, FLL and her Hospitality Teens
Mardi is looking at the needs of the 15 – 19 year olds in VET. One of the looming critical issues is that the average age of TAFE lecturers in WA is 53 years. Increasingly, youth are being brought into TAFE, which has traditionally been an adult learning environment. As such, staff are not skilled to deal with younger students, especially those who are demotivated or at-risk. In addition, TAFE WA got rid of their counsellors from the system! There is little learning support for students, and little assistance for teaching staff. Mardi needs to find out how her staff can effectively reach these students, in light of the fact they are not trained or supported in this role.

In the case of Joondalup, they have had to take in some VET in Schools students, some as young as 14. Very quickly, Mardi and her team have had to prepare to teach these students. The students are in Tourism and Hospitality and lead by one lecturer who is a chef. A literacy teacher who ‘lurks’ in the classroom, helping the students by stealth as they go about their lessons, assists him. The teaching team and Mardi have regular meetings to discuss, reflect and adjust.

Mardi has set up a good system for investigating the needs of these students and to best support her staff. She devised a simple questionnaire, asking about TV and internet habits, what they thought of school, how they like to be taught and how would they know if they are learning. One interesting result, most chose TV over internet.

The short term solution for Mardi and her team consists of:
· 15 minutes getting to know the students
· permission (from parents, due to young age of students) to discuss their progress four times during the course
· a focus group in October, to be documented on film by WestOne
· two more short questionnaires
· final focus group in December
· students are identified that could be trained to facilitate these discussions

It is also worth noting that Mardi came up with most of this within a 2 week time frame.

2003-08-14T13:23:00.000+10:00

Douglas Mawson Institute: Pene Davey
CIBO’s in North Melbourne hosted our coffee chat with Pene Davey, who is the Educational Director at Douglas Mawson. Pene described herself as someone who can make things happen, rather than being the ‘ideas’ person. She went on to offer insight into how to protect innovation, which is so regularly threatened by the systems in place. Another threat to innovation can be the individuals in upper management who have the power to stifle or shut down great projects. This can be because individuals are threatened by those things that they do not understand, or that they fear being overshadowed by something they did not create. Or something. It doesn’t make much sense in my real world!

The evening was spent at a fabbo Thai/Vietnamese eatery with ‘some of the leading lights in innovation in SA’: Ros Gill, Kate Fannon, Marty Ceilens and Marlene Manto. Mardi, Robyn Jay and myself were treated to hanging out and shooting the breeze with these great people – very inspiring.

2003-08-14T13:21:00.000+10:00

Torrens Valley Institute: Rob Denton and his Key Competencies
Then we were off to the electrotechnology section, where we met Rob Denton, a freaking dynamo. His passion lies in Key Competencies, or as we have been referring to them, Employability skills. Rob has devised a system of Validated Self Assessment for 7 key competencies:
· solving problems
· collecting, analysing and organising information
· communicating ideas and information
· working with others and in teams
· using mathematical ideas and techniques
· using technology
· planning and organising

Students are oriented to the self assessment by a media rich power point presentation. This system is supported by very simple, step by step single page worksheets. Rob did admit these sheets are text heavy, however, as a student progressed past the first one or two competencies they no longer needed to read the “fine print”. The student would become more familiar with the system and the ‘language’ of the competencies and be able to go straight to completing the assessment.

The module facilitator then validates the self-assessment, of which a student needs to complete 80% of the criteria. The system ensures that the students can articulate and sell their talents in these areas of employability skills, as a result of this self-assessment. They can articulate these implicit skills, which many employers ask for in their advertisements for positions.

The ‘classroom’ that supports this system is also very flexible. Rob has a monthly intake of students, who then study completely at their own pace. The classroom is open plan with a self-help storage system for supplies, round tables and a fair few PCs.. The timetable for the space indicates what staff will be on hand to help at which times. Students are welcome to attend any day, but they will only receive specialised help as per the timetable.

Rob is trying to get his system out to other out Institutes, as he knows of no one else who has made this much progress in Key Competencies. In order to get such a system recognised and used nationally, he simply needs to get it out there! His system may help inform ITALIC’s Learning Federation Project. I also need to find out about Mayer scale of competency, which was often referred to in my visit to Rob.

2003-08-14T13:20:00.000+10:00

Torrens Valley Institute: Peta Pash
From there we went to visit Tea Tree Gully of the Torrens Valley Institute, where we met with Peta Pash who had created a new media incubator with some highly talented Advance Diploma graduates. Blue Onion New Media consists of four graduates who work in DVD production and rent space from the college. I also got a quick look at Smartmedia, which is the Institute media production house.

One of Peta’s grand visions is for SmartExchange. We were shown a huge, empty space that had formerly been the joint TAFE/community library (an interesting concept in itself!). Peta hoped one day to house all the Institute’s innovative courses in the once place, as well as bringing in industry. Like a mini technology park.

2003-08-14T13:14:00.000+10:00

MIND Media

I was collected this morning by Marie Jasinsky (Mind Media, Port Douglas Campus, Douglas Mawson Institute). With her was Mardi Dwyer a Flexible Learning Leader from Joondalup Campus, West Coast College in WA. We drove around Port Adelaide, which is quite similar to Newcastle. There is a mix of heritage and new architecture, though I could see that this will change very, very soon as the area becomes gentrified and the real estate dollar starts shouting at the locals.

ON arrival at the campus, we had a tour of the Mind Media offices and met the staff. I heard about a platform called Kablusi, which facilitates role-plays â€“ Iâ€™ve got to check it out.

The Mind Media unit seems fairly similar to ITALIC, though it is staffed a bit differently. For instance, their core staff consists of Marie, an IT person, office manager and graphic designer. Other project staff regularly come into the area, similar to the way the part-timers interact with the core ITALIC staff. Though they have several offices and a meeting room, where ITALIC operates from one room and the team room.

2003-07-24T14:17:00.000+10:00

OK now I have checked in and I am in the departure lounge getting angry at the TV news that is on. TV news is such a contrived comedy/drama and has no sense of reality.

The following will probably be more disjointed notes, than my own narrative…

Students for Loganlea come from different circumstances:
1. Students who live in the area and have chosen Loganlea. There are 12 feeder schools for Loganlea, which currently has a population of under 650. There are other state high schools to chose from, each with their own style.
2. Outside-of-area schools, or Education Queensland, may refer students who are at the last step of the school system. Students with very difficult behaviours, or special needs.
3. Parent hearing of Loganlea and getting their child enrolled. We heard the story of a mother on the Gold Coast who will be driving 1 hour each day to bring her child to Loganlea. To date her child (who has muscular dystrophy) has not received the kind of education that will get that child to where he/she wants to be.

For pre-enrollment at Loganlea, there is an initial interview (hey! On the TV news there is a story about Warwick students doing bull-riding skills as part of their P.E: OH and S, animal welfare etc. A partnership between Rodeo Australia and the school). This interview is attended by the Principle (or another trained staff member), the parents/guardians and the child. I have a flow chart of the process of enrolment, so I won’t go into it too much here. However, the interview technique used is interesting, Jenny advocates ‘visioning’ for her interviews and Leigh and I are going to read up on it a bit more. Yes indeed…oh, yes, the interviews are about helping to identify barriers to the kids progress and work out ways to get through them.

The interviews move from the informal (casual conversational style) to the formal (though not approaching any fully structured questioning style). The purpose is to get knowledge about the students (it is ALL about them, afterall). The proof that this work, or the accountability of the process is the program developed as a result of the interview. These ‘alternative’ curriculums (and indeed all students) are re-evaluated every six months and learning programs respond accordingly.

One of the layers of support is an increasing net of additional support that is available to each child. I must mention here that the main reason for all these philosophies are the student. The student is central. I am not sure that concept is practised in our Institute by the management. There are probably many teachers who are very good at creating relationships with students and putting them first. However, it is not a validated, encouraged culture in the Institute. Indeed, ideas are encouraged, but the barriers of the system and some attitudes are HUUUUUGE hinderances to getting student centred projects/resources actually happening. It is like lip service, and it is a bit disgusting.

Anyhow, that increasing net of additional support includes people like janitor, office staff, student mentors, chaplain, school nurse and on and on (I have a diagram of this). Including staff like office admin and the janitor gives the WHOLE staff ownership and inclusion in the school. Also, this strategy follows on from the philosophy that education is EVERYONES business.

I think I am finding that this project, whils useful, is a bit pie-in-the-sky until systems freakin’ well catch up with what is happening in the real world…

2003-07-24T13:56:00.000+10:00

Today was our return to Loganlea after a one day gap. My day began at 7.20am, awoken by Leigh saying “Hello” in quite a strong voice (as opposed to a sleepy one) at 7.20am. I had been awake on and off since 6.30am, but when the phone rang, it was the ‘off’ part…

It was Jenny Shale telling us we should be out at the school by 9am to see some kind of visit from a local primary school. I was still a bit sleepy so couldn’t take in the details, but I got my butt into gear to leave as we were 40mins away from Loganlea.

When we arrived, I was still unsure what was going to happen next, however this is part of the Loganlea culture! We were met at the office by Mary who helps run the farm programs (however, I need to check with Jenny what her actual role is), and was also on long-service leave. Yet here she was, at the school at 9am getting ready to show us around some of the farm programs. Another reflection of that Loganlea culture…

First Mary gave us a talk about how the Rural Horizons program was founded and the kinds of things it does. I have quite a large handout about it, so I will not go into too much detail (the purpose of this blog is to be a note book so we don’t forget stuff). Rural Horizons is basically a portable animal farm. It is not unlike the ones many of us are used to seeing – fenced enclosures housing farm animals that can be observed at close quarters by children. These farms often appear at shopping centres or local festivals.

Loganlea SHS decided that since it had the resource of the farm (oh! Oh! I must remember to tell you about the farm), the animals and a truck, it had the resources to take animals to other schools for other students to be exposed to them also. It is, of course, a fund-rasing venture as well, as the client schools pay nominal amounts to cover costs.

Students run it almost completely. They are driving promotion and programming, developing skills in the set up and supervision of the animal handling areas. I saw this all in action and its so much fun and so little stress. The school staff (including teachers and farm assistant) really stand back and let the students do the work. Not because the staff are trying to get out of work though!! The students are very capable of handling all of this. The only staff intervention I saw was when one of the students left the bag of chook feed in a walkway. One staff member reminding the kids that someone might trip on it, and helped them move it to a safer place. No hassle, no worries and no EGO lauding it over the kids. Very important…

But enough of Rural Horizons as I have the handout to reflect upon…and because I’m dirty I couldn’t stay there all day and hang out with the kids and the poultry and the dogs and the miniature horsies and the cows and have a BBQ and colour in. So there.

Oh yes, and the farm. It was an operating farm adjacent to the school owned by a friendly local – if I am remembering correctly I think that farmer had allowed his students to participate in the farm life. When the farmer was selling, he gave the school first option, which they took. Nice, eh?

We walked back up to the main area of the school to find Jenny – we wanted more info on the nuts and bolts of this operation! We found Jenny, in her office with a visiting speech pathologist. They were trying to track down a student who had an appointment with the pathologist, but was not in his class. This causes obvious problems for the speech pathologist, who only visits and would have to return to see the child. The kid did turn up eventually and Jenny commented to him “Hey Jamie! Busted BIG time!” in a non-threatening way.

So while Jenny dealt with that little fire, we went and talked to a lovely chap called Lawrence who is the Murri Teachers Aide. In reality he seems to be the main indigenous officer at the school, which has 32 indigenous students. He is a freakin’ powerhouse. This fellow is a part-timer who is engaged to work 1.5 days a week (and these are school days, so his weekly hours would be lucky to be 10). However, this guy works five days a week and often does not leave the school until 4.30 or 5pm. Un-freakin’ paid!! And he earns under $20 per hour. His (non-job-description) duties include mediator (between non-Indigenous staff/students and Indigenous students/community), aide in the classrooms, community education counsellor and a favourite with the kids!

Lawrence is an ex-student. When he attended Loganlea, there were very few of the programs in place that there are now. And there were 5 students identifying as indigenous. I say identifying because Lawrence gave me a bit of insight into how parents of students may or may not identify as Indigenous to the school. When the school does its enrolment interviews (much more on this wonderful process later) they will often ask Lawrence to attend. This is because not all people want to identify as Indigenous when they think it is ‘just another white school’ (my words, not his!). However, if they know that the school has the Murri program (just for assisting Indigenous students) and an Indigenous teaching aide the parents may welcome the opportunity and identify their ancestry to the school.

I am sitting in the airport in a bar (I don’t drink) because the whole airport is being renovated it would seem. This was the only place I could find to sit. And they had vego food at the bar’s bistro. Yay. My eyes are getting very sleepy, due to this screen and my tiredness of the last few days. But there is still on hour until my plane boards. And poor Leigh is on a bus to Byron Bay to see his family. Hang on…did I say POOR Leigh?? ;)

2003-07-22T16:22:00.000+10:00

Just some more stuff, this time from the notes I took during the day, whilst out at Loganlea...yesterday's entry was stuff outta my head.

I think one of the main points to come from our chat to Jenny and Elena was that you can't really afford to ask permission to do a lot of this innovative curriculum development and school organisation. What I mean is that the current management systems can't quite cope with those who think outside the square. And as we know in TAFE, if it doesn't fit in with systems (such as administration computer systems, employee relations systems, union agreements, enrolment systems and so on) it doesn't get far through the organisation. The idea will be halted as 'too hard' since it can't be categorised and slotted in easily. One thing Elena said was that we needs 'flexibility of systems to keep up with flexible enrolments'. Oh god yes, PLEASE!

Loganlea is in an area that is said to be the poorest region of QLD, with a huge number of residents on welfare (I think, I guess I can't remember the exact statistic). As Elena noted, the 'traditional model simply wasnt working' in such an area. Before we can educate our children, we need to start on their basic needs, and Loganlea is a very high needs area. Some things mentioned were housing, clothing, safety and health. The school has an accomodation officer (funded by the Department of Housing), and School Based Police officer and a School Nurse. The school is used to working with welfare and support agencies, as they see a need to ensure the kids basic needs are cared for.

However, this transition from traditional schooling to 'inclusive' schooling did raise some concerns amongst staff. Just like our flexible delivery, this 'inclusive' schooling alienated some staff. Many fearing they would have to work harder - hey, just like online/flexible delivery!!

This philosophy is not that far from the way we work at the Octapod. You get an idea and simply get it done. If bureaucracy gets in the way, you find a way to get it done anyhow. Then, once the fabulous idea is realised and the project achieves completion, those bureaucracies suddenly notice this wonderful outcome and think of ways to 'own' or nuture this idea further.

Anyhow, I am starting to feel that way with the Student Help Desk project - 7 months and not one footstep closer. I have been trying to negotiate it via the usual TAFE systems of meetings and committees, and yes! Sub-committees! Maybe the only way is to start something anyhow...

OK, back to my notes...in its own little box I have written "key keen staff needed". yes, as I have found in my experience both in arts and education that you can';t make people get excited and do stuff. You simply have to harness the energy of really keen folks. I do try to identify these people in my work life, but everyone seems so bound by some kind of fear, or perhaps simple exhaustion.

In flexible delivery in our Institute it is usually the same: driven staff-members, excited by the new ideas of delivery get out there and just make it happen. They flog themselves, as all of it would be 'extra' to their normal workload. We really need a way to support and reward these people, or they all get simply burntout. Back to those lumbering systems again...

Another strong point was REAL community relationships. No bloody memorandums of understanding - they just get in there and do it. It is pionted out to us by Jenny that it MUST be a win-win situation for both sides of the partnership, rather than token or one-sided attempts. These don't work and make everyone end up feeling a bit shafter. These relationships are not easy to nurture and do take collaborative consultation.

I am a bit tired now, though I did have an opportunity to go to Rockinghorse Records though I got a bit embarassed after a dude behind the counter said hello to me like he knew me. He may well do, I have had band and zine connections with Brisbane since '94. But I am bad with faces and names....

2003-07-21T17:46:00.000+10:00

Leigh and I are now in lurvely Brisvagus, having completed Day 1 of our visit to Loganlea State high School. We met with the principle Elena Itsikson and Jenny Shale, the Head of Department for Social Justice. Jenny is a pretty inspirational individual who has really found a way to give so much to the school and community without losing too much of herself. At least, this was one of my personal observations. I was looking at it from my own point of view and past experiences of doing a lot of volunteer community work, but feeling very worn down and burnt out. Her comments about having quite low expectations when approaching projects or partnership ideas made me sit up and listen a bit - I know that the way to be a successful community worker is to keep your expectations at a reasonable level...anyhow, enough of my personal emotions about community work...

We had a lot of time with Jenny (we were at the school from about 10am until about 1.30pm) and during that time we watched her put out several small 'fires' as students approached her as we walked around the school grounds. Asking out-of-the-blue questions like "Can I go bowling this afternoon, Ms Shale?" and Jenny would negotiate with the student about how he might go about being allowed to go bowling that afternoon. On another occassion, Jenny is waylayed by two ex-students who have come back to visit the school (Jenny commented several times during the day that ex-students tend to return to the school after graduating either to visit, volunteer or work) and want to chat to her for a bit. later, another student came lumbering towards Jenny. obviously not impressed with something that has gone down.

Leigh and I were able to observe the student coming to Jenny with their problem, and also the teacher approaching Jenny about this issue. The solutions seem to be all about finding the best path for the student. IN this case, it was proposed that the student be able to do the work in the student centre, facilitated by teachers' aides and thence be able to obtain a math pass for year 10. The regular classroom was not going to get this student to where they wanted to be.

Coming to Brisbane is good because I can listen to 4zzz FM.