Workshop details

Description: Participants will explore alternative learning designs that build on cases, tasks, problems and role plays rather than relying on a knowledge base at the centre of the design.

Facilitator: Dr Martin Valcke

Audience level: General

Background: Dr Martin Valcke is currently Professor of Instructional Sciences and Head of the Department of Educational Sciences at Ghent University in Belgium. His main fields of interest are innovation in higher education, and the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

Major topics of Martin’s research are related learning styles, alternative assessment, evaluation procedures, and work-based training. His previous work at the Dutch Open University focused on systems to design, develop and use flexible learning materials for ‘just-in-time’ delivery.

Martin has been involved in many national and international research projects across Europe, Africa, and Latin and Middle America, introducing ICT-based open and distance learning strategies in traditional higher-education institutes. His research outputs and publication lists are extensive, and demonstrate the range of his experience from micro to meso-level.

Description: Participants in this hands-on workshop will be introduced to the Learning Management System, Moodle. The will review the system as students and tutors. Demonstrator accounts, valid for 30 days post- workshop, will be created for users.

Facilitators: Meredith Henson & John Clayton

Audience level: All tertiary educators with basic computing skills

Desired outcomes: On the completion of this workshop participants will be able to:

1. Understand how Moodle fits the New Zealand context
2. Evaluate Moodle from a student perspective
3. Evaluate Moodle from a tutor perspective
4. Create a basic educational course
5. Reflect on the potential benefits of using open source solutions in their own institutions.

Background: Meredith Henson is the Virtual Facilities Advisor for The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. In this role she is responsible for maintaining the Online Campus, which is the largest installation of Moodle world wide. She is also working on the eCDF funded New Zealand Open Source Virtual Learning Environment project.

John Clayton is manager of the Centre for Learning Technologies at the Waikato Institute of Technology. In 2002 he was awarded the general staff award for excellence by the Association of Polytechnics in New Zealand. He is currently project leader for two eCDF-funded projects: the Open Source Courseware Initiative of New Zealand, and Open Source Learning Object Repository projects.

http://moodle.org/

Description: eXe is an off-line authoring environment designed to assist teachers and academics to publish of web content without needing to be proficient in HTML or XML markup.

The workshop will provide an overview of the background and motivations behind the eXe project, then lead a hands-on workshop session demonstrating how to create learning content with the system. This will include: authoring content, creating iDevices, adding metadata, and exporting content as SCORM packages or self-contained web sites. We will also import content generated by eXe into the Moodle learning management system.

Audience level: Anyone interested in eLearning

Facilitators: Helena Mill & Brent Simpson

Desired outcomes: To promote the use of eXe as an authoring environment for eLearning in New Zealand, and to extend the community of users.

Background: In her brief time with the University of Auckland Helena has covered a lot of ground. A short-term contract to redesign teaching resources in the Department of Accounting and Finance was extended to that of fulltime learning designer. Helena then spent a year in the School of Medical and Health Science before moving to CFDL as learning designer to the eXe project. Fascinated by both learning and technology, Helena has spent a large part of her career figuring out how things work and passing that knowledge on, using emerging technologies.

Brent Simpson has a long and varied relationship with IT in education, including spells at a variety of American educational institutions such as UCLA and the University of Texas at Austin. Formerly Web Developer at the Centre for Flexible and Distance Learning at the University of Auckland, Brent now works full time on interface design and development for the eXe project. He is also investigating emerging standards for eLearning — particularly SCORM, IMS Content Packaging, and metadata schemas.

http://exe.cfdl.auckland.ac.nz/

Description: How can a set of quality guidelines bring real performance improvements for eLearning practitioners? This workshop will introduce New Zealand eLearning quality guidelines that are: flexible so that they can be applied to the diverse tertiary context, easy to use, and able to evolve as understanding on best practice develops. This workshop will explore how these guidelines can be applied to a participant’s institution.

Facilitators: Sue Dark, Stephen Marshall, John Milne

Audience level: eLearning practitioners, TEO managers, Adult Education practitioners and managers

Desired outcomes: To be aware of the NZ eLearning quality guidelines. To identify various applications of the guidelines for eLearning delivery. To develop initial ideas for implementation approaches that embeds the guidelines into local practice.

Background: Sue Dark joined The Open Polytechnic in May 2005 as E-learning Professional Development Advisor. Her key responsibilities are to develop a formal programme of development to improve the take up and use of e-learning among academic staff, improve instructional design skills and build greater knowledge sharing opportunities across all departments to enable better support of students.

Dr Stephen Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in Educational Technology, University Teaching Development Centre at Victoria University of Wellington. Stephen is the project manager of the Tertiary e-learning Research Funded: Determination of New Zealand Tertiary Institution e-Learning Capability: An Application of an e-Learning Maturity Model. Stephen is also a board member of eLearnz and a practicing teacher and researcher in the area of e-learning.

John Milne is currently developing guidelines for quality e-learning as part of an eCDF project that is based at Massey University. His work on supporting the use of learning technology in teaching began in the early 1990s and included the establishment and running of the Learning Technology Unit at the University of Aberdeen. John values helping people fulfil their potential through high quality education.

Description: Martin will examine collaborative learning designs based on empirical evidence.

Facilitator: Dr Martin Valcke

Audience level: General

Background: Dr Martin Valcke is currently Professor of Instructional Sciences and Head of the Department of Educational Sciences at Ghent University in Belgium. His main fields of interest are innovation in higher education, and the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

Major topics of Martin’s research are related learning styles, alternative assessment, evaluation procedures, and work-based training. His previous work at the Dutch Open University focused on systems to design, develop and use flexible learning materials for ‘just-in-time’ delivery.

Martin has been involved in many national and international research projects across Europe, Africa, and Latin and Middle America, introducing ICT-based open and distance learning strategies in traditional higher-education institutes. His research outputs and publication lists are extensive, and demonstrate the range of his experience from micro to meso-level.

Description: This workshop will show how video conferencing (VC) can be used to extend teaching and learning to remote communities. It is based on the pilot use of VC in the Marae Based Studies (MBS) program, a Te Wänanga-o-Raukawa initiative to deliver education to students based at marae. The speakers will discuss the rationale for using VC, the process taken to set it up and the ongoing work necessary to evaluate it as a mainstream teaching option.

Facilitators: Maria Collier & Graeme Everton

Audience level: General

Desired Outcomes: To explore the potential of videoconferencing to reach beyond the confines of the traditional classroom and out to the communities of which students are a part.

Background: For the past 4 years Maria has been advising and tutoring Graduate level students at Te Wänanga-o-Raukawa. While Maria cannot lay claim to a lot of industry experience, her strong interest is in maximising the learning experience of students through eLearning. Her participation in this workshop is that of assistant facilitator tasked with the role of sharing a recent experience of teaching student audiences at different locations, via videoconferencing.

Maria’s involvement in education has included work with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Singapore teaching Vietnamese children English as a second language. Teaching hearing-impaired children sign language was another activity. This sojourn stimulated the teaching interest and lead to 4 years, as a teacher aide for special needs children.

Graeme Everton is an eLearning researcher at Te Wänanga-o-Raukawa, devising initiatives that engage Maori educators and learners in the use of technology in teaching. His initiatives have included education broadcasting, Te Reo online and as a key architect in planning and writing the eCDF programme Te Ako Hikohiko. His current initiative is to provide Video Conferencing for Marae Based Studies, a programme designed to deliver Te Wänanga-o-Raukawa’s course to over 27 Marae and Kura Kaupapa based affiliates. He sums up his philosophy in the title of his workshop, Education Without Borders, acknowledging a future that doesn’t confine education to a single classroom but seeks to nurture education in communities no matter where they are.

Description: The workshop links into the Government’s e-learning Collaborative Development-funded project: “Tools for delivering scenario-based e-learning both locally and across the Internet”.

he workshop will cover scenario-based learning; explore a technique for storyboarding these scenarios, and view prototype e-learning tools that assist in scenario-based learning (PBL-Interactive and CHALLENGE FRAP (Form for the Analysis of Problems)). Participants will get hands-on experience of storyboarding and developing a problem-based scenario with PBL-Interactive. Discussion sessions on this mode of learning will be included.

Facilitator: Terry Stewart

Audience level: Tertiary teachers interested in eLearning, and eLearning support people in tertiary institutions.

Desired outcomes: To generate enthusiasm amongst participants for the techniques and technology so that they feel they are involved in helping develop these, and so will understand and use them once they are widely available.

Background: Terry Stewart has been developing computer-based tools and techniques for scenario-based learning for over 25 years. The eLearning Collaborative Development Fund project that underpins this workshop is a continuation of this work.
Terry holds a PhD in computerised tools for decision-making and training, and in 2002 gained a Graduate Diploma in Information Sciences (with distinction). He is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Natural Resources at Massey University and won a National Tertiary Teachers excellence award in 2003.

http://pbl.massey.ac.nz

Description: This workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to explore the blogosphere. Find out what a blog is, how to blog, how to find blogs in your area, and explore ideas for using blogs in your own teaching. The workshop is very hands-on, and participants will explore various blogging software and tools. Participants will be able to go away armed with ideas and a plan of how they can use blogs themselves.

Facilitator: Carol Cooper

Audience level: Teachers with little or no experience of using blogs for teaching and learning.

Desired Outcomes: At the end of the workshop participants will be:

1. Able to describe/define weblogs
2. Able to create a blog and make blog entries
3. Able to search for blogs in their subject areas
4. Able to use a blog aggregator to read blogs
5. Aware of some uses of blogs in teaching and learning.

Background: Carol Cooper is Manager of Teaching and Learning Services at Lincoln University. She has been involved in using technologies in learning and teaching for 20 years: learning, teaching and supporting colleagues. She is an avid reader and writer of blogs and is currently researching their use with students with her colleague Lyn Boddington. They have recently presented papers on their work at Sydney and Hong Kong.

Carol's Teaching and Learning Blog can be found at http://www.carol-cooper.org/blog/.