CPIT research month week 3 day 1 - Tuesday 20/8

A selection of topics today around the theme of 'aftershocks' with presentations from CPIT projects completed since the 2011 earthquakes.

Gleaning ideas and perspectives to enhance journal articles being prepared from Ako Aotearoa funded project completed on 'institutional programme-design strategies supporting forced change'.

First up Ada Campbell, Jane Maidment, Raewyn Tudor and Karen Whittaker from nursing  and human services, on 'role of craft post-earthquake. Post earthquake saw a flowering of art, creativity and community. Craft played a role in contributing to positive mental health of individuals and their families and social cohesion. The project studied crafters and spectators of craft. Interviewed 20 crafters and 4 focus groups of 6 people in each of spectators.

Then, an Ako Aotearoa funded project with Drs. Judy Yarwood and Phillipa Seaton. The departments experience of managing, sustaining, and future proofing educational provision following large scale disaster and disruption. Others involved include Irene Absalom, Dr. Lesley Seaton and Melanie Ryan. Data gathering across 2 years to assess implications of various decisions made at time of the event. Interviews and survey of academic, teaching, management and corporate staff. Model of interconnecting themes distilled from data. Individuals had to deal with competing tensions. Department leadership a key with communication across all staff important. Recommendations on immediate reactions, coping with ongoing disruption and moving on.

Libby Gawith from Humanities presented on 'Christchurch two years after'. Summarised where we have got to. In for long haul and a marathon, not a race. We are only at the beginning the 20 years physical model of reconstruction and 5 years psychological model of recovery from disaster (Gluckman). Surveys summarised include CERA 'healthy Christchurch welbeing survey (2013). In 2014, a campaign to assist, 'are you alright' will begin.

CPIT research month week 2 day 3 15th August

Managed to get to and attend part of a session revolving around 'performance and politics' presented by our performing arts tutors. Always interesting to attend on topics that I have limited background on.

So notes on two out of the four from today's lunch time presentations.

TonyMcCaffrey on 'Where is disability disabled? Aesthetic, ethical and political implications of  involving intellectual disabilities in contemporary performance'. Used examples from recent plays attended whereby the audience are invited to participate in terms of 'the ethics of participation' and performances, some perhaps controversial with disabled actors / performers. Tony raised some thought provoking concepts around how we see disability, why acceptable performances from 'normal' people are viewed differently when people with disabilities undertake similar performances and how disability and the ethics surrounding disability are 'not contestable' due to society's perspective of disability as being outside the norm.

A change of scene with the next presentation from Richard Marrett on 'I've heard that song before - 100 years of Sammy Cahn. Described how he 'presented' at recent conference. The presentation included 'singing through' the repertoire of Cahn. Instead of just listening to Richard, the audience, mostly vocal teachers or performers, sang their way through songs written or associated with Cahn across each era of his career and important aspects of Cahn's lyric writing. 

Cpit research month - week 1 day 2

Managed to get to a couple of presentations this afternoon.

Hana O'Regan on 'mai i ka kokoka o te ao' - from the corners of the heart to the world. 'Language endangerment in the 21^st century globalisation'. Traversing the domains between the public / private relationship. A study of public representation / recording and diary excerpts. Diary excepts from Matiaha Tiramorehua from the late 1800s. Access to 'original' private texts reveals much about language as used before it begins to decline. Need to capture ways language is structured and words no longer in common use, all to inform current resurrection and renewal in the present. Conversational language, idioms, colloqaulisms, dialogue, arguments, debates etc. Recordings from radio in the 1930s and 1950s.

Then presentations from Te Puna Wanaka with Hemi Hoskins and Hohepa Waitoha on an ongoing enquiry 'taking the language from the class'.Presented on learnings from a educational exchange between Hawaii and NZ. Presentation focused on ideas to engage with students and the community to achieve authentic language use in the classroom. Using natural habitats to increase language application, increase vocabulary and cultural practice. Learning language is a social process and environmental context supports the process. Provided examples of how nuances of language better learnt through experiencing the language 'in action' i.e. while working in taro patches, at the seashore and in the natural environment.

CPIT research month - DAY 1

CPIT research month takes place across this month starting today with presentations and running most lunch times from Tuesdays to Fridays. I will summarise presentations as they take place, dependent on whether I can get to them.

The event opens with a welcome from CPIT research and knowledge  transfer manager, Dr. Margaret Leonard and a summary of the many innovative inventions and processes New Zealanders have contributed to. Using informed curiosity, lateral thinking and 'giving it a go'.

Dr. Peter John provides the opening keynote on 'securing external research income' with a presentation on 'research, development and commercialisation'. Peter provided background on his previous role at Lincoln University. How did Lincoln build a research culture with focus on industry relationships and practical timely collaborative projects. Eventually generating the highest amount of contract research of any of the other universities. Peter provided overview on challenges and issues. Need for research office to assist with brokering relationships and potential projects. Universities not good at design and development to help the process of bringing application and commercialisation of  research projects. Therefore important to identify where best opportunities lie. Focus on staff who want to be involved. Find leaders and support them. Tag team between research office, stakeholders and staff. No loss leaders. Focus on enabling process. Reward good performance. Not all research returns. Possible reasons are no IP of value produced.  Partner could no resource conversion of IP. Product did not have commercial advantage. Target market could have shifted. Encouraged relationships to be formed with Canterbury development corporation to encourage research (CRIS) to assist.

Presentations focus for this first session on enterprise and innovation with staff from the  Business Department. A key government focus.

First up, Dr. Juan Pellegrino on 'supporting the international expansion of small local and medium enterprises'. A TEC funded project, objective to understand the internationalisation process for SMEs and assist SMEs to move into international arena. Method to build case through interview of SME CEO. Then focus group with CPIT academics and literature review to garner ideas. Synthesis of ideas reported back to SME CEO and evaluation follows. Issues identified were 'breaking through the novelty barrier' and 'supply drift' or 'quality creep' due to outsourcing. Good example of problem solving using focus group of 'experts' and literature.

Dr. John O'Sullivan then presents on 'Maori entrepreneurship'. Reported on 13 narratives in Maori tourism operators. Explored issues of identity and ''capital' and their contributions to how entrepreneurs think about themselves. Went through a series of narratives as examples of how themes were identified including characters, plot and settings. Then how themes identified through the narratives and how findings on identity and capital extended. Also example of how to makesense of themes through a sense making approach.

Dr. Eldrede Kahiya into stage 2 with possibility of continuing into next year.   with 'qualitative insights on the strategic drivers of export performance 'the open secrets to export success'.Export performance most researched by least understood!

Drivers of export performance various but are internal / operational or external. Strategy factors can be at high, medium or low levels of abstraction. Weaknesses of qualitative approaches can be partly obviated by careful selection of exemplar firms, re'liable data collection, triangulation of data and robust data analysis.

I end the afternoon with a wrap up on the 3D printer project 'innovating with industry: a case study bringing industry and ITP expertise together'.main finding is need for 'partners' to work together through initial set up stage, have one knowledgeable partner assist to smooth the way and institution to work towards systems and logistical issues.

Learning by watching

Writing up the final report for the learning a trade project and expanding on the section on 'learning by watching'.

I have had a look through both editions of  – Skill Acquisition in Sport: Research theory and practice to bring together various recommendations for improving learning through observations.  The chapters of most relevance in Edition 1 are chapters 8 (instructions, demonstrations and the learning process), 9 (observational learning) and 11 (deliberate practice and expert performance) and in Edition 2 are chapter 2 (how to schedule observational practice), 6 (mental imagery, action observation and skill learning) and 11 (motor skill coordination)

From these chapters, three main topics arise. These are learning by observation; motor skills learning and relationship to deliberate practice; and role of mental imagery in learning motor skills.

Learning by observation:

Observational learning occurs through processes of copying, emulation and echokinesis. Some of the processes are innate, which is why motor skills learning can be difficult to describe and articulate through voice or text. Examples from my own experience abound whereby teaching a motor action, also involves ‘going through the motion’ as well. Learners trying to explain their action, also tend to use bodily action to ‘explain’ what they have done.  Therefore, there is a need to ATTEND to how motor skills are being learnt with a proviso to not overly analyse until basic movements are attained.

‘Stages of learning by observation’ include the need to pay focused attention at the initial stages. Visual and verbal cues from coaches are helpful in ‘priming’ a learner up and providing the learner with the ‘whole picture’. Initial practice needs to be well-supported with appropriate feedback. Feedback can be from others, but also importantly from the learner (knowledge of result – KR) as aspects, small steps, nuances of motor skill learning are sometimes difficult for observers / coaches to pick up. Here is where videos can come in handy, to record initial learning and then for coaches to assist learners to pin point areas to be improved.

Once initial learning and practice is completed and the learner is building up competency, error detection and correction (from individual and others) is undertaken. By this time, the reference points for correct posture, performance and/ or process also need to be established. Otherwise, the learner is unable to self-correct as they have unclear KR.

Motor skill learning through deliberate practice:

More on this aspect in a previous post as ‘practice’ comes up highest on list of ways of learning for apprentices. Suffice to say, ‘practice makes perfect’ and the requirement to engage in repetitive work tasks, is a cornerstone of much of human learning.

Mental imagery and motor skill learning:

The role of mental imagery is signalled in stage one of the learning by observation process. The learner needs to have some form of ‘model’, physical or mental, to base deliberate practice on. Learning can be ‘on-line’ through situated practice or ‘off-line’ through mental practice. Off-line can take the form of reviewing the steps before actual physical action or reflection after physical action. Off-line learning also required to bed down and consolidate new learning, hence importance of rest, sleep and recreation. Bringing the tenets of deliberate practice together with mental imagery is an aspect not explored in the learning of vocational trade skills.

Therefore, still the three areas of learning to work on. 

1) Individuals’ learning strategies can be improved through deliberate practice, coupled with metacognition of learning progress and perhaps assisted through use of mental imagery. 

2) Guidance from others may be direct (as per coaching) or indirect (learning by observing others) and learners need to learn the skills of how to apply suggestions from others. 

3) Workplace organisation or structure of learning need to take into account and provide support for deliberate learning processes.

The solitary trade worker

Interim data analysis has revealed one area for further investigation.  However, this theme will not be reported as the sample size we are working with is too small. So some notes and thoughts collected here for follow up further on, perhaps into to see if there will be sufficient content that can be used in a journal article.

One of the trades involved in the ‘learning a trade’ project, is glazing. Commercial glaziers and automotive glaziers work in teams but many domestic glaziers, work as individuals. Therefore, domestic glaziers providing the service to replace broken windows in homes, travel around in self-sufficient vans from one house / job to the next. Apprentice domestic glaziers receive short but intense training. Some will follow a trade worker glazier for a short time. They are then provided with a van and carry out straight-forward jobs.

Many trades are organised around training an apprentice to become independent. I remember a chat I had a few years ago about how one of our plumbing tutors trained his apprentice. The apprentice would follow him about for about a year. Then, he would leave the apprentice at a job site and travel away to take on more work with another junior apprentice. He would check on his ‘senior’ apprentice a few times a day, then once a day and sometimes every few days. The objective was to have an apprentice who would be able to independently complete a job by the later part of the second year into apprenticeship. 

The ubiquity of the mobile phone has changed support for learner trades people. Help is but a phone call away. So although not face to face, the social aspect of learning a trade is still present. Assistance is synchronous but the apprentice needs to have narrowed down on the challenge that needs to be solved and explain what is required over the phone. The trade person / trainer or coach has to figure out, remotely, what the problem is and provide relevant advice over the phone. Sharing of pictures through texting is one way to cut down on the verbal descriptions required.

When questioned, only half of the glaziers had formal arrangements for sharing practice through staff meetings, most of the foundational skill learning took place when they were following a trades person. When the apprentice went out on their own, they had to apply all their learning to work through the various challenges. They only asked for assistance when they were well and truly stuck. So in a way, the need to be able to work independently, consolidates and integrates skills and knowledge that contribute towards successful problem solving. This form of training works in trades that have well-bounded parameters. The final stages of many other trade apprenticeships also have a large degree of autonomous and self-directed work practice. So, perhaps there is a fulcrum point when apprentices are 'let out on their own' that signifies trade competency sufficient for independent practice and this could be the point at which they meet 'graduate profiles' for trade qualifications. Something to think through. 

Technology-enhanced learning strategy launch at CPIT

Yesterday evening, CPIT launched its Technology enhanced learning strategy with a series of presentations and a networking function hosted by the Learning technology steering group.

A vision of the future: launching CPIT's technology enhanced learning strategy was opened by Judith Brown, Director for all our departments .Judith provided links to strategic plan and rationale of the TEL strategy to support a more learner centred approach. Including need to go beyond dissemination to provide interactivity, critical engagement, enhanced feedback and closer contact between students.
Video from TV 3 Campbell live on modern learning environments to summarise the future of kiwi learning. Martin Jenkins, Centre for Educational Development manager,  provided summary of the TEL framework . TEL strategy seeks to combine development of existing technologies with innovation in new technologies.

Mark Nichols, Faculty manager from the Open Polytechnic (OPNZ) provided an engaging keynote.
Mark's topic was on CPIT as a bold eLeap. A challenge to staff to view learning as a designed process with support from disruptive learning technologies. Hw provided an overview of Open Poly practice and the challenges they face as a distance delivery institute. CPIT on the other hand has the advantage of f2f and needs to leverage off this. Mark provided an example of a tablet based competency based course in real estate management. Activities embedded into traditional text based content. Then effectively used 'show of hands' on ownership and use of technology to illustrate how much mobile technologies in particular are now mainstream.
Keynote closed with hints on how to progress with our 'bold eLeap Hints were -- do not give up! get serious about it i.e. design for learning and teaching as science (recommended Laurillard' s book - teaching as design science - as reference) and reiterated " you are the important part of it" - to add value, not to be replaced. Don't be a 'lone ranger'. think of it (the TEL strategy) as a licence to innovate and disrupt those infinitives.

Martin then went through the five goals of the TEL. These are TEL used to enhance student learning experience and success; create rich TEL environments; as part of a culture of collaboration both with in and out of institution; used to transform practice.

Current new initiatives like our academic literacies framework, pilot of learning spaces, equella digital repository, moodle 2.4 upgrade, echo 360 pilot, project tablet (microsoft RT tablets) were linked to the TEL strategy.

Video of examples of use of TEL at CPIT with the work of Steve Tomsett (engineering - flippin g the classroom), Katrina Fisher (barista -multimedia to assist learning of difficult skills) and Phillipa Seaton (nursing - blended learning) then launched.

Judith closed to session and networking with drinks and nibbles served at Visions.

Fortnight with Surface Pro tablet

While away for two weeks, I relied solely on the Surface Pro to take notes, read, websurf and write.  I used only the tablet as I did not bring the keyboard cover or the pen/stylus with me.

Notes taken at the NCVER conference were posted on this blog with transfer of the text via a memory stick and PC. Typing on the screen based keyboard worked OK as I was already used to using the onscreen keyboard on the ipad. Only bugbear is the screen blocks off half the screen, minimising the visible area for working with text. I found a openmap to be more user friendly than the generic map app that came with the tablet.

WiFi was accessed through various cafes, museums / libraries and on the Brisbane trains. Always handy to bring up relevant map of where I was headed and then taking a screenshot so the map is accessible in places with no WiFi. The camera worked well and I used Skitch to share annotated photos and map images with friends I had organised to meet up with.  Kindle app worked well for some leisure reading. The ‘windows’ button on the surface is sensitive to light touch, so took me a few uses to work out how to best hold the tablet for reading without continually being re-directed to the start screen every time I brushed the tablet near the windows button. Used Adobe XI to read journal articles etc. stored on a memory stick.

The Bing web browser performed satisfactorily but I also downloaded and used google Chrome which provided easier synching with gmail, blogger and igoogle. Accessed RSS feeds via Feedly which I now use as a replacement for google reader. Most used apps were openmap, NZ Herald, noteanytime, kindle, adobe reader XI and skydrive.

So all in, there are pluses in having a USB port. Apps used performed to expectations. After the usual binge downloading of apps on iPad a few years ago, I am much more circumspect about downloading apps as there are only a few I use regularly. So the Surface being my 'work' tablet means download of relevant apps that are useful for various work projects or for technology-enhanced learning try outs.

However, batteries only allowed for ½ a day of intensive use before recharging was required. The tablet gets hot enough to be uncomfortable on your lab if you use it while it is recharging! So need to plan ahead, reccy various possible areas to recharge the table over lunch time and remember to recharge each evening.

NCVER no frills - day 2

Day begins with a keynote from Daniel Gschwind who is Chief Executive of Queensland Tourism Council. presentation on Tourism in Australia reaching its potential. Provided an overview of the Queensland Tourism Industry Council, the current state of play, potentialities and the way forward.

QTIC priorities include workforce capacity building. Tapping potential includes providing services which are value for money, consumer focused and requiring development of innovative products and skills in service delivery and entrepreneurship.

First concurrent session for the day with Sinan Gemici from the NCVER on "how realistic are the occupational aspirations of 15 year olds". Presented work completed with Alice Bednarz, Tom Karmel and Patrick Lim.

Aspirations are goals given ideal conditions, interests are emotional dispositions toward a career option and expectations are on occupations that are perceived to be realistic.

Evidence of strong associations between aspirations and longer term education and work outcomes. Data extracted from the LSAY question 'what job do you expect to have at 30' which is answered by students at the age of 15. Answers matched to the ANZSCO occupation status score, the Australian socioeconomic index and gender. Factors influencing occupational aspirations include gender, immigration background, SES, attitudes to school, perceived teacher student relations, perceived disciplinary climate at school, academic performance, friends, parents educational plans.

Factors that matter most are parent plans on whether kids go to University, not University, army, apprenticeship, gap year. Then, academic performance is important. for those who do not go to uni. with poor grades and male, aspirations are to lower status jobs. For those bound for uni. friends plans, teacher student relationships, attitude to school are important.

In general aspirations tend to be above what is available and also actual employment at 25. Therefore aspirations are high at 15 compared with the occupations they move in to. However, females have higher aspirations but do achieve at higher levels of occupational status, but not to level of aspiration.

Full report will be published in next couple of months on NCVER website.

After morning tea, "research methods for effective industry engagement" with Lou de Castro Myles and Melanie O'Toole. From a project on 'moving earth with the right people' in the heavy automotive sector. needed to find out why sector had difficulty attracting and retaining skilled people. so, need to identify job roles and occupations, develop workforce profile.

Method of industry and workforce profiling, survey and interviews and engagement through industry forums. Found that industry was scattered across range of primary, construction, infrastructure services, mining, public and transport / logistics sector with a range of key and associated occupations - operators, mechanics, technicians, fitters and machinists.

Sector characterised by low skills and qualifications, low VET capacity, skills shortages, aging male workforce and below average earnings. Strategies required to improve workforce supply, recruitment and attraction, upskill existing workers and work on workforce retention.

Conference closes with a wrap up and invitation to next year's conference in Melbourne hosted by Holmesglen TAFE.

NCVER 2013 'no frills' conference - Day 1

At the annual Australian National Center for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) conference this week. The 22nd conference held at Mooloolaba. The second time i have attended the conference in this location in the last 10 years or so.

As usual the first day of the conference consists of workshops. Here are notes of the actual conference presentations which take up all of today and half of tomorrow. Conference opened with welcome and housekeeping from Sue Ferguson NCVER and traditional welcome to country which included a digeeridoo recital plus official welcome from the Director of Sunshine TAFE, Leesa Boyle.

First keynote from Tom Karmel, managing director of NCVER who speaks on the "implications of increasing education levels on job prospects from a quality of jobs perspective". Higher education for many is encouraged as it leads to economic gains for both individuals and society. however, is there going to be a saturation point? so, what is a good job? how can we rank jobs? by skill, income and occupational status to come up with a cumulative percentile. 1% means job is in the top 1%. examples at the top of income are medical specialists and government officials. High skill include academics. Lowest skill include fast food cooks. lowest paid include hairdressers and cooks. There is a gender bias with male occupations having less correlation between skill and pay. Between 1996 and 2001 large increase in qualifications across Australian workforce.

Corresponding rise in jobs that require professional or specialised qualifications. Over 15 year, advantage of higher degree has declined in terms of pay and entry into top occupations. This change reflected in all other qualifications apart from Cert 3 and 4 where there has been no change. Effects tend to be occupation specific, for example although increase in higher qualification and batchelors engineers and educators retain advantage but management has slightly lowered.

In Science, IT, health greater differences. Therefore, in general, a qualification no longer gaurantees as good job as in 1996, but there is considerable variation between occupations and professions.

Then second keynote with Nik Babovic, deputy vice chancellor of Central Queensland University. He presented on his reflections on the establishment of a dual sector university. Nik reflected on the various operational challenges and new opportunities for teaching and research.

Currently still in transition with CQ University and CQTAFE becoming one institution in July 2014 a process begun in 2010. Challenge involved in bringing higher ed. and VET together to align stategic goals, centralise environments and build the partnership.

After morning tea, concurrent sessions in 5 streams begin. I attend Dr. Darryl Dymock's with Dr. Mark Tyler on "workplace change and skill needs". Report on one of the topics in Professor Stephen Billet's project on continuing training and education in work. Asked the questions, what recent changes have there been in your job? what changes do you anticipate in the future?

The argument is that individuals change as workplaces requirements change. continuing development required to meet workplace requirements, workplace needs transform and remain in the workforce longer. Therefore, what models and practices of continuing tertiary education will meet work requirements into the future?

Interviewed 80 plus workers in a range of industries to find out if there was work driven change. 0ver 90 changes made although 15% stated no change. Examples provided in changes in role, job scope, processs, services and products. For future change, 25% predicted no change but broader influences, work related changes involving work roles, new systems, technology etc.

Changes tended to be due to change of role, expanded work tasks and internal policies and systems. Implications include the emphasis on workplace in supporting learning, workers' need to engage with learning as 'the work is the learning'.

Second session with Dr. Steven Hodge, from University of Ballarat who provided background on "challenging the ideal curriculum alignment in Australian VET". Is there an alignment between competencies as per the intended curriculum with the graduate outcomes? are the graduates work ready as defined by industry. so, are industry skills as specified in competencies and interpreted by and implemented by VET practitioners preparing learners with the required skills.

VET practitioners asked about initial and continuing education in relation to interpreting competencies, implementation of and assessment of competencies. Interviewees revealed disparate levels of understanding about competencies and their purposes. There was divergent understanding with some saying competencies were things to aspire to vs minimum standards. Difficulties could be due to the language of competencies, short initial and lack of continuing education on competencies and expertise development stages means experts are unable to unpack their own understandings.

Therefore, there exist difficulties in the curriculum alignment process as practitioners may have difficulties interpreting the competencies.

After lunch, a session with Beth Evans from OTEN TAFE NSW, with "improving student outcomes: student completion of research and projects in distance education". OTEN is largest vocational education provider of distance learning in Australia with 64000 students with diverse needs, entry levels, motivations etc.

2011 completion rate for VET only 27% compared to university sectors 70%. project of OTEN students gathered 400 plus survey responses. Students generally satisfied with OTEN services but required student pre preparation with regards to becoming distance learning student. Distance learning still highly text based and emphasis needs to be also placed on helping students become self-directed able to pace and structure their own learning programme. Digital literacy important and a tech help person a available to assist when required as all courses fully online.

Second afternoon session on "massive open online courses: MOOCs in the VET sector" with Jamie Murphy from the Australian College of Applied Education (Perth). Provided overview of MOOC including advantages and disadvantages and some approaches to MOOC pedagogy.MOOC mania (Daniel, 2012) provides history and background. Platforms include coursera, google forays, uversity etc. Diffusion of innovations by Everett Rogers, 2003 provides framework to evaluate innovation.

Last up Liz Toohey and Chris Dann from University of Sunshine Coast on using mobile assessment platform: a shared space for critical discourse. Used to support teacher mentors who support teaching students out on classroom experience. Using mobile phone, tablet etc. used to provide means to provide consistent support . ensure learning outcomes can be achieved, assessment strategies can be shared, learners supported and on site supervisors sharing practice. work integrated learning therefore supported with a personalised approach to mentoring.

Research question was 'what is the impact on learning when mobile devices are used to collect data, measure progress and inform judgements against clearly defined benchmarks throughout the learning process.

Ios App - Pre service teacher tracker used to record evidence of student and mentor formative feedback while observing student teaching in the class, providing evidence for later discussion and forwarding on to main institute. Videos can also be attached for self or shared reflection.

Standing desks

I have had recurring lower back problems over the last decade or so. A consequence of a life time of working in a bakery and teaching baking. The need to do lots of lifting (bags of ingredients, trays, tins, loading and unloading tray racks and ovens), standing for long hours on hard concrete floors and keeping up with the students would be the main culprits. I must say I enjoyed the physicality of the work but my back did not share the same feelings. Therefore, one of the reasons I decided to move into a staff development role 7 – 8 years ago, was to move into a less physical job. However, for the last year or so, the back has been sore at night, usually preventing me from getting back to sleep. Many nights of trying to get back to sleep at 2 am prompted the purchase of a new bed and mattress. I also started to take more care when out tramping / walking by ensuring my pack was well balanced, not jumping off high steps etc. and using two trekking poles. When things really got difficult during the year, regular visits to the osteopath would help relieve things for a month or so. 

So on my osteopath’s advice after the another visit (just after Easter), I contacted our helpful facilities and health and safety person to organise a standing desk to be set up. The osteopath reckoned that in my previous work role, I would have been sitting down to work for an average of 2 - 3 hours a day or 10 -20 at the most a week. In my present job, I was sitting down 7 – 9 hours a day, adding up to 35 -45 hours a week!  

The general benefits of a standing desk have been well reported, an example here from a recent NZ press article summarises the general trend.The blogosphere has thousands of articles on the merits of putting in a standing desks, check out the experieces of others and their reasons for converting.

Plus also lots of articles on how to set up a do it yourself standing desk, cool examples include this one using ikea furniture and another DIY one.

I have now been working at a standing desk for all my computer work for a month and a half. I must say the back has improved.  The first week was not too good as I had to get used to more standing. I persevered into week two where things started to improve. I did change to better shoes to stand on (used crocs as recommended here) and did more walking around. By week three, things had settled down and began enjoying a good night’s sleep, uninterrupted by back pain. However, I developed a very painful neck! Back to the osteopath, after which things started to settle down. Now into week seven and my body seems to have settled into the new regime.

My work pattern has also changed slightly. I write, answer emails etc. while standing but have found reading / web surfing etc. to be more difficult to sustain over a period of time. So, it has been Ok to stand and work on reports etc. for several hours but standing up for half an hour of reading pdf journal articles is long enough. So a permanent arrangement would ideally allow one to shift seamlessly from a standing to a sitting desk. Or will need to use Skydrive more to read documents on the iPad / Surface Pro and all writing tasks to be done standing.  Standing up to write seems to work well and I have been working productively on two reports, one conference paper and doing edits to a journal paper over the last month.  The task into the next couple of weeks is to investigate more permanent solutions with our health and safety officer, with a goal to having something in place by end of July.

Surface Pro tablet - first impressions

Finally got my hands on a Surface Pro last week and have had the weekend to work with it. The tablet comes with a scribe and we also purchased the keyboard cover for one of the surface pro tablets.

The kick stand is handy but typing on the tablet is not comfortable with the tablet sitting up with the kick stand. When the keyboard cover is on, and everything is lying on a flat surface, typing is comfortable. However, the keyboard cover is not really designed for laptop typing. The table with kick stand open is top heavy and does not sit well on ones lap. So far, using the keyboard cover makes it difficult to enter my password (sigh) and I have found typing on the cover to be slower than typing on the on screen keyboard. So in general, unless I will be doing lots of typing, I will not recommend purchasing the keyboard cover.

Battery life seems to be less than for my ipad. A couple of hours of looking through the app market, downloading apps and updating the tablet, saw 40% of the battery used. The tablet also gets quite warm. Ok at the moment in wintry Christchurch but less welcome in the summer. The battery icon is also not visible on the start screen, you need to go to eh desktop screen where the battery icon will then be on the bottom of the screen or to settings.

Have just about got used to the Windows 8 interface and installed a trial version of office to work with Word and Excel. The scribe sits into the port that also takes the recharge connection. The scribe provides the option of writing on the tablet and I down loaded the app ‘ handwriting’ and found writing on the tablet to be a quick way to input text. The app also allows for painless and relatively fast conversion of handwriting to text. So a recommended app. One note also has similar capability and Word has writing to text ‘input’ option. The ability to handwrite and convert to text is another reason not to have to invest in the keyboard cover.

Transfer of files across my office PC to tablet is also straightforward with a Microsoft account and Skydrive. Or you could also transfer via the USB port.

Videos run well as per Ted talks. Overal,l not many relevant apps for vocational education but seamlessness of access to standard PC files via skydrive or memory stick means various learning resources can be easily ported across. Will test the tablet with various datashows and touch TV screens this week.

Spotlight on Tertiary Teaching and Learning - 14th June

Presented and assisted with the organisation of the Spotlight on Tertiary Teaching and Learning event organised by Ako Aotearoa and the Ako Aotearoa Academy. A gathering of 90 tertiary educators from across the tertiary sector, mostly Christchurch but presenters from Dunedin and attendees from Nelson as well. Ako Aotearoa Academy members form a core of presenters with Supreme award winners, Dr. Rhiannon Braund, Selene Mize and myself and award winnners Eric Pawson and Stephen Hickson.

The Friday afternoon event was held at University of Canterbury (UC) with nibbles and drinks provided through Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) and catering industry sponsorship.

The event opens with a mihi and short welcome from Bridget O'Regan, southern hub manager and then brief welcome from Dr. Rhiannon Braund, 2012 Prime Minister 's award for tertiary teaching excellence. Rhiannon spoke about her passion for teaching and how it is important to share that passion with students and help them gain an interest in their work as well. 

The first stream is on student engagement, chaired by Jennifer Leahy.

First up, CPIT's teacher education programme leader, Lyn Williams on 'embedding teacher professional development as business as usual'. Connecting things new teachers learn while learning how to teach. Teacher education is not at the centre of the new teachers' universe, they are workplace learners, with many challenges associated with changing from one occupational culture to another. So teacher education is making sense of current understanding of how learning occurs and how they as teachers can help students learn. Need to recognize the diversity and multi literacies in various disciplines and how to help new teachers learn how to be learner centered teachers. Agency - access and negotiation by individuals and the work environment. What are more experienced teachers doing to assist new teachers to ensure they are able to apply their agency in a supportive work environment. 

Jen Halliday Lincoln University on 'engaging students in active communication'. Modelling an engaging presentation On how to involve students and how to elicit responses from students. To educate is to draw out. She then went through the structure do the presentation - to grab attention, use what learners already know and then make it participative. 

Then, Dr. Richard Manning ,UC with presentation with 'place based education- pathways to partnership'. Presented on why a placed based education course about the Treaty? Cultural differences between Pakeha and Maori means that both do not have similar understanding of the Treaty and why the treaty negotiations took place. Most schools still have a Eurocentric focus and therefore NZ young people not exposed to NZ history from both sides of the story. Using place as a starter for both cultures to share the history and understand each others perspective.

Dr. Rhiannon Braund presents on 'beyond dispensing knowledge: how to engage pharmacists in training'. How do we view teaching? Empty containers, pre- formulation or ready to use. Some students find ways to take shortcuts through Flip learning requirements. How do we make sure students do the work before workshops? Use peer activities as other students are less tolerant of students who do not prepare. Having to answer to peers is more effective.

John Morgan presents CPIT work on 'innovative teaching style for kinesthetic learners'. Changing original programme to emphasize the learning of practical skills. Literacy, numeracy and theory concepts were embedded and integrated around practical workshop practice. Projects used to provide a focus for students learning.The presentation is based around the manufacturing team's IGNITE project.

After a short break, two streams commence. Professor Eric Pawson chairs and presents in the learner centered learning stream with 6 presentations.  

I present on 'situated technology enhanced learning' and chair the second stream on technology enhanced learning. Brief notes from presentations in TEL include:

Jocelyn Howard from UC takes us through 'online polling and collaborative note taking using google docs'. Used Socratic to demonstrate how online polling can be used to engage students, have a sense of level of understanding of a topic and review learning. 

Stephen Hickson, UC, shares some things to do with iPads. Presented on how to capture worked problems as per using overhead projector. Using a special scribe from adonit.  Notes are then emailed to self and posted on moodle for students to access.  Also introduced a few other useful apps. App hits, speak up and good notes.

Mary Kensington, Lorna Davies, Julie Richards and Rea Daellenbach share CPIT midwifery section work on their blended programme with 'birthing a new programme: hearing a new heartbeat'. Provided structure of programme before and after. In blended deliver, there is f2f, online , practice and portfolio. Online with tutorials using adobe connect, learning packages and discussion for which are student led but tutor directed. Important to support the social side of learning. Weekly tutorials have become the most important learning space for student to share, reflect on and review practice.

The official programme ends with short overview by Dr. Peter Coolbear, Ako Aotearoa director and De. Hamish Cochrane, academic director at University of Canterbury. 

Networking session closes the event.

All in a well-attended event, moved along by short, sharp 15 minute presentations. The majority of attendees were from the Adult and community education (ACE) and private tertiary education (PTE) sector, signalling a need for professional development events for these two sectors.The Academy will need to encourage and support more applicants from these two sectors to apply for the tertiary teaching awards to widen it's representation and support of all tertiary educators.

Modern learning environments open day expo and speakers

On Saturday, i attended the CORE education open day on modern learning environments. The event had a schools focus but as always, good ideas are generalisable across sectors. About a dozen booths featuring various hardware, infrastructure and furniture feature in the trade booths. I was interested in the various half hourly presentations featuring a range of overseas and local speakers. The presentations featured a few researchers in the area of learning spaces and various school principles and teachers sharing case studies of how their schools have developed and established new learning environments.

Speakers programme opened by Derek Wenmoth.

Professor Stephen Heppel on the international perspective on modern learning environments. Stephen is based in in the UK and Spain, Madrid. Some good ideas from a range of other countries who have either been far sighted enough to change not only the pedagogy but also purpose-built schools to support new learning approaches OR had to reconstruct due to disaster, natural or other. 

A smorgasbord of ideas presented in an engaging manner.

Large group teaching in shared learning spaces have many advantages including catering to mixed learning abilities / stages. Ideas to change shared spaces into continuous learning environments include computer screens on all walls with a folder allocated to each learner to archive exemplars. When screens not used, learners' work is displayed. Also, importance of taking acoustics, and allow students to use free decibel meter app to measure and moderate classroom noise!

Important to adapt the best ideas that have been tried out by other people. For instance, one day timetable so students concentrate on one subject each day. Vertical divisions removed so students can accelerate or be retained as required. 

Staff rooms that allow staff to share readings, ideas etc. Need to have students drive the learning environment design. Use colours of furniture for formation of groups or to mark activity areas or zones. Writable surfaces need to be supported with capture system I.e. phone!

Design for learning not just for energy, resource efficiency.

Hamish Whyte from furnware with a shortened presentation on how they gathered ideas from students to help produce furniture designed to meet the needs of primary age learners. The bodyfurn in desk storage system was used as an example of a participatory action research project to produce the most practical shelving to be fixed to the side of student desks.

Chris Bradbeer, Charlotte Hinge and Sheena Campbell from Stonefields School in Auckland via live Video conference. A video taken on a school day to show how the learning hub is used begins the session. Learning hubs are composite classes all working within one large space.  Asnet product allows video conferencing via iPad set up from Chch and through to Auckland. 

The school has 4 days school curriculum 1 day for students to work on their own interests. Both physical and virtual environments help teachers, students and parents work on visible learning. Chris provided overview of school philosophy and the two teachers provide a guided tour of the learning hubs and their change in teaching practice. 

James Petronelli, Clearview School, Rolleston, present on a before and after story. How can schools change to keep up with rapid technological and social change. Classrooms need to support learning and provide the environment with resources that fit students ergonomic and learning needs. Open out and break down class level and room barriers. Provided the story of moving from quite an open learning centred approach to a modern learning environment. Combining studio learning approaches with flexible learning spaces. 

Inspiration from northern beach Christian school in Sydney.

Collaborative teaching can be supportive, parallel, complementary and team. All of these forms of teaching afforded by MLE to teach and learn in purposeful spaces. Connected to delivery style, small group withdrawal, knowledge grouping, student choice, peer teaching, whole group teaching. 

Ministry of Education provided the research background informing the MLE. The site provides access to resources, exemplars,moderation tool and research papers.

Dr. Julia Atkin - designing from the inside out: the complexity of transforming spaces for learning. People who are going to work with MLE need to learn from the actual implementation so that they take ownership. Therefore learning spaces need to be build from the aspirations of learners and the community they live in. Provided examples of how learning environments based on understandings of the nature learning are designed from the inside out. Whole package design needs to occur, taking in the influences and work through them. The work of Mary featherston design used in many Australian schools.

Learning spaces need to have purpose and be activated, otherwise they become storage added ons and not complementary learning spaces. Do not start from floor plan but from what will be the learning experience. Transformation in pedagogy needs to be complemented by supportive learning environments. 

Paula Eskett from National Library of NZ on moving school libraries from transactional to transformational. Provided an overview of how library services have changed to assist learners and teachers to create and archive knowledge asnitnis being created. Collaboration, co creation, networking. Therefore a change from transactions with physical resources to facilitators of learning. Change in thinking to assist students, teachers and librarian to work together to assist learning. No longer a set time for library but a place to drop in to access learning resources including hardware, apps, multimedia etc. resources from this presentation available on national library excellence in practice site. Think of the library as a colaboratory.

Jasmax shared the work they are been involved with in the design of new schools and redevelopment and rejuvenation of existing schools. How where and when we learn. Used workplaces and the changes taking place there in moving to collaborative teams. Primary schools include Elim Junior campus, Stonefields, Ngatea ( a repurposed older school). Secondary schools include Awatea ( with 10 community bases), Te Whanua O Tupuranga, Ormiston, Santa Maria, Avondale, Albany Senior, Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate. 

Rhonda Duncraft provided the early childhood perspective on post quake changes, challenges and opportunities. Her story was based on where they were (top down management), how they had to change due to earthquake forced move and where they now hope to get to. New premises precipitated a rethink and change to more collaborative participation between management, parents committee and staff. 

Neil O'Reilly from Windsor School presented on the relationship between MLEs and modern learning pedagogies. We now know much about how learning takes place but classrooms and how teaching occurs still unchanged from last 100 years. School should be where learning takes place. Teachers need to be proactive as changing the learning environment does not create any change. Rules and regulations should be replaced by responsibility and respect. NZ curriculum enables change but we need to grab the opportunity. Recommended flipping the curriculum to base learning on real life problem solving, using technology, drive learning on ecology and human sustainability and community supported learning - learning when ever and where ever, not just at school. Flexible learning, environments and resources. 

On the walls, description of the studio concept of learning and spaces that allow creativity (sandpit), meditation (cave), celebration (mountain top), sharing (camp fire) and meeting (water hole).

My thoughts on the bike ride home was that we need to maximise our current 'situated learning' environments', the workrooms, workshops and simulated restaurants / clinics etc. that form much of CPIT based learning environments. We tend to use the workplace as the baseline and research shows that workplace learning can be challenging! So how do we evaluate the efficacy of our current situated learning spaces and ensure that are learning environments? The NZ Ministry of Education provides an 'assessment tool' that could be a useful starting point for adaptation to our context. Providing the environment can be seen to be a beginning, structured and planned active learning approaches still need to be implemented. We still have much to do with regards to building staff capability to maximise notional hours through flipping the classroom, flexible learning and assessment activities based on students' work (especially for our part-time students who are already working in the industry they are studying for qualifications in) and distance delivery.

HP elite pro tablet - try out

Our IT division is shuffling Windows 8 tablets across as they come available for evaluation. We hope to purchase at least four windows tablets to complement the iPads and Android tablets we currently use for various situated technology enhanced learning projects at CPIT. The HP elite pro tablet comes 'naked' or with a protective case with a booster battery or a keyboard cum case arrangement. Both arrangements work well but I was keen to see how the keyboard worked. Generally positive reviews from the UK register and the UK PC review and also from NZ business review and PC world.

Key board that comes with the tablet is well designed. The table slips into a rubberised holding sleeve. The keyboard has chiclet style keys which are comfortable to type on. The whole arrangement sits comfortably on a desk but feels top heavy when perched on your lap.When not in use, the pseudo laptop closes up neatly and weights about the size of my present netbook.The tablet itself does not have many ports, so the keyboard or protective case, adds usb ports. No HTML slot but an adaptor is available.

Tablet has front and back cameras. Easy to use and photos can be stored in the pictures folder, on the cloud in skydrive or emailed. Intuitive to work out, especially for people used to the windows interface.

As a whole, the tablet touch interface is responsive and the tiles front page is generally intuitive to use. The ‘desktop’ tile brings you into the familiar Windows desktop area and working with Word and Excel and apart from touch screed access, pretty much similar to working from a desktop.Searching within windows store requires pressing the windows and q keys, not obvious immediately and I required a google search to find out how. Will need to explore more of the windows short cut keys when we have the purchased tablet.

Pairing the tablet with the keyboard brings up the perennial question of whether going for an ultra book or laptop running the windows 8 system should be the way to go.I use a zaggmate keyboard attachment for my ipad when i need to do lots of typing but have found the arrangement to be less effective than using a netbook or laptop. Mainly due to the fragile nature of the connection between the ipad and the keyboard.However, the HP tablet's keyboard case is designed for a more stable fit although the arrangement is top heavy sitting on one's lap. 

All in, IT is happy to support the device so we will purchase a couple to add to our inventory. One with a case and one with a keyboard. I will bring the tablets to the manufacturing team for them to use with their integrated project-based teaching approach. The workshop environment will be a good test for the tablets' resilience and the ease of syncing files through skydrive.

Apps for learning at CPIT

Sam Hegarty our ‘star’ learning technology advisor and the library liaison team represented by Brian McElwaine and Meg Upjohn have been running a series of workshops at CPIT. One of the lunch time workshops centres around the use of apps for technology enhanced learning and the library’s session focused on using apps to find resources. All the sessions have been well attended.

Apps we introduce are mostly IOS but we have also started a list of apps that will run across all the various tablet platforms – IOS, Android and Windows 8. With BYOD, it is important we make things easy for tutors to use apps for learnable moments.

The main objective is to ensure that learning outcomes come up first and foremost in planning lesson sessions. With the maturity of iOS and tablet infiltration into classrooms across the education sector, a slew of blogs and sites recommend a large list of apps.Some with focuses on specific areas in educations like project-based learning, a list compiled through crowd sourcing, and higher education. There is also a good site that sorts apps into various categories like grade levels and learning purpose. 

As a way to filter through all the information a taxonomywheel (with iOS apps as examples) provides food for thought and a foundation for discussion during the session.

The apps presented include - in addition to ones noted previously include:

- Haiku deck – an alternative to keynote

- Coach’s eye (just over NZ$8.00) – annotation of videos

- Explain everything – similar to educreations but with a more mature user community spanning the school and higher education sectors.

Ones I have been playing with in the last few months include:

- Inspiration lite – mind mapping.

- Comic life (just over NZ$8.00)- used in our original mlearning / mportfolio projects using phones. This niffy app turns photos into cartoon strips. Insertion of speech bubbles etc. is intuitive and fun.

The library is moving into the use of QR codes. So introduced scan life for reading QR codes. The codes can be generated using Kaywa. Codes provide direct access to ebooks, emails to ask for more information or make suggestions and ease of access to websites with long urls.

The two readers recommended are Bluefire which is compatible with the ebook collections at CPIT library and overdrive for access to theChristchuch library’s extensive ebook collection. Both require membership accounts at each of the libraries to be able to access the e resources.

Deliberate practice in apprentice learning

‘Learning by doing it’ has been one of the most frequent ways of knowing coded from ‘learning a trade’ project interview transcripts. The literature is helpful with respect to practice-based learning, in particular, the literature on expertise, deliberate practice, the 10,000 hours rule and motor skills learning in sports.

Deliberate practice implies ‘knowing how to learn’. To be proficient at practising a motor skill means continual appreciation of what the body does, commitment to a regime of structured practice, diligence to work through repetitive practice, and reflective cycles to ensure each iteration of motor activity leads to small and sometimes significant improvements. Optimum deliberate practice also requires the learner to know when to seek assistance when required, work out whether to accept recommendations from coaches etc. along with know how to implement suggested improvement and also be attuned to ‘messages’ / feedback from tools, machinery, materials, ingredients etc. (i.e. socio-materiality).

The result is reflected in changes to learners’ muscular/skeletal and neuro-physical structures, leading to the merging of physical and cognitive motor skills learning. In essence, practice becomes embodied and merged into tacit knowledge frameworks.

To accomplish deliberate practice, the task to be learnt needs to be well-defined. Task performance feedback needs to follow performance and there is then opportunity to repetitiously practice the skill. In the ‘learning a trade’ data, the opportunities to engage in workplace tasks and to repeat tasks until learnt are readily identified. However, feedback is rarely mentioned. In some cases, feedback is only availed if the apprentice makes mistakes, so there is the outcomes from learning through making errors.

Motor skill learning in sports contributions several concepts. One is the need to support physical skill learning with mental imagery and the other is the use of analogy, instead of overloading the learner with copious verbal instructions. Therefore, motor skill learning through deliberate practice includes not only the need to practice in a reflective way but to also hone mental imagery and mental associative skills. ‘Learning by watching’ provides some of the models for mental imagery and coaching with the feedback triggers for on-going improvement of performance. The individual learner still has to be cognisant of all the various sensory inputs, advice from others and attuned to messages both from within themselves (the mental imagery etc. ) and surrounding their work tasks (the socio-materiality aspect). Guidelines for learners will need to include ways for them to become more metacognitive about how they approach the learning of practical trade skills.