Attended workshop convened by Southern hub of Ako Aotearoa by Dr. Paul Denny of University of Auckland a week ago. I am putting this post up now as I was interested in gauging participant response to his presentation. So a week or so after the presentation, I can report that there is movement at CPIT on using Peerwise.
Paul is a member of the Ako Aotearoa Academy having earned his wings at last year’s tertiary excellence awards. A good representation of CPIT staff, private providers & ITO representatives attended the workshop at CPIT on the afternoon of Friday 16th April.
Paul provided a very good workshop, with enough time for participants to have a good play with Peerwise. He modelled good teaching practice and it was a pleasure to watch him take the participants gradually through the ins and outs of using Peerwise. In essence, Peerwise is a ‘social networking’ site for students to share multiple choice questions. The concepts which bring Peerwise beyond the usual is the ability for students not only to enter multiple choice questions and answers but to also rate and comment on questions inputted by other students. Having to write multiple choice questions is in itself, no easy task as this guideline describes. Students working on compiling the questions need to understand the topic and then construct clear and meaningful questions. Students are able to then rate/rank and comment on the questions of other students. This engages students in another layer of interaction with the subject content. Therefore, concepts used in Peerwise supported by sound educational theory.
At CPIT, the interest in Peerwise as led to a workshop, which I will run later this week, for school of business tutors on discussing merits or other wise of using Peerwise. Will need to sell the idea that the students will be doing most of the work! Plus interest from the Carpentry ITP consortium of using Peerwise as a repository of multiple choice questions suitable for sharing between the ITPs teaching carpentry trades in NZ. Adult education will also be evaluating the use of Peerwise into one of the Diploma in Tertiary Teaching & Learning courses, to introduce new tutors to the process of using a modified form of social networking to help engage their students in active learning.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Learning welding #5 and learning how to be a builder #1
We have now had confirmation of funding from Ako Aotearoa Southern Hub for the second semester re-iteration of the ‘Studying the learning of trades students using multimodal data analysis’ research programme, which is planned to have at least 6 projects and maybe move to 8, depending on findings which eventuate from each project.
The welding students are now into the second term of learning welding. A few students have dropped out but the remaining students have made good progress thus far. They seem to be more confident with working through the various welding exercises required to complete the course. Observations of tutor and student conversations reveal overt signs of understanding of technical terms and jargon used within the welding context. However, it will be good to try to find out their actual understanding of the process. Something we will think through when we work with next semester’s intake of students.
In the next project, we will also be collecting data at building sites through contacts made via Marc Mendoca at Fletcher Construction, a large local construction company. The research intent is to gather data from construction worksites of ‘learning conversations’ between apprentices and peers, other workers, supervisors etc. We will have to see, once we get out on to a worksite, how to best gather data to work with.
One of the ways of might be to do a comparative exercise with each trade on learning a type of skill using a distinct type of knowledge. Gentile’s taxonomy may be helpful in choosing skills which are similar in objectives. There are many ways to classify knowledge, Gott’s (1989) classification of knowledge may be helpful in defining the knowledge component to study. This classification is similar to Nuttall’s method to classify learning outcomes but it is more general and pertinent to skills training. The classification defines knowledge into procedural (how to do it), declarative (knowledge of devise or system) and strategic (how to decide what to do and when).
The welding students are now into the second term of learning welding. A few students have dropped out but the remaining students have made good progress thus far. They seem to be more confident with working through the various welding exercises required to complete the course. Observations of tutor and student conversations reveal overt signs of understanding of technical terms and jargon used within the welding context. However, it will be good to try to find out their actual understanding of the process. Something we will think through when we work with next semester’s intake of students.
In the next project, we will also be collecting data at building sites through contacts made via Marc Mendoca at Fletcher Construction, a large local construction company. The research intent is to gather data from construction worksites of ‘learning conversations’ between apprentices and peers, other workers, supervisors etc. We will have to see, once we get out on to a worksite, how to best gather data to work with.
One of the ways of might be to do a comparative exercise with each trade on learning a type of skill using a distinct type of knowledge. Gentile’s taxonomy may be helpful in choosing skills which are similar in objectives. There are many ways to classify knowledge, Gott’s (1989) classification of knowledge may be helpful in defining the knowledge component to study. This classification is similar to Nuttall’s method to classify learning outcomes but it is more general and pertinent to skills training. The classification defines knowledge into procedural (how to do it), declarative (knowledge of devise or system) and strategic (how to decide what to do and when).
Monday, April 19, 2010
Future of the use of technology in learning aka currently as mlearning
Organising myself for conferences this year. The last bits of the $$ available from my tertiary teaching excellence award will be going towards several conferences in Europe which have an emphasis on mobile learning. First up would be Handheld 2010 from 10th to 13th of October in London, then a Forum Oxford: futures technologies conference on 15th October followed on with the annual mlearning 2010 conference in Malta from 19th to 22nd October.
I will be evaluating the progress of papers on mlearning and to work out if I will continue to follow this area of research. My work into apprenticeship learning is taking up much of my energies at the present. It is an area with very little research focus and therefore important to continue with. The use of technology into teaching is now, for many tutors at CPIT, a way of integrating technology into helping students learn.
My view on mlearning is that very very soon, all technology assisted learning will be mobile. It’s sort of the normal way which learners should be approaching learning, anytime and anywhere. It’s no different to what has taken place for 100s of years when we carried books around and read them when on the go and dipped into reference books whenever we had to find things out. Technology now enables this to take place much more efficiently. Instead of carrying a couple of books, I now carry hundreds on my ipod touch, instead of waiting to get home to look up something, I now google it if there is wifi available. Just in time approach is an innate human response. Wifi availability is also now becoming much more ubiquitious. For instance, there is 15 minutes of free Wifi available at my local Christchurch airport and Wellington airport offers free Wifi. The last three conferences I attended had free Wifi available to delegates. People now assume they will be connected wirelessly and for no cost.
The early work of mlearning learning on’micro learning’ etc. and working with small screens is all but obsolete with the coming of nettabs like the ipad. With an ipad, there is no need to reconfigure LMS like Moodle or web pages to optimise interaction with the hardware. The ease of use of the ipad will change the nature of how we access and utilise information. Therefore, before we know it, mlearning will be normal technology assisted learning. There has been a flurry of articles on using the ipad in education including pros and cons and various uses in learning.
Over the weekend, I caught up with an interesting presentation from Dr.dana boyd at Games based learning 2010 which was held recently. This presentation provides some suggestions for educators in leveraging social networks for enhancing student learning. For educators, there is a need to understand what technologies are out there, who uses them, how they are used and why. How these technologies are ‘rupturing’ the way in which how young people see the world and the role of educators in helping young people get the most out of technologies. She covers perceptive insights into the implications for young people and educators using social networking sites as examples. All of the social networking sites are now accessible via mobile devices and this migration from desktop to mobile is accelerating.
Also in the same conference, Professor James Gee presented a good overview of the role of games in providing situated learning opportunities for students which I am going to evaluate for suitability as a resource for my adult learning principles course. He is one of the members of the New London Group who authored the paper on the "pedagogy of multiliteracies" which is informing my practice and the various research projects I am working on at the moment.
Both the above presentations provide justification and food for thought on how technology may contribute to enhancing learning for students plus the ways in which ubiquitious computing is now almost mainstream.
I will be evaluating the progress of papers on mlearning and to work out if I will continue to follow this area of research. My work into apprenticeship learning is taking up much of my energies at the present. It is an area with very little research focus and therefore important to continue with. The use of technology into teaching is now, for many tutors at CPIT, a way of integrating technology into helping students learn.
My view on mlearning is that very very soon, all technology assisted learning will be mobile. It’s sort of the normal way which learners should be approaching learning, anytime and anywhere. It’s no different to what has taken place for 100s of years when we carried books around and read them when on the go and dipped into reference books whenever we had to find things out. Technology now enables this to take place much more efficiently. Instead of carrying a couple of books, I now carry hundreds on my ipod touch, instead of waiting to get home to look up something, I now google it if there is wifi available. Just in time approach is an innate human response. Wifi availability is also now becoming much more ubiquitious. For instance, there is 15 minutes of free Wifi available at my local Christchurch airport and Wellington airport offers free Wifi. The last three conferences I attended had free Wifi available to delegates. People now assume they will be connected wirelessly and for no cost.
The early work of mlearning learning on’micro learning’ etc. and working with small screens is all but obsolete with the coming of nettabs like the ipad. With an ipad, there is no need to reconfigure LMS like Moodle or web pages to optimise interaction with the hardware. The ease of use of the ipad will change the nature of how we access and utilise information. Therefore, before we know it, mlearning will be normal technology assisted learning. There has been a flurry of articles on using the ipad in education including pros and cons and various uses in learning.
Over the weekend, I caught up with an interesting presentation from Dr.dana boyd at Games based learning 2010 which was held recently. This presentation provides some suggestions for educators in leveraging social networks for enhancing student learning. For educators, there is a need to understand what technologies are out there, who uses them, how they are used and why. How these technologies are ‘rupturing’ the way in which how young people see the world and the role of educators in helping young people get the most out of technologies. She covers perceptive insights into the implications for young people and educators using social networking sites as examples. All of the social networking sites are now accessible via mobile devices and this migration from desktop to mobile is accelerating.
Also in the same conference, Professor James Gee presented a good overview of the role of games in providing situated learning opportunities for students which I am going to evaluate for suitability as a resource for my adult learning principles course. He is one of the members of the New London Group who authored the paper on the "pedagogy of multiliteracies" which is informing my practice and the various research projects I am working on at the moment.
Both the above presentations provide justification and food for thought on how technology may contribute to enhancing learning for students plus the ways in which ubiquitious computing is now almost mainstream.
Friday, April 16, 2010
ITF NZ vocational research forum - day two afternoon
After lunch attended a comprehensive session by Anna Boyd, Healthrose research & Doug Pouwhare from the electricity supply ITO on how to increase participation rates of Maori, Pacific peoples, migrants and women in their industry. Electricity generation, transmission, distribution and retails industry has very low participation rates amongst women, Maori & Pacifica peoples. Successive strategic plans in 2002 & 2009 did not provide direction towards improving participation rates. Enablers were employer and provider related and also depended on trainee ambitions, experiences and personal qualities. Barriers include disconnect between theory and practice, lack of practical application, poor quality training, lack of employer support and negative spillover of other work and home obligations. Issues for Maori include importance of family/whanau, proximityof workplace/training to family/whanau, Maori in leadership/supervisory roles and the importance of ‘getting a trade’. Issues for Pacific trainees include meeting the aspirations of family for a better life and screening of applicants on personal presentation and communication skills. Issues for women were entrenched view on woman’s capability to work in the industry, women can do anything and attraction of outside work.. Issues for migrants were language barriers, recognition of qualifications and different ways of working and settlement issues for new migrants. Implications include recruitment/selection practices of industry was limiting the pool of potential employees/trainees and industry appears to have a low state of readiness to respond to diversity issues. Key interventions include ones that promote employer support for trainees and a commitment to training and need to address barriers to recruitment into industry.Future work proposed to raise awareness in industry, iwi discussions and supporting a cohort of women into the industry (which will be part of an action research project).
Then session by Dr. Chris Holland from Work & Education Research & Development Services, on building leadership through the development of mentoring. Overview of literature on mentoring reveals two streams – the restricted/functionalist (tends to be hierarchical) & the relational model (holistic approach with mentor / mentee learning together). The ITO good practice guide to workplace mentoring available through ITF. Mentoring workshops supported by ITF and funded by Ako Aotearoa with workshops in Auckland/Wellington and through 3 ITOs. Project completed with the fire service with volunteer firemen to evaluate mentoring improvements. Various examples of mentoring occurred including buddying, mentoring by senior, one-up mentoring, group mentoring, rotational mentoring, volunteer-selected mentor and mentoring based on external expertise. Call for some form of professional development support to be provided to mentors.
After afternoon tea, attended the session by Profession Frank Sligo, Dr, Niki Murray, Elspeth Tilley and Margie Comrie, Massey University and Carol Atkin from Literacy Aotearoa on modern apprentices’ (MA) literacy learning. MA may request for LLN support and by 31/12/08, 191 MAs had been seen for LLN tuition to a maximum of 30 hours a year. This project carried out a formative evaluation of the literacy tuition including review MA’sMAC’s and adult literacy tutors’ and employers’perspectives of literacy programmes, assess impact of tuition on MA’s progress in apprenticeship (theory & practical) and assess the merit of the MA literacy programme and make recommendations for improvement. Types of assistance varied from high needs (more than 30 hours) to moderate (11 + hours) to low needs (under10 hours). Apart from LNN support, supportive employer, genuine mentor, a partnership between MAC,employer and literacy tutor needed plus workplace culture needs to be positive about LLN. Full report expected to be out by May.
Conference closed with a plenary session on linking VET research with government policy and priorities with panel members – Monique Dawson from Dept. of Labour, Roger Smyth from Ministry of Education and Peter Palmer from the Tertiary Education Commission. Roger Smyth reported on late but ongoing progress on industry training including ALLs survey & completion rates of apprentices. Need for research on what contributes to learning and what are the connections between tertiary education and the labour market. Also a need to better understand the sub-degree system plus encouragement to use qualitative approaches to gain better depth of understanding. Projects need to come up with clear messages and usable by the people who are connected to the research. Researchers need to be familiar with what the policy analysts are working towards as well and recommends being savvy about obtaining correct support to champion the findings.
Peter Palmer reported on TEC’s focus on maximising pool of $$ available for tertiary ed. Performance issues now a focus of TEC which are detailed in the Tertiary Strategy released late last year. Gaps in research include trying to understand what drives performance issues in the tertiary sector. Fundamental research needs to be undertaken to understand what works and what does not. Relevance of learning to work needs to be investigated as well.
Monique Dawson provided background on now the Dept. of Labour tries to advise on skills forecasting. Liaises withTEC/MOE and Dept.of Immigration to try to ensure required skill needs are made. Evidence of market led training not meeting need of improving productivity in the NZ workforce, so more research in this area recommended. Jeremy Baker encourages practitioner research as being one important way to address the issues proposed by the three speakers. All good direction for planning of future research projects :)
Then session by Dr. Chris Holland from Work & Education Research & Development Services, on building leadership through the development of mentoring. Overview of literature on mentoring reveals two streams – the restricted/functionalist (tends to be hierarchical) & the relational model (holistic approach with mentor / mentee learning together). The ITO good practice guide to workplace mentoring available through ITF. Mentoring workshops supported by ITF and funded by Ako Aotearoa with workshops in Auckland/Wellington and through 3 ITOs. Project completed with the fire service with volunteer firemen to evaluate mentoring improvements. Various examples of mentoring occurred including buddying, mentoring by senior, one-up mentoring, group mentoring, rotational mentoring, volunteer-selected mentor and mentoring based on external expertise. Call for some form of professional development support to be provided to mentors.
After afternoon tea, attended the session by Profession Frank Sligo, Dr, Niki Murray, Elspeth Tilley and Margie Comrie, Massey University and Carol Atkin from Literacy Aotearoa on modern apprentices’ (MA) literacy learning. MA may request for LLN support and by 31/12/08, 191 MAs had been seen for LLN tuition to a maximum of 30 hours a year. This project carried out a formative evaluation of the literacy tuition including review MA’sMAC’s and adult literacy tutors’ and employers’perspectives of literacy programmes, assess impact of tuition on MA’s progress in apprenticeship (theory & practical) and assess the merit of the MA literacy programme and make recommendations for improvement. Types of assistance varied from high needs (more than 30 hours) to moderate (11 + hours) to low needs (under10 hours). Apart from LNN support, supportive employer, genuine mentor, a partnership between MAC,employer and literacy tutor needed plus workplace culture needs to be positive about LLN. Full report expected to be out by May.
Conference closed with a plenary session on linking VET research with government policy and priorities with panel members – Monique Dawson from Dept. of Labour, Roger Smyth from Ministry of Education and Peter Palmer from the Tertiary Education Commission. Roger Smyth reported on late but ongoing progress on industry training including ALLs survey & completion rates of apprentices. Need for research on what contributes to learning and what are the connections between tertiary education and the labour market. Also a need to better understand the sub-degree system plus encouragement to use qualitative approaches to gain better depth of understanding. Projects need to come up with clear messages and usable by the people who are connected to the research. Researchers need to be familiar with what the policy analysts are working towards as well and recommends being savvy about obtaining correct support to champion the findings.
Peter Palmer reported on TEC’s focus on maximising pool of $$ available for tertiary ed. Performance issues now a focus of TEC which are detailed in the Tertiary Strategy released late last year. Gaps in research include trying to understand what drives performance issues in the tertiary sector. Fundamental research needs to be undertaken to understand what works and what does not. Relevance of learning to work needs to be investigated as well.
Monique Dawson provided background on now the Dept. of Labour tries to advise on skills forecasting. Liaises withTEC/MOE and Dept.of Immigration to try to ensure required skill needs are made. Evidence of market led training not meeting need of improving productivity in the NZ workforce, so more research in this area recommended. Jeremy Baker encourages practitioner research as being one important way to address the issues proposed by the three speakers. All good direction for planning of future research projects :)
ITF day 2 - morning sessions
Day 2 begins with a keynote from Professor Paul Dalziel from the AERU at Lincoln University on the OECD leveraging training and skills development in SMEs study – a NZ study. Began with a background on the role of the OECD and its influence in training and skills development. Provided details on objectives of LEED, a multi-country study of how SMEs may be able to leverage training and skill development. NZ is the first country to participate. Four key concepts covered – formal / informal learning, knowledge-intensive service activities (KISA), regional skills ecosystems and particular issues of SMEs.
KISA includes R & D, international marketing, financing, management consulting, intellectual property legal services, HR & accounting – some research shows the capacity of firms to perform KISA more effectively may differentiate a firm from its competitors.
Ecosystems venn diagram need to meet to produce high skill ecosystem, the parts are firms, education & training, individuals and policy settings. Small changes by each part of the ecosystem may work towards enhancing the total ecosystem. In NZ, ITOs contribute to industry ecosystems but ITPs lead regional ecosystems.
90% of enterprises in NZ are SME and they generally cannot afford to maintain large KISAs. Therefore, may be greater reliance on informal, on the job, unstructured training by SMEs. Small firms provide their own KISAs inexpertly because they cannot afford to purchase them.
Details of preliminary findings of the NZ LEEDs study were provided focused on the web based questionnaire. Almost all firms had a budget set aside for training and about 70% had training plans. However, the amount of $$ actually put into training was very low. ½ wanted to engage with formal training and for many costs was the challenge. Over ½ reported staff as involved in informal learning activities. Majority of informal learning from clients and co-workers, then informal networks, suppliers, industry associations etc. Study also made of highly innovative firms as compared to others. Innovative firms tend to be ‘older’ and has numbers of staff on the higher end of the SME definition (i.e. between 10 -19 employees). These firms more likely to have training plans plus some $$ in training budget, engaged in formal training & more informal learning activities tracked. NZ report about to be released & available from Paul via email.
All in a good overview with interesting tie in to Gemma Peircy's work on skill ecosytems.
Concurrent sessions begin with a session by Dr. Karen Vaughan & Marie Cameron from the NZ Council for Educational research presenting on an Ako Aotearoa national fund project on workplace assessments. In this presentation, useful ways to structure assessment of learning in the workplace was proposed. Began with a review of workplace learning, workplace assessment and ITOs roles in assessment. Most industry training occurs/assessed on job (8% off-job, 43% on job, 49% blended – usually >20% off-job).
Four principles distilled. Firstly, good assessment requires appropriately recruited, trained and professionally developed people (including for verifiers). Secondly, moderation contributes to the validity and reliability of assessment decisions. Next, the ITOs assessment structures and systems must support the learning process. Lastly, ITOs and workplaces have a clear purpose for assessment and they work together.
Next session from Department of Labour presented by Richard Manning from work by Vij Kooleya and Dr. Ram SriRamaratnam on ‘what will the labour market look like in the future? Overall employment growth rate of employment of 2.5% per annum from 2003-2008,lowered to 0.5% between 2008-2013 & 0.8 % between 2013 – 2018. semi-skilled and skilled trades record negative growths between 2008-2013. Growth in skill-associates & high skilled occupations. Total employment forecasted to increase from now to 2013 as recession eases. Potential areas of employment growth include forestry & logging, communications, health/community services etc. Decreases expected esp.in all forms of manufacturing and construction. Implications of aging workforce indicate slowly rising numbers of people retiring from the workforce over the next 10 years.
A busy morning bracketed with good conversations with various other people interested in discussing either my presentation yesterday or interested in details of the ‘first year apprentices’perspectives’project.
KISA includes R & D, international marketing, financing, management consulting, intellectual property legal services, HR & accounting – some research shows the capacity of firms to perform KISA more effectively may differentiate a firm from its competitors.
Ecosystems venn diagram need to meet to produce high skill ecosystem, the parts are firms, education & training, individuals and policy settings. Small changes by each part of the ecosystem may work towards enhancing the total ecosystem. In NZ, ITOs contribute to industry ecosystems but ITPs lead regional ecosystems.
90% of enterprises in NZ are SME and they generally cannot afford to maintain large KISAs. Therefore, may be greater reliance on informal, on the job, unstructured training by SMEs. Small firms provide their own KISAs inexpertly because they cannot afford to purchase them.
Details of preliminary findings of the NZ LEEDs study were provided focused on the web based questionnaire. Almost all firms had a budget set aside for training and about 70% had training plans. However, the amount of $$ actually put into training was very low. ½ wanted to engage with formal training and for many costs was the challenge. Over ½ reported staff as involved in informal learning activities. Majority of informal learning from clients and co-workers, then informal networks, suppliers, industry associations etc. Study also made of highly innovative firms as compared to others. Innovative firms tend to be ‘older’ and has numbers of staff on the higher end of the SME definition (i.e. between 10 -19 employees). These firms more likely to have training plans plus some $$ in training budget, engaged in formal training & more informal learning activities tracked. NZ report about to be released & available from Paul via email.
All in a good overview with interesting tie in to Gemma Peircy's work on skill ecosytems.
Concurrent sessions begin with a session by Dr. Karen Vaughan & Marie Cameron from the NZ Council for Educational research presenting on an Ako Aotearoa national fund project on workplace assessments. In this presentation, useful ways to structure assessment of learning in the workplace was proposed. Began with a review of workplace learning, workplace assessment and ITOs roles in assessment. Most industry training occurs/assessed on job (8% off-job, 43% on job, 49% blended – usually >20% off-job).
Four principles distilled. Firstly, good assessment requires appropriately recruited, trained and professionally developed people (including for verifiers). Secondly, moderation contributes to the validity and reliability of assessment decisions. Next, the ITOs assessment structures and systems must support the learning process. Lastly, ITOs and workplaces have a clear purpose for assessment and they work together.
Next session from Department of Labour presented by Richard Manning from work by Vij Kooleya and Dr. Ram SriRamaratnam on ‘what will the labour market look like in the future? Overall employment growth rate of employment of 2.5% per annum from 2003-2008,lowered to 0.5% between 2008-2013 & 0.8 % between 2013 – 2018. semi-skilled and skilled trades record negative growths between 2008-2013. Growth in skill-associates & high skilled occupations. Total employment forecasted to increase from now to 2013 as recession eases. Potential areas of employment growth include forestry & logging, communications, health/community services etc. Decreases expected esp.in all forms of manufacturing and construction. Implications of aging workforce indicate slowly rising numbers of people retiring from the workforce over the next 10 years.
A busy morning bracketed with good conversations with various other people interested in discussing either my presentation yesterday or interested in details of the ‘first year apprentices’perspectives’project.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
ITF NZ vocational education research forum - day one afternoon
My session came up first thing after lunch. I presented on the concept of assisting the boundary crossing of new trades tutors into acceptance of an identity as a teacher. Basically a report on a subset of the Ako Aotearoa southern hub funded project’perspectives of new trades tutors’. I introduced concepts of cultural-historical activity theory (CHATs) and metaphors of boundary crossing, boundary objects and boundary crossers using examples from the study but encouraging audience to think about examples within their own contexts.
Next session was with Dr. Heather Lees with Peter Engelbrecht and Peter Whittaker from the ETITO, on capturing skill utilisation: workplace evidence in national qualifications and literacy profiles. Overview of current ETITO qualification development/review process. Preparatory research followed by consulting industry (mainly SMEs) and develop qualification. New approach included workplace visits to the process instead of just a consultation group. A qualification role profile report was constructed to inform the development of a role competency map. This include non-technical (personal attributes, attitudes, industry knowledge, firm) and technical skills (general, trade/professiona and firm specific technical skills). Norhdaug’s classification of skills (1993) used to help prioritise the types of non-technical, technical or firm specific skills into the qualification. Literacy and numeracy skill profiles/demands of various tasks were also considered.Links were made between literacy and qualifications profiles in tandem so that both are integrated/embedded.
After afternoon tea, attended sessions by Katherine Percy, Workbase and Ravi Kulatunga from etc. Consulting. On cost effective method for measuring business benefits of workplace literacy learning. Example based on work with five companies. Began with measuring productivity in the form of KPIs (production, warehousing, health & safety, HR, customer service etc.) Did one base line measure than another one after the programme & a period of time has passed to allow return of investment of staff attending/completing programme to bed down. Quantitative approach used supplemented with qualitative data from focus groups. Quantitative data show positive returns with increases in labour productivity, employee skills, service delivery etc & reduction in absenteeism, error rate, overtime etc. The evaluation exercise led to better understanding by each company on how to leverage the workplace literacy programmes to help improve workplace productivity.
A full day closed with plenary session from Anne Alkema, Dr. Cathy Wright and Dr. John Benseman– Department of Labour on Workplace LLN (learning literacy and numeracy). Anne went through literature which tells us it is difficult to quantify the benefits of embedding LLN in workplace learning, however, intangible benefits (improved confidence, self efficacy etc.) other than actual literacy/numeracy skills appear to be there but difficult to pin down. 3 completed studies used to provide summaries. Key messages for employer-led LNN indicate lack of awareness about link between LNN & workplace issues, there is need to promote LNN training as a part of a whole business approach and access to funding is an issue. From the Modern apprentices perspectives, there is a divide between the ‘literate’ world and the trade world, apprentices employ coping strategies to mask L & N issues, workplace productivity takes priority. Impact of LLN support for apprentices include improved confidence etc. Common themes include need to do considerable work to raise awareness of LLN, workplaces still unable to integrate and there is still a ‘deficit’ approach to LLN. Cathy presented on literature review undertaken with LLN – need to gain & sustain company commitment including supervisors being part of learning project team, identity literacy needs by conducting company & individual needs assessment, full & consultative planning before programme begins, create a positive learning environment. Need to include context into curriculum design, make programme design a collaborative effort, select skilful instructors, use a flexible delivery mix, tailored /flexible support required. Lead into the upskill study which is about to be completed by this group. Went through findings from a study to evaluate role of LLN in upskilling by Wolf and Evans (2009). John provided guidelines on how to use research literature to inform current LLN programmes. Good resources produced by NRDC & need to think of how this information can be passes on to practitioners.
Next session was with Dr. Heather Lees with Peter Engelbrecht and Peter Whittaker from the ETITO, on capturing skill utilisation: workplace evidence in national qualifications and literacy profiles. Overview of current ETITO qualification development/review process. Preparatory research followed by consulting industry (mainly SMEs) and develop qualification. New approach included workplace visits to the process instead of just a consultation group. A qualification role profile report was constructed to inform the development of a role competency map. This include non-technical (personal attributes, attitudes, industry knowledge, firm) and technical skills (general, trade/professiona and firm specific technical skills). Norhdaug’s classification of skills (1993) used to help prioritise the types of non-technical, technical or firm specific skills into the qualification. Literacy and numeracy skill profiles/demands of various tasks were also considered.Links were made between literacy and qualifications profiles in tandem so that both are integrated/embedded.
After afternoon tea, attended sessions by Katherine Percy, Workbase and Ravi Kulatunga from etc. Consulting. On cost effective method for measuring business benefits of workplace literacy learning. Example based on work with five companies. Began with measuring productivity in the form of KPIs (production, warehousing, health & safety, HR, customer service etc.) Did one base line measure than another one after the programme & a period of time has passed to allow return of investment of staff attending/completing programme to bed down. Quantitative approach used supplemented with qualitative data from focus groups. Quantitative data show positive returns with increases in labour productivity, employee skills, service delivery etc & reduction in absenteeism, error rate, overtime etc. The evaluation exercise led to better understanding by each company on how to leverage the workplace literacy programmes to help improve workplace productivity.
A full day closed with plenary session from Anne Alkema, Dr. Cathy Wright and Dr. John Benseman– Department of Labour on Workplace LLN (learning literacy and numeracy). Anne went through literature which tells us it is difficult to quantify the benefits of embedding LLN in workplace learning, however, intangible benefits (improved confidence, self efficacy etc.) other than actual literacy/numeracy skills appear to be there but difficult to pin down. 3 completed studies used to provide summaries. Key messages for employer-led LNN indicate lack of awareness about link between LNN & workplace issues, there is need to promote LNN training as a part of a whole business approach and access to funding is an issue. From the Modern apprentices perspectives, there is a divide between the ‘literate’ world and the trade world, apprentices employ coping strategies to mask L & N issues, workplace productivity takes priority. Impact of LLN support for apprentices include improved confidence etc. Common themes include need to do considerable work to raise awareness of LLN, workplaces still unable to integrate and there is still a ‘deficit’ approach to LLN. Cathy presented on literature review undertaken with LLN – need to gain & sustain company commitment including supervisors being part of learning project team, identity literacy needs by conducting company & individual needs assessment, full & consultative planning before programme begins, create a positive learning environment. Need to include context into curriculum design, make programme design a collaborative effort, select skilful instructors, use a flexible delivery mix, tailored /flexible support required. Lead into the upskill study which is about to be completed by this group. Went through findings from a study to evaluate role of LLN in upskilling by Wolf and Evans (2009). John provided guidelines on how to use research literature to inform current LLN programmes. Good resources produced by NRDC & need to think of how this information can be passes on to practitioners.
ITF NZ vocational education research forum
At the annual NZ vocational education and training research forum held at Victoria University’s Rutherford House. Over 200 participants and a host of interesting presentations to look forward to. Flip Leijten, who is working with me on the multimodal projects is also attending, It will be good to find out his perspectives on the various concepts he will encounter over the two days. It is a good way to introduce Flip to conference presentations as next year we plan to present our findings from the multimodal projects at this conference & other similar ones in Oz.
Jeremy Baker CEO of ITF opens with a warm welcome. Seems many abstracts submitted but presentations selected for quality and relevance. Representatives from all sectors of voc. ed. in NZ represented and this is the one conference in NZ which is focused on voc. ed. research. Good to see the growth of interest in the area considering that there was very little research in NZ in voc. ed. a decade ago.
Conference opens with a welcome address from Dr. Peter Coolbear, director of Ako Aotearoa who spoke on excellence in vocational education in NZ. Focus on defining excellence as being the learner perspective & how learners and employers view their educational experience and assess the value of their learning. Drivers of excellence include personal motivation of learner, personal motivation of educator, the organisation, the system, policy settings and the funding incentives. Also provided an overview of the four Ako Aotearoa National funded projects plus some of the hub projects and good practise projects how these fit into the Ako Aotearoa objectives of ensuring key findings reach decision makers to provide for prompt action.
First keynote by Professor Richard Lakes from Georgia State University on VET sectors: Alignments in workforce and economic development. Began with a summary of USA voc. ed. direction. Then discussed the national crisis of youth transitions as less than 25% of high school seniors qualify for college, poor results on PISA study with USA on the bottom quadrant of science and math, highest incarceration rate etc. Presented Georgia work ready project as one way to work through challenges presented. Workkeys is used as a diagnostic test (applied maths, reading for info & locating info. & work habits) to establish work readiness. Various public sector funded initiatives detailed to assist various groups to access voc. ed. to prepare school leavers for available work.. Detailed various methods used to link to state policy to match workforce skills requirements in various specialised sectors & especially in emergent industries like the life sciences / biotech sector, aviation maintenance etc.
After morning tea, attended a series of presentations from Phd students doing research in the voc ed area. Short 15 minute presentations so only an overview of each study. I was interested in finding out more about research approaches and methodology.
Begins with Lois Parks from Victoria University on a ‘theory of national Human resource development policy evaluation and engagement’. Her study based on the tourism industry. Introduced usual strategic HRD/VET logic whereby govt. organises qualifications etc which eventually leads to skills development in the industry targets. Proposes an alternative approach which is a critical HRD/stakeholder evaluation logic. This proposal uses iterative cycles of stakeholder engagement to fine tune skills development so that skills meet relevant/current industry needs. Data analysis leads to the building of a series of models.
Then ‘human capital deficiency in the NZ dairy industry – a case study’ presented by Rachel Lowry (with Professor Graham Elkin) from the University of Otago.Based on a study written up 2 years ago and involves specifically looking at the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) of dairy farm assistants. Dairy industry an important contributor to the NZ economy & has been impacted on my various macro (technological, economic, legal-political, socio-cultural and international) and micro (customers/clients, competitors, suppliers, labour supply and government policies) influences. Skill shortage still impacting on industry despite higher unemployment rate in NZ. Interviews with dairy farm employers to find out what KSA they require when they appoint dairy farm assistants. Performance gaps were then identified and current training needs not 100% met. More authentic learning systems recommended to bridge the gap.
Last presentation before lunch was an interesting one from Kim Hastwell from Auckland University on ‘potential language, literacy and numeracy challenges of supermarket work.’. Research based on workplace experience for training opportunities programme students. Highest two levels of students in the TOPs courses are afforded opportunities for work experience, mostly in supermarkets. Students were mainly refugee/migrants unfamiliar/ new to NZ culture. Interviews of supermarket markets to find out pre-requisites for employment. None mentioned literacy or numeracy but all mentioned communication skills (mainly oral communication) along with usual work readiness skills. Assumption seemed to have been made by managers that if someone could speak and understand English, they would also have the relevant literacy/numeracy skills. Job demands for ‘customer service’ covered a whole host of actual KSA. Although literacy events did not required extended reading/writing, the supermarket environment is extremely literacy-rich. Numeracy was often ‘embedded’ or ‘invisible’ and required the ability to estimate (sometimes more a spatial perspective), conduct accuracy with mental arithmetic, understand different date formats along with understand graphs and tables. Implications for training needs to include employment pre-requisites couched under specific social and cultural mores, foundation for on the job communication, literacy & numeracy learning needs to be workplace relevant (including voluntary work experience).
Jeremy Baker CEO of ITF opens with a warm welcome. Seems many abstracts submitted but presentations selected for quality and relevance. Representatives from all sectors of voc. ed. in NZ represented and this is the one conference in NZ which is focused on voc. ed. research. Good to see the growth of interest in the area considering that there was very little research in NZ in voc. ed. a decade ago.
Conference opens with a welcome address from Dr. Peter Coolbear, director of Ako Aotearoa who spoke on excellence in vocational education in NZ. Focus on defining excellence as being the learner perspective & how learners and employers view their educational experience and assess the value of their learning. Drivers of excellence include personal motivation of learner, personal motivation of educator, the organisation, the system, policy settings and the funding incentives. Also provided an overview of the four Ako Aotearoa National funded projects plus some of the hub projects and good practise projects how these fit into the Ako Aotearoa objectives of ensuring key findings reach decision makers to provide for prompt action.
First keynote by Professor Richard Lakes from Georgia State University on VET sectors: Alignments in workforce and economic development. Began with a summary of USA voc. ed. direction. Then discussed the national crisis of youth transitions as less than 25% of high school seniors qualify for college, poor results on PISA study with USA on the bottom quadrant of science and math, highest incarceration rate etc. Presented Georgia work ready project as one way to work through challenges presented. Workkeys is used as a diagnostic test (applied maths, reading for info & locating info. & work habits) to establish work readiness. Various public sector funded initiatives detailed to assist various groups to access voc. ed. to prepare school leavers for available work.. Detailed various methods used to link to state policy to match workforce skills requirements in various specialised sectors & especially in emergent industries like the life sciences / biotech sector, aviation maintenance etc.
After morning tea, attended a series of presentations from Phd students doing research in the voc ed area. Short 15 minute presentations so only an overview of each study. I was interested in finding out more about research approaches and methodology.
Begins with Lois Parks from Victoria University on a ‘theory of national Human resource development policy evaluation and engagement’. Her study based on the tourism industry. Introduced usual strategic HRD/VET logic whereby govt. organises qualifications etc which eventually leads to skills development in the industry targets. Proposes an alternative approach which is a critical HRD/stakeholder evaluation logic. This proposal uses iterative cycles of stakeholder engagement to fine tune skills development so that skills meet relevant/current industry needs. Data analysis leads to the building of a series of models.
Then ‘human capital deficiency in the NZ dairy industry – a case study’ presented by Rachel Lowry (with Professor Graham Elkin) from the University of Otago.Based on a study written up 2 years ago and involves specifically looking at the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) of dairy farm assistants. Dairy industry an important contributor to the NZ economy & has been impacted on my various macro (technological, economic, legal-political, socio-cultural and international) and micro (customers/clients, competitors, suppliers, labour supply and government policies) influences. Skill shortage still impacting on industry despite higher unemployment rate in NZ. Interviews with dairy farm employers to find out what KSA they require when they appoint dairy farm assistants. Performance gaps were then identified and current training needs not 100% met. More authentic learning systems recommended to bridge the gap.
Last presentation before lunch was an interesting one from Kim Hastwell from Auckland University on ‘potential language, literacy and numeracy challenges of supermarket work.’. Research based on workplace experience for training opportunities programme students. Highest two levels of students in the TOPs courses are afforded opportunities for work experience, mostly in supermarkets. Students were mainly refugee/migrants unfamiliar/ new to NZ culture. Interviews of supermarket markets to find out pre-requisites for employment. None mentioned literacy or numeracy but all mentioned communication skills (mainly oral communication) along with usual work readiness skills. Assumption seemed to have been made by managers that if someone could speak and understand English, they would also have the relevant literacy/numeracy skills. Job demands for ‘customer service’ covered a whole host of actual KSA. Although literacy events did not required extended reading/writing, the supermarket environment is extremely literacy-rich. Numeracy was often ‘embedded’ or ‘invisible’ and required the ability to estimate (sometimes more a spatial perspective), conduct accuracy with mental arithmetic, understand different date formats along with understand graphs and tables. Implications for training needs to include employment pre-requisites couched under specific social and cultural mores, foundation for on the job communication, literacy & numeracy learning needs to be workplace relevant (including voluntary work experience).
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Spotlight on Tertiary teaching in Canterbury and beyond - some presentations now available
Our ever efficient Ako Aotearoa Academy manager, Helen Dobson has now put up various presentations and submissions generated at the Ako Akotearoa Academy / Ako Aotearoa Southern Hub event in Christchurch held on 26th March.
Especially fortuious is that all the presentations which I missed in the conconcurrent sessions are now available :) Helen has also collated the feedback from the event for the organisers, the Canterbury chapter of the Ako Aotearoa Academy, to assess. The feedback was overwhelmingly in support of the event, so it looks like there is consensus for another similar event next year.
Especially fortuious is that all the presentations which I missed in the conconcurrent sessions are now available :) Helen has also collated the feedback from the event for the organisers, the Canterbury chapter of the Ako Aotearoa Academy, to assess. The feedback was overwhelmingly in support of the event, so it looks like there is consensus for another similar event next year.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Skill Acquistion - readings
Over the Easter ‘break’ I worked on my thesis and also did a read up on skill acquisition. Found the book edited by A.M. Williams & N.J. Hodges (2004) – Skill acquisition in sport: research, theory & practice to be helpful.
Most books on skill acquisition are older( pre 1960s) and out of print. Contemporary books on the topic are on sports skills so the above book provides a good example of the genre & provides good overviews of aspects of skills acquisition including individual differences, understanding role of feedback, instructions, demonstrations and the learning process, observational learning and expertise.
Some chapters of the Williams and Hodges book are available on Google books. In particular, the first chapter by Summers, J. J. – a historical perspective of skill acquisition is a good summary and revision. The next three sections cover a good range of articles on the information processing perspectives, expertise approach and the newer ecological/dynamic systems approach to studying skills acquisition. This book provides more studies / details on the last approach ‘dynamics of skill acquisition: a constraints –led approach by Keith Davids, Chris Button and Simon Bennett.
Other books in the CPIT library include ‘Motor learning and performance: a situation-based learning approach’ by Richard Schmidt and Craig Wrisberg. A textbook on the topic. Well structured and covers the important background theories on motor learning. Has good real world examples. Highly readable. Some chapters available as previews on Google books.
Motor control, learning and development (2008) by Andrea Utley and Sarah Astill provides a good overview of the essentials in the field including classification of skill, theories of motor control and learning, stages in motor learning, implications for practice and the role and function of feedback. A more detailed / higher level version of above is ‘Motor learning and control: concepts and applications’ (2007) by Richard A. Mcgill. Well laid out as a text book with good overviews of the precepts of the field. This book is supported by a website which has review questions/quizzes, weblinks and related readings. Also a preview of 9th edition with chapters 1 & 3 with details of Gentile’s taxonomy on page 12 which may be useful for coding purposes in our project.
The other book which is important is the older NCVER publication edited by John Stevenson. Almost every chapter in Cognition at work (1994) is pertinent to our project. A newer book (2003) also edited by John Stevenson ‘ Developing vocational expertise: Principles and issues in vocational education’ is more generalised. A slightly newer book, Cognition and communication at work edited by Y. Engestrom and D. Middleton has previews on google books. Again most chapters are pertinent. Chapter 2 by Edwin Hutchins & Tove Klausen on ‘distributed cognition in an airline cockpit’ has a good description of how to find meaning using videos and audio recordings of a complex work tasks.
There are also pertinent chapters in the book ‘workplace learning in context’ edited by Helen Rainbird, Alison Fuller & Anne Munro. Preview of many chapters on Google books. Three chapters of relevance from this book. Chapter 11 by Michael Young on ‘conceptualising vocational knowledge: Some theorectical considerations’ provides background and theorectical foundations which updates and extend on precepts used in the ‘Cognition at work’ book. Chapter 12 by Michael Eraut on ‘transfer of knowledge between education and workplace settings’ provides a framework to understand the knowledge found in the workplace. We can adjust this framework to extend on Nuttall’s recommendation for analysing concepts to be learnt in a classroom. Chapter 9 by Yrjo Engestrom on ‘the new generation of expertise’ presents 7 thesis on a new way to understand expertise. This book also has chapters on learning through work by Stephen Billett, expansive learning environments by Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin, learner biographies by Karen Evans, Natasha Kersch and Akiko Sakamoto, conception and measurement of learning at work by Paul Hager and complexities of workplace learning – problems and dangers in trying to measure attainment by Phil and Heather Hodkinson.
Most books on skill acquisition are older( pre 1960s) and out of print. Contemporary books on the topic are on sports skills so the above book provides a good example of the genre & provides good overviews of aspects of skills acquisition including individual differences, understanding role of feedback, instructions, demonstrations and the learning process, observational learning and expertise.
Some chapters of the Williams and Hodges book are available on Google books. In particular, the first chapter by Summers, J. J. – a historical perspective of skill acquisition is a good summary and revision. The next three sections cover a good range of articles on the information processing perspectives, expertise approach and the newer ecological/dynamic systems approach to studying skills acquisition. This book provides more studies / details on the last approach ‘dynamics of skill acquisition: a constraints –led approach by Keith Davids, Chris Button and Simon Bennett.
Other books in the CPIT library include ‘Motor learning and performance: a situation-based learning approach’ by Richard Schmidt and Craig Wrisberg. A textbook on the topic. Well structured and covers the important background theories on motor learning. Has good real world examples. Highly readable. Some chapters available as previews on Google books.
Motor control, learning and development (2008) by Andrea Utley and Sarah Astill provides a good overview of the essentials in the field including classification of skill, theories of motor control and learning, stages in motor learning, implications for practice and the role and function of feedback. A more detailed / higher level version of above is ‘Motor learning and control: concepts and applications’ (2007) by Richard A. Mcgill. Well laid out as a text book with good overviews of the precepts of the field. This book is supported by a website which has review questions/quizzes, weblinks and related readings. Also a preview of 9th edition with chapters 1 & 3 with details of Gentile’s taxonomy on page 12 which may be useful for coding purposes in our project.
The other book which is important is the older NCVER publication edited by John Stevenson. Almost every chapter in Cognition at work (1994) is pertinent to our project. A newer book (2003) also edited by John Stevenson ‘ Developing vocational expertise: Principles and issues in vocational education’ is more generalised. A slightly newer book, Cognition and communication at work edited by Y. Engestrom and D. Middleton has previews on google books. Again most chapters are pertinent. Chapter 2 by Edwin Hutchins & Tove Klausen on ‘distributed cognition in an airline cockpit’ has a good description of how to find meaning using videos and audio recordings of a complex work tasks.
There are also pertinent chapters in the book ‘workplace learning in context’ edited by Helen Rainbird, Alison Fuller & Anne Munro. Preview of many chapters on Google books. Three chapters of relevance from this book. Chapter 11 by Michael Young on ‘conceptualising vocational knowledge: Some theorectical considerations’ provides background and theorectical foundations which updates and extend on precepts used in the ‘Cognition at work’ book. Chapter 12 by Michael Eraut on ‘transfer of knowledge between education and workplace settings’ provides a framework to understand the knowledge found in the workplace. We can adjust this framework to extend on Nuttall’s recommendation for analysing concepts to be learnt in a classroom. Chapter 9 by Yrjo Engestrom on ‘the new generation of expertise’ presents 7 thesis on a new way to understand expertise. This book also has chapters on learning through work by Stephen Billett, expansive learning environments by Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin, learner biographies by Karen Evans, Natasha Kersch and Akiko Sakamoto, conception and measurement of learning at work by Paul Hager and complexities of workplace learning – problems and dangers in trying to measure attainment by Phil and Heather Hodkinson.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Learning welding #4 - Deconstructing video data
We are now in the process of transcribing relevant video data. At present, doing this by watching and then coding snippets which we have identified as of relevance to our study. We are following steps suggested in Erickson’s (2006) recommendations for the steps to take when analysing video data and Jae Major’s advise. Snippets are tracked by recording time code. The columns in our transcript table are to record the time code, transcribe any conversations / interactions / verbal outputs, record activity being undertaken and record any non-verbal actions.
The next step is to study the above for patterns. Time codes can be matched to verbal transcripts, activities and non-verbal actions. Frequency of activities / non-verbal actions may provide some patterns. Verbal outputs are studied for themes. We have started to match activities and non-verbal actions to verbal themes. This provides for a better representation of the ‘whole’ picture of how interactions take place.
There will be a need at some stage to break the above down into more precise categories. In non-verbal activities, there is a need to code for the various forms of kinesics and haptics which are the predominant non-verbal activities.
Transcription of the video data takes an inordinate amount of time!! My speed is around 10 minutes for each minute of video. Flip, who is learning the process, takes double my time. In comparison, I usually take about 2 to 3 minutes to transcribe each minute of interview audio recording. This warns us about the need to be very precise as to our overall purpose for using video for gathering research evidence. Not that serendipity will be ignored :) but focus will be important in order not to be bogged down with large amounts of evidence and too many disparate themes to follow through. With the welding class in recess, we will have time over the Easter to re-evaluate our research question / purpose and begin next term with a better focus on the types of activities we will record.
The next step is to study the above for patterns. Time codes can be matched to verbal transcripts, activities and non-verbal actions. Frequency of activities / non-verbal actions may provide some patterns. Verbal outputs are studied for themes. We have started to match activities and non-verbal actions to verbal themes. This provides for a better representation of the ‘whole’ picture of how interactions take place.
There will be a need at some stage to break the above down into more precise categories. In non-verbal activities, there is a need to code for the various forms of kinesics and haptics which are the predominant non-verbal activities.
Transcription of the video data takes an inordinate amount of time!! My speed is around 10 minutes for each minute of video. Flip, who is learning the process, takes double my time. In comparison, I usually take about 2 to 3 minutes to transcribe each minute of interview audio recording. This warns us about the need to be very precise as to our overall purpose for using video for gathering research evidence. Not that serendipity will be ignored :) but focus will be important in order not to be bogged down with large amounts of evidence and too many disparate themes to follow through. With the welding class in recess, we will have time over the Easter to re-evaluate our research question / purpose and begin next term with a better focus on the types of activities we will record.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Ako Aotearoa - Spotlight on tertiary teaching in Canterbury & beyond
The Ako Aotearoa Academy (Canterbury chapter) organised a 'Spotlight on Tertiary Teaching' funded by Ako Aotearoa and Ako Aotearoa Southern Hub. Over 160 tertiary educators from Universities (Canterbury (UC), Lincoln & Otago), Polytechs (CPIT, Nelson, Southland) and various provide providers attended the event.
Ako Aotearoa was also represented by Dr. Peter Coolbear & the academy represented by president, Donna Buckingham. The event was fully sponsored so there were no registration fees, which assisted many part-time educators and teachers working in private training institutions to attend. In all, a grand celebration of the diversity of educational offerings available in NZ plus a showcase of educator's student centred teaching philosopies.The event was opend with a welcome from Ngahiwi Apanui (Kaijautu Maori for Ako Aotearoa) & Dr. Juliet Gerard representing the organising committee.
Dr. Tim Bell and Dr. Angus McIntosh convened the first session which was a dual stream session of presentations. I attended the sessions in Stream A which included Derek Chirnside's entertaining presentation on Vygotsky: A physicist encounters the world of educational research. Dr. Ruth Zanker from CPIT on immersive learning environments for Broadcasting communications students, Dr. Ben Kennedy from UC using clickers & presenting on Carl Weiman's science education iniative, Haani Huata's (CPIT) wonderful presentation on using song and dance to 'transmit' intergenerational knowledge and Carol Acheson (Otago) on academic skill development for mature post-graduate students.
In the other stream, there were presentations from Dr. Niki Davis (UC) on using blended learning, Dr. Catherine Moran (UC) on tertiary teaching from classroom to community, John Grant on tertiary education opportunities for adults with intellectual disabilities, Dr. Glen Koorey (UC) on engaging the engineering industry as students and teachers and Dr. Simon Kingham (UC) on service-leanring.
Dale Sheehan and myself then faciitated a sesssion on 'lifting your game' which focused on unpacking individual teachers' philosophies on teaching. Dr. Marjorie Manthei (retired from CPIT) provided the background. Four panel members provided examples of their teaching philosophies. They were Dr. Tim Wilkinson (UC) on teaching doctors, Phil Healey (tutor of the year for the NZ private education providers association) presented on teaching digital literacy skills, Te Rita Paphesh presented a good overview of Maori pedagogy and Stephen Byers (CPIT) on teaching level 2 students on a pre-trade electrical industry supply programme. The audience then worked in groups to distill and discuss their own philosophies.
The last session was a panel discussion brought together by Dr. Eric Pawson & Dr. Roger Nokes. Each panel member responded to a question which would then be discussed by the audience. A summary of responses will be collated & sent to CEOs of the institutions represented by the participants to the event. Anna Boyd (student at UC) responded to the question ' what should a student-centred institution look like?', Alan Walker (principal of Early Childhood School) responded to the question 'what would you do to enhance teaching with a large financial windfall!' Dr. Jan Cameron (UC) presented a thought provoking response to 'How should we incentivise teaching?' & Mary Kensington (CPIT) responded to the question "what do you do to lift your game as a teacher' with examples of how midwifery had to work to incorporate distance/flexible delivery into their programme.
The event closed with a short summary from Dr. Peter Coolbear and a farewell song from Haani Huata.
All in, informal feedback indicate there is a space for this event on the tertiary teachers' calendar for next year (and for as long as funding is available). I was especially encouraged by the many educators from private providers who attended. Many are keen to network and events like this provide a good opportunity for people from the diverse sectors of tertiary education to share ideas, challenges and solutions.
Ako Aotearoa was also represented by Dr. Peter Coolbear & the academy represented by president, Donna Buckingham. The event was fully sponsored so there were no registration fees, which assisted many part-time educators and teachers working in private training institutions to attend. In all, a grand celebration of the diversity of educational offerings available in NZ plus a showcase of educator's student centred teaching philosopies.The event was opend with a welcome from Ngahiwi Apanui (Kaijautu Maori for Ako Aotearoa) & Dr. Juliet Gerard representing the organising committee.
Dr. Tim Bell and Dr. Angus McIntosh convened the first session which was a dual stream session of presentations. I attended the sessions in Stream A which included Derek Chirnside's entertaining presentation on Vygotsky: A physicist encounters the world of educational research. Dr. Ruth Zanker from CPIT on immersive learning environments for Broadcasting communications students, Dr. Ben Kennedy from UC using clickers & presenting on Carl Weiman's science education iniative, Haani Huata's (CPIT) wonderful presentation on using song and dance to 'transmit' intergenerational knowledge and Carol Acheson (Otago) on academic skill development for mature post-graduate students.
In the other stream, there were presentations from Dr. Niki Davis (UC) on using blended learning, Dr. Catherine Moran (UC) on tertiary teaching from classroom to community, John Grant on tertiary education opportunities for adults with intellectual disabilities, Dr. Glen Koorey (UC) on engaging the engineering industry as students and teachers and Dr. Simon Kingham (UC) on service-leanring.
Dale Sheehan and myself then faciitated a sesssion on 'lifting your game' which focused on unpacking individual teachers' philosophies on teaching. Dr. Marjorie Manthei (retired from CPIT) provided the background. Four panel members provided examples of their teaching philosophies. They were Dr. Tim Wilkinson (UC) on teaching doctors, Phil Healey (tutor of the year for the NZ private education providers association) presented on teaching digital literacy skills, Te Rita Paphesh presented a good overview of Maori pedagogy and Stephen Byers (CPIT) on teaching level 2 students on a pre-trade electrical industry supply programme. The audience then worked in groups to distill and discuss their own philosophies.
The last session was a panel discussion brought together by Dr. Eric Pawson & Dr. Roger Nokes. Each panel member responded to a question which would then be discussed by the audience. A summary of responses will be collated & sent to CEOs of the institutions represented by the participants to the event. Anna Boyd (student at UC) responded to the question ' what should a student-centred institution look like?', Alan Walker (principal of Early Childhood School) responded to the question 'what would you do to enhance teaching with a large financial windfall!' Dr. Jan Cameron (UC) presented a thought provoking response to 'How should we incentivise teaching?' & Mary Kensington (CPIT) responded to the question "what do you do to lift your game as a teacher' with examples of how midwifery had to work to incorporate distance/flexible delivery into their programme.
The event closed with a short summary from Dr. Peter Coolbear and a farewell song from Haani Huata.
All in, informal feedback indicate there is a space for this event on the tertiary teachers' calendar for next year (and for as long as funding is available). I was especially encouraged by the many educators from private providers who attended. Many are keen to network and events like this provide a good opportunity for people from the diverse sectors of tertiary education to share ideas, challenges and solutions.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Visual sociology, anthropology and ethnography
A related research area to multimodal discourse analysis is the area of visual sociology. This is the study of various kinds of visual material and the visual social world. Other support sites of visual sociology approaches include a repository of research materials. Other sites include one from Anna Pechurina and a survey of visual research methods by Marcus Banks. So of some relevance to our project but more as a sideline.
However, the above led me to the book by Sarah Pink "Doing visual ethnography: Images, media and representation in research" parts of which are available via Google books. Which led on to the area of visual anthropology which has active Association providing access to papers on the topic.
Will file these into the interesting to know about folder and explore them in greater detail once we have more practice with data analysis methods for the video evidence we are collecting.
However, the above led me to the book by Sarah Pink "Doing visual ethnography: Images, media and representation in research" parts of which are available via Google books. Which led on to the area of visual anthropology which has active Association providing access to papers on the topic.
Will file these into the interesting to know about folder and explore them in greater detail once we have more practice with data analysis methods for the video evidence we are collecting.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Txtsys ehand - text messaging service for audience polls
From textually org comes news of ehand from txtsys, a local Christchurch company. The company provides a service which allows customers to text feedback / comments back to hospitality / retail providers. Obviously also useful for feedback from lecture / conference audiences.
Audience / users pay the usual cost of a text message and the company pays txtsys $65 a month for the service. So probably cost effective only for programmes with large numbers of students. Otherwise for small numbers (up to 30 text) poll anywhere provides opportunity for anonymous feedback from audiences/students. Twitter is the other tool which has similar use. All of these put the cost of messaging back on to the user. Whereas the other technology used for this sort of approach, clickers etc. transfers all costs to the organiser / provider.
Audience / users pay the usual cost of a text message and the company pays txtsys $65 a month for the service. So probably cost effective only for programmes with large numbers of students. Otherwise for small numbers (up to 30 text) poll anywhere provides opportunity for anonymous feedback from audiences/students. Twitter is the other tool which has similar use. All of these put the cost of messaging back on to the user. Whereas the other technology used for this sort of approach, clickers etc. transfers all costs to the organiser / provider.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Learning welding #3: Analysing interpersonal communications and gestures
Doing a read up on ‘ body language’ as so much of the video data we are collecting on the welding project has limited dialogue or has dialogue which is highly contextualised to the practical task at hand. Not only is learning welding a very individualised pursuit, but interpersonal communications are hampered by high noise levels prevalent in the welding workshop. The young men in the welding class we are observing are also not normally very articulate or prone to chatter away. Therefore, voice recordings of individual students yield long minutes of recordings made up of the noise generated while welding and preparing metal for and after welding. So lots of banging and other industrial noise but not a lot of talk.
However, our initial concentrated study of a couple of our trial videos indicate many bodily gestures which tell us much about how the student is approaching and engaging with the task.
1) There is usually a pre- task check, indicating knowledge of the need to have tools, pieces of metal to be prepared / welded / cleaned up / cut set up correctly.
2) During welding, sawing or filing, students stop not only to catch their breathes :) but also to
make ongoing checks to ensure all goes well.
3) Checks can be observed via gestures like a cocked head and concerted peering at the article being worked on.
4) In some cases, there are physical gestures which indicate a need to relate mental images (size / shape) to the actual task. We see this as the use of fingers to estimate width or height while the student also turns his head in several directions in order to make the estimation from different angles. We will need to work out a way which is not intrusive to find out what is happening in the students’ heads as they ‘study’ their sample before they progress on to the next part of the process they are working on.
5) Other things observed include the use of touch to ascertain smoothness of metal surfaces being polished. This occurs regularly as students have to remove hacksaw marks from their work before they are able to check if their welds have been accomplished effectively.
6) There is also decision making as when choosing when to stop a processes like filing to change over to a finer polishing ‘tool’ using sandpaper. Students may then revert from sandpaper back to file when the sandpaper does not make any inroads into their polishing action.
7) Frequencies of checks may be one way to compare various students’ improvement in recognising occasions for change in filing angles or technique. This may be something we could do as a preliminary data analysis exercise.
A trawl through the CPIT CPIT library came up with the “ Handbook on interpersonal communication’” second edition edited by M.L. Knapp and G.R. Miller (1994) with at chapter by J.D. Burgoon on non- verbal signals. Most of the chapter is also available on google books.
In the above chapter, the 7 forms of non-verbal communications are summarised as:
The several hours of data we have collected so far has already yielded several items to follow through. These include a compartive study of frequency of checks students make while undertaking a tasks, identification of signs of hesitancy when decision making and the use of touch in checking on progress with certain tasks.
However, our initial concentrated study of a couple of our trial videos indicate many bodily gestures which tell us much about how the student is approaching and engaging with the task.
1) There is usually a pre- task check, indicating knowledge of the need to have tools, pieces of metal to be prepared / welded / cleaned up / cut set up correctly.
2) During welding, sawing or filing, students stop not only to catch their breathes :) but also to
make ongoing checks to ensure all goes well.
3) Checks can be observed via gestures like a cocked head and concerted peering at the article being worked on.
4) In some cases, there are physical gestures which indicate a need to relate mental images (size / shape) to the actual task. We see this as the use of fingers to estimate width or height while the student also turns his head in several directions in order to make the estimation from different angles. We will need to work out a way which is not intrusive to find out what is happening in the students’ heads as they ‘study’ their sample before they progress on to the next part of the process they are working on.
5) Other things observed include the use of touch to ascertain smoothness of metal surfaces being polished. This occurs regularly as students have to remove hacksaw marks from their work before they are able to check if their welds have been accomplished effectively.
6) There is also decision making as when choosing when to stop a processes like filing to change over to a finer polishing ‘tool’ using sandpaper. Students may then revert from sandpaper back to file when the sandpaper does not make any inroads into their polishing action.
7) Frequencies of checks may be one way to compare various students’ improvement in recognising occasions for change in filing angles or technique. This may be something we could do as a preliminary data analysis exercise.
A trawl through the CPIT CPIT library came up with the “ Handbook on interpersonal communication’” second edition edited by M.L. Knapp and G.R. Miller (1994) with at chapter by J.D. Burgoon on non- verbal signals. Most of the chapter is also available on google books.
In the above chapter, the 7 forms of non-verbal communications are summarised as:
- Kinesics – visual bodily movements, including gestures, facial expressions, trunk & limb movements, posture, gaze etc. – as exampled in my above description in paragraph 2.
- Vocalic or paralanguage – use of verbal cues other than words themselves including pitch, loudness, tempo, pauses, inflection which are studied using discourse analysis.
- Physical appearance – includes manipulable features which include dress, hairstyle, cosmetics, fragrances and adornments (perhaps also uniforms) and NOT non –manipulable features like physiognomy and height. – perhaps useful.
- Haptics – use of touch – something we will need to observe more closely.
- Proxemics – interpersonal distance and spacing relationships – when we analyse group /peer / tutor interaction.
- Chronemics – use of time as a message system, including code elements like punctuality, waiting, lead time and amount of time spent with someone – need to work this one out for relevance and to see if hesitancy or over-checking is a sign of a lack of confidence in students' judgement.
- Artifacts – manipulable objects and environmental features which convey messages from their designers of users – we will need to code task & artifacts being worked on.
The several hours of data we have collected so far has already yielded several items to follow through. These include a compartive study of frequency of checks students make while undertaking a tasks, identification of signs of hesitancy when decision making and the use of touch in checking on progress with certain tasks.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Books found at the Unitec library
Over the course of the last two months, I have put half a day a week to refresh my 'apprentices research' bibliography. The libraries both at work and at the university are still quiet as the students have only just started. Despite prevalence of on-line journals, google books & epublications, I still love browsing the stacks. Each trip always ends with a satisfying stack of books relevant to various projects, many of which would have escaped my attention by just relying on catalogue and database searches. Maybe I am not searching them correctly :( but I think not, as some gems are buried - say 123 out of 1000 hits! & I seldom get down beyond scanning the first 100.
While in Auckland last week, I managed to find a couple of hours to browse the 3 shelves of books on education in the library at Unitec as I was interview boating apprentices at Unitec. These include the following pertinent ones:
Understanding pedagogy and its impact on learning (1999) edited by P. Mortimore had a good chapter by Watkins, C & Mortimore, P. Pedagogy, what do we know, Young, M. & Lucas, N. on Pedagogies in further ed. New context, new theories and new possibilities and Griffiths, T. & Guile, D. on pedagogy in workplace contexts. First chapter on google books.
Also browsed through Classroom discourses by Cazden, C.B. (2001), a seminal book on studying class room discourse which provided many examples of discourse analysis techniques undertaken with data collected during class sessions.
Atkinson, T & Claxton. G. (2000) The intuitive practitioner: on the value of not always knowing what one is doing. A fascinating read which I will have to find another copy of.
Lastly, but by no means least, a book that provides inspiration for a longitudinal study. Levin, B. B. (2003) case studies of teacher development: an in-depth look at how thinking about pedagogy develops over time. Which is a 15 year project following 4 graduates of a pre-service teacher training programme and their development as teachers. The understanding of pedagogy was studied using Ammon & Hutchinson’s (1989) model of pedagogical thinking. I will follow this one through in the next year or so as the CPIT DTLT programme beds down. It will be good to be able to follow a group of new vocational educators over number of years as they move from professional / trades practioners to becoming teachers.
While in Auckland last week, I managed to find a couple of hours to browse the 3 shelves of books on education in the library at Unitec as I was interview boating apprentices at Unitec. These include the following pertinent ones:
Understanding pedagogy and its impact on learning (1999) edited by P. Mortimore had a good chapter by Watkins, C & Mortimore, P. Pedagogy, what do we know, Young, M. & Lucas, N. on Pedagogies in further ed. New context, new theories and new possibilities and Griffiths, T. & Guile, D. on pedagogy in workplace contexts. First chapter on google books.
Also browsed through Classroom discourses by Cazden, C.B. (2001), a seminal book on studying class room discourse which provided many examples of discourse analysis techniques undertaken with data collected during class sessions.
Atkinson, T & Claxton. G. (2000) The intuitive practitioner: on the value of not always knowing what one is doing. A fascinating read which I will have to find another copy of.
Lastly, but by no means least, a book that provides inspiration for a longitudinal study. Levin, B. B. (2003) case studies of teacher development: an in-depth look at how thinking about pedagogy develops over time. Which is a 15 year project following 4 graduates of a pre-service teacher training programme and their development as teachers. The understanding of pedagogy was studied using Ammon & Hutchinson’s (1989) model of pedagogical thinking. I will follow this one through in the next year or so as the CPIT DTLT programme beds down. It will be good to be able to follow a group of new vocational educators over number of years as they move from professional / trades practioners to becoming teachers.
Research project progress
Last week was a busy week. My three research days are full of 'things to do'. Last week I was in Auckland for two days, doing focus group meetings with groups of Boating apprentices. A fine collection of energetic and enthusiastic young men, all bar one out of 23 made a concerted decision to enter the trade of boat building. It will be interesting to find out perspectives of apprentices from other trades as boat building seems to be one of the ‘trendy’ trades with prospects for good wages at the end of apprenticeship plus opportunities to travel, participate in international sailing races and opportunities to learn and practice a diverse range of skills.
On the third research day, Flip & I did our first ‘data collection’ session with a group of welding students. We accomplished a good morning of work to familiarise ourselves with the hardware and for the students to become acquainted with us observing / filming them. Six students were also issued with voice recorders which they put into their overalls chest pockets. Quality of sound from the recorders was good. Synchronising them to videos will be a challenge but we will work on time codes.
In the afternoon, we had a convivial and informative meeting with Jae Major at the College of Education, University of Canterbury. Jae provided useful tips about focusing on the research question and most importantly, how to organise video data using time codes, synchronising voice recorders to video and archival of the data. Also some good tips on how to go about doing preliminary and then more in-depth data analysis. Her instructions mirror some of the recommendations provided by Frederick Erickson in a chapter on research procedures and their rationales for dealing with the analysis of videotape evidence, in the Handbook of Complementary Methods in Educational Research (2006), much of the chapter available on google books.
On the third research day, Flip & I did our first ‘data collection’ session with a group of welding students. We accomplished a good morning of work to familiarise ourselves with the hardware and for the students to become acquainted with us observing / filming them. Six students were also issued with voice recorders which they put into their overalls chest pockets. Quality of sound from the recorders was good. Synchronising them to videos will be a challenge but we will work on time codes.
In the afternoon, we had a convivial and informative meeting with Jae Major at the College of Education, University of Canterbury. Jae provided useful tips about focusing on the research question and most importantly, how to organise video data using time codes, synchronising voice recorders to video and archival of the data. Also some good tips on how to go about doing preliminary and then more in-depth data analysis. Her instructions mirror some of the recommendations provided by Frederick Erickson in a chapter on research procedures and their rationales for dealing with the analysis of videotape evidence, in the Handbook of Complementary Methods in Educational Research (2006), much of the chapter available on google books.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Learning welding #2
During our conversations on welding, I have taken the role of absolute beginner while Flip explains the intricacies of welding to me. Apart from the need to learn welding skills along with the skills to be an independent learner, I was interested to find out what nuances are of importance in welding.
One important nuance is the role of sound in welding. A point which I did not pick up on in any of the workbooks or text books I have been reading on welding. As with much tacit knowledge, the importance of sound in developing skill in welding is so well known to experts that they neglect to mention the role of sound in learning how to weld. For instance, Flip told me about the importance of sound almost as an aside as he explains how he detects whether students are completing welds correctly as each student works in their individual welding booths. He uses the sound of welding as a way to pinpoint students who are experiencing difficulties with a weld.
This video contains good pointers to what to listen out for when accomplishing a weld. Here is another one, covering the setting up of the arc welding machine with a tip about listening to the sounds produced by the electric arc to be able to work out how well the weld is progressing.
A google scholar search reveals a few papers from the academic engineering community on the relationships between the sound of a weld and how it is progressing. A Japanese technical paper studying arc welding sound & its relation to various aspects of the welding action plus a Chinese paper on gas tungsten argon welding are examples of research carried out in this area.
So one focus of our project will be to try to find out how long it takes students to acquire the auditory cues important in indentifying stages in the welding process and how sound may assist with trouble shooting when undertaking a weld. We meet with students this week and begin the collection of video & audio evidence of student learning activities so this project is moving along to plan.
One important nuance is the role of sound in welding. A point which I did not pick up on in any of the workbooks or text books I have been reading on welding. As with much tacit knowledge, the importance of sound in developing skill in welding is so well known to experts that they neglect to mention the role of sound in learning how to weld. For instance, Flip told me about the importance of sound almost as an aside as he explains how he detects whether students are completing welds correctly as each student works in their individual welding booths. He uses the sound of welding as a way to pinpoint students who are experiencing difficulties with a weld.
This video contains good pointers to what to listen out for when accomplishing a weld. Here is another one, covering the setting up of the arc welding machine with a tip about listening to the sounds produced by the electric arc to be able to work out how well the weld is progressing.
A google scholar search reveals a few papers from the academic engineering community on the relationships between the sound of a weld and how it is progressing. A Japanese technical paper studying arc welding sound & its relation to various aspects of the welding action plus a Chinese paper on gas tungsten argon welding are examples of research carried out in this area.
So one focus of our project will be to try to find out how long it takes students to acquire the auditory cues important in indentifying stages in the welding process and how sound may assist with trouble shooting when undertaking a weld. We meet with students this week and begin the collection of video & audio evidence of student learning activities so this project is moving along to plan.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Learning a trade - role of apprenticeships
Updating my literature on apprenticeships and apprenticeship systems as a prelude / preparation /getting into the right mindset towards my work on the Ako Aotearoa National fund project – Belonging, becoming and being: First year apprentices experiences in the workplace. Also a bit of an update towards the literature review chapter of my dissertation.
The 6 volume ‘International handbook of education for the changing world of work’ just arrived at our library and this will form the basis of several weeks of reading. Volume 1 lays out pedagogical foundations, volume 3 on TVET professionalism and Volume 4 on curriculum development and delivery are the most relevant for the moment. An associated book focusing on TVET research, handbook of technical and vocational education and training research’ requested for purchase but meanwhile, some tantalising snippets available on google books.
I also will need to catch up with material archived by several organisations. These include the:
Unesco-Unevoc site with links to various communities working on apprenticeship research.
There is the International network on innovative apprenticeship which has had 3 conferences so far and will be meeting again in 2011 in Beijing. Proceedings from the last conference in 2009 will be most relevant as it is on transition from school to work and building vocational identity.
The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) is a more generalised site but has much of relevance.
Also with a European flavour is the European Educational Research Association which has a VET network called VETNET which has a more policy / strategic planning direction.
For vocational educators there is the International Vocational Education and training association (IVETA) which encourages links between vocational educators. The latest newsletter has an article on CPIT Trade Innovation Institute (TII)’s Tradefit project written by TII dean Fiona Haynes.
The United States had the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) which ceased to operate at the end of 1999. There is a National research centre for Career and technical Education (NCCTE). Currently featured a review of research in post –secondary transitions. Comprehensive links to US of A organisations relevant to voc ed also provided.
In the UK, the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative has a whole host of programmes including workplace learning strands on early career learning, learning as work and lifelong learning including Learning lives, identity and learning.
The Australian National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) maintains the extensive database (VOCED). I have used this resource for many years and it provides especially good coverage of commonwealth country based research into VET.
In NZ, the Industry Training Federation has hosted the NZ vocational education and research forum for several years & presentation are archived on their site. Also NZ relevant publications pertinent to my project. In addition, Ako Aotearoa had compiled a list of pertinent projects on workplace learning with some articles on apprenticeship and will continually update this resource with new and pertinent NZ & overseas research.
Overall, good to see progress being made in a variety of countries on TVET. NZ now has a small but active number of researchers in the VET area. Although much of this research is on strategic issues, there is still an interest in workplace learning in particular with learning in apprenticeship an important by-product.
Unesco-Unevoc site with links to various communities working on apprenticeship research.
There is the International network on innovative apprenticeship which has had 3 conferences so far and will be meeting again in 2011 in Beijing. Proceedings from the last conference in 2009 will be most relevant as it is on transition from school to work and building vocational identity.
The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) is a more generalised site but has much of relevance.
Also with a European flavour is the European Educational Research Association which has a VET network called VETNET which has a more policy / strategic planning direction.
For vocational educators there is the International Vocational Education and training association (IVETA) which encourages links between vocational educators. The latest newsletter has an article on CPIT Trade Innovation Institute (TII)’s Tradefit project written by TII dean Fiona Haynes.
The United States had the National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) which ceased to operate at the end of 1999. There is a National research centre for Career and technical Education (NCCTE). Currently featured a review of research in post –secondary transitions. Comprehensive links to US of A organisations relevant to voc ed also provided.
In the UK, the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative has a whole host of programmes including workplace learning strands on early career learning, learning as work and lifelong learning including Learning lives, identity and learning.
The Australian National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) maintains the extensive database (VOCED). I have used this resource for many years and it provides especially good coverage of commonwealth country based research into VET.
In NZ, the Industry Training Federation has hosted the NZ vocational education and research forum for several years & presentation are archived on their site. Also NZ relevant publications pertinent to my project. In addition, Ako Aotearoa had compiled a list of pertinent projects on workplace learning with some articles on apprenticeship and will continually update this resource with new and pertinent NZ & overseas research.
Overall, good to see progress being made in a variety of countries on TVET. NZ now has a small but active number of researchers in the VET area. Although much of this research is on strategic issues, there is still an interest in workplace learning in particular with learning in apprenticeship an important by-product.
Learning welding
The first project in the multimodal research programme is called ‘Learning a trade @ CPIT: Learning welding’ where we will try to understand a little about how students learn how to weld. Specifically to find out how they link their learning of the theory on the effect of heat on metal to the actual practice of adjusting a welding machine to allow for different types and gauges of metal.
Having only ever used ‘welding’ techniques to construct gingerbread houses and pastillage models, I have put in some time into learning a bit about welding. So over the summer break, I borrowed a few books from the library, looked at some videos on the www and visited the welding workshops at CPIT to get a feel of what welding is about.
As with all trades, there is more to it than most people think : ) Firstly, there is the language of the workshop, flux, slag, weldpool etc. including a slew of acronyms MMAW (manual metal arc welding), GTAW (gas tungsten arc welding), GMAW (gas metal arc welding), OAW (oxyacetylene welding). Additionally, there is the unfamiliar equipment with the welding machine linked to various gas cylinders and a series of more new concepts with amp ratings, OCV (open circuit voltage). The star wars trooper workshop uniform made up of welding helmet, very uncool leather aprons and super sized, stiff gloves. Plus a whole host of safety regulations to be aware of when working in the workshop to gather research data using digital recorders and videos.
So to begin, Flip & I have selected 2 performance criteria (PCs) and broken them down using a suggested technique by Graham Nuttall to drill down into learning outcomes. These PCs are part of unit standard 2682 – weld steel in a downhand position to a general purpose standard using the manual metal arc welding process, which is the foundation skill set learnt by welders and engineers at CPIT. Therefore, it is the first welding course students in engineering - light fabrication / structural steel undertake.
The above unit standard is taught in a workshop learning environment mainly through students watching a demonstration by the tutor and then practicing the skills in individual welding booths. There is a comprehensive and well laid out workbook which is part of the NZ modular training scheme for the joining of materials produced by the NZ Welding Centre (which is part of the Heavy Engineering Research Association – HERA). This workbook contains written information on the MMAW process, has many diagrams, uses a ‘fill in the blank’ approach to revise concepts and terms introduced and practiced in the workshop sessions and formative assessment in the form of multiple choice questions.
The learning environment for welding is therefore very much reliant on students learning not only the skills of welding but to learn how to work independently. From the first stages of their welding career, students have to learn through imitation and kinaesthetic awareness / comparisons of their own postures etc. with what is expected of a welder. They have to learn how to adjust their own control of the welding torch, adjust the welding machine to allow for the type of metal they are welding, choose the correct welding rods etc. All this is done pretty much via self-directed learning with small individual guidance sessions from the tutor (one tutor to 16 students!) & peer interaction whenever the students leave their individual welding booths to move into the wet room (to cool their welded sample down). My first impressions lead me to think that preparing / orientating welding students to make the most of the specialised learning environment, which emphasises self-learning, could be something to explore with the welding section.
Having only ever used ‘welding’ techniques to construct gingerbread houses and pastillage models, I have put in some time into learning a bit about welding. So over the summer break, I borrowed a few books from the library, looked at some videos on the www and visited the welding workshops at CPIT to get a feel of what welding is about.
As with all trades, there is more to it than most people think : ) Firstly, there is the language of the workshop, flux, slag, weldpool etc. including a slew of acronyms MMAW (manual metal arc welding), GTAW (gas tungsten arc welding), GMAW (gas metal arc welding), OAW (oxyacetylene welding). Additionally, there is the unfamiliar equipment with the welding machine linked to various gas cylinders and a series of more new concepts with amp ratings, OCV (open circuit voltage). The star wars trooper workshop uniform made up of welding helmet, very uncool leather aprons and super sized, stiff gloves. Plus a whole host of safety regulations to be aware of when working in the workshop to gather research data using digital recorders and videos.
So to begin, Flip & I have selected 2 performance criteria (PCs) and broken them down using a suggested technique by Graham Nuttall to drill down into learning outcomes. These PCs are part of unit standard 2682 – weld steel in a downhand position to a general purpose standard using the manual metal arc welding process, which is the foundation skill set learnt by welders and engineers at CPIT. Therefore, it is the first welding course students in engineering - light fabrication / structural steel undertake.
The above unit standard is taught in a workshop learning environment mainly through students watching a demonstration by the tutor and then practicing the skills in individual welding booths. There is a comprehensive and well laid out workbook which is part of the NZ modular training scheme for the joining of materials produced by the NZ Welding Centre (which is part of the Heavy Engineering Research Association – HERA). This workbook contains written information on the MMAW process, has many diagrams, uses a ‘fill in the blank’ approach to revise concepts and terms introduced and practiced in the workshop sessions and formative assessment in the form of multiple choice questions.
The learning environment for welding is therefore very much reliant on students learning not only the skills of welding but to learn how to work independently. From the first stages of their welding career, students have to learn through imitation and kinaesthetic awareness / comparisons of their own postures etc. with what is expected of a welder. They have to learn how to adjust their own control of the welding torch, adjust the welding machine to allow for the type of metal they are welding, choose the correct welding rods etc. All this is done pretty much via self-directed learning with small individual guidance sessions from the tutor (one tutor to 16 students!) & peer interaction whenever the students leave their individual welding booths to move into the wet room (to cool their welded sample down). My first impressions lead me to think that preparing / orientating welding students to make the most of the specialised learning environment, which emphasises self-learning, could be something to explore with the welding section.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Group discussion with Mark Nichols
Last Friday, Mark Nichols came in for a brief visit to CPIT. Staff at CPIT involved in elearning had a ‘roundish’ table discussion with him. The meeting was facilitated by Dr. David Gough, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Health & Sciences and attended by Dr. Nicky Page(library manager), Dr. Philippa Seaton (school of nursing elearning leader), Dr. Shirley Wilson (academic quality), Nick Ford (elearning developer), Lyn Williams (adult education), John Delaney (faculty academic advisor), Robin Graham (staff development & myself. Most of these staff have worked extensively on various elearning projects. The primary goal of the meeting was to make contact with Mark and his work at his former (Massey University) and current (Laidlaw College) institutions.
Of interest was Mark’s philosophy on elearning as ‘pedagogy powered by technology’ and his use of core & custom pedagogies to assist with strategy direction in planning for elearning programme / course development. Mark has also contributed to the NZ tertiary sector with the publishing of the Ako e- primer series. A comprehensive series of 'reports' on aspects of elearning relevant to the tertiary sector. Mark updates the contents of the e-primers on a blog.
With the formation of a 'Centre for Learning Development' (name still unofficial) and the movement of staff developers, elearning and educational designers into the new centre, it is important to begin conversations towards direction for how the centre is able to support staff and student learning. Elearning is but one spoke in the wheel (maybe Learning Development Hub a better name?). An interesting year ahead as the emergent centre develops. A position for centre manager / leader / director in the pipeline :) to coordinate the centre's activities and herd the other 5 staff in the centre along.
Of interest was Mark’s philosophy on elearning as ‘pedagogy powered by technology’ and his use of core & custom pedagogies to assist with strategy direction in planning for elearning programme / course development. Mark has also contributed to the NZ tertiary sector with the publishing of the Ako e- primer series. A comprehensive series of 'reports' on aspects of elearning relevant to the tertiary sector. Mark updates the contents of the e-primers on a blog.
With the formation of a 'Centre for Learning Development' (name still unofficial) and the movement of staff developers, elearning and educational designers into the new centre, it is important to begin conversations towards direction for how the centre is able to support staff and student learning. Elearning is but one spoke in the wheel (maybe Learning Development Hub a better name?). An interesting year ahead as the emergent centre develops. A position for centre manager / leader / director in the pipeline :) to coordinate the centre's activities and herd the other 5 staff in the centre along.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Update on mlearning resources
Doing a catch up on mlearning resources this morning. A copy of paper presented at efest / teaching and learning conference at Ucol in October last year now archived along with several others via Ako Aoteoroa. Ones pertinent to mobile learning include Kathryn McCallum’s paper on ‘student characteristics & variables which determine mobile learning adoption’ and Thom Cochrane’s & Roger Bateman on their mLearning journey.
In addition, Thom has provided an overview of the Unitec mlearning projects in developing eportfolios using social networking sites using mobile phones as one of the many interesting projects to enhance student learning in the Ako Aoteoroa ' good' practice ebook.
Always good to check up on web based educational resources on Jane Hart's site. There is a compendium of mobile learning tools which provides a good list for use with iphones/ipod touches, blackberrys and windows mobile phones.
A more theorectical aspect on mobile learning, which I have recommended our library purchases is a book on mobile learning:structures, agency & practice edited by Norbert Pachler, Ben Bachmair and John Cook. There is a preview of this book on Google books.
Mobile learning is no longer seen as being something which is still emergent. There is now greater recognition of the advantages in investigating the use of mobile technology in enhancing learning opportunities for students. Part of this is the greater access everyone seems to now have to mobile phones. Using increasingly sophisticated mobile phones does assist educators in becoming more familiar with the use of this form of technology and awakens awareness of it's possibilities for learning.
In addition, Thom has provided an overview of the Unitec mlearning projects in developing eportfolios using social networking sites using mobile phones as one of the many interesting projects to enhance student learning in the Ako Aoteoroa ' good' practice ebook.
Always good to check up on web based educational resources on Jane Hart's site. There is a compendium of mobile learning tools which provides a good list for use with iphones/ipod touches, blackberrys and windows mobile phones.
A more theorectical aspect on mobile learning, which I have recommended our library purchases is a book on mobile learning:structures, agency & practice edited by Norbert Pachler, Ben Bachmair and John Cook. There is a preview of this book on Google books.
Mobile learning is no longer seen as being something which is still emergent. There is now greater recognition of the advantages in investigating the use of mobile technology in enhancing learning opportunities for students. Part of this is the greater access everyone seems to now have to mobile phones. Using increasingly sophisticated mobile phones does assist educators in becoming more familiar with the use of this form of technology and awakens awareness of it's possibilities for learning.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Nettabs and google wave - two new items to enhance mobile learning
Did a catch up on various tech and edu blogs last week. Looks like there is more learning to be undertaken on mobile learning technology with the launch of two items which may assist in bringing mobile learning more into the forefront.
First up there are nettabs, which are an upgrade of netbooks and an adaptation/ improvement to current tablet laptops. Nettabs are to rise in visibility and usage in 2010. As tablets have been on the expensive end of the market, nettabs are set to lower the cost of tablet devices, make them smaller and lighter and with more user friendly features. The Lenova Ideapad is an example. However, last week's much blogged announcement by Apple on their iPad raised the bar for all nettab manufacturers. An elegant design with a price tag of US$499 for it's 16G Wifi model - making it around just over NZ$700 although may be sold here at closer to NZ$800. A 64G ipod touch is sold at NZ$699 (which is advertised for US$399 at the US of A apple store).
The next item of interest is Google Wave. Jane Hart provides a good review of Google Waves uses in education along with various sites and readings on it's potential. I signed up for a preview membership & email providing access arrived within 24 hours. The main advantages to Google wave is the blending of email with IM & social networking tools which allow photos, videos and documents to be shared. You set up a 'wave' & invite others to join you. There are possibilities for Google wave to be easily used as an eportfolio repository. All entries can be shared and archived. The wiki capability could then be used to do the 'showcase'/ building CV / present eportfolio part of a eportfolio. I will have a good play with Google wave over the next couple of months with ipod touch, PSP2 & mobile phone to see how easy it is to operate using mobile devices.
First up there are nettabs, which are an upgrade of netbooks and an adaptation/ improvement to current tablet laptops. Nettabs are to rise in visibility and usage in 2010. As tablets have been on the expensive end of the market, nettabs are set to lower the cost of tablet devices, make them smaller and lighter and with more user friendly features. The Lenova Ideapad is an example. However, last week's much blogged announcement by Apple on their iPad raised the bar for all nettab manufacturers. An elegant design with a price tag of US$499 for it's 16G Wifi model - making it around just over NZ$700 although may be sold here at closer to NZ$800. A 64G ipod touch is sold at NZ$699 (which is advertised for US$399 at the US of A apple store).
The next item of interest is Google Wave. Jane Hart provides a good review of Google Waves uses in education along with various sites and readings on it's potential. I signed up for a preview membership & email providing access arrived within 24 hours. The main advantages to Google wave is the blending of email with IM & social networking tools which allow photos, videos and documents to be shared. You set up a 'wave' & invite others to join you. There are possibilities for Google wave to be easily used as an eportfolio repository. All entries can be shared and archived. The wiki capability could then be used to do the 'showcase'/ building CV / present eportfolio part of a eportfolio. I will have a good play with Google wave over the next couple of months with ipod touch, PSP2 & mobile phone to see how easy it is to operate using mobile devices.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Plans for 2010
2010 will be busy with two externally funded research projects to work on and a busy teaching timetable. I am really looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.
With the multimodal research project, the first project should set us up by helping us to work through all the logistical issues involved with doing research in an engineering workshop. Using videos to capture student learning and classroom interactions where the welding torches may be a challenge to video cameras. I have had some industry contacts keen to provide actual workplaces for the next round of this project, so we can then work out the guidelines by the end of 2010 on how to best plan towards how much & what kinds of data need to be collected and the best way to approach the data analysis.
For the ‘perspectives of first year apprentices’ programmes, the crux will be in organising the logistical issues related to getting focus groups together and organising interview times and venues with individual apprentices. Once the data is collected, the data analysis will be relatively straight-forward (compared to the multimodal project!) and I am looking forward to being able to work through the findings.
Most of my teaching will be in the level 6 and 7 parts of the Diploma in Tertiary Learning and Teaching (DTLT). I am keen to align the present material to the overarching philosophies now integrated into the six level five and six ‘foundational’ courses of the DTLT. It will be a process of fine tuning as well as ensuring that the recommendations / suggestions I put forward from the ‘perspectives of new trades tutors’ project are put into place.
I have a few conferences on my list. Already, two papers accepted, one for the Teaching & Learning Conference at Singapore in June which features keynotes from Profesors Stephen Brookfield, David Boud, Diana Laurillard and Associate Professor Gary Poole. The other for the annual Industry Training Federation Research forum in Wellington in April.
So off to another exciting year : )
With the multimodal research project, the first project should set us up by helping us to work through all the logistical issues involved with doing research in an engineering workshop. Using videos to capture student learning and classroom interactions where the welding torches may be a challenge to video cameras. I have had some industry contacts keen to provide actual workplaces for the next round of this project, so we can then work out the guidelines by the end of 2010 on how to best plan towards how much & what kinds of data need to be collected and the best way to approach the data analysis.
For the ‘perspectives of first year apprentices’ programmes, the crux will be in organising the logistical issues related to getting focus groups together and organising interview times and venues with individual apprentices. Once the data is collected, the data analysis will be relatively straight-forward (compared to the multimodal project!) and I am looking forward to being able to work through the findings.
Most of my teaching will be in the level 6 and 7 parts of the Diploma in Tertiary Learning and Teaching (DTLT). I am keen to align the present material to the overarching philosophies now integrated into the six level five and six ‘foundational’ courses of the DTLT. It will be a process of fine tuning as well as ensuring that the recommendations / suggestions I put forward from the ‘perspectives of new trades tutors’ project are put into place.
I have a few conferences on my list. Already, two papers accepted, one for the Teaching & Learning Conference at Singapore in June which features keynotes from Profesors Stephen Brookfield, David Boud, Diana Laurillard and Associate Professor Gary Poole. The other for the annual Industry Training Federation Research forum in Wellington in April.
So off to another exciting year : )
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
mLibraries seminar with Professor Mohamed Ally - afternoon sessions
After lunch, there is presentation on ‘measuring institutional m-learning capability: Exploring frameworks and models. First requirement is a mobile friendly learning management system (eg. Moodle). Need to have good hardware & software support via a proactive, well informed IT department. Assemble a mobile development team (content expert, elearning/computer expert, librarian, editor & a project manager). Design for delivery on any mobile device using an intelligent agent. Ensure learning support organised. Establish service standards for students and ensure they are followed. Examples shown of the Athabasca University Digital Reading Room (DRR) and the use of mlearning by students learning English as a Second other language.
Technical and design issues to do with implementation then presented. Important to make use of the advantages provided by mobile learning. Example of interactivity which may be in the form of object (proactive inquiry, using buttons etc), linear (moving back & forth within content) or support interactivity (generalised / student focused feedback). Interactivity needs to be up to date, have capability to undertake construct &/or reflective interactivity. Other forms are simulation interactivity and hyperlinked interactivity. Two most highest levels are non-immersive contextual and immersive virtual interactivity making us of virtual environments. When delivering to a range of different mobile devices, one approach is to adjust the size of the display to the size of the screen which signals a change to the style sheet to allow for appropriate display.
In order to bring success to mobile learning need for training of librarians, teachers/instructors. Empower the learner. Provide open access resources and design ONCE for delivery on any technology. Begin with a blended approach. Establish a research institute for mobile learning/library. Hire the right people. Do NOT wait for the technology to become state of the art – start NOW. Conduct continuous information sessions on mobile learning/library. Send message that the organisation has to make the move. Build success stories.
After afternoon tea, the participants workshopped a ‘roadmap’ on where to now & shared potential collaborative activities.
Activities around NZ – Waikato University using MIT open source apple app & adapted to requirements of the University of Waikato. John Clayton has been working on Mobile Moodle. Wintec a few small elearning projects which have been small – maybe moving directly to mlearning might springboard more activity. Victoria University & Massey doing some projects. In Auckland, there is Unitec project from Thom Cochrane. Gregor Ronald from University of Canterbury provided overview of projects around Christchurch.
There is a need for a more consolidated NZ based mobile learning organisation to lobby for cheaper access to mobile data, share ideas, collaborate on projects etc. One way to start is to set up a SIG on Ako Aotearoa or a more open site like basecamp which has appropriate tag like mlearningnz or mlibrariesnz.
Technical and design issues to do with implementation then presented. Important to make use of the advantages provided by mobile learning. Example of interactivity which may be in the form of object (proactive inquiry, using buttons etc), linear (moving back & forth within content) or support interactivity (generalised / student focused feedback). Interactivity needs to be up to date, have capability to undertake construct &/or reflective interactivity. Other forms are simulation interactivity and hyperlinked interactivity. Two most highest levels are non-immersive contextual and immersive virtual interactivity making us of virtual environments. When delivering to a range of different mobile devices, one approach is to adjust the size of the display to the size of the screen which signals a change to the style sheet to allow for appropriate display.
In order to bring success to mobile learning need for training of librarians, teachers/instructors. Empower the learner. Provide open access resources and design ONCE for delivery on any technology. Begin with a blended approach. Establish a research institute for mobile learning/library. Hire the right people. Do NOT wait for the technology to become state of the art – start NOW. Conduct continuous information sessions on mobile learning/library. Send message that the organisation has to make the move. Build success stories.
After afternoon tea, the participants workshopped a ‘roadmap’ on where to now & shared potential collaborative activities.
Activities around NZ – Waikato University using MIT open source apple app & adapted to requirements of the University of Waikato. John Clayton has been working on Mobile Moodle. Wintec a few small elearning projects which have been small – maybe moving directly to mlearning might springboard more activity. Victoria University & Massey doing some projects. In Auckland, there is Unitec project from Thom Cochrane. Gregor Ronald from University of Canterbury provided overview of projects around Christchurch.
There is a need for a more consolidated NZ based mobile learning organisation to lobby for cheaper access to mobile data, share ideas, collaborate on projects etc. One way to start is to set up a SIG on Ako Aotearoa or a more open site like basecamp which has appropriate tag like mlearningnz or mlibrariesnz.
mLibraries seminar with Professor Mohamed Ally - morning sessions
Yesterday, I attended the mLibraries symposium featuring Dr. Mohamed Ally from Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada.
Dr. Ally’s visit assisted by LIANZA, Ako Aotearoa (where the presentations at this seminar are archived), ExLibris and various universities and polytechnics in NZ. In Christchurch, his visit in Christchurch is hosted by the University of Canterbury.
Day began with welcome from Sarah Jane Saravani including usual housekeeping matters.
First keynote from Dr. Ally on ‘global action in terms of mobile libraries and mobile learning’. A change from the library itself being mobile to students being mobile and wanting to access learning anytime and anywhere. In much of Asia & developing countries there is a direct move into the information highway is wireless and therefore mobile. Concerted national and international moves into harnessing mobile services (banking, , libraries, education etc.) to reach populations who currently are disadvantaged by lack of access to mainstream (wired) technology. In education, important to not only provide mlearning but also other student services (leanring support, library etc.) which support their learning.
Then a session on ‘implementing mobile library, mobile learning and preparing the business case’ focused on strategies possible to leverage mobile learning in NZ. Classrooms & workplaces without walls and countries without boundaries along with students expecting access to learning are already here now. Uses Patti Mae’s TED presentation as an example of where technology is moving towards including technology as sixth sense. To cater to nomadic computing, a nomadic environment needs to be considered. Instead of a digital divide, there is more a learning divide, caused by lack of access to mobile wireless devices. Therefore, need to account for move into the wisdom age, a progression from agriculture, industrial, information and knowledge age.
Second keynote on’ effective practice with m-learning in tertiary and vocational education, trends, measures and emerging resources. Need to break content into small chunks, design as learning objects, store in repositories for easy access and metatag, retrieve and reuse. Intelligent learner objects the next step in order for student learning to be maximised. In presenting learning content, need to chunk to prevent info. overload, use advance organisers to help process details, dual-coding hypothesis – present in both visual and textual/verbal and use concept/information maps to assist in organising the information. A example of one mobile phone for everything from collegemobile with an example from the University of Saskatchewan (iUsask) who have set up an iphones app for use by their students to easily access their class notes, timetables, records (grade book) which provides assignment feedback, news at the university, library catalogue, campus map linked to Google maps & GPS, webcams situated around the university, events including up & coming workshops on academic skills etc., link to research news, podcasts, online videos, search facility of university site & campus facilities, recreation facilities, updates on latest campus news, student journal, individual faculty contact, news, video blogs etc. plus a feedback button to allow users to provide recommendations on how to improve the app. MIT has a similar system which is open source which can be customised by individual institutions.
Dr. Ally’s visit assisted by LIANZA, Ako Aotearoa (where the presentations at this seminar are archived), ExLibris and various universities and polytechnics in NZ. In Christchurch, his visit in Christchurch is hosted by the University of Canterbury.
Day began with welcome from Sarah Jane Saravani including usual housekeeping matters.
First keynote from Dr. Ally on ‘global action in terms of mobile libraries and mobile learning’. A change from the library itself being mobile to students being mobile and wanting to access learning anytime and anywhere. In much of Asia & developing countries there is a direct move into the information highway is wireless and therefore mobile. Concerted national and international moves into harnessing mobile services (banking, , libraries, education etc.) to reach populations who currently are disadvantaged by lack of access to mainstream (wired) technology. In education, important to not only provide mlearning but also other student services (leanring support, library etc.) which support their learning.
Then a session on ‘implementing mobile library, mobile learning and preparing the business case’ focused on strategies possible to leverage mobile learning in NZ. Classrooms & workplaces without walls and countries without boundaries along with students expecting access to learning are already here now. Uses Patti Mae’s TED presentation as an example of where technology is moving towards including technology as sixth sense. To cater to nomadic computing, a nomadic environment needs to be considered. Instead of a digital divide, there is more a learning divide, caused by lack of access to mobile wireless devices. Therefore, need to account for move into the wisdom age, a progression from agriculture, industrial, information and knowledge age.
Second keynote on’ effective practice with m-learning in tertiary and vocational education, trends, measures and emerging resources. Need to break content into small chunks, design as learning objects, store in repositories for easy access and metatag, retrieve and reuse. Intelligent learner objects the next step in order for student learning to be maximised. In presenting learning content, need to chunk to prevent info. overload, use advance organisers to help process details, dual-coding hypothesis – present in both visual and textual/verbal and use concept/information maps to assist in organising the information. A example of one mobile phone for everything from collegemobile with an example from the University of Saskatchewan (iUsask) who have set up an iphones app for use by their students to easily access their class notes, timetables, records (grade book) which provides assignment feedback, news at the university, library catalogue, campus map linked to Google maps & GPS, webcams situated around the university, events including up & coming workshops on academic skills etc., link to research news, podcasts, online videos, search facility of university site & campus facilities, recreation facilities, updates on latest campus news, student journal, individual faculty contact, news, video blogs etc. plus a feedback button to allow users to provide recommendations on how to improve the app. MIT has a similar system which is open source which can be customised by individual institutions.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Future of mobile learning – internet capable mobile devices exampled by ipod touch
Back into the fray and taking a couple of hours out of working on my dissertation to catch up on news on the bloggersphere via bloglines.
Latest Horizon report out, both the international version and the Australasian version. Summaries by Derek Wenmouth, George Siemens and Jane Hart. All have mobile learning or mobile internet capable / cloud assisted learning as their top pick for mainstream adoption.
I have been playing with the ipod touch for several months and must say that the capabilities for using it as a learning tool are very good. However, due to its small screen size, it is very much a one person display device. Access to WiFi also an essential if the ipod touch usage is to be maximised in a classroom situation. Access to WiFi also preferable for distance learning students who use it as an access device to their LMS. The grand thing about the ipod touch is that it displays webpages without the need to tweak the display/style sheet settings of the actual webpages. The ability to enlarge and navigate around the page plus tap on the links with a finger are all intuitive and simple to use.
So far, I have barely been able to use the 32G on my ipod, I have at least 26G of space even though I have a few albums of songs, about 200 photos, over 100 documents (using a pdf reader) plus about 60 apps. I bought my daughter a 32G ipod touch for Christmas & she has already filled up all but about 5G!! She has 5000 songs on it, all transferred from her old ipods.
While away, I used the ipod touch extensively to read by blogline feeds and to keep an eye on the weather. Also to use it to make advance bookings for accommodation, onward travel and find information on places of interest. WiFi pretty easy to access in the urban centres of NZ but much more difficult to find (plus expensive) in smaller places. Especially the small towns around the central North Island (Turangi, Whakapapa) and the southern end of the South Island (Waikouaiti, Riverton, Tuatapere). However, once access found, things ran smoothly and 15 minutes of access would be sufficient for me to complete tasks required. Plus in December, I updated my blog at the Ascilite conference mainly using the ipod touch. At home, my laptop only came out to work on my dissertation. All web surfing and games playing accomplished on the ipod touch. What did I use to do without the ipod touch?? drag out my laptop and wait 10 minutes while everything boot up by which time I have forgotten what I needed to find out or distracted by another task.
Back to apps, I have been exploring these over the last few weekends, mainly trawling through the lists using the iTunes shop search function. Lots of little apps for science (periodic tables), maths (drill programmes), word games plus usual reference tools for astronomy, botany etc. Probably the best application to date would be this one for sharing multiple choice questions with students who also have ipod touches. As apps profligate, will need to keep in touch with some of the bloggers who lists and review new eudcational apps. These include Tony Vincent, Chris Webb, wired educator and Kathy Schrock.
Latest Horizon report out, both the international version and the Australasian version. Summaries by Derek Wenmouth, George Siemens and Jane Hart. All have mobile learning or mobile internet capable / cloud assisted learning as their top pick for mainstream adoption.
I have been playing with the ipod touch for several months and must say that the capabilities for using it as a learning tool are very good. However, due to its small screen size, it is very much a one person display device. Access to WiFi also an essential if the ipod touch usage is to be maximised in a classroom situation. Access to WiFi also preferable for distance learning students who use it as an access device to their LMS. The grand thing about the ipod touch is that it displays webpages without the need to tweak the display/style sheet settings of the actual webpages. The ability to enlarge and navigate around the page plus tap on the links with a finger are all intuitive and simple to use.
So far, I have barely been able to use the 32G on my ipod, I have at least 26G of space even though I have a few albums of songs, about 200 photos, over 100 documents (using a pdf reader) plus about 60 apps. I bought my daughter a 32G ipod touch for Christmas & she has already filled up all but about 5G!! She has 5000 songs on it, all transferred from her old ipods.
While away, I used the ipod touch extensively to read by blogline feeds and to keep an eye on the weather. Also to use it to make advance bookings for accommodation, onward travel and find information on places of interest. WiFi pretty easy to access in the urban centres of NZ but much more difficult to find (plus expensive) in smaller places. Especially the small towns around the central North Island (Turangi, Whakapapa) and the southern end of the South Island (Waikouaiti, Riverton, Tuatapere). However, once access found, things ran smoothly and 15 minutes of access would be sufficient for me to complete tasks required. Plus in December, I updated my blog at the Ascilite conference mainly using the ipod touch. At home, my laptop only came out to work on my dissertation. All web surfing and games playing accomplished on the ipod touch. What did I use to do without the ipod touch?? drag out my laptop and wait 10 minutes while everything boot up by which time I have forgotten what I needed to find out or distracted by another task.
Back to apps, I have been exploring these over the last few weekends, mainly trawling through the lists using the iTunes shop search function. Lots of little apps for science (periodic tables), maths (drill programmes), word games plus usual reference tools for astronomy, botany etc. Probably the best application to date would be this one for sharing multiple choice questions with students who also have ipod touches. As apps profligate, will need to keep in touch with some of the bloggers who lists and review new eudcational apps. These include Tony Vincent, Chris Webb, wired educator and Kathy Schrock.
Perspectives of new trades tutors - final report now on Ako Aoteoroa website
The report prepared for Ako Aoteoroa Southern Hub on 'perspectives of new tutors: Towards a scholarship of teaching and learning for vocational educators" now reviewed and uploaded on to the main Ako Aoteoroa website. It currently features on the main page :) and the full report access page also provides for a short summary.
I really enjoyed working on this project. My grateful thanks to the tutors who took part in the interviews, the staff developers (you know who you are!) who assisted in making contact with the research particiapnts, organising venues and other logistical issues, Bridget and Pat at Southern Hub and my teaching colleagues in staff development and adult educatin at CPIT. Collegial support provided by all which provides me with confidence to embark on this year's research projects.
I am hopeful that the report provides a viewpoint on how trades tutors bring in a wealth of skills and knowledge but then have to 'boundary cross' into the corporate/organisational maze which make up most polytechnics/insitution's cultures. The suggestions provided at the end of the report are to springboard from the workplace based pedagogical understandings of trades people. Using principles of social cultural / participative theories of learning including situated learning, cognitive apprenticeships, workplace learning and learning as becoming to ignite interest and engagement with other humanistic/critical approaches to adult learning.
I have learnt much from working on this project. Much of the learning will transfer directly into the three research projects I will be working through this year. The Ako Aoteoroa National project funded 'belonging, becoming and being: Perspectives of first year apprentices", the CPIT Foundation funded http://mportfolios.blogspot.com/2009/11/learning-trades-skills-using-multimodal.html and the ongoing project on using mobile phones to compile eportfolios on mobile styled website/pages.
I really enjoyed working on this project. My grateful thanks to the tutors who took part in the interviews, the staff developers (you know who you are!) who assisted in making contact with the research particiapnts, organising venues and other logistical issues, Bridget and Pat at Southern Hub and my teaching colleagues in staff development and adult educatin at CPIT. Collegial support provided by all which provides me with confidence to embark on this year's research projects.
I am hopeful that the report provides a viewpoint on how trades tutors bring in a wealth of skills and knowledge but then have to 'boundary cross' into the corporate/organisational maze which make up most polytechnics/insitution's cultures. The suggestions provided at the end of the report are to springboard from the workplace based pedagogical understandings of trades people. Using principles of social cultural / participative theories of learning including situated learning, cognitive apprenticeships, workplace learning and learning as becoming to ignite interest and engagement with other humanistic/critical approaches to adult learning.
I have learnt much from working on this project. Much of the learning will transfer directly into the three research projects I will be working through this year. The Ako Aoteoroa National project funded 'belonging, becoming and being: Perspectives of first year apprentices", the CPIT Foundation funded http://mportfolios.blogspot.com/2009/11/learning-trades-skills-using-multimodal.html and the ongoing project on using mobile phones to compile eportfolios on mobile styled website/pages.
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