Work @ TAFE

Over the past few years we haven’t done any specific promotion for our Website Design course here at Wentworth Falls TAFE. I guess during the IT boom of the late nineties/early naughties there wasn’t any need to promote Website Design courses… the demand for web designers/developers was incredible - but that’s not the case now.

There are plenty of people who can “whack a website together” for a small business - and we see examples of this all the time. Much rarer are people who can plan, communicate, design and implement a quality web site, even if it’s only a simple website. But to be honest, small businesses don’t always need a “quality website”, they just want a website with a simple contact form and a bit about the business… and most people have a friend or family member who can put such a website together for them. Larger companies offering Internet Technology / Ecommerce roles are few and far between up here in the Blue Mountains, so my question is:

Who should we be targetting for the Cert IV in Website Design here in the Mountains? Who can benefit most from this qualification?

From the past two years here at TAFE, I reckon I can generalise two or three main roles that the Web Design course caters for at present - maybe you could pick out some more?:

1. those who have a personal project that they would like to implement themselves.
2. those who are wanting to learn Web Design to start their own business.
3. those who are already working in the industry (either in their own business or part of another small business), but would like a qualification.
4. Students who are looking to broaden their options but aren’t really sure of the direction they want to take. (Jude’s additional point)

I’d guess that 70% of our participants over the past 2 years have been those with a personal project. There are still some who are really keen to start their own business, but only two people (that I’ve known) who are already working in the industry and wanting the qualification (or to upgrade/refresh their skills).

What does this tell us? Where should we focus? What type of course should we offer? I’m not certain, but I can think of two directions we could take (or possibly both).

Direction 1
One option might be to publicise a flexible program or traineeship to people in the mountains already working in the industry. There are quite a few small businesses/individuals working designing sites, but it’s obviously a limited number. I think Colin, my Manager, tried this once but came up against some barriers.

Direction 2
The only other opiton I can think of is to publicise/market a flexible Web program not focused on the qualification, but on helping people research, learn, plan, design and implement their ideas for websites/web applications. I only mention this because there seems to be lots of people wanting to do this - it’s not necessarily helping to get people working in the industry and therefore probably not an option unless it was a commercial course?

Any other ideas/thoughts?

OK, so it’s turning out to be more like a monthly report, but I’m “on holidays” at the moment

Slowing down a little…

We’ve settled (slowed?) down quite a bit over the last few weeks - with three main contributors (Leigh Blackall, Sean Fitzgerald and myself) posting to the blended learning email group. After a few Skype sessions with Sean, we’ve identified a few different ideas and I’m currently looking at whether Drupal might be able to accomodate our varied ideas.

Sean’s keen to include a database of links related to blended learning with a rating system of sorts, which will be a great resource if we can get it up and running (and populated). I’m keen to get up some basic workshop/web-quest resources to help educators transition to the new tools of the web, preferably splashed throughout with rich-content. Leigh’s creating some screen-casting tutorials which will be unreal demonstrations of the tools being used in action. Hopefully we can combine all of this into a useful and focused resource.

Two great discoveries

We recently discovered a great webquest by Trevor Ettenborough, and after contacting Trevor, he was more than happy to let us use his web-quest under a Share-Alike Creative Commons License.

James from Incorporated Subversion (another Aussie venture based in Melbourne) generously set us up with our own Blended Learning Drupal site so we could test its suitability to a collaborative resource development. I’ve started transfering Trevor’s Webquest so that we can try out Drupal and actually work on a simple resource… but that’s where I’m currently up to.

The short-term future

Another priority at the moment is to find out if Drupal can support Sean’s database of rated resources ‘out-of-the-box’ or whether we’ll need to do some development ourselves (which could be fun too! but time consuming).

I can’t hide the fact that I’m blown away by the flexibility and ease-of-use of Drupal. It has an incredible number of modules that allow you to configure the system with all the collaborative features that you want (wikis, forums, blogs, rss-aggregation)… it really is amazing. I’m feeling like I want to register a simple domain and just start going ahead with a Drupal site… we can only evaluate so long… but even then there are issues to discuss.

I really would like to get something ready to use in some professional development workshops, such as the Getting Started with Blogging in Education web-quest, but it’s hard to find enough time to get it ready (and there are always other issues popping up needing time to resolve). Why is there never enough time allocated to complete tasks satisfactorily?

Well it was only just over a week ago that I posted an idea for the collaborative development of a Guide to Blended Learning in the knowledge era. But it would be ridiculous to think of this idea as ‘my’ idea… it’s not. It’s really an idea that has been perculating (?) through the activity of all of us contributing to the Teach and Learn Online (TALO) email group - a group of people from a number of educational organistaions in Sydney (and overseas!).

Progress so far

It’s been an incredibly busy week! The original post generated some interest from the TALO group, and a few of us quickly set up our own blended learning email group to continue discussing the idea… and we’ve had 53 postings during our discussions so far, so it’s been quite busy!

Through these discussions we came up with the idea to use a Wiki to plan the project itself, and after checking out a number of options, set up the BlendedLearning Wiki on JotSpot. It’s taken a bit of getting used to, and we’re pretty certain that we won’t use JotSpot for the actual resource, but it’s been good to get started with the planning. We probably spent too much time trying out special features of JotSpot, but have started using the system to structure our thoughts for the project.

We’re currently focussing on evaluting which platforms might be most suitable for developing this resource, as well as finding out what resources are already out there (so that we don’t re-invent the wheel). I was also hoping to spend some effort looking at the licensing options, but haven’t had the chance yet.

So that’s it! It’s been a busy first week, but we seem to have some momentum going… hopefully we won’t lose it!

No, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I’m the essence of wisdom… or that I’m a great leader… (or good at art for that matter!). A friend of mine (John) asked me recently to participate as a guinea-pig in a course that he’s preparing to run called The Arts of a Wise Leader, which has forced me yet again to consider how crucial conversation is - not just for leadership/management - but in all spheres of life!

The Queensland Education department has had some involvement with this course, you can read about it on the testamonial page.

The arts

The course provides a completely refreshing view of leadership/management, focusing not on cold processes, tasks and resources, but instead on the more humane ‘arts’ of leadership: Story, Brilliance, Promise and Grace (as depicted in the graphic above).

Using them is a matter of art not science, of subtlety and humanity, not process and formula.

The arts carry a very different focus from traditional management methods. Rather than focusing on efficiency or control, the arts focus on enabling people (employees) to live (and work) well. That’s not to say that traditional management methods aren’t useful, but rather to emphasize that people are at the centre of leadership/management, not tasks, processes or outcomes.

For example, it’s through story that we all understand our own situations - we know our own (hi)story and our current situation. Through conversation we build a story of a future that unites our own individual stories with shared meaning or purpose. Interacting with each others’ stories (irrespective of position or rank) allows us to discover brilliance in each others lives.

The use of the word ’story’ confused me at first, but I think it’s just being used in place of ‘communication’ to emphasise that people/characters converse to create ideas and meaning, rather than just communicate meaning. This is captured really well in the course with the statement:

Communication is the sharing of created meaning.
Conversation is the creation of shared meaning.

I won’t go into detail about the other ‘arts’ but just to tickle your curiosity, to lead with grace could mean to subvert systems that create distinctions between people just to hold rank, spending time with the workers at the coalface, getting to know them and discovering their brilliance. Leading with ‘promise’ entails realising the effect that our words can have on others and therefore speaking with intention and integrity. All of us are leaders in certain situations and all of us are followers in other situations, but it is important to remember that when we are leading, we are leading on behalf of others.

I guess these are the things that stuck out to me during our discussions (and some reading/reflection) - the course is not itself about providing nice definitions of leadership/wisdom/etc., but rather it uses heaps of individual and group activities (mind-maps, presentations, discussions, videos etc.) to create conversations about leadership.

Reflections and feedback

As we were just guinea-pigs in our group, we only had a 1-day taste of the 3-day course, so although we got a taste of the different aspects or ‘arts’ through the group’s interaction and conversation (as well as through John’s facilitation), we didn’t get to see the full course.

There were many things that stood out as useful to me. For example, identifying someone who has had a big impact on my life - in leading me - and creating a mind-map based around that person’s influence was really helpful for me to identify what was important in leadership from my own perspective (relationship).

Another interesting part of the day for me was looking at why we in western society try to fill projects or systems with lots of facts, processes and tasks without considering the stories of the people involved. It’s as if we think by breaking everything down to the n’th degree we can define the pure essence of management or devise the perfect management strategy, but at the same time we can lose much of the human creativity and brilliance through the process. We become so focused on getting the process right that we don’t often take the time to see how individuals might be able to create and contribute with their own brilliance. Again, the course was not trying to imply that traditional management techniques are bad - but rather to highlight a possible imbalance.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the biggest point that was reinforced for me was how crucial the ‘art’ of conversation is, in all spheres of life. I think this is particularly pertinent to me as it’s an area where I feel I need to learn from people around me… I can so easily sit and stare out a window at breakfast, or be so focused on work while colleagues are chatting over morning tea, or try to keep a meeting so focused on task that conversation is stifled. I’m starting to see that I’m often missing out on the real learning - the conversation and creation of shared meaning. That’s something that I’m now beginning to enjoy…

So thanks John for the opportunity to be a part of such a worthwhile course!

(Ad: you can read testimonials from people more important than me on the course’s website )

Blended learning, a principle that has been around longer than e-learning or the Internet, has a simple definition of employing multiple approaches when teaching or learning. Yet with the advent of the Learning Management Systems (LMS), in practice many institutions have adopted the term to imply a combination of face-to-face activities and structured activities within an LMS environment.

As George Siemens argues:

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are often viewed as being the starting point (or critical component) of any elearning or blended learning program. This perspective is valid from a management and control standpoint, but antithetical to the way in which most people learn today.

With this understanding many educators on the frontier of online learning are experimenting with the use of more learner-centred tools such as blogs, wikis and news aggregators together with activities focusing on the active construction of the learner’s knowledge – empowering the learner. Yet these new tools can seem inaccessible to many facilitators and learners due simply to the different nature of the tools and a lack of established ideas for using them within learning activities. Even worse, facilitators can venture to try blogging in class but be turned off because of a negative experience (low student involvement). Even those of us who are familiar with the tools often struggle to use them in ways that engage our learners in the active construction of learning (well, I do anyway!).

Wouldn’t it be great to provide a dynamic resource for facilitators who are used to centralised information sources to ease their transition towards the distribution of free tools available now and in the future?

The idea:

To set up an infrastructure for a collaboratively-built online resource called “A guide to Blended Learning in the Knowledge Era.” (ideas for better names!?) This resource will be aimed at providing an easy transition for facilitators who might be wary of using the new tools (such as blogs, wikis and news aggregators), enabling them to have fun learning the new tools themselves while also suggesting lots of fun ideas for using the tools with their students. As facilitators become more confident using the distributed tools currently available they will hopefully become less dependent on this centralised resource (having established their own distributed feeds for learning). Yet at the same time these facilitators will be in a position to contribute back to the resource for those yet to make the transition - updating it with the new tools and strategies that they have gone on to discover!

With the fast-changing landscape of available tools this resource will only be worthwhile if it is able to keep pace with the changes - and this itself will only be possible if it is developed collaboratively from a wealth of experience larger than any one organisation can provide. Furthermore, for educators throughout the industry to see it as worthwhile to contribute some time and effort to such a free resource, I think the material contributed would have to be published under a Free For Education or Creative Commons license so that contributors can be certain that they will always have access to the resource that they helped to build.

The underlying technology…

The technologies that this resource could be based on include open-source Content Management Systems such as Drupal, Mambo or CivicSpace that all allow a wealth of online contributors to create the resource collaboratively. There are other Wiki tools that I’d like to check out, such as Wikipedia’s MediaWiki, but we need to evaluate which CMS is best suited to the task (for example, I think it needs to be easy to update without using special Wiki tags). I noticed that Drupal has a module for collaborative book or documentation writing and looks impressive all-round, so I might install it soon and check it out first.

Aims/Outcomes (incomplete)

My main outcome would be to:

• Implement an infrastructure to support the collaborative generation of “A guide to blended learning in the knowledge era”

Other related outcomes that I’d be happy to be part of, as long as I’m not stepping on anyone else’s turf:

• Collaboratively generate a resource of fun activities based on sound learning strategies for introducing new free tools to learners (both students and facilitators).
• (edited according to Roisin’s comments) building teachers’ capacity to transform their teaching approaches to enable the development of engaging, community driven and technology-rich blended learning environments.
• ensuring that copyright is strictly adhered to.
• Involve users of the resource in the creation of new content as they discover new tools or applications or activities in their area of expertise.
• ??

I’m planning this resource to compliment/support the possible Learnscope team project “Continuous Learning with Evolving Free and Open Source Software” headed by Maria Trevaskis, which is hoping to trial free and open source software in at least 4 industry areas as part of delivery of courses for students in 2005, but I’m hoping it might compliment other projects that people are working on (esp. people in the TALO community, given how formative the discussions there have been!). Hopefully this resource won’t be conflicting with any Learnscope projects - I was told that Learnscope is focused around Professional Development rather than resource development. I’m just keen to set up the infrastructure and get the ball rolling and am happy to support the needs of other projects.

So, what’s your reaction? Why would/wouldn’t you contribute to this resource? Do you know of something like the collaborative resource described that is already setup? Do you think this resource will be valuable in helping facilitators to make the transition to the new tools (and hence help their students to use them too)? Basically, is it worth setting up this infrastructure? Let me know below!

Back in November last year, we were musing about how we could improve the Web Design course for next semester. Well, now it’s Week 5 of that next semester, so I thought it might be a good time for us all to reflect a bit on how things have been going and get some feedback from all of us - participants and facilitators - on how the course is progressing.

Perceived Problems

First, just to recap what the perceived problems were. One of the issues highlighted through the feedback Genie collected last year was that participants thought the course was delivered either too fast or too slow (corresponding to too little or too much content).

The other main issue that we facilitators identified was that, although students were learning the material throughout the 18 weeks, the last 3-4 weeks was the only time that it was all put into practise as a cohesive whole. This left some participants coming away having completed their client project successfully, but not feeling confident that they could do it again without the classroom support.

The new course…

This semester, we’ve tried to address these issues as well as improve the flexibility of the delivery in a number of ways.

Course and Student Blogs

The central point of contact online has been moved from a password-protected Learning Management System to the much simpler free blogger website: Tafe Web Developer - learning technologies together (note that this provides a point of contact, not a repository of resources that could potentially infringe copyright!). More importantly, participants in the class have been encouraged to create and use their own blog as a means of processing their own learning, communicating their own thoughts to the world and building their technical currency. The participant controls their own learning space beyond the boundaries of the formal course, providing a repository of much (but not all) the learning that they have processed as well as links to the online resources which they have found worthwhile.

I’m also hoping that as we progress through the semester the participant blogs will become a source of information for each other as we develop a learning community - each of us filtering relevant news and information for each other from the Web simply by our common interest.

Self-paced delivery

The participant blogs also provide a way for students to communicate their learning and reflections in their own time. Often in Adult Education the ability to attend the classroom activity varies according to other commitments (work or otherwise). The online learning spaces (blogs) go a small way towards enabling participants to interact with each other’s learning even when they are not physically in the classroom.

More importantly, participants are able to work through the learning at their own pace. Some students may demonstrate competence for a few modules in the first week, while others might want to set some extra time aside to work through unfamiliar material more thoroughly. This has been made possible by agreeing on individual learning contracts where desired and providing a number of self-paced mini-projects for students to learn the required competencies.

The mini-projects

The primary aim of the mini-projects is to provide a way for participants to learn the skills of website design holistically. In the past, each individual module/competency has been taught (usually one after the other) and then participants had to gel all of these together in their client project. What we are trying to do is introduce all topics in some small way in the first mini-project, then build on these from one project to the next.

For example, the first mini-project follows closely from Elizabeth Castro’s excellent new book, Creating a Web Page in HTML, ensuring that all participants learn HTML/CSS the right way from the start. But we also begin learning about client documentation, project management, information architecture, accessibility etc., during this first project so that we have a foundation to build upon for the second mini-project.

The focus of the second project shifts slightly to emphasise more communication skills such as client interviews, project management skills, further documentation, while giving participants an opportunity to practise their HTML/CSS skills as they implement the client requirements.

We will possibly begin a third project concurrently, a real client project from the community. This mini-project will not require handing-in on behalf of the participants, but rather should provide a platform for real learning where we can continue building on our foundation of project management, communication and technical skills by applying ourselves as a team to a real project in the classroom. This project may not be completed by the one class but may rollover into the next semester.

The aim of these mini-projects is that when participants begin their own client projects they will feel confident within themselves to implement the whole project with minimal help from the facilitators - from project planning right through to testing and sign-off. This will provide valid evidence for us facilitators to use for assessment and will hopefully leave successful participants feeling ready to continue implementing web-design projects beyond the boundaries of the course. Again, I’m also hoping that participants will continue to support each other after the course by contributing to each others’ learning on their blogs.

Reflections so far…

This is where I want to hand over to anyone and everyone. Whether you’re a facilitator of the course, or a participant, or someone who just happened to read this, I’m sure you’ve got some constructive criticism or feedback. Some people have already expressed some frustration at constantly updating their blog, others have been thankful for the flexibility that the course structure offers, so whatever you think, you probably won’t be alone! I’ll be adding my own comments expressing both the good and the bad

Seems to me there’s been a whole bunch of articles and blogs lately putting forward the idea that the LMS will be a thing of the past… well not exactly, but perhaps not so… central to student learning.

After arguing that we’ve been pursuing systems to impose bureaurocratic control rather than empower the learner, Parkin’s argues on his blog that:

Learning software vendors still doggedly pursue their vision of reusable learning objects that integrate via a central standards-conformant LMS. Meanwhile, trainers who really want to encourage experience-sharing and dynamic learner-created content are scrambling to understand blogging, RSS, and peer-to-peer networks.

Many LMS vendors don’t “get” learning. Can it really be that they don’t “get” the internet either? Are they so afraid of being non-intermediated that they will fight real progress every step of the way or are they about to help us evolve?

I came across Parkin’s article above, from an elearningspace.org article “Learning Management Systems: the wrong place to start learning” (which I found from Leigh’s blog). In this article, George Siemens argues that (from the intro):

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are often viewed as being the starting point (or critical component) of any elearning or blended learning program. This perspective is valid from a management and control standpoint, but antithetical to the way in which most people learn today.

In this article George is not arguing that LMSs are bad, but just pointing out their disadvantages - they are Learning Management systems, not necessarily effective Learning Environments.

The more I think about these arguments, the more I think that a Technology course (such as Website Design) should empower learners through the use of freely available distributed tools (e.g. www.blogger.com) to continue learning after the formal course ends. Just need to find out how we can use a good combination of blogging, websites and LMSs.

Just in case you followed a link hoping to find information about creating your own blog, I thought I should quickly add some info!

The site that you’re currently viewing is really just for logging (and reflecting on) my own professional development, so it’s not interesting reading , but it may be useful to see how a blog can be used for your own professional development.

BUT, to create your own Blog that looks way more interesting than this one, travel over to Google’s Blogger.com and get started in three easy steps! They even provide a whole bunch of great-looking templates for you to choose from. (Thanks to Leigh Blackall and his presentation on OpenSource software for pointing out how much the Blogger service has improved!)

If you do create one, send me a link or a comment so I can add a link here!

As second semester 2004 is drawing to a close, I find myself experiencing (yet again) the frustration of “last-minute learning” in my Web Design class - and I want to do something about it for next semester.

The problem

The more I think about it, the complete process of designing and implementing a website for a client is really only learned during the last few weeks as the students race to get their Client site finished before the end of semester. It’s during these weeks that the first real Client Documentation is prepared, Information Architectures are designed for the first real situation, MS Project Plans are created for the first real project etc. I think this is due to the linear fashion with which we currently teach all the material (with practical assignments and workshops along the way of course!), until towards the end of the semester when students focus primarily on their client projects. But I’m wondering whether a more iterative learning cycle would be more effective and perhaps more student-centred… for example…

Gene, who teaches parts of the course with Jude and me, came up with the great idea at the end of last semester of using some of the modules that she facilitates (Instructional Design / communications) as a “mini” client project, giving students a small taste of the whole project cycle before their major assessment - their real client project. We tried this approach this semester and I think it worked well for the scope that we gave it: students got a taste of a mock client interview and both Gene and I were able to assess most students on their HTML/CSS/Instructional design skills early in the semester. Yet I think I missed the opportunity to use this mini project as an introduction to the complete web design lifecycle (for example, I could have also introduced information architecture, documenting the design, performance testing, accessibility testing etc.)

The idea

Jude and I had a chat the other day about the possibility of a more iterative (or cyclic?) learning process for the students, where they go through the complete lifecycle two or three times during the semester (this was probably Gene’s original idea!). For example,

1. during the first 2-3 weeks while learning the fundamentals of XHTML and CSS, we could begin the first mini project: planning, designing and implementing our own website. This mini project would include everything from a small MS Project plan, a (brief) information architecture, design, documentation, implementation, performance and accessibility testing.
2. During the implementation phase of the first mini project, we could begin the planning and interviews for the second mini project: the instructional design site. Again going through the complete lifecycle (perhaps in more depth or with more restrictions on accessibility/performance?)
3. During the implementation phase of the second mini project, students could begin the planning/interviews for their actual client project - again going through the whole lifecycle (but this time, hopefully on their own).

Of course, as new skills are learned, students would be (hopefully) updating and maintaining their own websites.

But that’s too much work!

… I hear you saying! And perhaps it is impossible to do this without packing more work into an already bulging course - which I want to avoid at all costs. But perhaps it is possible to do without increasing the workload. For example, we could provide strong scaffolding (in the form of templates) for the documentation, project plan and testing cycle for the first mini project, so really students would be filling in the blanks while learning the ropes. Some of the scaffolding could then be removed for the second mini project and finally taken down completely for the final client project. Similarly, the first mini-project would just introduce many of the techniques/skills without going into much depth, the second could build on those and introduce more depth, while the client project would ideally contain little new learning (probably impossible in practice).

I think this structure would enable us to continue developing the self-paced learning strategies that we’ve used this semester and may even enable further flexibility in terms of blended delivery (once the scaffolding/templates and other resources for the mini-projects have been created/updated).

Any comments or criticisms? Can you see any other ways that this might be helpful or unhelpful for the modules that you teach? Or, if you are a student, does the problem description above fairly describe the situation you are now in and do you think this iterative structure would have been helpful or unhelpful for your learning?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Attended a great workshop/training day at Nepean TAFE yesterday called “Learning for the Future” as a part of the Networking 2004 conference.

The day started with a talk by Richard Neville (entitled “Engaging the Future”) that pulled a few interesting thoughts together about the future of technology, kinda looking at the effects of globalism, the acceleration of technology and sustainability. Although I’ve already been told to “get out of my silo” for saying this, I’ll say it again: I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t put just a little bit of effort in to talk about the future of education and learning. But it was interesting non-the-less

Then there was a talk by the Alan Morrison from the NSW Ambo service demonstrating how they’ve been using flexible delivery within their training programs. This was also interesting to see such a different application of online learning. I was particularly interested in the emphasis Alan had on the need for online socialisation before interaction and - more importantly - knowledge construction can be viable online.

Microsoft then had a quick explanation of their own focus in education, majoring on their Learning Gateway integration tool. Really it didn’t seem to add any value to a custom integration suite for a Uni or othe Educational institution… only seemed to lock you in to using MS technology - both software and hardware (see the Solution overview for Microsoft’s Learning Gateway). Given that most LMSs are using standards-based technologies (XML-RPC or SOAP) for integration, I can’t see the the value that Learning Gateway can add. None-the-less, I got the guys card so I can find out more…

But by far the most interesting session for the day (am I biased?) was a workshop by Leigh Blackall entitled: Using Free and Open Source Software to Create Free and Open Courseware. Guess I was just excited to find someone else more enthusiastic than me about the possibilities of Open Source software and Open Courseware in TAFE!

One of the learning goals that I want to set for my own Professional Development is to develop a greater awareness and understanding of the learning standards.

The two that seem to be most frequently mentioned are SCORM (from ADL) and IMS Learning Design. But these beasts seem bigger than Ben Hur to the uninitiated (me!)… so I’m going to explain what I understand so far, with the knowledge that there might be lots of misunderstandings and gaps at present!

Firstly, from what I understand, SCORM is not actually a standard, it is itself a reference model that encompasses a bunch of standards from different organisations such as ADL, IEEE and IMS. Phillip Dodds, one of the founders of SCORM, says:

In early 1999, I drafted the first version of the Sharable Content Object Reference Model as a way to integrate and “connect” work from other organizations.

SCORM seems to be most focussed on the packaging of learning content into discrete learning objects that can be shared and re-used in different environments. Furthermore, SCORM allows complex directed learning experiences to be designed through the complex sequencing of the content, depending on learner progress.

IMS Learning design, on the other hand, seems to combine the roles of participants and facilitators, together with the available resources, to focus on learning activities. Or perhaps the difference is better expressed by the focus on the process of learning, as opposed to the learning content. In a discussion on a Moodle forum, Michael Klieb says:

But, organizing activities rather than content is the main difference to “content aggregation models” for learning objects like SCORM and IMS-Content-Packaging. Organizing activities of teachers and learners in group (= class) is the “unique selling point” of IMS-LD.
IMS-LD: Stop thinking about putting together resources for learning, start thinking of the learning process.

So, my question is, are they mutually exclusive? Can Learning Design be integrated into a reference model similar to SCORM, or is SCORM inherently based on a single-user e-learning experience, as opposed to Learning Design’s multiple user interactive blended-learning focus? Guess I’ll need to do more research to find out

Just did some reading about another activity based learning system called LAMS, developed at Macquarie Uni. Like Moodle, it seems to be based around social constructivist ideas - there’s lots of links to the IMS Learning Design specification.

Both LAMS and the IMS Learning Design specification have already been discussed on one of the moodle forums. Interesting to note that LAMS is a Java/Flash application, so quite different from Moodle (HTML/PHP). Also interesting to note that Moodle 2 is looking towards the IMS LD Spec!

Really enjoyed the Cert III macros class today. I spent a lot of time on Thursday building activities to scaffold a few concepts/skills in MS Access. I’m particularly enjoying seeing the participants investigating and learning themselves!

For example, one of the focuses today was to see how we can use VBA within Access. We’ve already done extensive work using VBA in Excel, but Access is quite different in that it tries to make things a lot simpler, but inevitably makes things more difficult. We had a discovery task (based on a Moodle forum), where the participants ran out of the blocks to discover themselves how they can display a simple MessageBox from a button on a form (displaying something like “This database was designed by [whoever]”. The participants really got into the activity and raced to find different ways to do so in Access. When some students found a way, they then posted to the forum (with some encouragement) enabling others to try their method.

I then extended a scenario from their Excel VBA coding to Access, enabling participants to build upon their previous knowledge from the Excel exercises - again, letting participants discover and help each other.

I guess I’m really enjoying seeing students discover things themselves through carefully structured activities, rather than just listenting to me telling them how to do it then practicing themselves.

Just some more musings on the thought I had the other day for us, the web-design facilitators, to carry out a web project ourselves each semester.

Perhaps it’d be better to use a single web-project as a case study each semester that we can do together as a class… This’d be a great way to involve the class in the experience, almost like an ongoing workshop, so that they (hopefully) are more confident and clear about their own client project (the main assessment).

I just finished reading Martin Dougiamas’ reflection A Journey into Constructivism. It helpfully presented Martin’s own reflections from learning about constructivism in a format that espouses the benefits of constructivism - as best as one can in an essay! (I guess this essay designed to demonstrate his understanding of constructivism).

The five modes of constructivism identified by the author are as follows:

• Trivial Constructivism
• Radical Constructivism
• Social Constructivism
• Cultural Constructivism
• Critical Constructivism

(The fact that I just remembered all five without referring back to the essay is testament to the clarity of the essay!) I want to overview these concepts briefly before going to play with Mim (daughter) before they slip my mind!

Trivial Constructivism

Trivial perhaps because it is obvious, trivial constructivism is summed up neatly in the essay (?) as

Knowledge is actively constructed by the learner, not passively received from the environment.

Radical Constructivism

Bordering on relativism, radical constructivism sounds similar to the common ideology that everyone constructs their own reality inside their head. While I think this is in some ways true, I wouldn’t go so far as to treat each reality as equally valid nor without context! Most probably my very new understanding of this term is overly simplified and incorrect!

Social Constructivism

Social Constructivism tempers radical constructivism by saying that we construct reality within our own minds yet in the context of our social learning environment. A social-learning environment in the classroom provides a very obvious example of participants learning from the interactions with the facilitator and each other. Each participant’s own landscape of knowledge, beliefs and experience will receive the flow of liquid “content” differently, with meaning gathering or dispersing differently within each participants mind. Furthermore, participants can interact with the flow of the meaning through each others mental-landscape as they question/discuss/encourage each others’ input.

Actually, in hindsight, the analogy of a mental landscape is a bad one in this situation (I think it came from some Edward deBono book that I read years ago about the mind as a self-organising system - I am right, you are wrong: from rock logic to Water Logic). It produces an image of meaning being determined by each participant’s mental landscape, rather than meaning being actively constructed.

Cultural Constructivism

Outside of the immediate social learning environment is the cultural environment of the society, group or school within which the learning is taking place. I’m a bit hazy on the distinction between social and cultural constructivism… guess I’ll need to read more. Does anyone else have helpful input here?

Critical Constructivism

Assuming social and cultural constructivism, critical constructivism seems to be like the term meta-cognition (thinking about thinking). I think the gist of it is reflecting on the constructivism occuring within a learning environment so that constructive steps can be taken to modify the learning environment itself, perhaps challenging social or cultural assumptions. Again, I’ve probably way over-simplified the concept, but it’s a start… am I on the right track?

All in all, a very worthwhile piece of reading! (the original essay by Martin that is!)

I’ve been trialling different methods lately to enable the web-design students to learn at their own pace… but combined with 8 hours of web-design on a Tuesday, it’s progressing at the cost of a headache each week! (For me and the students!)

I think, within a social constructivist framework, it is inevitable that all learners will be at different points of the course… If someone misses a week, I don’t think it’s valid to say, “well, you’ll just have to catch up!”, and expect them to construct this weeks new learning activities on top of a hole where the previous weeks foundation should be. And in and adult learning environment, it is inevitable that participants will be away for substantial amounts of time.

For this reason I’ve been keeping individual progress sheets for the students in class, and setting individual learning contracts. This seems to be working well so far. Most learners are grouped together with one other person who is doing the same activity, and people work well together in these small groups.

Yet this also means that it is more difficult to have activities where we are all together. I’ve been trying to use the forums a little for this purpose (as people can contribute at different points in time without a problem), but I don’t feel this can replace actually working together as a class on some activity or game or discussion etc. I’m instead trying to disperse a few interesting “break activities” that give people a break from the activities that they are working on at their own pace, and to come together to discuss/try/play with something useful but not necessary. For example, yesterday as a break activity, we all had a go at downloading the Web Developers extension for FireFox, played with it for a while, and then talked about the features that we found really useful.

So, all-in-all, it seems to be going well. Students seem positive about the work they are doing and amazingly managed (yesterday) to work well for the whole day (9-5). Everyone is progressing without feeling too overwhelmed. I’m able to keep up with where everyone is up to (using the individual progress sheets) so we don’t waste time trying to work that out each week. But at the end of the day, it is a long day for everyone!

Just had an idea… get it down in writing while it’s still in my head!

What if Jude, Gene and I (the teachers of the Webdesign course), were to take up a local community web-design project each semester, just like the students! It’d be a great way to keep our own skills technically current, while also better prepare for the content that we teach! It’d also be a great way to get TAFE out there in the community and raise the profile of the Web Design course… must talk to Colin/Sherrie/Jenny about this idea!

I finally got around to printing the Technical Currency TAFE material from the Intranet site. Some of the material is really useful, such as the “Getting Started: A guide to planning your professional development”, which is quite motivating and encourages reflection on current skills etc.

The “Suggested Activities for Technical Currency” also looks helpful, lots of ideas to motivate one to get involved!

The “Technical Currency Diary” is a bit disappointing though… looks more like a sign-off for superiors to make sure that professional development activities are being recorded… nothing about reflecting on the activities in a journal for your own development as a professional.

Either way, I’m inspired to set out my professional development plan in writing, and hopefully this journal will be a great place to develop and reflect on the ideas! I’m currently thinking of integrating some of the social-constructivist learning and blended-learning that I’m already doing, but to formalise or focus my learning… i guess just make it more intentional.

The group activities that we ran in class on Friday seemed to work really well! Although not all participants were keen to work in the larger groups, everyone seemed to interact quite well and “socially construct” their knowledge together I spent quite a bit of time on Wednesday trying to build the learning around a social constructivist philosophy.

The paired activities went well too. Participants came up with designs for a database scenario and posted their designs to the discussion forum I had set up, before posting comments on each others designs. We were able to use these to discuss 1st and 2nd Normal form for databases! This was really exciting for me - to see learners discovering the database theory in the context of their own database designs!

Hopefully I can become a bit more efficient in creating similar activity-based learning sessions!

What a mouthful!

I’ve been making a concerted effort lately to apply some of the social constructivist ideas (that I’ve read about during and after my Dip. Ed.) in lessons. I’ve been using Moodle (a Learning Management System with a social constructivist bent) over the past 6 months, as it emphasises activities rather than resources.

I recently posted to a moodle forum, asking for ideas from other people regarding how they use Moodle in a classroom environment to nurture a social learning environment - and this was helpful… (see Moodle strategies to nurture social learning environment). It was quite interesting… most people use the forums and workshops to encourage learners to help each other… most people seem to be quite strict in terms of making sure that people post their questions rather than asking them verbally.

I’m not certain yet myself of the balance… I like using the forums and workshops to stimulate further discussion in class etc.

Anyway, I’ve spent most of today putting together a session for Friday, that will hopefully involve the participants in activities to learn about database normalisation… we’ll see how it goes!