Its back into the fray with classes to prepare for, new students to orientate and former students to be cajoled into taking on the next elearning course on their list. I have had a good summer break. There has been time to catch up on friends and family, sort through, read, catalogue and reflect on literature collected over the year and to get much of the methodology chapter for my thesis organised and drafted. I also fitted in several good tramps that have helped me re-create myself mentally, spiritually and physically.
Well, what will this year bring? The National Certificates for Baking should be registered at NZQA early this year. A re-write / total reorganisation of our full time Certificate in Baking course will need to be done to align the programme to the new National Certificates. Apprentice block courses will now become much more focused on consolidating workplace practice and theory of baking knowledge. Assessments that used to be carried out in the workplace will now have to be carried out during block courses. No extra time has been put aside to allow all of the extra assessments to be done. I have put together a checklist of how we could go about assessing workplace based learnt skills. Much of the evidence gathering for these workplace based skills will now be done via mobile phone contact. eTXT will be used to support apprentices between block courses to cover:-
Underlying knowledge unit standards
Formative assessments
Evidence gathering for workplace based units
I am keen to trial the above and to explore how Web 2.0 applications can be used to bring more razzmatazz into the process. Apprentices who are happy to chug along with mainly paper based evidence collection and collation can go ahead and do it that way. However, I will encourage the more technically inclined apprentices to experiment. How this will wash with the moderators will remain to be seen, but there needs to be some rewards for apprentice who are prepared to blaze the trail for others. I am keen to set up a space, either on our current Blackboard based LMS, or on any one of the more easy to use collaborative project / enhanced Wiki tools to help apprentices build their eportfolios. There also is a need to see how the technology can be accessed just using mobile phones.
In all, looks like another interesting and challenging year to look forward to. At the end of this year, I will track progress to see how many of the plans I have put into this blog eventuate. I am excited about the possibilities and the potential of mobile learning. This year, its time to find out how far I can push the envelope!
Well, what will this year bring? The National Certificates for Baking should be registered at NZQA early this year. A re-write / total reorganisation of our full time Certificate in Baking course will need to be done to align the programme to the new National Certificates. Apprentice block courses will now become much more focused on consolidating workplace practice and theory of baking knowledge. Assessments that used to be carried out in the workplace will now have to be carried out during block courses. No extra time has been put aside to allow all of the extra assessments to be done. I have put together a checklist of how we could go about assessing workplace based learnt skills. Much of the evidence gathering for these workplace based skills will now be done via mobile phone contact. eTXT will be used to support apprentices between block courses to cover:-
Underlying knowledge unit standards
Formative assessments
Evidence gathering for workplace based units
I am keen to trial the above and to explore how Web 2.0 applications can be used to bring more razzmatazz into the process. Apprentices who are happy to chug along with mainly paper based evidence collection and collation can go ahead and do it that way. However, I will encourage the more technically inclined apprentices to experiment. How this will wash with the moderators will remain to be seen, but there needs to be some rewards for apprentice who are prepared to blaze the trail for others. I am keen to set up a space, either on our current Blackboard based LMS, or on any one of the more easy to use collaborative project / enhanced Wiki tools to help apprentices build their eportfolios. There also is a need to see how the technology can be accessed just using mobile phones.
In all, looks like another interesting and challenging year to look forward to. At the end of this year, I will track progress to see how many of the plans I have put into this blog eventuate. I am excited about the possibilities and the potential of mobile learning. This year, its time to find out how far I can push the envelope!
