Christchurch was hit by another large aftershock just before 1 pm on Tuesday. I was at work and at my desk. The others in my office were having a meeting with their manager in the office. When the sharp shock hit, I knew this was big. There was no forewarning as per the loud roar as in the last one in September just a sharp jerk followed by a violent shake. We all dived under our desks as books and files fell off shelves around us. I could hear students screaming in the library as books fell off the shelves in the library. The lights went out. when the shaking stopped, we all evacuated to a view of the fallen towers of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, the Catholic cathedral. It dawned immediately that this was a very big one. Eventually found out it was 6.4 but very shallow and centred 5km away near Lyttelton.
After evacuation, I located my son, who works in the marketing dept. at CPIT. He had been in the CPIT marketing car, on his way to the other CPIT campus. The car shook violently, he could see the road ripple in front of him and a shop near the car collapsed!! We milled around, viewing the damage to buildings all around the polytech. there were signs of liquefaction in the carpark, we could see the Grand Chancellor Hotel was on a lean and smoke and dust from the collapsed CTV building, about 100m up the street from the polytech. I was really worried for friends who worked in the city (but yesterday, managed to contact them all and they are well but still shaken from the experience). We left in my son's car to try to get home just before 3pm, giving a colleague a lift as well. I had to leave my car as I had evacuated without keys, wallet or cell phone! Car still at polytech. Took us almost two hours to get home, a drive of 16 kms plus detour to drop colleague off, The roads will choked with traffic but also damaged. Cracks, holes, flooding and a grey sludge over many streets from the liquefaction. A scarry trip as we listened to the radio , featuring calls from people providing eye witness accounts from the city and the eastern suburbs.
At home, no damage to the north west suburbs in Chch. just the usual clean up of books etc. fallen off shelves. Electricity back just after 7.30pm and we could then follow the news on the TV. Only managed to get access to work email yesterday (Wednesday) evening and have been replying to concerned emails from relatives, friends and colleagues from overseas and other parts of NZ. News has not been good, with many people trapped in buildings and the central city in ruins with substantial damage to suburbs East and South of Hagley park. This event will take a long time to recover from. Infrastructure will be a challenge to bring back and this morning, 40% of city still have no electricity and 80% of city have no water. have emailed and will follow up with phone to friends, colleagues who I know have no water. We might be able to assist with providing showers and food etc. as required but the challenge will be getting things to them, or for them to travel to us, as travel into the damaged suburbs is not encouraged.
So priority will be to keep in touch with people. I suspect CPIT will be closed for next week as well as it is within the central city cordon and buildings all around it have either collapsed or are severely damaged. Meanwhile, I will have to work out a way to get access to my work drives so that I can work on various articles that are partway through.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Reports pertinent to mlearning - Horizon 2011 and JISC mobile review
A couple of reports via edu.blogs.com delicious links provide a summary of the ‘state of play’ with regards to mlearning. The mobile review from the Joint Information Systems Committee in the UK (JISC) provides a good read and overview of work that has taken place in mlearning over the last decade. I am particularly heartened by the assumption of the following:
Three things that learners do expect, however, are:
1. To be able to use their own devices with corporately-owned IT infrastructure.
2. For technology not to be used as a crutch for poor learning and teaching experiences.
3. Unhampered digital communication with their peers, tutors and administrators.
All relevant to current discussions we are having at CPIT on future directions for IT support of educational development.
The other report is the annual Horizon report. Content is similar to the Australian/ New Zealand report published late last year. Mlearning and ebooks are the closest to mainstream adoption. A direction I have taken with work from late last year and starting to consolidate this term, with developing interactive textbooks for use on tablets.
Friday, February 11, 2011
more tablets launched
Clearing my google reader this morning and notice the launch or eminent launch of a few new tablets being reported via endgadget.
First up, HP has launched their touchpad, with an OS based on the Palm OS, although there is no mention whatsoever of the Palm brand. It will be interesting to assess this tablet as I have always been a bit of a fan of the palm user interface and quite miss my old Treo at times.
First up, HP has launched their touchpad, with an OS based on the Palm OS, although there is no mention whatsoever of the Palm brand. It will be interesting to assess this tablet as I have always been a bit of a fan of the palm user interface and quite miss my old Treo at times.
Second one, is the possible price in the US of A of the blackberry playbook. Again will be keen to try this one out as CPIT is currently using blackberrys as their corporate phone.
Comparisons of the various tablets also provides interesting reading. Looking forward now to the coming of the new ipad.
The perenial difficulty we face, as educational users, is the various operating systems running on different hardware platforms. So far, I have tried to work on projects that are not dependent on hardware OS. In our mobile portfolio projects, we relied solely on the phones apprentices owned. At the moment, tablets are still seen to be 'new' and most students do not own one. Instead they own mobile phones, although by observing students in the library, the number of iphones seen in students' hands seems to have increased in the last 6 months or so.
For the 'interactive textbook' project, we have committed to developing a 'front end' template for the Android OS and have purchased an Archos 7 to test drive things. So, for the first time, we will need to explore possibilites for acquiring a class set of tablets to evaluate students' experiences with using the tablet based 'textbook'. I might now also think through the advantages of running a similar 'textbook' layout via Moodle. We can then compare the two and see if reliance on hardware is really required or whether we just ram up the LMS to be accessible across all devices.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Zaggmate – ipad case and keyboard
While away from the office over the summer ‘break’ I began blogging using the ipad. However, the on screen keyboard, even on landscape, tended to limit me to a hunt and peck routine. Therefore, as an Xmas present to myself, I ordered a zaggmate ipad case. Two alternatives, one with the case only and the other with an integrated Bluetooth keypad. I have now been playing with the zaggmate keyboard/case for a couple of weeks and am pleased with its overall performance.
To begin, the case itself is strong but light and matches the smooth, minimalistic design of the ipad. When the ipad is placed into the zaggmate case, the whole looks like a chunkier mac air. Synching the ipad to the zaggmate took all of about 10 seconds. So far, no hassles with the Bluetooth link and although I have used the keyboard off and on for almost two weeks, I have not had to recharge the case/keyboard. The ipad sits sort of securely on to a ledge on the case and is held up with a plastic backpiece which is brought up from flat. I have mainly been using the keyboard on a desk but it seems to be quite solid on my lap as well. However, might not be as secure, say on an aeroplane fold out table when the flight becomes bumpy, as the ipad is only kept upright by the plastic back piece and the way it just fits the case.
The zaggmate weighs in at 200g, the ipad 680g for a total well under a kg. However, total weight still more than double of a mac air 11” (only 380g) but heaps lighter than the Mac book pro 13” which is over 2 kg and still lighter than an ASUS eee PC at around a kg.
Therefore, I now have the alternative of just using the ipad on screen keyboard for quick notes etc. and the zaggmate keyboard for when i need to get to grips with more or am working on re-editing documents. Last week, I attended a one day 'academic writing' workshop facilitated by Dr. Marianne Tremaine who advocated the use of a 15 minute daily writing time slot to raise writing productivity. So the use of the ipad and zaggmate should assist with meeting the goal.
To begin, the case itself is strong but light and matches the smooth, minimalistic design of the ipad. When the ipad is placed into the zaggmate case, the whole looks like a chunkier mac air. Synching the ipad to the zaggmate took all of about 10 seconds. So far, no hassles with the Bluetooth link and although I have used the keyboard off and on for almost two weeks, I have not had to recharge the case/keyboard. The ipad sits sort of securely on to a ledge on the case and is held up with a plastic backpiece which is brought up from flat. I have mainly been using the keyboard on a desk but it seems to be quite solid on my lap as well. However, might not be as secure, say on an aeroplane fold out table when the flight becomes bumpy, as the ipad is only kept upright by the plastic back piece and the way it just fits the case.
The zaggmate weighs in at 200g, the ipad 680g for a total well under a kg. However, total weight still more than double of a mac air 11” (only 380g) but heaps lighter than the Mac book pro 13” which is over 2 kg and still lighter than an ASUS eee PC at around a kg.
Therefore, I now have the alternative of just using the ipad on screen keyboard for quick notes etc. and the zaggmate keyboard for when i need to get to grips with more or am working on re-editing documents. Last week, I attended a one day 'academic writing' workshop facilitated by Dr. Marianne Tremaine who advocated the use of a 15 minute daily writing time slot to raise writing productivity. So the use of the ipad and zaggmate should assist with meeting the goal.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Sharepoint as an LMS
CPIT has now moved into a fully Microsoft based environment for their intranet. As part of this move, the Microsoft collaboration platform, Sharepoint, will be launched for institution wide use later this year. My sister-in-law works as a corporate staff developer and the organization uses Sharepoint as both its CMS and LMS. At present, we use Moodle as a LMS. Therefore, a good reason to explore if there are advantages to using Sharepoint as an LMS and possibilities for integration of Moodle with Sharepoint.
Also found some references to integrating Moodle with Sharepoint, mostly at the school level rather than at a corporate training or tertiary insitutions. There is a Moodle to sharepoint plugin but is has a 2007 date so not sure how up to date it is. There is a guide to using sharepoint as a file sharing part of Moodle, with some discussions on the Moodle forum and on a educators forum of how to integrate sharepoint and Moodle.
The general approach seems to be to use Sharepoint as a file system and link these files on Moodle. Which is not too different from what we do now. Will need to do more investigation into this to explore how others integrate Sharepoint with Moodle.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Professor Chan Lee on elearning design
Attended a presentation by Professor Chan Lee from Seoul National University as part of the Institute of Adult Learning - Singapore - monthly Adult Educators' Network (AEN). Professor Chan Lee presented an on 'the new era of elearning design for adult learners'.
He provided a good summary of the multifarious challenges facing elearning designers who need to design courses that have to assist diverse learners based all around the world. Various issues include the needs of just in time education, heterogenous cultures, official language to use, costs of long distances, challenges of interaction to maintain education effectiveness and the pull between globalization and localization. He presented an adapted version of ADDIE as ADDPIE (analysis, design, develop, PILOT, implement and evaluate) as an approach to meeting the challenges.
Then provides some examples including an induction programme used by Samsung Electronics to assist employees in 25 countries to learn about the company; examples from the Korean Government initiative the Cyber Home Learning System with videos of online lecture systems, online games to simulate study; and company in house courses from Sumitomo Corporation and the Visa business school.
All in, an interesting overview of work coming from an Asian country and how technology is harnessed in various ways to afford training for multi-national companies and the future potential for use of technology in the Korean school system.
He provided a good summary of the multifarious challenges facing elearning designers who need to design courses that have to assist diverse learners based all around the world. Various issues include the needs of just in time education, heterogenous cultures, official language to use, costs of long distances, challenges of interaction to maintain education effectiveness and the pull between globalization and localization. He presented an adapted version of ADDIE as ADDPIE (analysis, design, develop, PILOT, implement and evaluate) as an approach to meeting the challenges.
Then provides some examples including an induction programme used by Samsung Electronics to assist employees in 25 countries to learn about the company; examples from the Korean Government initiative the Cyber Home Learning System with videos of online lecture systems, online games to simulate study; and company in house courses from Sumitomo Corporation and the Visa business school.
All in, an interesting overview of work coming from an Asian country and how technology is harnessed in various ways to afford training for multi-national companies and the future potential for use of technology in the Korean school system.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Hunting for tablets in Singapore
Back in Singapore for almost two weeks to do some work with the Institute of Adult Learning. This is the 3rd time I am in Singapore within 7 month. It’s the most visits I have made to Singapore since I left over 30 years ago. Apart from the interesting work at the IAL, who are charged with setting up and developing post-compulsory education or continuing education and training (CET), it is a good opportunity for me to hone specific skill sets including navigating one’s way through crowded streets and shops and catch up with the latest food trends (the local master hawker awards were announced), local politics (Prime Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew’s third book, based on interviews with the local papers’ journalists released) and catch up with some of the rellies.
As usual, there was the opportunity to check out the latest tech offerings. The local papers now contains many advertisements for tablets. With the Samsung Galaxy Tablet being offered by various telcos at around Singapore, starting from $250 with 2 year plans. Also the Viewpad 7(S$749) and the Viewpad 10 (S$899) from Viewsonic is offered either with Android or Windows 7. At Funan IT Mall, several shops now sell tablets, with the Archos 7 (around S$500) and Archos 10 (S$600 thereabouts) the most prevalent. Had a play with the Archos and it has a responsive touch screen and runs on Android. Also tried out the Samsung Galaxy (almos S1000) and the Viewsonic (windows version not very user friendly on a touch screen). Lots of ipads about starting at S$748 for the 16G with WIFI. The Archos will be worth a closer look at to experiment with the Android OS.
Over the weekend, had time to spent a good afternoon at the large Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya, which is a book lovers haven. I could have spent a couple of days there :) I usually try to make at least a brief visit as the shop has several shelves devoted to Asian fiction writers who write in English or there are translated works. Bought a few interesting offerings to add to the ‘books to be read after thesis completed’ box. Also noticed the many books on the effect of social networking including – Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick, Facebook Era by Clara Shih, the Social Factor by Marie Azua and more internet centric ones like Future Minds by Richard Watson, Socialnomics by Eric qualman, Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bennett and a follow up book on the wiki phenomenon – Macrowikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams.
The noticeable thing about Singapore is how go-getting most people are. The mostly young staff at the IAL are all passionate about their roles, generally tech savvy and keen to learn better ways to provide a more learner-centric curriculum to adult students. It will be interesting to work on future projects to explore strategies for introducing student-led learning into a culture which has been traditionally content-focused, exam-orientated and teacher-centric. This is not only for the teachers but also for the students, many of whom would have not experienced formalized opportunities to set up their own personal learning environments.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Plans for 2011
Looking forward to another busy but interesting year after a couple of weeks of tramping and camping in the great NZ outdoors. On the research front, a major objective will be to ensure the Ako Aotearoa National project ‘perspectives of first year apprentices’ is completed. Also, will need to put time into organising myself to apply for funding for projects in 2012. Several ideas now starting to firm up and move into the proposal writing stage. These include an ‘interactive text book template’ for tablets and a bid for external funding to explore ‘authentic assessments’ which reflect the multiliteracies and multimodalities inherent in trades skills (or for that matter any other vocational learning).
On the teaching front, it will be good to work through a really ‘blended’ delivery option for one of my courses as there will be students enrolled from both CPIT (Christchurch) and NMIT (Nelson) on the same course. It will be good to be able to move back into ‘distance delivery’ mode as it presents on-going challenges to my teaching practice.
In the area of staff development, the Centre for Educational Development (CED) should be gaining traction across this year as our new manager settles in and the new programme development and review regime through NZQA beds down. I am looking forward to working with the CED team as roles become established and the centre gains credibility within the institution.
In addition, I have received an invitation from the Institute of Adult Learning in Singapore to do some work with them. Firstly through a feasibility study to be completed at the end of January. From the study, the contribution of the CPIT adult education team, the CED and Ako Aotearoa Academy may become more formalised into the future. I also hope to negotiate some shared projects on the research front, especially into the area of workplace learning and assessments. The work will be especially interesting for me as it means a return to the country of my childhood, where the contexts of education and training is different from what occurs in NZ.
I have put in abstracts to two conferences for this year but will not be committing to many more, probably just another one. Also have started on drafting several journal articles and it will be another learning experience to work at submitting and honing the articles for acceptance.
So another year of more learning and development as I settle into my various roles. Life is always interesting :)
On the teaching front, it will be good to work through a really ‘blended’ delivery option for one of my courses as there will be students enrolled from both CPIT (Christchurch) and NMIT (Nelson) on the same course. It will be good to be able to move back into ‘distance delivery’ mode as it presents on-going challenges to my teaching practice.
In the area of staff development, the Centre for Educational Development (CED) should be gaining traction across this year as our new manager settles in and the new programme development and review regime through NZQA beds down. I am looking forward to working with the CED team as roles become established and the centre gains credibility within the institution.
In addition, I have received an invitation from the Institute of Adult Learning in Singapore to do some work with them. Firstly through a feasibility study to be completed at the end of January. From the study, the contribution of the CPIT adult education team, the CED and Ako Aotearoa Academy may become more formalised into the future. I also hope to negotiate some shared projects on the research front, especially into the area of workplace learning and assessments. The work will be especially interesting for me as it means a return to the country of my childhood, where the contexts of education and training is different from what occurs in NZ.
I have put in abstracts to two conferences for this year but will not be committing to many more, probably just another one. Also have started on drafting several journal articles and it will be another learning experience to work at submitting and honing the articles for acceptance.
So another year of more learning and development as I settle into my various roles. Life is always interesting :)
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
2010 overview
This has been a pretty intense and busy year as I consolidate research skills and complete several externally funded projects. Reports for the Ako Aotearoa Southern Hub project ‘learning a trade: Developing guidelines to study trades learning using multimodal discourse analysis’ completed along with the first eight reports (1 to each of 7 ITOs and a background report) for the ‘first year apprentices’ Ako Aotearoa National funded project also done (whew!) The final report for the ‘first year apprentices’ project due in June next year, allowing me time to consolidate the literature and my thoughts and to catch up on reading over the summer.
Final draft of the Phd also completed and awaiting final comments from my supervisor. Should be ready after that for delivery to the markers. Will be strange not having to continuously work on the dissertation but the Phd journey has been really worthwhile, providing the opportunity to learn, practice and hone a range of academic skills. I am forever grateful to my long suffering supervisor who patiently moved me through, using a range of impressive teaching skills including modelling the painstaking tasks of word smithing my early attempts literally word by word and sentence by sentence!
A busy year too with regards to continual professional development over a range of topics. I attended 10 conferences /symposiums presenting at 5, keynotes in 2 and helping with organisation of 1. Also presented in 8 other workshops / networking type meetings across a range industries / ITPs. On the academic side, assisted with reviewing papers for one conference and 2 journal articles.
At CPIT, research capability building begun and progressing with several projects moving on into 2011 and a couple to get started. Teaching commitments have been rewarding and there was re-development work to be done on some of the DTLT courses I teach as the programme is prepared for sharing with two other ITPs.
So lots of activities and I need to reflect on what has been achieved and how to build on these to move forward into the future. In particular, how to continue with development of vocational research capability both at CPIT and beyond and to scope and prioritise projects that will garner external funding support.
Final draft of the Phd also completed and awaiting final comments from my supervisor. Should be ready after that for delivery to the markers. Will be strange not having to continuously work on the dissertation but the Phd journey has been really worthwhile, providing the opportunity to learn, practice and hone a range of academic skills. I am forever grateful to my long suffering supervisor who patiently moved me through, using a range of impressive teaching skills including modelling the painstaking tasks of word smithing my early attempts literally word by word and sentence by sentence!
A busy year too with regards to continual professional development over a range of topics. I attended 10 conferences /symposiums presenting at 5, keynotes in 2 and helping with organisation of 1. Also presented in 8 other workshops / networking type meetings across a range industries / ITPs. On the academic side, assisted with reviewing papers for one conference and 2 journal articles.
At CPIT, research capability building begun and progressing with several projects moving on into 2011 and a couple to get started. Teaching commitments have been rewarding and there was re-development work to be done on some of the DTLT courses I teach as the programme is prepared for sharing with two other ITPs.
So lots of activities and I need to reflect on what has been achieved and how to build on these to move forward into the future. In particular, how to continue with development of vocational research capability both at CPIT and beyond and to scope and prioritise projects that will garner external funding support.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Learning welding #7 and building #2
About coming to the end (of the funding) for the welding project. Flip has good ideas on how to move the project forward, so my role will be to support him with a funding application for next year.
We have drafted a short report on ‘learning welding: Improving the learning of welding using peer-learning and feedback’ that will become one of the appendices in the ‘guidelines of using video to study workshop and workplace learning’ due with Ako Aotearoa Southern Hub this week.
It’s one of many small sub-projects / research questions we mashed about with over the course of the year. So much to study, so little time!! The students have been great, cooperating fully in the various activities. Perhaps the youtube generation is less camera shy. There seemed to be no worries from students whenever we appeared with a video, asked for permission and gathered data. We still have about 90% of the data to analyse more thoroughly as well!! In particular, the data collected with groups of building apprentices on worksites and at their training evenings still needs to be more thoroughly transcribed and analysed.
There is delay in getting an official copy of atlasti on to my desktop as our IT department is doing a mass roll out of Microsoft across the institution, replacing a Novell system. We have been using a trial version of atlasti which only allow for a limited number of files. So hopefully, we will have atlasti in place by early next year to do some concerted analysis of the video data.
From the learning accomplished over the course of this year, I will be drafting a proposal for funding into 2012. This project will include ‘trades’ tutors from several polytechnics in NZ and will possibly revolve around issues of competency based assessments. The tutors will either be tertiary teaching award winners or nominated by staff developers as being motivated to embark on a research project. The prime objective will be to build capability for vocational education research with trades teaching practitioners. On the whole, trades tutors are extremely student and content focused and research is one way for them to bring another perspective into the continual appraisal of their teaching. Embarking on the research journey will require some interaction with the vocational education, workplace learning and practical skills/knowledge learning literature. I am hopeful it will help open doors to relevant scholarship and help to contribute not only to enhanced student learning but more focused understanding and application of the vocational education literature.
We have drafted a short report on ‘learning welding: Improving the learning of welding using peer-learning and feedback’ that will become one of the appendices in the ‘guidelines of using video to study workshop and workplace learning’ due with Ako Aotearoa Southern Hub this week.
It’s one of many small sub-projects / research questions we mashed about with over the course of the year. So much to study, so little time!! The students have been great, cooperating fully in the various activities. Perhaps the youtube generation is less camera shy. There seemed to be no worries from students whenever we appeared with a video, asked for permission and gathered data. We still have about 90% of the data to analyse more thoroughly as well!! In particular, the data collected with groups of building apprentices on worksites and at their training evenings still needs to be more thoroughly transcribed and analysed.
There is delay in getting an official copy of atlasti on to my desktop as our IT department is doing a mass roll out of Microsoft across the institution, replacing a Novell system. We have been using a trial version of atlasti which only allow for a limited number of files. So hopefully, we will have atlasti in place by early next year to do some concerted analysis of the video data.
From the learning accomplished over the course of this year, I will be drafting a proposal for funding into 2012. This project will include ‘trades’ tutors from several polytechnics in NZ and will possibly revolve around issues of competency based assessments. The tutors will either be tertiary teaching award winners or nominated by staff developers as being motivated to embark on a research project. The prime objective will be to build capability for vocational education research with trades teaching practitioners. On the whole, trades tutors are extremely student and content focused and research is one way for them to bring another perspective into the continual appraisal of their teaching. Embarking on the research journey will require some interaction with the vocational education, workplace learning and practical skills/knowledge learning literature. I am hopeful it will help open doors to relevant scholarship and help to contribute not only to enhanced student learning but more focused understanding and application of the vocational education literature.
Friday, December 03, 2010
Ako Aotearoa Symposium 2010 day 3
Day 3 dawns fine and sunny for the last day of the Ako Aoteaora Academy Symposium.
First up – Christine Rubie-Davies presents ‘G + T on the rocks’ – the experience of gifted /talented undergraduate students in a tertiary environment. No systematic or planned approaches towards fostering ‘A’ students in NZ primary / secondary and tertiary systems. However, this leads to an ‘untapped’ resource. Funded by Ako Aotearoa Northern hub and run across 4 faculties with 2 staff and 4 student focus groups. Research questions on ‘how talented students defined / identified’ and support provided. Definition of talented included ‘schoolhouse giftedness’ (school grades, creativity, innate, quick learners); multiple talents; personal qualities (people skills, work ethics, leadership, initiative). Talented students identified by staff mostly intuitively/informally. Support of students included individual lecturers; early identification; providing facilitation and leadership opportunities; providing specific provisions; and importantly for students, recognition. Issues included unsupportive individual lecturers; difficult to fit in; lack of opportunity; and assessments. Plans for future include piloting a ‘intervention’ study based on findings – identify at end of first year; differentiate assignment tasks; recognition for talented students; invitation to department and staff seminars; advice on scholarships; inclusion of mentoring scheme; and talented students to act as tutors. I suspect investigation of 'talented' in the trades area will reveal different definitions.
Secondly, ‘scholarly peer review of teaching’: returning ‘quality’ to teachers - with Mark Brown. Who is defining quality and for what purpose? Played video ‘we are the people we are waiting for’ as a challenge to academy members to consider their roles as educators. Challenges to enhancing quality include the tensions inherent in education. E.G. clear standards: creative flow; externally imposed requirements :internally owned commitments; central quality police: local professional responsibility; quality compliance: quality culture and quality assurance: quality enhancement. Introduced the concept of using a ‘scholarly peer review’ to form a quality enhancement framework. Need for academics to ‘own’ quality and the process – not just imposed by institution.
After morning tea, group discussion facilitated by Paul Denny on ‘did I jump or was I pushed – capitalizing on opportunities’ with Julia Bruce, Roger Nokes, Tracey Poutama-Mackie and Marc Wilson. Each presented on how they had moved on (usually through connections fostered through the academy) beyond their award. Julia talked about her journey since the award and support provided by academy (local and committee) on her growth as a staff developer. Also provided 4 videos produced as part of the ‘good practice’ grant. Roger spoke on leading and learning as Head of Department, member of academic board and acting chair of teaching and learning committee and the challenge of representing teaching but also wearing a ‘management’ hat. Tracey presented on the history of her institute – People Potential – as it played a big part in how she has developed as a teacher and now as academic leader and staff developer as manager of youth transition services in Whangarei. “my success should not be bestowed on me alone, as it was not individual success but success of a collective”. Marc presented on his experiences on how the award has contributed to his academic life. Teaching and researching can be very isolating and preparing portfolios for awards provides opportunities to introspection. Also, accepting positions of responsibility within institution should be taken as it widens perspectives and leads to connecting and contributing to the wider university community. Including how to deal with media in a structured way.
After lunch, a session on ‘the academy and YOU: your chance to contribute’. John Hoskin presented on what has been achieved by the academy thus far and workshopped the session to work out future direction for the academy. Also provided background on the separate roles / synergistic relationships between Ako Aotearoa and the Academy. Academy is an independent voice and how can we leverage on this. For next year, encouragement to bring forward more project;, establish ‘regional champions’ to strengthen links between academy and hubs and convene more regional events; establish a ‘teaching day/week/month?’; and portfolio mining. Committee to work on creating a voice for the academy (guide to media relations, training etc).; portfolios volumes; lobbying (internal/external) – how to do this as academy members within and without our own organisations; encourage collaborations; mentoring of PBRF; commission research – effect of PBRF?; finding our kaupapa. Good discussion followed on direction forward for the academy.
The symposium brought to a close with an adapted pecha kucha session organized by the Canterbury team led by Tim Bell.
Official conference closing with mihi Tracey Poutama-Mackie.
First up – Christine Rubie-Davies presents ‘G + T on the rocks’ – the experience of gifted /talented undergraduate students in a tertiary environment. No systematic or planned approaches towards fostering ‘A’ students in NZ primary / secondary and tertiary systems. However, this leads to an ‘untapped’ resource. Funded by Ako Aotearoa Northern hub and run across 4 faculties with 2 staff and 4 student focus groups. Research questions on ‘how talented students defined / identified’ and support provided. Definition of talented included ‘schoolhouse giftedness’ (school grades, creativity, innate, quick learners); multiple talents; personal qualities (people skills, work ethics, leadership, initiative). Talented students identified by staff mostly intuitively/informally. Support of students included individual lecturers; early identification; providing facilitation and leadership opportunities; providing specific provisions; and importantly for students, recognition. Issues included unsupportive individual lecturers; difficult to fit in; lack of opportunity; and assessments. Plans for future include piloting a ‘intervention’ study based on findings – identify at end of first year; differentiate assignment tasks; recognition for talented students; invitation to department and staff seminars; advice on scholarships; inclusion of mentoring scheme; and talented students to act as tutors. I suspect investigation of 'talented' in the trades area will reveal different definitions.
Secondly, ‘scholarly peer review of teaching’: returning ‘quality’ to teachers - with Mark Brown. Who is defining quality and for what purpose? Played video ‘we are the people we are waiting for’ as a challenge to academy members to consider their roles as educators. Challenges to enhancing quality include the tensions inherent in education. E.G. clear standards: creative flow; externally imposed requirements :internally owned commitments; central quality police: local professional responsibility; quality compliance: quality culture and quality assurance: quality enhancement. Introduced the concept of using a ‘scholarly peer review’ to form a quality enhancement framework. Need for academics to ‘own’ quality and the process – not just imposed by institution.
After morning tea, group discussion facilitated by Paul Denny on ‘did I jump or was I pushed – capitalizing on opportunities’ with Julia Bruce, Roger Nokes, Tracey Poutama-Mackie and Marc Wilson. Each presented on how they had moved on (usually through connections fostered through the academy) beyond their award. Julia talked about her journey since the award and support provided by academy (local and committee) on her growth as a staff developer. Also provided 4 videos produced as part of the ‘good practice’ grant. Roger spoke on leading and learning as Head of Department, member of academic board and acting chair of teaching and learning committee and the challenge of representing teaching but also wearing a ‘management’ hat. Tracey presented on the history of her institute – People Potential – as it played a big part in how she has developed as a teacher and now as academic leader and staff developer as manager of youth transition services in Whangarei. “my success should not be bestowed on me alone, as it was not individual success but success of a collective”. Marc presented on his experiences on how the award has contributed to his academic life. Teaching and researching can be very isolating and preparing portfolios for awards provides opportunities to introspection. Also, accepting positions of responsibility within institution should be taken as it widens perspectives and leads to connecting and contributing to the wider university community. Including how to deal with media in a structured way.
After lunch, a session on ‘the academy and YOU: your chance to contribute’. John Hoskin presented on what has been achieved by the academy thus far and workshopped the session to work out future direction for the academy. Also provided background on the separate roles / synergistic relationships between Ako Aotearoa and the Academy. Academy is an independent voice and how can we leverage on this. For next year, encouragement to bring forward more project;, establish ‘regional champions’ to strengthen links between academy and hubs and convene more regional events; establish a ‘teaching day/week/month?’; and portfolio mining. Committee to work on creating a voice for the academy (guide to media relations, training etc).; portfolios volumes; lobbying (internal/external) – how to do this as academy members within and without our own organisations; encourage collaborations; mentoring of PBRF; commission research – effect of PBRF?; finding our kaupapa. Good discussion followed on direction forward for the academy.
The symposium brought to a close with an adapted pecha kucha session organized by the Canterbury team led by Tim Bell.
Official conference closing with mihi Tracey Poutama-Mackie.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Ako Aotearoa Academy Symposium 2010 - day 2
Day two opened with address from Hon. Steven Joyce, Minister of Tertiary Education with an introduction provided by Academy committee president, Dr. John Hosking. The minister reiterated his support for the work of teachers. In particular for the academy to contribute to fostering networks and strategies to improve learning opportunities for students. This comes from continued interface between institutions / teachers and industry to work on cost effective good quality education. He introduced plans for next year given financial constraints, the usual focus on completions being linked to funding.
Key note for the day from Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington on 'curriculum by design' or 'how to reduce the number of courses offered by your institution'. Presented the different ways 'curriculum' is understood by different sectors within the institution but also perceived in different ways by the students. One approach may be to use a ‘learning spaces’ platform to move curriculum re-visioning and perhaps an ‘ethnographical’ research approach to investigate curriculum design to ‘reframe curriculum’. Need to understand only the ‘formal curriculum’ but also the informal ‘co-curriculum’. So curriculum by design may be through understanding ‘flow’ (what does it feel like to move through the curriculum?); entry /exit (where do I go in, where do I go out?); formal and informal (what to ‘take on board and when do I ‘wind down’?). Strategies include course and unit reduction and/or renewal; timetabling and movement; recognition of formal and co-curriculum (the Monash Passport) and enhancing coursework approvals. Interesting concepts to take into account as CPIT moves towards ‘constructive alignment’ approach to programme design.
After morning tea, Selena Mize presented on 'not just a qualification: getting students to integrate what they learn into their lives'. Provided overview of ‘motivating students’ for a legal ethics course; using clickers; and influencing values of students. Need to ‘motivate students’ as legal ethics course was made compulsory! And change in student’s perception from ‘wanting to do it (intrinsic) to ‘having to do it’ (extrinsic motivation). Went through strategies to use to engage students in intrinsic motivation. Covered introduction to using ‘clickers’ effectively to enhance student’s intrinsic motivation including going through the various types of ‘questions’ possible and advantages/disadvantages of each type. Lastly, when through guidelines on how to ‘influence values’ and whether it is actually ethical to ‘instill’ values. In sum, to try to develop students’ self-reflection by exposing students to multiple viewpoints and difference methodologies; use examples that bring injustice and suffering from immoral behaviour into focus and include a real world focus (not just an ‘ivory tower’ perspective); make value challenges feel relevant and personal to student; encourage class participation; consider use of literature and narratives; guest speakers can also serve as role models; in some situations develop morality through doing; encourage reflection, introspection, deep thought; take a long-term perspective; be open and non-judgemental.
Lighter session introducing the new academy committee followed by a session with Professor Sally Kitt on 'quality and standards in higher education: recent Australian developments'. Presented the Australian context with parallels to NZ situation. Detailed the journey of developing the ‘threshold learning outcomes (TLOs) by using the case study of LAW as an example. Good overview of the various ‘fish hooks’ involved in trying to produce ‘generic’ learning outcomes for a range of disciplines.
After lunch three session on IT in the classroom. Beginning with my session on ' alternatives to powerpoint'. I provided 7 web 2.0 alternatives with 4 useful in f2f and 3 for online environments for everyone to play with and evaluate. Also included brief discussion on how to use powerpoint as a tool to enhance student learning.
Then 'fun with panopto - student feedback and teacher reflection' with Alison Campbell. Panopto allows lectures etc. to be recorded and then put on to a CMS to be available to students. Video of lecture, powerpoint, screen capture of board work and embedded videos etc. available. User friendly system with lecturer only having to turn things on before lecture commences and then turn off and download into repository. Especially good for improving teaching practice for reflective teachers and for identifying students who may be struggling and are uploading and watching the video.
Followed by seesion on using 'AVS video editor 4 in Teaching' with Christine Rubie-Davies. Showed process of uploading video clips from TV programme, how to select and trim the video and use these clips for learning activities.
After afternoon tea, an introduction to the new members of the academy, the 2010 winners of tertiary excellence award winners. TTE award past winners who are buddies of each of this year’s winners introduced the winner they supported and each winner provided a brief presentation and were given a copy of this year’s TTE booklet (fresh off the press).
Lisa Emerson and Ngahiwi Apanui then went through changes/revisions to the tertiary award criteria so that members may support potential applications to the award. Lisa also provided insight into the process from her perspective as being a member of the TTEA selection committee. All selectors do a quick scan of all applications and then have a telephone conference. Then committee meets to do the shortlisting by matching applications to criteria. At end of day 1, 12 shortlisted and on day 2, the list is finalised and then a ballot is done to chooses the Prime Minister’s awardee. Day after the awards, a debrief takes place.
Day ended with drinks and a convivial and entertaining symposium dinner.
Key note for the day from Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington on 'curriculum by design' or 'how to reduce the number of courses offered by your institution'. Presented the different ways 'curriculum' is understood by different sectors within the institution but also perceived in different ways by the students. One approach may be to use a ‘learning spaces’ platform to move curriculum re-visioning and perhaps an ‘ethnographical’ research approach to investigate curriculum design to ‘reframe curriculum’. Need to understand only the ‘formal curriculum’ but also the informal ‘co-curriculum’. So curriculum by design may be through understanding ‘flow’ (what does it feel like to move through the curriculum?); entry /exit (where do I go in, where do I go out?); formal and informal (what to ‘take on board and when do I ‘wind down’?). Strategies include course and unit reduction and/or renewal; timetabling and movement; recognition of formal and co-curriculum (the Monash Passport) and enhancing coursework approvals. Interesting concepts to take into account as CPIT moves towards ‘constructive alignment’ approach to programme design.
After morning tea, Selena Mize presented on 'not just a qualification: getting students to integrate what they learn into their lives'. Provided overview of ‘motivating students’ for a legal ethics course; using clickers; and influencing values of students. Need to ‘motivate students’ as legal ethics course was made compulsory! And change in student’s perception from ‘wanting to do it (intrinsic) to ‘having to do it’ (extrinsic motivation). Went through strategies to use to engage students in intrinsic motivation. Covered introduction to using ‘clickers’ effectively to enhance student’s intrinsic motivation including going through the various types of ‘questions’ possible and advantages/disadvantages of each type. Lastly, when through guidelines on how to ‘influence values’ and whether it is actually ethical to ‘instill’ values. In sum, to try to develop students’ self-reflection by exposing students to multiple viewpoints and difference methodologies; use examples that bring injustice and suffering from immoral behaviour into focus and include a real world focus (not just an ‘ivory tower’ perspective); make value challenges feel relevant and personal to student; encourage class participation; consider use of literature and narratives; guest speakers can also serve as role models; in some situations develop morality through doing; encourage reflection, introspection, deep thought; take a long-term perspective; be open and non-judgemental.
Lighter session introducing the new academy committee followed by a session with Professor Sally Kitt on 'quality and standards in higher education: recent Australian developments'. Presented the Australian context with parallels to NZ situation. Detailed the journey of developing the ‘threshold learning outcomes (TLOs) by using the case study of LAW as an example. Good overview of the various ‘fish hooks’ involved in trying to produce ‘generic’ learning outcomes for a range of disciplines.
After lunch three session on IT in the classroom. Beginning with my session on ' alternatives to powerpoint'. I provided 7 web 2.0 alternatives with 4 useful in f2f and 3 for online environments for everyone to play with and evaluate. Also included brief discussion on how to use powerpoint as a tool to enhance student learning.
Then 'fun with panopto - student feedback and teacher reflection' with Alison Campbell. Panopto allows lectures etc. to be recorded and then put on to a CMS to be available to students. Video of lecture, powerpoint, screen capture of board work and embedded videos etc. available. User friendly system with lecturer only having to turn things on before lecture commences and then turn off and download into repository. Especially good for improving teaching practice for reflective teachers and for identifying students who may be struggling and are uploading and watching the video.
Followed by seesion on using 'AVS video editor 4 in Teaching' with Christine Rubie-Davies. Showed process of uploading video clips from TV programme, how to select and trim the video and use these clips for learning activities.
After afternoon tea, an introduction to the new members of the academy, the 2010 winners of tertiary excellence award winners. TTE award past winners who are buddies of each of this year’s winners introduced the winner they supported and each winner provided a brief presentation and were given a copy of this year’s TTE booklet (fresh off the press).
Lisa Emerson and Ngahiwi Apanui then went through changes/revisions to the tertiary award criteria so that members may support potential applications to the award. Lisa also provided insight into the process from her perspective as being a member of the TTEA selection committee. All selectors do a quick scan of all applications and then have a telephone conference. Then committee meets to do the shortlisting by matching applications to criteria. At end of day 1, 12 shortlisted and on day 2, the list is finalised and then a ballot is done to chooses the Prime Minister’s awardee. Day after the awards, a debrief takes place.
Day ended with drinks and a convivial and entertaining symposium dinner.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Ako Aotearoa Academy Symposium 2010 - day 1
In Wellington for the annual Ako Aotearoa Academy symposim, with about 50 plus academy members attending and with many presentations from academy members. Began with short welcomes from Dr. Peter Coolbear, Helen Dobson and Dr. Sally Kitt as the symposium convened at 2 pm.
First keynote from Prof. Marnie Hughes-Warrington from Monash University on 'writing 'I' makes me ill: assessment and self assessment. Covered assessment policy - shift towards criterion based assessment; emphasis on 'authentic' assessment; and recognition of early, formative assessment. Came about because her peers did not see importance of assessments. Embarked on a project to find out where, how and from who students learnt history and found out most did not know how they would make use of their history studies! Introduced 'self-assessment' as a way to try to share with students, the learning process for history.
After afternoon tea, 3 concurrent sessions with one on 'putting the T into the PBRF' from John Hosking and Tracy Riley and a 'funding clinic' with Kirsty Weir, to keep up to date with various funding streams availed for projects, research etc. I attended , 'Teaching practically' with Sam Honey, Kelly Pender, Adrian Woodhouse and facilitated by LIz Fitchett. Adrian presented on some of the strategies used to engage his learners. For instance how to teach students the parts of a hogget or pork cuts. So project evolves from purchasing a pig to maximising the use of the pig by ‘adding value’ and having the pig become part of a ‘commercial venture’ i.e. selling the pork products with it’s accompanying relishes, breads etc. at a farmers market Students took ownership of the project, leading to much self-directed learning and responsibility for their own learning and assessments. Kelly and Sam presented on how to incorporate Kaupapa Maori into tertiary education (within a Certificate in Fitness (level 4) and preparation for a law enforcement career). Need to fully integrate so that it becomes enmeshed into the culture of the programme. Presented a good range of strategies provided to engage students, incorporating aspects of kaupapa Maori and enable students to explore their own beliefs and set future goals.
Good to meet up with many from the last symposium and to welcome the 2010 academy members (all of whom are attending). Look forward to a full and busy day tomorrow.
First keynote from Prof. Marnie Hughes-Warrington from Monash University on 'writing 'I' makes me ill: assessment and self assessment. Covered assessment policy - shift towards criterion based assessment; emphasis on 'authentic' assessment; and recognition of early, formative assessment. Came about because her peers did not see importance of assessments. Embarked on a project to find out where, how and from who students learnt history and found out most did not know how they would make use of their history studies! Introduced 'self-assessment' as a way to try to share with students, the learning process for history.
After afternoon tea, 3 concurrent sessions with one on 'putting the T into the PBRF' from John Hosking and Tracy Riley and a 'funding clinic' with Kirsty Weir, to keep up to date with various funding streams availed for projects, research etc. I attended , 'Teaching practically' with Sam Honey, Kelly Pender, Adrian Woodhouse and facilitated by LIz Fitchett. Adrian presented on some of the strategies used to engage his learners. For instance how to teach students the parts of a hogget or pork cuts. So project evolves from purchasing a pig to maximising the use of the pig by ‘adding value’ and having the pig become part of a ‘commercial venture’ i.e. selling the pork products with it’s accompanying relishes, breads etc. at a farmers market Students took ownership of the project, leading to much self-directed learning and responsibility for their own learning and assessments. Kelly and Sam presented on how to incorporate Kaupapa Maori into tertiary education (within a Certificate in Fitness (level 4) and preparation for a law enforcement career). Need to fully integrate so that it becomes enmeshed into the culture of the programme. Presented a good range of strategies provided to engage students, incorporating aspects of kaupapa Maori and enable students to explore their own beliefs and set future goals.
Good to meet up with many from the last symposium and to welcome the 2010 academy members (all of whom are attending). Look forward to a full and busy day tomorrow.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
ITF research network meeting 24th november
Yesterday I travelled to Wellington to attend and present to a keen group of ITO managers. The meeting convened by the Industry Training Federation (ITF) around 3 to 4 times a year as a fora for ITF / ITO members to network and catch up on various issues. 2 ITF staff plus 12 or so ITO staff (some attended for part of the day). Good to touch base with familiar faces and meet new people.
A round of participants for them to introduce themselves and the projects each ITO is involved in or working towards. First session , Eric Krassoi Peach from the ITF opens the meeting with a discussion and direction for next week's meetings. All good background for me and to get into the ITO mindset.
Next up, I provide an overview of the vocational research projects at CPIT, concentrating on the Ako Aotearoa National funded project on 'first year apprentices' but also providing short summaries of the 'new trades tutors' projects from the perspective of identity transformation / boundary crossing and the 'welding project' plus details of projects begun by Barry Dowrick (interactive whiteboards and learning objects), future work with the engineering team (integrated learning and assessments) and with automotive with android OS tablets (interactive textbooks).
Schools update provided by Josh Williams, quantifications and quality manager at the ITF spoke to the group on sector pathways - making sense of secondary / tertiary transitions. Compared to other OECD countries , NZ retention of 15- 20 year olds in training is low. NZ curriculum refers to 'focus on transitions'. One pathway to university but other pathways not as clear as per On the edge of adulthood: young people's and out of school experiences at 16' - NZCER 2008 report. ITF presents sector pathways to service, manufacturing / technology, constructions /infrastructure, primary industries, social / community services and other industries as one possible way forward to provide 'structure' for career teachers. Perhaps to use the term 'majors' for each so that NCEA becomes more aligned towards one of the pathways rather than a 'pick n mix' which does not add up to any 'concrete' way forward. Went through preliminary analysis of NZQA data of u/s completed between 2005 - 2009 by provider by students to show what sector students were completing u/s in. Many students just completing 1 or 2 (credit harvesting??), and 'rural' schools tended to have students who completed more u/s (agriculture? Outdoor rec??) with many students also completing generic safety u/s 497 and food safety u/s 167. Breakdowns may now be needed to be done by ITO, student characteristics, longitudinal etc.
Then Paul Mahoney from Ministry of Education (Tertiary analysis) provides summary of Industry training stocks and flows - effects of the economic downturn pertient to ITOs. Stock is the number of people in industry training in one year and flow is the movement of these people in or out. 9-10% of population in industry training /apprenticeship as compared to 3% in Australia. Data is from 2001 - 20019. Economic downturn = drop in workplace based training participants as the is GDP contraction in 2009 across all industries, 2008 decline in agriculture, 2006 food & beverage with construction in 2007. Employment contraction also occurred especially for young people. Increase in Limited credits programme (LCP) which could be useful as they do not require a long term commitment but often lead to further training to lead to full qualification. Withdrawals increased. Some industries trained existing workers instead of employing new workers to train. Modern apprentice sign up decreased across many industries and terminations / withdrawals increased.
Last presentation from Erica Cumming from the Hairdressing ITO on work completed on Return on Investment (ROI). Using small case studies to understand and measure the ROI from apprenticeship training to selected and their apprentices. Studied 'phases' in apprentices' fit to business strategy - providing support, colouring, starting to cut and running own column - how much apprentice contributes to revenue at each stage. Intangible benefits to salon with apprentices has to be weight up with costs to salon. Key results - payback period is relatively short (y1/y2), how salon manages its revenue makes the biggest difference, what apprentices is compared against is important. Benefits for apprentices include earning while learning, hand-on training and off-job training. Strategies for salons to make the most financially of apprenticeships are to maximise benefits (ensure apprentice is productive quickly, optimal mix of staff), minimise cost (train efficiently, push cost to apprentice - not encouraged by ITO!!, minimise opportunity costs of training) and encourage apprentice to stay (recruit right apprentice & encourage apprentice, align salon objectives of salon and apprentice, undertake dedicated in-salon training, offer a wage structre for stylist which shows it's worthwhile staying, offer financial incentives to stay). Results used to produce a summary - well presented and aligned to industry needs. All useful for the 'first year apprentices' project :)
A round of participants for them to introduce themselves and the projects each ITO is involved in or working towards. First session , Eric Krassoi Peach from the ITF opens the meeting with a discussion and direction for next week's meetings. All good background for me and to get into the ITO mindset.
Next up, I provide an overview of the vocational research projects at CPIT, concentrating on the Ako Aotearoa National funded project on 'first year apprentices' but also providing short summaries of the 'new trades tutors' projects from the perspective of identity transformation / boundary crossing and the 'welding project' plus details of projects begun by Barry Dowrick (interactive whiteboards and learning objects), future work with the engineering team (integrated learning and assessments) and with automotive with android OS tablets (interactive textbooks).
Schools update provided by Josh Williams, quantifications and quality manager at the ITF spoke to the group on sector pathways - making sense of secondary / tertiary transitions. Compared to other OECD countries , NZ retention of 15- 20 year olds in training is low. NZ curriculum refers to 'focus on transitions'. One pathway to university but other pathways not as clear as per On the edge of adulthood: young people's and out of school experiences at 16' - NZCER 2008 report. ITF presents sector pathways to service, manufacturing / technology, constructions /infrastructure, primary industries, social / community services and other industries as one possible way forward to provide 'structure' for career teachers. Perhaps to use the term 'majors' for each so that NCEA becomes more aligned towards one of the pathways rather than a 'pick n mix' which does not add up to any 'concrete' way forward. Went through preliminary analysis of NZQA data of u/s completed between 2005 - 2009 by provider by students to show what sector students were completing u/s in. Many students just completing 1 or 2 (credit harvesting??), and 'rural' schools tended to have students who completed more u/s (agriculture? Outdoor rec??) with many students also completing generic safety u/s 497 and food safety u/s 167. Breakdowns may now be needed to be done by ITO, student characteristics, longitudinal etc.
Then Paul Mahoney from Ministry of Education (Tertiary analysis) provides summary of Industry training stocks and flows - effects of the economic downturn pertient to ITOs. Stock is the number of people in industry training in one year and flow is the movement of these people in or out. 9-10% of population in industry training /apprenticeship as compared to 3% in Australia. Data is from 2001 - 20019. Economic downturn = drop in workplace based training participants as the is GDP contraction in 2009 across all industries, 2008 decline in agriculture, 2006 food & beverage with construction in 2007. Employment contraction also occurred especially for young people. Increase in Limited credits programme (LCP) which could be useful as they do not require a long term commitment but often lead to further training to lead to full qualification. Withdrawals increased. Some industries trained existing workers instead of employing new workers to train. Modern apprentice sign up decreased across many industries and terminations / withdrawals increased.
Last presentation from Erica Cumming from the Hairdressing ITO on work completed on Return on Investment (ROI). Using small case studies to understand and measure the ROI from apprenticeship training to selected and their apprentices. Studied 'phases' in apprentices' fit to business strategy - providing support, colouring, starting to cut and running own column - how much apprentice contributes to revenue at each stage. Intangible benefits to salon with apprentices has to be weight up with costs to salon. Key results - payback period is relatively short (y1/y2), how salon manages its revenue makes the biggest difference, what apprentices is compared against is important. Benefits for apprentices include earning while learning, hand-on training and off-job training. Strategies for salons to make the most financially of apprenticeships are to maximise benefits (ensure apprentice is productive quickly, optimal mix of staff), minimise cost (train efficiently, push cost to apprentice - not encouraged by ITO!!, minimise opportunity costs of training) and encourage apprentice to stay (recruit right apprentice & encourage apprentice, align salon objectives of salon and apprentice, undertake dedicated in-salon training, offer a wage structre for stylist which shows it's worthwhile staying, offer financial incentives to stay). Results used to produce a summary - well presented and aligned to industry needs. All useful for the 'first year apprentices' project :)
Monday, November 22, 2010
We have the technology and the pedagogy, but will education change?
I think that there is little doubt we have the technology (an example extolling the ipad from Graeme Brown – Handheld Learning) and mobile learning is about here (as per Oz/NZ Horizonreport for 2010 via Derek Wenmouth’s blog).
We have also have the pedagogy pitched about right – inclusiveness, participative learning etc. need for critical thinking skills etc. and bringing it together with constructive or curriculum alignment and sumarised in this slideshare (Biggs & Tang, 2008)
But are our classrooms, institutions and IT departments ready?? As the horizon report summarises,
‘even when technologies are strongly promoted, professional development is still crucial’ and ‘there is a mismatch between pedagogy and the design of emerging technologies’ – which is becoming less of a challenge as with say the ipad’.
Two technologies to become mainstream within a years are ebooks and mobiles.
Ebooks are not pervasive in our polytechnic environment. Many of our students and some of our tutors are not ‘natural’ readers. There is also resistance to reading ‘off the screen’ with many people printing off items to read, rather than reading on screen and storing the digital copies for later reference. I have lost count of the number of people I have introduced pdf readers with annotation tools (like FoxIT) but few have taken up the challenge. True, there is a learning curve and the need to relearn years of acquired skill through reading hard copies. However, the advantages of digital make the effort worthwhile. I now find articles easily, whereas in the past, I would have to fossick into my card catalogue and hunt down the article either in the library or through boxes of printouts. Now, most journal articles are archived in various folders under the references section of each project. I can use Endnotes to find the article and once the article found, use the search function on the pdf reader to find the relevant section. Usually takes all of 2 minutes compared to at least 15 – 20 minutes for the manual option or a couple of days for the library option if the article is at the university.
For the adoption of mobiles, concerted efforts to bring down the cost of mobile web access will be required OR better access to WiFi within out institutions. Without either, access to the www will be stymied and that makes mobile access slightly superfluous. The small screen of pdas, ipod touches and phones have always been a barrier to the uptake of mobile. Tablets like the ipad make web surfing a joy and reading off an ipad is much more 'book like' although annotation etc. needs to again be learnt.
So will need to work on both the above. An interactive text book approach using the advantages provided by tablets will be an interesting way to tap into both ebook and mobile technologies. The pedagogy underpinning the project will be aspects of using the interactive text book as a resource for both constructive and participative learning. So something wot work through and investigate more deeply.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Activity / information streams and conversations
As a follow up to last week’s blog I followed up on George Seimen’s blog on ‘activity streams’ that proposes the internet as the new way to communicate after the phone, fax and email.
Linked to the above is dana boyd’s Educause Review article on ‘streams of content’ and the keynote from Prof. Agnes Kuklska-Hulme at the recent mlearning 2010. Dana links Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of ‘flow’ to the current ‘flow of information’ through social networking. Agnes discussed the concept of ‘social network’ as a form of conversation and how, for instance. Tweets, may be seen as ‘conversation starters’ and directors.
Of note is dana’s summary of how technology affordances, collide with current social mores. Four areas are democratisation of information, stimulation / attention, homophily (where people connect with others who are very like themselves) and power. Some good ideas to think through as we assume technology will solve the world’s problems, yet what individual’s want may not be what is better for society as a whole (depending on which side you are on). For example, Prof. Mohammed Ali’s call to researchers to harness their energies and networks to provide education for all through mobile learning is a worthy goal. However, does every government/political organisation support education /democracy for all? How does one package learning (what is education?)? Will education be used to further repressive regimes objectives? Who decides what is learnt?
So again, things are not as straight-forward as they might be! We need to continually test our assumptions of what is appropriate and if we change tack, why and for what reasons. On to another interesting week.
Linked to the above is dana boyd’s Educause Review article on ‘streams of content’ and the keynote from Prof. Agnes Kuklska-Hulme at the recent mlearning 2010. Dana links Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of ‘flow’ to the current ‘flow of information’ through social networking. Agnes discussed the concept of ‘social network’ as a form of conversation and how, for instance. Tweets, may be seen as ‘conversation starters’ and directors.
Of note is dana’s summary of how technology affordances, collide with current social mores. Four areas are democratisation of information, stimulation / attention, homophily (where people connect with others who are very like themselves) and power. Some good ideas to think through as we assume technology will solve the world’s problems, yet what individual’s want may not be what is better for society as a whole (depending on which side you are on). For example, Prof. Mohammed Ali’s call to researchers to harness their energies and networks to provide education for all through mobile learning is a worthy goal. However, does every government/political organisation support education /democracy for all? How does one package learning (what is education?)? Will education be used to further repressive regimes objectives? Who decides what is learnt?
So again, things are not as straight-forward as they might be! We need to continually test our assumptions of what is appropriate and if we change tack, why and for what reasons. On to another interesting week.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
21st century learning - what is it?
I am preparing for a couple of workshops, framed around the use of technology to enhance learning. The first to ‘learning advisers’, the other to teachers across the NZ tertiary sector. In general, I take a neutral stance, introduce ideas, provide opportunities for some hands-on computer-based try outs and then consolidate the concepts of collaborative learning, student engagement and ubiquitous computing. Also important to discuss the ways in which educators critically think through the reasons for integrating technology into their teaching and how technology may be useful for enhancing student learning through collaborative activities and projects.
Have provided several on Web 2.0 over the last couple of years, so time to do a refresh and update to Web 3.0. A video on 21st century teaching was introduced to me by Kirstin Dofs, our learning centre manager. I will use parts of this to show the changes education has to undergo in order for students to learn 21st century skills.Also some of the ideas summarised an animation of Sir Ken Robinson's ideas on the need for educational reform but with proviso's as discussed by George Siemen in a recent blog arguing that trying to meet current needs just means we continually 'chase our tails'.
To add to above is a recent Becta report from Derek Wenmouth's blog which I skimmed over the weekend. The report finds (through a study of teacher's logs) ICT makes possible new forms of classroom practice AND creates the possibility of a wide range of learning practices. So change is possible, given educators who are willing to put in the time to become familiar with technology and be savvy enough to make the most of ICT in enhancing student learning.
A couple of months ago, I worked through Mark Threadwell's book which summarises some of the above and provides ideas for improving teaching and learning using ICT. His website has a good list of books and resources to start teachers up on adopting use of technology as ONE form of learning engagement.
Other resources previewed in the last couple of months, which I have considered via Greg's blog, a Dunedin school principal are 3 youtube videos – difference between 20th & 21st century teachers. One from John Seely Brown on 21st century learners, David Willingham on – learning styles don’t exist and Greg Wilby on the importance of theory based practice.
So lot's of ideas to build the presentation on Web 3.0 and 21st century learning. Will need to sift through them and maintain a strong thread so that the overall argument is maintained - educators need to make an effort in order to help enhance student engagement, using technology to assist may be one option.
Have provided several on Web 2.0 over the last couple of years, so time to do a refresh and update to Web 3.0. A video on 21st century teaching was introduced to me by Kirstin Dofs, our learning centre manager. I will use parts of this to show the changes education has to undergo in order for students to learn 21st century skills.Also some of the ideas summarised an animation of Sir Ken Robinson's ideas on the need for educational reform but with proviso's as discussed by George Siemen in a recent blog arguing that trying to meet current needs just means we continually 'chase our tails'.
To add to above is a recent Becta report from Derek Wenmouth's blog which I skimmed over the weekend. The report finds (through a study of teacher's logs) ICT makes possible new forms of classroom practice AND creates the possibility of a wide range of learning practices. So change is possible, given educators who are willing to put in the time to become familiar with technology and be savvy enough to make the most of ICT in enhancing student learning.
A couple of months ago, I worked through Mark Threadwell's book which summarises some of the above and provides ideas for improving teaching and learning using ICT. His website has a good list of books and resources to start teachers up on adopting use of technology as ONE form of learning engagement.
Other resources previewed in the last couple of months, which I have considered via Greg's blog, a Dunedin school principal are 3 youtube videos – difference between 20th & 21st century teachers. One from John Seely Brown on 21st century learners, David Willingham on – learning styles don’t exist and Greg Wilby on the importance of theory based practice.
So lot's of ideas to build the presentation on Web 3.0 and 21st century learning. Will need to sift through them and maintain a strong thread so that the overall argument is maintained - educators need to make an effort in order to help enhance student engagement, using technology to assist may be one option.
Friday, November 05, 2010
Augmented Reality with Olympus Pen camera
Did a bit of a catch up on Augmented Reality (AR) as a follow up to Andy Goff’s presentation at mlearn2010. Looked at one of the examples provided, which was the AR demonstration for the new Olympus PEN camera. Downloaded the plugin to run the simulation which included downloading a 'marker' (2d image of the camera). Also need to have vidcam running. A youtube video shows how it should run as it does take a bit of time to get used to running the camera on the screen while you are also holding the marker to bring up the 3D image.
Other examples of augmented reality are available on the wiki for AR and an article from the Guardian with an iphone app. Educational perspective provided by Educause guide with usual recommendations and caveats.
I can see great possibilities but development will be time and money intensive. Also the simulation will generally have a specialised use and nothing beats coming up f2f with the real thing! The AR will provide the 3D visual but not the smell and tactile feel. However, for mobile access where there is little other choice (e.g. under-resourced classroom / lab / workshop with limited access to situated learning) AR would enhance learning opportunities.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Reflections on 3 conferences in 2 1/2 weeks
Back in quiet and sparsely populated NZ after 21/2 weeks traipsing across a very crowded Europe and Asia. In addition to visiting 5 countries and 3 conferences, I also met up with my PhD supervisor to complete the final edit for my dissertation, shopped around for Android tablets and caught up with family in Singapore. Not sure if I will try to pack in as much another time!
However, time spent in airports was generally productive. The availability of free WiFi at most major airports helps plus on-board power for laptops on some aeroplanes assisted as well. Nothing worst then a dead laptop or no WiFi when trying to bring up Google maps to work out the best route and mode of transport from the airport to booked accommodation. I noticed in most airports, how people who were using the free internet desktops were mostly updating their facebook or similar. Road warriors seemed to have their own laptops and mobile web access.
On the shopping front, Android tablets were not as prevalent as I thought they might be. As in Hong Kong, there were very few in Singapore. I managed to play with one ePad which was being sold for Singpore $599, just $129 less than the 16G basic Ipad. Will need to wait until at least early next year for the market to mature.
Also, as people in other countries commute on public transport much more than the average NZer, the use of mobile devices was much more prevalent. As noticed in Singapore earlier this year, Italians, Romanians and Hong Kongers were all pretty much permanently wedded to their mobile phones. Almost everyone was twiddling with one on the bus, tram, subway or at the airport. In all countries, there were many shops selling mobile phones, often at very low prices when accompanied by a fixed term data plan.
I think the advent of ubiquitous computing is very nearly mainstream, especially in countries where the mobile web is not expensive. Even my 4 aunties (all in their seventies) who had all vowed to not become computer literate. They were all teachers who, aged 50 plus and early 60ish, had to attend PD sessions on using technology in teaching! However, everyone of them now uses a mobile phone and able to txt in both English and Chinese as it is the only way they are able to get hold of their children or grandkids. One has just succumbed to an iphone after being taught how to use it by her son-in-law. An ipad going to be the next investment (time and learning, not money) after I showed them how user-friendly mine was.
All in, a good time to catch up on completing the last edits towards dissertation, observe changes in mobile technology use, see some nice places, meet interesting people, play with a range of technology difficult to find in NZ and remember how lucky I am to live in clean and uncrowded NZ :)
However, time spent in airports was generally productive. The availability of free WiFi at most major airports helps plus on-board power for laptops on some aeroplanes assisted as well. Nothing worst then a dead laptop or no WiFi when trying to bring up Google maps to work out the best route and mode of transport from the airport to booked accommodation. I noticed in most airports, how people who were using the free internet desktops were mostly updating their facebook or similar. Road warriors seemed to have their own laptops and mobile web access.
On the shopping front, Android tablets were not as prevalent as I thought they might be. As in Hong Kong, there were very few in Singapore. I managed to play with one ePad which was being sold for Singpore $599, just $129 less than the 16G basic Ipad. Will need to wait until at least early next year for the market to mature.
Also, as people in other countries commute on public transport much more than the average NZer, the use of mobile devices was much more prevalent. As noticed in Singapore earlier this year, Italians, Romanians and Hong Kongers were all pretty much permanently wedded to their mobile phones. Almost everyone was twiddling with one on the bus, tram, subway or at the airport. In all countries, there were many shops selling mobile phones, often at very low prices when accompanied by a fixed term data plan.
I think the advent of ubiquitous computing is very nearly mainstream, especially in countries where the mobile web is not expensive. Even my 4 aunties (all in their seventies) who had all vowed to not become computer literate. They were all teachers who, aged 50 plus and early 60ish, had to attend PD sessions on using technology in teaching! However, everyone of them now uses a mobile phone and able to txt in both English and Chinese as it is the only way they are able to get hold of their children or grandkids. One has just succumbed to an iphone after being taught how to use it by her son-in-law. An ipad going to be the next investment (time and learning, not money) after I showed them how user-friendly mine was.
All in, a good time to catch up on completing the last edits towards dissertation, observe changes in mobile technology use, see some nice places, meet interesting people, play with a range of technology difficult to find in NZ and remember how lucky I am to live in clean and uncrowded NZ :)
Friday, October 29, 2010
Adult Learning Symposium 2010 day 2
Today, 3 keynotes followed by one parallel session and concludes with a panel discussion. First keynote from Professor Peter Jarvis who spoke on ‘learning practice: developing the roles of the adult educator’. Although now officially ‘retired’, Professor Jarvis continues to write and research. Contents of his keynote useful in setting the scene for mine later in the morning. He presented a very comprehensive overview of ‘practice’ as ‘learning by doing’ (adaptation, imitation, by instruction, practice, follow thought, exploration and experimentation. ‘Learning practice’ involves practical instruction, experience (novice to expert and the 10,000 hours rule), reason , intelligence, wisdom and reflection. Included defining tacit knowledge. Forming the case for researching practice as practitioner and action research. Implications include concerns about the practice itself, continuing learning, effects of getting older and the practitioner doctorate. Finishing with the quote “we must learn to orientate our thinking, our teaching and our research to the arts (not science!) of practice’.
Next up, Dr. Peter Coolbear from Ako Aotearoa provided a background of the “further and higher education context in New Zealand: Issues, challenges and responses”. He provided a thorough overview of the NZ tertiary sector, covered the critical issues, presented the recent policy reforms and Ako Aotearoa’s role in how tertiary education may move towards in the next few years.
My presentation centred on a teaching practitioner’s perspective on: application of concepts of ‘learning as becoming’ to students’ effective feedback and learning of judgement. Basically, to begin to envisage learning as a holistic process (in apprenticeships as a process of occupational identity formation). Discuss the importance of learning ‘judgement’ and the role of feedback in learning the skills to be able to ‘judge’. Underpin with cognitive apprenticeships as a pedagogical approach and provide examples from CPIT programmes (baking, engineering, painting, welding, online learning, fashion design and adult education).
After lunch, I attended the parallel session with Dr. Helen Bound (IAL) on ‘helping learners learn: what do we know and what can we do’. Helen provided a workshop for participants to explore educators’ learning philosophy / beliefs about teaching and learning. Then to compare our beliefs with what we actually do. Proposed a ‘map of dialogical inquiry’ as a means for unpacking whether our espoused beliefs are matched by practice.
Followed by Dr. Soo Wai Man from Singapore Management University on ‘how to align learning facilitation and assessment of WSQ courses’. Presented on a model to assist with the design of courses and assessment activities. Used a series of tables to match course phases with the knowledge, skill and attitudinal (KSA) components as detailed in a CTAG (Singapore version of a NZ unit standard). In each KSA, identify ‘content types’ including fact, concept, process, procedure or principle. Then match the content type to instructional strategy, assess learning and evaluate course.
Last session a panel ‘discussion’ ably chaired by Professor Andrew Brown, where each keynote speaker summarised their perspectives on CET and the productivity agenda: reflections and insights. An overall discussion on aspects of productivity (increased innovation etc.) and concepts of competency, expertise and professionalism. Questions were also taken from the floor and good discussion ensued.
Overall an interesting conference. Picked up several different perspectives for approaching things. Some of these approaches are influenced by the Singapore socio-cultural milieu but many are useful in all teaching / learning contexts.
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