Plans for 2007

Several good tramps away plus time with the family has provided me with time to revive, refresh & rejuvenate. 2007 should be another busy year. I have recovered from the disappointment of not being able to have the mlearning pilot funded via our ITO. I am still working on how to fund the developmental hours required to get the pilot going as it is important to do a good evaluation of the various aspects of the mlearning project.

The use of eTXT to SMS questions etc. will not be the difficult part. It’s the mashing of the various Web 2.0 applications that will present us with many obstacles /learning opportunities. The components include the archiving of portfolio evidence with our chosen CMS (Moodle) and a good showcase for the eportfolio. These will remain a constant unknown until we put the whole package through its paces. We need to do the trial with:-

• a multitude of mobile phone models,
• the two telecommunications providers in NZ, various mobile phone ‘plans’ from prepaid to monthly to ones like ‘best mate’ from Vodaphone,
• apprentices who live in rural areas (who might not have great mobile coverage),
• apprentices who have limited or no access to PCs so that the mobile phone becomes their only access to their eportfolio material and the Moodle course portal,
• apprentices who are tech savvy, and may be able to provide us with ideas on how to go about the exercise in a better way
• apprentices who are not that enthusiastic about using their mobile phones for the task of providing workplace evidence,
  

In short, I am really keen to trash out all the things that are barriers, challenges and pitfalls. All the things that the nay sayers have put forward to say that the mlearning programme will not work. I am a great believer in learning by doing. I also have faith in the ingenuity of our elearning support staff. This is tinged with pragmatism, so that if something really does not work, I am prepared to move on and try something else. Meanwhile, it’s important to keep up with what is continually coming up on the Web 2.0 horizon as these provide us with:

• a pool from which we can draw our eportfolio compiling resources
• ideas of on how to better use web 2.0 sites for archiving evidence or collating eportfolios
• other ways in which we could go about collecting, archiving or collating evidence
• better methods to integrate mobile phones to Web 2.0 sites
• more cost effective /time effective way to do things
• cheaper alternatives to mobile web browsing