On Line Presence

As of July 20

2012-01-27T05:27:00.000+13:00

If you are a student, please head on over to USE IT OR LOSE IT! (by clicking the link).

Reporting back . . . with an eye to the future

2012-01-26T10:28:00.002+13:00

In 2011, the opportunity to establish online learning support at a distance arose when I relocated to Japan. This proved to be invaluable from the standpoint of experiencing at first hand the realities faced by students who study at a distance. It was a unique privilege to be able to try something new, and I learned a great deal about what seemed to work and what didn’t. I hope to be able to build upon that groundwork in 2012.

The main finding was that online learning support requires a different model to the traditional one whereby students make appointments usually 1:1 with a tutor and sit together looking over their work. There are already a number of barriers which make that a difficult model in the flesh (and that certain groups of students (e.g. males, Maori, Asian) don’t easily overcome, apparently, as evidenced by statistics) and to add another complicating factor—technology—only makes things more difficult.

Only about a dozen students interacted with me more than once online. Another twenty or so made contact that lasted a single email. Several students were steered my way to interact on Skype, but although I contacted all of them only one took up the option (audio only) and the same pattern occurred on the two occasions that I attempted to hook up with Student Support staff (only Jean Monk contacted me regularly). On the other hand, the blog that I had set up prior to my move has accumulated two and a half thousand ‘hits’ without any pushing, and I received some very favorable comments from students from the Elluminate sessions that I sat in on. In my view, it is crucial to develop an ongoing relationship if online student support is to operate optimally and if the current culture is to change.

From April, 2011, the first couple of months of the project were spent setting up the hardware and experimenting with the software. There were bugs that I needed to deal with, a hacking attack to counter, and I needed to attempt Facebook, Twitter, Bomgar, Linked-In, Delicious, Yoono, Skype, Elluminate, Adobe Connect, Moodle, Windows Office, Windows Movie Maker, Vlogging, Wikis and I created a Maths channel on YouTube. (I can’t claim to be an expert on all of these by any means.) At that point I expected our 80:20:1 plan (80% of the time dealing with students, 20% working on online resources and a small amount of time encouraging Student Support staff to use Skype) to kick into action automatically, but such was not the case.

Consequently, I went to Plan B, or Phase Two. This part of the project consisted of my trying to catalyze student buy-in. To drum up business, I went fishing! I dropped in on Elluminate sessions held by teaching staff. I frequented the Moodle forums, I sent global emails to the whole student body on at least three occasions to promote our initiative and to ask for feedback about what difficulties might be standing in the way. However, I only ever received two replies—from my two most pro-active and outgoing peer tutor volunteers. This to me was telling. Things weren’t working. Why not?

Ever since I came across the concept at an ATLAANZ conference (Association of Tertiary Learning Advisors of Aotearoa/New Zealand) I’ve been aware that it is vital to establish an ongoing relationship for effective student support to occur. (This poses a problem, since our goal at the Learning Centre is to make students autonomous and independent as quickly as possible.) To establish such a relationship, I made contact with and formed connections with target groups (Timaru nursing students, Vet Nursing distance students) as well as keeping alive previous associations (e.g. QuickStart). My experience is that students often only require the one contact to resolve their issue(s). This makes it impossible to have a long-term involvement. The better you are as a learning adviser, the quicker is the student turnover! I came to see that dealing with student issues quickly and efficiently is like lighting a fire with straw; it burns brightly, but it soon expires. With the Timaru students, for example, I believe that I had got that group up and running before I ever set foot on the plane to Japan, and that thereafter help was surplus to requirements.

My conclusion is that it is necessary somehow to feed and to nurture online (and conventional) association with students over time. There needs to be an ongoing dialogue—as equals—established and maintained. Lifelong learning and the search for valuable input needs to be seen as cool and, dare I use the word, ‘sexy’. That paradigm needs to be established before students gets into difficulty, and continually nurtured. We need to dispel the prejudice that learning support is solely remedial. We need to nip in the bud the notion of “Cabbage Maths”. Furthermore, I believe that we need to address the whole, holistic student body (and why not the staff also?) by serving up motivational material. The greatest gift that a teacher can bestow is to motivate and inspire.

To this end, I plan to develop my blog to establish a community of students (et al) around the concept of a 1 minute per week commitment to lifelong learning. (I believe that it is best the Learning Centre has its own platform for this, as on a couple of occasions—when I tried to establish a niche on Nursing’s Moodle, and when I dropped in unannounced on an ‘open’ Elluminate session—people felt that their space had been invaded.) Its comments pages would constitute a forum and archive. I’ve seen this format employed on several unrelated blogs—in sustainability, minimal housing and even stamp collecting. The idea to flag generic tips and such each week on the front page of Moodle is a great one (Occupy Moodle!). I would then elaborate upon those tips on my site. This would be a groundbreaking exercise; I haven’t seen such an approach used elsewhere in other learning centres.

The strengths of the Internet are what we need to play to. We can reach many people easily. We can store a wealth of material online, we can archive our best attempts at explain, we can offer anonymity, we can cast our (Inter)net widely in terms of the scope of the resources provided (not just study skills), students won’t have to wait a day or three to be seen, and once they access the site it will be up to them will decide what is useful for them to view, listen to or read. On my blog I’m hoping to create links to our bank of resource sheets—to open the vault instead of requiring students to have to traipse to our F Block hidey-hole to collect individual sheets of paper. Also, It should be possible to provide the best explanations online instead of repeating ourselves ad infinitum in person (I’m thinking here of the hundreds of times I’ve gone over drug calculations).

Though these thoughts are concrete, they are not set in stone. I’m open to suggestions. I can certainly timetable my hours so as to be available on the afternoons (NZ time) on days that there is otherwise no Maths or Science cover. Let’s set up an open Skype identity, ‘OPstudent’ password ‘LCsky9e’ to facilitate the connection. I’m happy to work through a list of Program Managers to encourage technological up-skilling (though keeping in mind that KISS ought to dictate our ‘normal’ operating mode). I am reluctant to concentrate only on a subset of students departments, but as long as I can keep tabs on the bigger picture, I’m keen to have a closer involvement especially with those departments that require Maths from students who are not necessarily well-versed in numbers. This February I shall work out how to proceed with Moodle and with setting up my blog to have it ready offer input right from the start of the academic year, 2012.

As far as SMART objectives go, let me work backwards from the 10 hours per week that I have to spend on the project to see what it is reasonable to expect to cover. I would want there to be some flexibility built into this so as to accommodate any increase in demand from any component. May need to prioritize.

•    Moodle tip plus associated blog post every week, respond to comments – 2 hours
•    LC meetings attended via Skype – 1 hour
•    Skype PMs at a rate of 2 a week – 2 hours
•    Admin and sundry – 2 hours per week
•    Vet Nursing, Midwifery, Nursing extra assistance – 2 hours
•    Skype with Maths/Science ‘Helen’s days off’ students – 1 hour

It is difficult to assign numerical targets to the blog, although its statistics are very easy to scan. We can look at numbers of numbers of followers and comments made. I’ll aim for a greater rate of hits than my previous peak. One tip or post per academic week is a firm target. I can make a tally of emails and keep a list of the PMs contacted. I shall complete progress and LC feedback reports.

Finally, having worked largely in isolation for the best part of year, I can report that it suits me in the main but there is a danger in that it is easy to grow isolated. I’ll guard against that.

Rainy season self-reflection

2011-06-13T17:25:00.024+12:00

This is a follow up to the scope that I posted last March, just prior to leaving earthquake-prone New Zealand for earthquake-prone Japan. I want to address two linked questions:

Where am I at?
Where should I be headed?

I've been in Uto City three months now. On the home front, the accommodation question has been solved through forming an extended family of three generations (this is Japan, after all). For an office, I use my mother-in-law's bedroom. Internet access (wireless) has been organized (expensive at about $100 per month), and the issue of 100V electrical power instead of 230V has disappeared, after I discovered that the laptop's adapter handles both.

Other bugs I've been able to 'exterminate' include Microsoft Office authentication, a PDF problem, and the hacking of my Gmail account (the first two with the help our friendly IT people, using Bomgar). Another issue-that-wasn't was my need for a microphone and headphones, because my laptop is equipped with them (though as I write, there's an audio feedback issue that I need to have fixed).

I'm largely set up with all the tools that I require to offer students support online. Skype's up and running (as are Gmail and Facebook video chat). I seem to be green for go concerning Elluminate . I have installed Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube (as well as Yoono to keep simultaneous tabs on them all). And, of course, I've maintained this blog, with 2000 hits to date, averaging 200-400 per month

Likewise, I've made and maintained contact with various staff and colleagues on these various social networking platforms, depending each person's predilection. Prior to relocating, I had set up relationships with, and created distribution lists for, several groups of students. Finally, Bronwyn Hegarty and Sarah Stewart have offered useful professional advice that I mean to follow up.

I've dabbled in some possibilities for projects, such as using Windows Movie Maker to create an introductory video. I've started a YouTube Maths channel for interesting and useful numeracy clips. I've explored several vlogging models, with a view to creating one myself. Now, I need to ascertain exactly where to apply my efforts to get the biggest bang for our buck. The next task would be to report back to the team and work towards a consensus.

The key issue to address, it seems to me, is how to encourage students to actually utilize online support. Without their buy-in, there won't be much of a pay-off. I have sent out several global emails inviting them to contact me, but very few have. I, certainly, and perhaps the Learning Centre as a whole, need to ponder about how to reach out and sell ourselves. Proactivity is meant to be the name of the game. The original intent was to spend 80% of my time working with students both individually and in groups, 20% of my time working on a project, and a small portion of my time facilitating the training of S.S. staff in Skype and other online communication tools. I'm not yet there by any means. Students have never contacted me using Facebook or Twitter, and only occasionally by email.

Consequently, I've been exploring several options. If I take part in a regular Elluminate session for distance students, I could build up a relationship with them. I've already sounded this out with Judy Magee, who suggests that I join the distance Bioscience 2 stream. I could change my working hours, though I'm not sure that this would make a difference. We could set up fixed appointments through the front desk (there could be weekly Elluminate and or Skype sessions that students sign up for). I also feel that we could tweak our paradigm of mostly just working with students with needs. We are already doing this with Peer Tutors, but could actively seek the collaboration of abler students to help build up some sort of a wiki of learning resources that students take co-ownership of (I've set up a Wikispaces shell for that). I'm also toying with a weekly good study idea/website sent out globally so as to keep us in the public eye (for staff as well as students?). It is probably more productive to find or organize pre-existing material, rather than create them from scratch, though in areas where good resources do not exist, I could. Above all, though, I need to limit my focus to just a few things. Do them well and regularly.

Q: How long is a piece of string?
A: As thin as you can spread the jam

Our man in Japan - Mark 3

2011-06-08T19:22:00.002+12:00

It still takes me some time to create a video clip like this, but I'm getting faster, if not better.

Introduction - mark 2

2011-06-01T16:49:00.004+12:00

A slightly more professional result, using Windows Movie Maker with a little editing and planning. I would still like to condense/speed up what I have to say, add in anything I've forgotten, and maybe catch myself on a 'good hair day', or should that be 'good face'. Hm, those days may well lie in the past :-(

Later . . .

Have come across a great model for doing an online clip. Tofugu has a channel where gives viewers tips improve on how to improve their Japanese. Great energy, pace, editing and presence. Check out his youtube channel and his blog.

and here's an example:

Jumping in at the deep end

2011-05-23T18:35:00.000+12:00

A few minutes' worth of dabbling produced this:

Hey! It's a start.

Pics to prove a point

2011-05-23T17:07:00.003+12:00

My first attempt to use my laptop's inbuilt camera. Something worked. Do I have any egg on face, or crumbs in the corner of my mouth? After today, it can only get better. (Last week I was hacked.) If I can get some moving pictures up and running, then I can develop my own channel like these people have whilst in Japan.

Short report 2 - I wuz hacked!

2011-05-18T16:03:00.004+12:00

No sooner had I decided to post a series of short reports about what I've been up to, than my Gmail account was hacked, and messages sent to my contacts asking them to send money to Greece where supposedly I am stranded. I trust that everyone I know knew that I have recently moved to Japan, and that Greece would have been an unlikely detour.

So, don't be taken in. Do think seriously about passwords. Don't believe emails from Google demanding to know your account details to do a routine check. Just . . . watch out.

A good piece of news is that Mami and I have finally connected my laptop (the one I'm using now) to the Internet. No expensive pieces of equipment were needed. No outside 'expert' advice proved very useful. If you want to operate online from overseas, you need to be prepared to negotiate a pretty steep learning curve.

That's all for now - over and out

Update the next day . . .

There was still something odd about my Gmail account. I could send messages out, but none were coming in. Also, I would get 'bumped' out of it from time to time. So I did a search and discovered that your account settings can be adjusted so that mail is diverted. I checked, and found out that my mail was automatically being deleted and a copy sent to irenimope@yahoo.com Smeerlap! as you would swear in Dutch. I also discovered a bumch of messages in my trash, and will now go through and pass the saga on to them.

Short report

2011-05-16T16:47:00.003+12:00

I think that I'll prepare a short report from time to time, to let people know what I'm up to in terms of both work and daily life. Creating such posts would not take too much time away from my other duties. I'll try to 'bundle' them together in a corner of my blog (not sure yet how to do that, though I know that it can be done).

Online work

In terms of my online activity, I'm happy to report a bit of a breakthrough with my NZ laptop yesterday. The adapter that comes with it, for converting 230V to 20, has some small print on it that indicates that it will work for 100-230 V. That means that it ought to be okay to hook it up to Japanese electricity. But they have differently shaped plug pins here, and it's not an easy matter to locate the handy little converters that Japan sells overseas; they are literally not available in the shops. But then I discovered an old TV cord not being used that I can use. I fitted eveything together last night. It seems that the battery charges successfully. Next step: Mami reckons that she can help with connecting it to the Internet.

Another idea I've had, is to compile a series of Vlogs (similar to several I've viewed about people based here in Japan documenting their lives). I would work at producing a few videos myself, explaining various strategies in numeracy and study skills that I'd upload onto Youtube. They'd be there, as well as the other Web-based resources I'd link to, and allow/require students with questions to view them, and maybe save me having to repeat the same things for the umpteenth time.

Personal life

I was dragged along to the barber yesterday for an el cheapo haircut so that Mami could observe and learn fto apply in the future. I sampled octopus for the first time yesterday and really enjoyed it. A rubbery form of chicken is how I'd describe it. I'm really enjoying cycling around in just my shirtsleeves (and no helmet!). I feel perfectly safe here - safer than in NZ. Finally, I may not visit the old country until the end of February, 2012. There's a marathon on 19th February, my birthday, around Kumamoto Castle. It is likely to be my last, so what the heck.

Help with study

2011-05-11T17:38:00.003+12:00

Did you know that Otago Polytechnic's Learning Centre now has a Kumamoto branch? Japan is a fascinating place to live (here's a two-minute 'best-of' clip by a fan).

I used to work at the Learning Centre, and still do part time. If you have a quick question regarding your studies, I'm only an email away (4 to 7 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays).

Do realise that you still have Jean and Helen who you can see in person, but I'm here (online) to help, especially with Maths related stuff.

During my down time, I'd like to work on making study resources more available for everyone. That's why I've sent all Otago Polytech students the link to this post. I'd like your help to make online resources more acessible for everyone. Please, if you know of a good website to help with study in any way at all, please send me the link (william.lucas@op.ac.nz). To those of you who use Facebook, please find me there. Could you help me - and your fellow students - by developing the Otago Polytechnic Learning Centre group that I've started? I'm really a beginner with Facebook and could use your input (c'mon, you IT students!) Their chat function seems to be really useful. Also, once I get Skype going on my laptop, I could do with progressing that aspect of my project.

Thanks for reading, and please remember to say Hi :-)

Back Online

2011-04-28T16:54:00.007+12:00

I'm happy to report that I'm back online after a break of approximately three weeks. On the 7th of April, 2011, I moved to Japan. From now on, from there, I hope to continue offering learning support part-time. This is just a short report to let people know where I'm at. I suggest that you subscribe to this blog if that might be useful to you. Otherwise I'll catch you from time to time with a global email.

Just like most of the students (and staff) I've come into contact with, online learning (and teaching) is new for most of us. There aren't many so-called experts. Most of us are finding our way. Well, my aim is to evolve this online Learning Centre project into something that everyone finds useful. And by the end of that journey we'll find that we've all arrived.

In the meantime, baby steps are the order of the day. Just as a baby doesn't get to walk without occasionally falling down, I've already made a blunder or two. The first was not to obtain an adaptor that converts Japan's 110 Volts into the 230 Volts required by the laptop that Otago Polytechnic set me up with. Another was to assume that arranging an Internet connection overseas would be all plain sailing.

The short story is that someone is going to send me what I need from NZ (the only transformers on sale here are those that convert overseas electrical current into something that Japanese tourists need when they head out of the country). In the meantime, I get to use my sister-in-law's old computer. We did manage to get the family home set up as a--what is it?--a wii, wiki, quickie, quick-ease, hi-fi . . . no, wireless environment. It's just that the text has a tendency to do a 'lost in translation manoeuvre into Japanese, just when I need to understand what I'm doing the most (e.g. access Google help).

I'll close for now after a few observations. Yesterday, when I got back online, I went wild with emails, Facebook, catching up on the blogs that I follow, and just generally surfing and following my nose. It brought home to me the fact that online study is not so easy. It is hard to keep focused and disciplined. It's important to have your tasks that you want to accomplish firmly before you. And you need to have a strategy in place to save your sanity when things don't go instantly the way that you want them to. It is all too easy to squander your reserves of mental energy on interesting but time-consuming activity that isn't study-related. But I'm sure that you know that already. As far as that goes, I'm the newbie.

Scope: Meeting Needs Across Distance

2011-03-22T11:22:00.020+13:00

Introduction

The 2011-2013 Strategic Directions document refers to "creative capability, being open to new ways of thinking and doing, innovative solutions, skillful communication, digital literacy, adaptability and autonomy" (for our students) and "leading our sector in the achievement of educational excellence" for the rest of us. With the imminent relocation of a member of staff to Japan (me!), Otago Polytechnic has the opportunity to improve its online distance learning support. This is an outline of a structured plan for innovation by the Learning Centre as part of Student Services to (1) enable students to access distance learning support, to (2) develop existing online resources and (3) upskill Student Services staff with their digital capability so that they will be able to provide wider support.

Student support

The goal is to offer more student support for them to access on their terms. Of the ten hours per week allotted to the overall project, about eight will be earmarked student contact. Students will be able to access online help at two or three fixed times per week, mainly in the afternoons and evenings, and possibly some weekend slots during the exam season (days of the week and time of day to be finalized). Cohorts of students will be targeted; groups already identified are 1st year nursing students (including the Timaru group), QuickStart groups 1 & 2, a general numeracy group, and possibly the 2011 IT Peer Tutors group (including IT). A survey will be conducted to determine how students prefer to access help online, and the most popular will be activated. Initially we will operate via email, Facebook, Elluminate and a chat interface. Other future possibilities include the creation of an LC Moodle shell. This blog (http://on-line-presence.blogspot.com/) shall also be maintained as a means of staying in the public eye, and several stand-alone pages of categorized links are planned.

Resources

Much has already been done by Helen Lindsay and others to identify and create online learning support resources. For the current project, the aim is to spend about two (of the ten) hours per week progressing this work so that the resources appropriate for each student's needs are made more easily available. This will involve consolidation of the Moodle, WikiEducator and other repositories that have been created.

Staff support

The third prong of this project will be to upskill Student Services staff in digital literacy. Using Skype to communicate with their colleague in Japan should enable them to become familiar with that tool and increase their range of student support.

Time-line

Prior to my departure on 7 April, 2011:

Load Skype onto Student Services computers
Obtain laptop installed with standard OP software,
Establish contact with various student groups, evolve them, expand them and refer extra students to them
Activate blog
Prepare introductory video using webcam

By the end of April, 2011:

Be up and running with times and dates of sessions announced.

October, 2011:

Online review with Matt and Kitty

Feb, 2012:

Return to Dunedin for several weeks
Determine future direction.

Equipment and resources
Laptop computer with webcam to be made available through IT (Mike Collins and Ange). Skype, Facebook, Twitter, WikiEducator, Moodle

Personnel
Matt, Kitty, Sheena, Helen, Bronwyn, Terry, Leigh, Dave, Judy, Sonny, Ange Meikle, Mike, Sarah, Jean

Otago Polytechnic to reduce staff to 150?

2011-03-09T13:58:00.006+13:00

Okay, I admit it. This was an attempt to grab your attention. I've emailed the student population to let them know about my continuing contribution to our Learning Centre from offshore in Japan (who says that the L.C. hasn't changed in donkey's years?). I fear, however, that a global email to staff would've got overlooked. Hence this ploy to 'hook' you.

Gotcha!

Nevertheless, I'm not joking about a staff of 150. According to the British anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, humans have evolved to work best in groups of no more than 150 people in order to have a genuine social relationship. And that has implications for the workplace.

Gore Associates, an American company that always makes the list of the best companies to work for, limits its size to 150 staff. Here's how they operate:

Instead of bosses they have sponsors
They have no organization charts, no budgets, no elaborate strategic plans
All salaries are determined collectively

What limiting their size does is ensures that everyone knows each other. The company operates by peer pressure (a much more motivating thing than a boss). New ideas and information flow far more easily within the organization, and it develops what is termed a highly effective institutional transactive memory.

Something to think about. And to read about too; I'll forward you the scan of the relevant chapter from the book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell if you ask me to. You'll note that I haven't APA referenced it :-)

Get It While It's Hot

2011-03-04T11:33:00.007+13:00

First, good on you for clicking on the link!

Second, right now's an ideal time for you to set up study support. Help yourself to some, it's free! Contact me, William Lucas, if you'd like to attend a series of 4 lunchtime workshops on the 8th, 10th, 15th and 17th of March (Tuesdays and Thursdays). It's a fast-track version of the QuickStart course that the Learning Centre ran for 40 lucky people at the start of the year. First in, first served. Numbers are limited on this course (though our team plans to run it again).

However, I won't be here when they do. Sorry. I'm escaping to Cyberland from where I'll be offering online support only. Don't miss out on this golden opportunity to meet me in the flesh. Get to know the face before I flee. If you're interested, book a place by making a comment at the foot of this post, or by emailing me.

william.lucas@op.ac.nz

Here's what we'll cover:

Setting yourself up to succeed--the essential hits package
Secure a home base (on computers and in the library)
Take EVERYTHING in: Reading & Listening tips and tricks
Nail your first assignment; fly through every test (float like a butterfly; sting like a bee)

Finally, you have got to contact me to reserve a place (the deadline is Monday midnight). The classes will take place in a mystery location whose address I will electronically send the lucky few. As soon as you've read it, it will self-destruct in a puff of smoke. Bring along your lunch (you won't have to share it). Student Services will provide the tea and coffee, and if they don't I will :-)

Massaging yourself into the area of intersection

2011-02-28T11:54:00.007+13:00

Re-reading the 30-Day Facebook Fast article by Steve Pavlina that I referred to the other day, I discovered a piece of advice that made me smile. I'll repeat it here.

Steve's advice:

To get the career part of your life going well, you basically have to figure out 4 things:

(1) what you can do to earn a good income,
(2) what skills and talents you can develop to a high degree,
(3) what you enjoy doing,
(4) what you can contribute.

It takes some effort to figure these out. Then it takes more effort to massage yourself into the area of intersection (emphasis mine), such that you can earn a good income by doing what you love and what you're good at, and thereby make a meaningful contribution too.

One-stop Shop

2011-02-23T13:52:00.008+13:00

I would like to create a one-stop Learning Centre shop for you. On the one page I would list all the various skills, resources, information, tips etc that you might ever need to use to help you with your study. But then I thought, "Why re-invent the wheel?"
Because you see, in just a few minutes' searching online I discovered what seems to be a site that provides just that. I'll take a look at it in more detail and see how good it is? Maybe use it as a base, model or template. If you find something that you like, please tell me about it and I'll add it to my Learning Centre list of Delicious links.

Can you do a 30-day Facebook fast?

2011-02-23T13:28:00.004+13:00

I would like to use the social networking tool Facebook to support the learning support that I hope to offer to you guys. Many people use it more than they do emails, or even texting. It's free, it's fun, so why not?

At first, I thought I might have to create a new personality to keep my friends and family separate from work, but a colleague at work, Dave Bremner, suggested that I create a group instead. So, that's what I've done. It is called Otago Polytechnic Learning Centre. I know, I know - a very imaginative name ;-) If you use Facebook, feel free to join it.

On the topic of Facebook, a blogger called Steve Pavlina (a bloke who is really into self-development) suggests a 30-Day Facebook fast. Some people agree with him, and others don't. Here's a discussion thread they've generated.

A new way to meet

2011-02-22T09:37:00.004+13:00

I've just received a link to a new way of conducting a meeting online. On the face of it, this looks a good application to make use of for one-to-one sessions, group tutorials, staff meetings etc. This quick post is just to keep tabs on it, for me to explore later at my leisure (what leisure!?). If any of you are interested, why not follow the link yourself, and maybe tell me what you think about Zipcast in the comments box at the foot of this post.

I can't get you out of my mind

2011-02-16T14:21:00.004+13:00

In the less than 2 months that remain before I move to my new workplace in Japan, I need to get my face known by the students here at Otago Polytechnic who I'm likely to be helping. I can understand that it may be hard to deal with someone who you've never seen. To that end, I've prepared a little demo that ought to link up my image in your mind with a couple of movie stars.

Who do think I look like most, Kevin Spacey or Benjamin McKenzie?
(Scroll down if you dare)

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Genealogy software - Geneology

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

MyHeritage: Celebrity Morph - Pedigree - Family tree search

Personality test

2011-02-08T15:11:00.006+13:00

Big Five Test Results

Extroversion (14%) very low which suggests you are extremely reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and private.
Accommodation (50%) medium which suggests you are moderately kind natured, trusting, and helpful while still maintaining your own interests.
Orderliness (72%) high which suggests you are overly organized, neat, structured and restrained at the expense too often of flexibility, variety, spontaneity, and fun.
Emotional Stability (52%) medium which suggests you average somewhere in between being calm and resilient and being anxious and reactive.
Inquisitiveness (88%) very high which suggests you are extremely intellectual, curious, imaginative but possibly not very practical.

Take Free Big Five Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

The results of this online test I took don't surprise me, but they may surprise some of the people that (think they) know me. There are a wealth of tests available on this website. Just set yourself a time limit before you head on over!

I did test No. 31. Tests that would also be worth a look for students are numbers 40 (Time Management) and 49 (Learning Styles Self-assessment) update: the learning styles assessment asks you for money to get the results, so let's not go there.

A better Learning Styles test, in fact the same one that we did in class, is the VARK test which you can do online too, for nothing.

Outsourcing myself to Japan

2010-12-16T09:40:00.020+13:00

A few months ago my wife and I together with our baby, Sachi, visited the parents/parents-in-law/grandparents in Uto, near Kumamoto in Kyushu. What a wonderful time we had, so much so that we've decided to move there. That has meant that I've had to re-think what I do for a living. For the past few years I've enjoyed being a learning advisor at the Learning Centre, Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin, New Zealand. Could I carry on in some capacity, as Our Man in Japan?

As I see it, there are two main roles that I might occupy:

The first is to support students online and at a distance, mainly with numeracy issues, but also with general study advice.

The second is to develop and maximize our online resources. Many already exist, but they are not always easy to find or access.

Overview
I see myself working part-time: three or four half days a week I'd use a computer to respond to student inquiries via email, Skype, Elluminate, Adobe connect, Twitter, Facebook, Moodle and the like. Initially I'd focus on a few Schools and Departments: Nursing, Midwifery, Foundation Maths, BMETS etc. Because of the time difference, I'd be available in the evenings (NZ time) when no other staff are available. I might even make one of those days a weekend day. And I'd use my downtime to work on electronic resources.

Needs
To do the job effectively I would need:

Laptop computer with microphone, headphones, a built-in web cam plus scanner-printer

Appropriate software and licenses (e.g. for Adobe connect)

Employment contract (0.2 - 0.4)

Contribution toward a yearly 'touch base' in Dunedin

Lead-in time to self-train (see below)

Recognition of seniority (a combination of Leadership, Research and Consultancy), once the project demonstrates its success (I've been at the Polytechnic for well over 10 years, so it's high time that I apply!)

Contacts
I'm going to have to cultivate and nurture new and existing relationships. Leigh Blackall, Terry Mahler, Tom Bond, Sonny Teio, Sarah Stewart, Helen Lindsay plus numerous contacts I made at the past two ATLAANZ conferences that I attended in 2009 and 2010 (Mike Dickison, Yumiko Oliver-Gray, Damon Ellis, Carolyn Rawlings and others).

Preparation
I'll need to get up to speed using a number of tools: student email, Skype, Elluminate, Adobe connect, Facebook, Twitter, Moodle, Wiki Educator. In short, whatever works.

Time line
From 31 of January, 2011, I shall be on campus to help run the Developing Personal Effectiveness Skills (Mon 7th - Thu 10th Feb). Thereafter, I will be available in a limited capacity for student appointments, but will spend most of my time 'upskilling'. (Jean Monk and Helen Lindsay will staff the Learning Centre in person. I'll introduce my face to the groups of students from whom I expect my clients will come.

Strategic framework
Developing a flexible student learning support arm (to go along with flexible learning/teaching) potentially addresses several aims of the Otago Polytechnic's Students Services Strategic Framework, including:

Develop online library of self help resources (definitely)
Further develop learner effectivelness study skills into generic online self access modules (probably)
Improve our Student Services presence on Moodle, both for staff and for students (possibly)

Peripheral possibilities

If there's time left over, I might look in at:

Marc Doesberg's Korean project

Mami's Japanese Turning Point

William's ESOL blog

I Hate Wikipedia

2010-12-14T11:24:00.005+13:00

Wikipedia is great. I love it. It's useful whenever I want to get a quick overview of some topic. No problems there.

What I hate about Wikipedia is its functionality. For me, it just doesn't function. Trying to create something on it drives me crazy. It's like trying to follow the instruction manual of the most complicated videoplayer, cellphone or what have you that you can imagine.

I attended an ATLAANZ (Association of Tertiary Learning Advisors Aotearoa New Zealand) conference in 2010 (and in 2009). It was great. I loved it. It was very useful for me to gain a comprehensive overview about how learning advisors operate in a tertiary environment. I attended all the online support-type of workshops, discussion groups and presentations that I could.

I was inspired to try my hand at Wikipedia again (in spite of a long history of failure). This time I got as far as creating a 'stub' about ATLAANZ on my 'personal area'. But when I came to publish the thing, I couldn't find how to do it. Aaaaarrrgh! It has screeds of pages of how to do this, and how to do that, and searching tools to check the FAQs and sift through the archives. Nothing! (Nothing, at least that I could find.)

I throw up my hands in despair and disgust. Wikipedia is not for me. I hate it.

Distance Learning Tips

2009-11-25T13:23:00.009+13:00

I recently attended the ATLAANZ (Association of Tertiary Learning Advisors of Aotearoa/New Zealand) Conference held at Massey University Albany in November, 2009. Its theme was Shifting Sands, Firm Foundations.

One of the keynote speakers was Professor Ingrid Day, the Assistant Vice-Chancellor: Academic and Open Learning. Some of what I gleaned is reproduced below. I have contacted Ingrid and asked her to look over my notes. She very kindly did so, and corrected and elaborated where necessary, but any errors or omissions are mine.

Ingrid began her academic career in distance education. Part of her talk was about her experiences in that area, and in passing she outlined what she self-depreciatingly termed "no-brainer" ideas. However, I consider them valuable pointers that could be utilised or adapted for other distance learning programmes. They must be, to have resulted in the reduction of a 50% drop out rate reducing to zero!

Set a weekly quiz that students must visit the website to do. In the first week run this daily. This gets the students' heads into the course
Individually mark and respond to those quizzes with a brief comment to start up a personal relationship--they should not be marked automatically. The objective is to make the learning fun
Initial writing tasks should be looked over for content, not grammar. This was so that the course was not threatening, but rather confidence building. Somehow these were visible to all the students and open for comments. This promoted peer engagement.
All first year students were placed into mentoring groups. Student mentors were trained and were assigned 10 'mentees each'. They received no money - and didn't expect to. They were happy to be helpful and claimed they got more out of the duty than those they helped.

Podcasts I enjoy

2009-07-22T11:05:00.005+12:00

I've recently started to dabble more in podcasts--listening rather than creating them, though one day I'll get into producing my own audio using Audacity and Podomatic.

For now, I'll just list those regular 'stations' I've listened to, with a thumbnail description. I shall try to remember to add to this page, so stay tuned!

To begin, here is my Delicious list with everything to date I've tagged with 'podcast'. To date there are 34 items, though I expect that number to grow, even in the course of preparing this post.

C-Realm is hosted by a very well-spoken American, KMO, who interviews people on his show. C stands for Consciousness. Discussions on topics focused on the coming Vingean Singularity, Entheogenic Exploration, the re-localization of community & agriculture, and Individual Conscious Autonomy. KMO is up to his 163rd episode, each of which is about an hour long. He puts them out once a week.

Then there is Stephan Molyneux who hosts Freedomain Radio. Stephan is a libertarian who is hot on the topic of Philosophy. He cranks out episodes almost daily from his car. His views are strongly aired, to such an extent that he has occasionally been accused of being a cultist.

Finally (for today) I highly recommend the TED Talks 20-minute-or-less lectures. These are videos but many may also be downloaded as audio files. You can search a list of about 400 world-famous speakers.

Since then: I really get a kick out of James Kunstler wittily discussing the tragic comedy of suburban sprawl at the Kunstlercast.

We is who we is

2009-05-22T11:52:00.004+12:00

About the best summing up of our human condition I've read in the several years comes from a colleague here at work (Otago Poytechnic), Anni Watkins who wrote:

Having spent an evening following blogs on New Scientist, I have reached the following conclusions (where 'we' are those responding to NS blogs worldwide)

1. We are extremely rude and offensive
2. We don't really care much about the planet, the future, or our children
3. We care a lot about now and about our own personal lives
4. We like 'moral' arguments, especially ones not based on any logic or science, like eat vegan / vegetarian because eating animals is barbaric, which gets heavily confused with eat less meat because its better for the environment (example might be an article on eating roos because they dont burp methane like ruminants, which descended into a slanging match including garbage about roos being shot and left to die slowly so that the meat stayed fresh..... farts (as opposed to burps), the right to eat meat, the concept that humans 'have' to eat meat, etc etc.... very little on ruminant methane production issues). We especially like the idea that God is gonna get us for being immoral (global warming is caused by adultery, must be all those hot bods!)
5. We don't want to hear anything we don't like, so we will side with the counter argument (and vice versa)
6. VERY IMPORTANTLY: Frankly my dear, We don't actually give a damn about the planet, we only care about our species, our race, our country, our neighboorhood, our friends and family and ourselves (probably in reverse order). So, is it gonna do me any good/harm or just curb my lifestyle? Is it gonna do other humans currently alive and good/harm? How much do I care about them? Will a bunch of people - in another country, of a different skin colour/religion - matter (esp.if they are too poor to respond by fighting to stay alive)? Do we care about wildlife? How much? We only see it on David Attenborough progs anyway. So, snow leopards in decline might catch our imagination, if the media serves them up to us. They probably matter more than starving children because we've seen so many of them on the media that they are beginning to make us feel bad, anyway, starving children aren't likely to go extinct eh?

On the other hand, maybe I can make a moral argument out of it. I'm holier than thou 'cos I drive a green car, make a small footprint (my green calculator tells me so), eat less/no meat/animal products (which I can be desperately holier than thou about because I don't live in an environment incapable of supporting much more than seasonal grass), etc etc etc. I think I (Anni) fit into this category actually, which is making me squirm somewhat.

So while I'm here in this category, I can safely say that when I went to uni, we were young people shouting into the void about all this. But now we are middle aged people living in oil crisis, pollution, social inequity, climatic uncertainty.... the problems really are happening now. Presumably this is why people are beginning to care now. Not about the future, the planet, the ecosystem, the children of tomorrow, but about the problems that are happening now, to us, to me. We ain't "all gonna die" (tho some people are, for sure), but we sure are going to be inconvenienced.

No, I haven't answered the question. I'm not sure I can talk to the 'we' I have discovered, but I thought you might like to know what that particular 'we' are thinking!

I concur with this view and have grave doubts that any form of sustainability initiative--even the Transition Towns Movement--can lead anywhere unless the fundamental separation paradigm (as espoused by Charles Eisenstein in his book, The Ascent of Humanity) is first addressed.

YouTube Star

2009-05-20T14:10:00.002+12:00

Discovered myself on YouTube!From 3:40 into the clip. Do I really blink my eyes that much?

Portals ought to lead somewhere

2009-05-19T10:19:00.006+12:00

From Leigh Blackall via the Networked Learning Group I followed the link to a talk on YouTube by Professor Michael Wesch called A Portal to Media Literacy.

I found it well worth viewing (in pieces--it runs to just over an hour) for what it says, and for what it assumes about the future.

Sound bytes that rung a bell:

Students learn about what they care about, from people they care about and who, they know, care about them

Nobody is as smart as everybody

There are no natives here

RSS taught us that information can find us

Wikis are cool, but face-to-face can be even better

Technology is secondary; collaboration is more important

A platform for participation

Folksonomy

To learn is to create significance

(School shouldn't merely be) an information dump

Wesch said that the new technologies should be used as a platform for participation. Research questions should be asked after which the students are in charge of determining the path they take. He speaks (at around the 36 minute mark) of a sandbox instead of a syllabus.

Nearer the end he gets a little "wild" and describes an exercise he had a class of students to to do a simulation of the history of the entire world. Absolutely mind-blowing! No matter that the world as envisaged implodes right about now.

Wesch makes a strong case for moving toward a future of ubiquitousness where all kinds of devices are everywhere and do anything for anyone. He asks "Have we prepared our students for this world?"

I don't know. But I wonder if we are giving enough consideration to the world that is likely to be. Consider this post from The Archdruid Report in which John Michael Greer writes:

It's hard to think of a subject [the ways that modern industrial cultures
store, process, and distribute information] that has been loaded with anything
like as much hype. Our time, the media never tires of repeating, is the
Information Age . . . can you think of a short-term trend that hasn't been
identifies as a wave of the future destined to rise up an asymptotoc curve to
infinity, or at least absurdity? I can't. The standard assumption is that the
future will be just like the present, but even more so, with more elaborate
technologies providing more baroque information products and services as far as
the eye (or, rather, the webcam) can see.

Very few people realize just how extravagant the intake of resources to
maintain the information economy actually is . . . the two big server farms
that keep Yahoo's family of web services online use more electricity between
them that all the televisions on earth put together. Multiply that out by
the tens of thousands of server farms that keep today's online economy
going, and the hundreds of other energy-intensive activities that go into
the Internet, and it may start to become clear how much energy goes into
putting these words onto the screen where you're reading them

Wesch himself mentions the term 'Peak Oil' 53 min 35 sec into his talk . . .

A Bloke's Blog

2009-04-06T11:33:00.014+12:00

This isn't going to be brain surgery or rocket science. I'm just going to show you a bloke's blog.

I've been keeping a blog for my classes since 2006. I don't think it's all that fancy, but Marc Doesburg asked me to talk about it. I've got about a dozen points to make.

Neat! (no bits of paper flying around)
Interface (Can involve your students)
Quick
Convenient (try writing on the whiteboard from your home).
Permanent (I hope!) and it can serve as a record, what they call an e-portfolio
Accessible (for any student who is ill, has an appointment . . . or has graduated)
Useful (a means of managing online resources)
Creative
Cheap (It costs absolutely nothing to try)
Fun and interesting (bells and whistles in the form of gadgets)
Recyclable (can 'hide' posts as drafts and reschedule)
Guidance (a means to prevent students being overwhelmed)

Is this who we are?

2008-05-20T15:59:00.000+12:00

ESOL resources and other matters

2008-05-05T09:09:00.006+12:00

The other day I received the following message:

Hello William

There was at our last staff meeting a mention of on-line resources for ESOL and we were reminded of the work that you have been doing.

Would you be prepared to give the School of Foundation Learning an update on your work at our next staff meeting, 5 May?

If so, I'll book a room with a data projector etc.

Many thanks,

Marc

And so today, the 5th, I'd better decide what to cover! I've blocked myself and hour or two out to prepare. I'll do so via this blog interface - I find it easier to draft on a keyboard, and it leaves a permanent record that others (you) can readily access. That's assuming that I' actually have pearls of wisdom to offer. I'm just not too sure how a data projector operates . . .

Being a visual learner, I quickly sketched out/brainstormed a plan on a piece of paper (recycled of course). Three arrows radiate out from the centre, so there are to be three sections in this presentation:

The nature of my (ESOL-related) work
The online tools that I use
Links to my ESOL resources

To me the Internet is like a fabulous, gigantic toy shop. There's a ton of stuff out there. Some of it is useful, some is not. It is half-pie organized, so if you know what you're doing you can find what you're after. However it all takes time. It is all too easy to get distracted. Sometimes you wonder how permanent or not it is, and whether it is worth investing the time and the effort to become conversant. And for certain people - and I include myself - its unstructured nature and technical gobbledy-gook is stressful to negotiate.

For me it would help if management acknowledged the input that is required for people to get up to speed (the same way that we know that hundreds of hours of English practice are required to raise the IELTS score by a single point). If a training programme along the same lines as fire warden, Jasper instruction, first aid, Treaty of Waitangi and computer safety was made compulsory, then that would develop a stronger collegiate network where everyone feels they are working in tandem. It is awfully hard for a small number of individuals to push against resistance using their own time and energies. There needs to be a concerted approach.

There now, that's my rant over!

What am I doing in terms of ESOL-related Learning Centre business? Three things:

One hour a week I see a group of four NESB students enrolled in Foundation Studies. We look at the skills that are needed to do their classwork well, and I often look up sites that they can refer to. I often find a link by searching another of my blogs.
I see Pariya's AM3 once a week for an hour (Mondays 11-12, H513). The level three students practice their listening, grammar, reading, writing - even conversation, at a different website each time. I try to write up what they will be doing for the day here.
Finally, whenever I come across a website that may be interesting or useful I make a record of it. It is most important to do that, otherwise it is swallowed by the ether! There are various ways of doing this, and they vary in terms of their effectiveness.

Let's say I search on Google right now for a good site - you know how to do that I presume. I'll enter the words 'interesting', 'ESL', 'news' and 'reading'. I'll be a couple of minutes . . .

I was wrong - it took me all of 10 seconds. Google provided me a list of just over 200,000 sites, and the very top one looks interesting because of its organization. I recognized the word concordancing, software, strategies and extensive reading. It looks like winner, right? And I'm going to give it to you for nothing. Ready?

Here it comes now . . . http://academics.smcvt.edu/cbauer-ramazani/Links/esl_reading.htm

Did you write it down? Are you sure you every one of those 63 letters and symbols correct? Your spelling skills won't work here. Make sure your capitals and lower case letters aren't confused. Is that a 'one', and 'el' or a capital 'eye'. Only one will do. Could you be bothered always having to type it in? Are you going to dictate it for your students, or write it out on the white board . . . when you run out of room and have to break the string in two. "Please, teacher, is there are gap?"

Isn't it easier just to click here?

Since you can't click on paper, you'll need to come get to grips with the technology. An easier way of remembering the web address is by saving it as a favourite or bookmark. However, you may soon accumulate too long a list. Also, these links are only available on the one computer. What if you wanted to work from home, or if the computer crashes or is replaced?

A good alternative is to use the social bookmarking web service called Delicious. Here Wikipedia tells you about it. I use it, and here are my bookmarks. I can access them from any (Internet-connected) computer, and so can you. As I write, I have 344 websites bookmarked on many topics of interest. I can search my own bookmarks. Type in the word English and 48 sites will appear. You can click on the site from the title. You can see who else has saved that site (and get an idea of its popularity). Here is Marc's Delicious list. He is part of my network. With a little luck you will find someone who had already saved all of the sorts of sites that you are interested in and simply import them!

As well as 'tagging' sites with keywords to help you find them again, you can tag the posts in your blog (or search your entire blog for a keyword). For instance, I remember that last year I used a good site but I can't remember exactly. It was about grammar, but if I search for that work I will get a lot of hits! Luckily I remember that it had the word zone in the title. I search using that word and these are the two 'hits'. Success!

Now, if all of us join up to Delicious and agree to tag good websites to do with ESOL using a common tag, say tekotagolangauges then all those sites will come up if we search Delicious for that tag. Collaboratively we can build up a fantastic resource!

This is just scratching the surface.

p.s. News just to hand: I was unable to be with Pariya's AM3 class today, so I quickly posted them something to read on my blog. Without being asked or prompted, 6 of them left comments on that post! Incredible!

Remind me . . .

2008-02-14T16:05:00.003+13:00

Remind me, please. Not sure exactly what posts to put here. Lemme see now . . .

'On Line Presence' ought to be a deeper more reflective look at online matters.

Stuff to do with ESOL goes on my class blog, although only at the interface level.

Content regarding sustainability are best put in PostPeakOil.

And Learning Centre musings are dealt with at Central Learning.

Otago Polytechnic tagged

2007-05-14T11:20:00.000+12:00

In the weekend I learned about a blog written by a student at Otago Polytechnic. He wrote about the difficulty he experienced when he tried to submit an assignment on-line as opposed to on paper.

Leigh Blackall alerted us, an on-line group of educationalists, to that post in order to stimulate discussion. It seems to be doing that!

Myself, I take the tack that on-line discussion is valuable. I can see how some people might be concerned about our institution's reputation, but that, I believe, is because they see blogging as a form of publication. I used to feel the same way, and was always nervous about airing my opinions to the world. Now, however, I regard blogging as more of a forum.

As long as people don't go to extremes, name names, slander and defame etc, I have no problem with views being expressed, even when they differ from mine. Indeed, I welcome being exposed to disagreement - maybe I'll learn something new!

The design student in question was, I feel, quite measured in tone and calm as to how he expressed what he felt and thinks. Legitimate, even. We don't need to judge him or his teacher. The stuff that people read on-line they take with a grain of salt. You don't take (or shouldn't) take anything that you find on the Internet as gospel. He speaks of what is true for him.

It is not likely that anyone doing an 'Otago Polytechnic' tag search will be put off from enrolling. Indeed, if a prospective student were to stumble on this post he or she would/should weigh those words up together with other on-line and other information.

I suggest that if enough of us on staff respond in a supportive, understanding and nonjudgemental fashion then those comments would help moderate the 'negative' tone. They would show that we are open, informed, conversant and interested. What more could you ask from the staff at your prospective school?

My brain says… Thrubs to you!

2007-03-30T09:47:00.000+12:00

I haven’t posted anything for a while, and for some reason that makes me feel guilty. But why? Why should it? Is there some sort of target that I need to attain in terms of the regularity of my output? If so, who set it? Who is to say just hoe often, how much and HOW LOUDLY we ought to shout into the WWW?

Seems to me that we’re all in a rush – that there’s pressure for us to keep up with the troops, yes, as if we’re soldiers in an army. We might miss out, we might get left behind, caught in an ambush, miss the boat, the bus, whatever.

Now, I love computers, don’t get me wrong. Or at least, what they are able to do, and how we can utilize them. But I want to (need to) do so slowly. Methodically. With a sense of control, discrimination, finesse, determination.

Know what I mean?

Instead, I get the feeling that we’re being driven to march to another or others’ tune(s). The WWW or ‘Thrubs’, a moniker that leaped into my brain from the ether just this very minute, my term for the electronic milieu we’re having to sink or swim in to survive, seems to me to be under the control of hyper-people. Frenetic types. Scattered attention and A.D.D sufferers.

Let me put it this way: I wish to keeps tabs on myself and on my activities. From time to time, I need to start afresh, when I’ll look over my personal operating systems and return to ground zero. And the thing is, Thrubs doesn’t easily allow me to do that.

In order to reinvent my own wheel I would need to backtrack and re-tweak how I keep blogs, maintain email lists, search the web, bookmark and link and communicate etc etc as well as erasing stuff and systems I have come to think of as inferior. This is all terribly time-consuming, ineffective and inefficient.

What goes against my grain is having to go about the business not by refining, but by adding patches, as it were, to what has previously been put in place, exactly how computer boffins conglomerate their software. It’s a matter of running before one can perfectly walk. Or, to be more precise (as Thomson - or was it Thompson? - would say) it’s as if we’re sitting on a unicycle, letting ourselves fall forward, pedalling to catch up, and then repeating ad infinitum that process.

Does it have to be that way? Is this the nature of the electronic beast? If so, the magic and the gimmickry will eventually outpace us. More and more of us (people like me) are going to become alienated, notwithstanding the marvellous opportunities and possibilities that the candy shelf offers.

It’s Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock. If not right now, then soon.

www.neomyz.com/poll

Which Celebrity do you look like?

2007-02-02T08:13:00.000+13:00

Here's my daughter, Iacinta

http://www.myheritage.com

Staff response

2006-11-28T13:03:00.002+13:00

Had an email a couple of weeks back in response to the plan our School of Languages is submitting to the Programme Development Fund.

We were asked to respond in two areas, and we considered as a staff how we should do so.

I put up a first draft online and asked the others to make suggestions in the form of comments, anonymous or otherwide, which I would then incorporate into successive drafts. We eventually came up with the following:

1. How exactly do we envision a more flexible delivery of the Certificate in Spoken and Written English (CSWE)? (more details and objectives)
2. Why are we requesting laptops with home broadband? (when we already have computers)

It is impossible to predict exactly what form a revised delivery of the CSWE might
take, without having gone through the staff development process. Our plan is a process that cannot be short-circuited or second-guessed; management need to support us, staff need to retrain and investigate options, and programmes changes will need to satisfy Otago Polytechnic system requirements.

We cannot build Rome in a day. Students’ expectations need to be met, and they need to be convinced of the value of different delivery modes. We cannot introduce too many unfamiliar methods and ideas too quickly lest we risk losing their trust. As teachers we need to be clear as to the agreed underlying philosophy of language teaching. We need to be satisfied that our students’ learning is being enhanced by an online component.

However, we do have a number of specific outcomes in mind.

We recognize that, ideally, students that enrol in one of several levels should be able to work in their areas of preference or need, and at their own pace. Many of the modules we now offer lend themselves to being made available online, including:

CSWE 3 A1 Can demonstrate understanding of a spoken information text
CSWE 3 B2 Can write an informal letter or e-mail
CSWE 3 C1 Can demonstrate understanding of a casual conversation with topic changes
CSWE 3 G1 Can demonstrate understanding of an oral presentation

Students ought individually to be able to decide on the order in which they complete
modules. They may be able to choose the timing of assessment, and its frequency. Once they accumulate the requisite number of modules (and hours) they would then be eligible for the Certificate in Spoken and Written English.

Some advantages:

1. Students take more ownership of their path of study
2. Teachers freed up to teach more generally
3. Students work at own pace
4. Students work on areas of need (not wait until their module ‘comes up’ perhaps 2 years hence)
5. Students have ample options available (we have many more modules than we presently offer), and thus can remain enrolled for longer
6. Students can enrol at any time, and for a flexible period
7. Assessment tasks are largely put online, so that there is much less administration involved in running them and recording the results
8. Easier to expand in other directions e.g. level four
9. Easier to set up other courses such as (OOLL) ongoing online language learning (my own term) where students may study distance modules from outside.

In terms of levels:

Certificate in Spoken and Written English 1 – Largely delivered as previously because of the face-to-face instruction and pastoral care that beginners
need. Classes will, however, establish practices that train students to work individually for periods, gain keyboard skills, confidence and competence in an e-learning environment.

Certificate in Spoken and Written English 2 – a good deal of the time would now be spent in SALC (self-access learning centre) and CALL (computer-assisted
language learning). This means that a teacher at level 2 could conceivably manage more students face-to-face, but also have online facilitation. In 2007 classes might start the year with an hour of online tuition per week increasing to 2 hours a week by the end of the year.

Certificate in Spoken and Written English 3 – approximately half of the time would now be spent in SALC and CALL environments. Communication skills still require real face-to-face interaction. A teacher at level 3 could eventually many up to twice as many students but, again, spend extra time in online facilitation. In 2006 AM4 has two hours of computer suite tuition per week. This might gradually be increased to 1 hour per day during 2007.

As far as laptops are concerned, our CEO happened by while Leigh and I were discussing this topic in the staffroom last week. He stated that he expects to phase in laptops for all staff over the next three years. He feels that anyone involved in e-learning at this stage automatically moves to the head of the queue.

We are being guided here by Leigh whose vision we are obliged to trust to some
degree. Leigh has explained to me his objective, which is to bring all staff to the point of having a professional and collegial online presence. We plan to establish professional links with other AMES (Australian Migrants English Scheme) and/or CSWE providers internationally. This would not be easy to establish in between classes, squeezed in during working hours. We are speaking of professional development here, and it is important that can rely on 24/7 access to the Internet.

Personally I have, in 2002, been disappointed when the Polytechnic decided not to proceed with an online initiative that may well have led to our becoming a pioneer in the field of online language learning. I was prepared to train ‘comptutors’ (my own
term again) when the plug was pulled. There are only so many times realistically that staff can respond to the call for flexibility and then not be supported when they do their best to deliver those goods.

A primer/sampler/essential hits compilation

2006-11-22T14:47:00.000+13:00

Keep watching this space! I'll try with this post to maintain a list of useful bits and pieces for the newbie to gain an introduction to all things technological.

Click here for a 7-minute podcast presentation concerning the new technology as it applies to language learning.
Click here for a brief description of and recomendation to use del.icio.us as a tagging system to keep tabs on Internet websites.
Click here to view (and listen to) an 8-minute demonstration of how Wikipedia works
Click here to view a 50-second presentation of whatGoogle reader, a web feeder, is.

All in the same boat

2006-11-14T14:02:00.000+13:00

Attended a face-to-face workshop for Facilitating Online in the august company of Marc Doesberg, Janet Black, Willie Campbell and others.

It was apparent that we are all striving to understand the new technology, and that we are all struggling to cope with the immensity of what is 'out there' for us to use.

Everyone expressed a sense of frustration and anxiety in the face of a very new style of teaching, which is important to remember whenever we expose students to an online enviroment.

Certainly there is a huge potential for learning to be assisted with online learning, and all of us are aware of that. The question is how to facilitate and manage this, both for our students and for ourselves.

A few notes that I took that may serve to remind what was covered . . .

Look at Google Groups, TALO, and Wikiversity - networked learning.
Develop FAQs from our own course(s)
See 147 practical tips, Emoderating, Etivities (all in the library or from Bronwyn Hegarty).
Don't penalise lurkers - they are learning their own way
The powerpoint we heard is available on blackboard
Computer suites need headphones
When the class advance as a cohort, how much verbal interaction do we allow or encourage at points along the way?
Send Marc a link to the wikipedia article that shows the timeline development of a music article
Marc seeks a way to highlight those words in a text that are in wordlists.
'learning community' is the new buzzword