PIPTA and CPIT allied staff workshops

Did two presentations today. Firstly, a short presentation at Lincoln University, on “harnessing technology to enhance trades learning: mlearning, eportfolios and web 2.0” to the Primary Industry Polytechnic Tutors Association (PIPTA) as part of their annual moderation and professional development days. Most of the tutors work in the agricultural, forestry and horticultural fields. I was interested in my interactions with this group of tutors as it is a group I have had few opportunities to make contact with. Also, good to meet tutors who teach in the dairy industry as one of the groups of apprentices participating in the ‘first year apprentices’ research project are apprentices on dairy farms. An industry characterised by very long hours of work exampled by 4am starts to 6 pm finish and working for at least 8 to 10 days before a couple of days off


Second presentation followed by a workshop, similar to one I presented about a month or so ago at Weltec for tutors from Weltec, Whiterea and Open Polytechnics, sponsored by Ako Aotearoa Central Hub. The focus for today’s presentation slightly different as it is to CPIT allied staff, a varied group of people working in administrative and technical support roles. The presentation introduced concepts of Web 2.0 including the rapid movement towards mobile and cloud computing.

Of interest is the increase, when compared to feedback from presentations from just two years ago, of most people’s general knowledge in using technology in both their work and non-work lives. Social networking is now no longer a total mystery to many people and sites like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook are now mentioned so often in general media, that the average person will have at least heard of these although never actually used them.

With each of the above groups, I did a general survey of how many people actually contributed to Web 2.0 sites. There is a 100% response and this may be due to the wider use of consumer focused web 2.0 sites like trademe (buying and selling online), seek (job hunting) and services like internet banking and shopping. Not as many were familiar with ‘cloud computing’ and the move towards ubiquitous computing. However, most had heard about the ipad and net tabs may be the hardware tool which will shift the general population towards un-tethered, cloud-based access to the internet.

Off to Teaching and Learning conference tomorrow where I will present a keynote and a follow-up workshop on ‘Belonging, becoming and being: Learning from narratives of apprentices and trades tutors’. The presentation is on how to leverage off the metaphors of belonging to a workplace, becoming and being to assist tutors to enhance earning opportunities for apprentices, pre-trade students and to help new trades tutors draw on trades skills to become good teachers.