Cpit research month 2012 opens

The annual research week now a research month. An interesting range of projects are being presented from today to Tuesday 28th August. Most of the sessions will run across lunch time each day, so I will take notes and post on to blog as I am able to attend since I will be fitting the various activities around the usual work commitments.

Today, at lunch time, the month is officially opened firstly by Dr. Margaret Leonard, CPIT research manager and Kay Giles, CPIT CEO. Kay spoke of the importance of doing research in the areas we have strengths in; connecting with industry and assisting with informing industry on innovations; and using research to update and keep us fresh in our teaching.

A presentation by Dr. Mark Quigley from University of Canterbury, provides a topical beginning to research months over 60 plus presentations (including several other Christchurch earthquake focused ones). Mark presented on 'The seismic story of us: Ongoing research into the Canterbury earthquakes'. Provided a flavour of the range of projects UC is currently involved in to study and understand why/how the earthquake occurred. For instance the probable 8 faults that started things going in Sept. 2010. He presented on - what controls the volume and spatial extent of liquefaction ejecta in major earthquakes; how the earthquake faults behave; and the paleoseismology of the Canterbury plains/Chch. historically. A really interesting presentation of the science underlying the event tempered by Marks' personal experiences as much of the data was gathered in his own backyard of his now red-zoned home.

The first staff presentation is from Andrew Massie, who blogged extensively at the beginning of 2011 about his experiences while on academic study leave with Connectics - a cable jointing company undertaking extensive repairs to Christchurch electrical supply after the February 2011 earthquakes. Andrew presents on 'High voltage academic study leave during the Chch.earthquakes'. With an hour to present, Andrew could extend on his presentation by providing details on the methods he used to collect the photos/videos etc. archived on his blog and provide background details of the cable jointing process before launching into the effect the earthquake had on the electrical supply infrastructure and the processes required to repair.

In the afternoon, presentations from the Department of Nursing and Human Services with a selection of industry, work placement and teaching/learning projects.

Andrew Massie's presentation on reconnecting Christchurch's electricity supply after earthquakes

Andrew Massie, one of my Diploma in Tertiary Teaching and Learning students who is an electrical trades tutor. Andrew is completing a project, recording the learning garnered during his academic study leave and then using the data to write a curriculum document for training electricity supply industry trades people, working as linesmen, specifically for cable jointing and line mechanics.

Andrew recorded most his learning through a blog and collected a range of industry pertinent photos and videos, recording the work he undertook. The timing of his academic leave coincided with the Canterbury earthquakes. Therefore, his blog and it's contents are now of interest to a much wider audience than just Andrew and myself!

I attended the presentation which was well attended by industry, the people Andrew worked on his attachments and a few of Andrew's family. The main objective was to assess Andrew for about 3/4 of the negotiated learning outcomes for his course, but the information presented was also of interest for finding out how a part of Christchurch's infrastructure was reestablished after the major earthquake events.

Much of the presentation focused on the technical details of different types of heavy duty cables used and how these are installed or repaired. For me, the really interesting part was to capture a glimpse of the distinctive work culture and practices of a specialised type of work. Andrew mentioned how putting up power poles was done with little verbal communication and yet accomplishing a highly technical and complicated task efficiently. How do we help our students enter such a tight knit community of practice and learn the required skills? 

Visit by Paul Levy from Swinburne TAFE

Paul Levy from Swinburne TAFE visited yesterday to do a catch up on e & mlearning projects at CPIT. We started with the HP tablet project run by Dave Kennnedy & Daphne Robson. Daphne provided a good introduction to the capabilities of using tablet PCs to enhance learning of mathematics and statistics fro pre-health & nursing students. There are inherent advantages to using this form of technology in association with class presenter. Students are able to work on ‘problems’ which have been collated using powerpoint. When they have solved the ‘problem’ they are able to sent their answer to the tutor. All of the answers from the class can then be compared, discussed, analysed etc. In all, an excellent example of social & participative learning in action In the near future, I will need to explore the possibility of using class presenter with mobile devices.

Paul & I then had a chat about his projects. He recommended the Nokia Omnia as an alternative to iphones plus also demonstrated the use of livescribe to archive and document the various conversations & meeting we were having.

We next called on Nick Ford to discuss elearning and how to enthuse reluctant educators into making use of ICT. A good discussion followed by Nick sharing resources relevant to the teaching of electrotech including crocodile clips absorb electronics and designing circuits using yenka electronics.

After lunch, we travelled across to the Sullivan Avenue CPIT site to visit the Technical Innovation Institute tutors. First up, a good chat with Cameron Wright from carpentry about how they use etxt to support workplace based apprentices along with assessment processes used by carpentry. Carpentry also uses student diaries to good effect to journal workplace based skill acquisition.

Then a fruitful conversation with Sean Flanagan, faculty academic coordinator & automotive tutor and Stephen Price, programme manager for engineering & electrical. The main objective was to learn about how best to cluster competency based units into manageable learning clusters, modules and in particular to explore how the concept of ‘projects’ could be useful. Stephen also took us around the electrical training areas which had lots of good resources for students to learn about the practical aspects of electrical trades. Andrew Massie, electrical tutor then showed us his Moodle site & had a chat with Paul with regards to collaborative activities that could involve students from both CPIT & Swinburne.

All in a good day for me to catch up on various activities at CPIT, have in-depth discussions with Paul on e & mlearning and to find out how others approach the teaching of trades content.