Reflections on the last month ...

Wow, where did that time go!!! It has been so full on with creating resource materials, maintaining the moodle classroom, doing student placement and helping students in the computer lab at Bower Place I haven't had time to blink.

I have got to say though this course has been unbelievably successful. I can't believe how much the students love it! No, I mean really love it!!! After the first couple of weeks settling in and feeling their way, they have taken to all of it with such gusto and enthusiasm like I have never seen before. They are still madly moodling and blogging and continue to read each other's blogs regularly and comment on them also. I always expected this to abate after the fun wore off, but this doesn't seem to be the case. I am so glad we perservered with the blogs especially after the initial reluctance from students to post their thoughts for others to see.

The blogs have probably caused us more hassle than moodle overall too. The biggest problem has been privacy and keeping blogs closed to the public. Whilst we have been able to get around some of this with having "invitation only" blogs the implementation of this has been a pain. Students have had to invite everyone in the class to their blog - this wasn't such a problem though because I collated a list of everyone's email which they just had to copy and paste into the blogger security option. The nuisance has been everyone having to accept 35 invitations and not everyone has done that. The other pain in the neck has been the inability to track blogs via google reader or bloglines when they are private. Blogger has just incorporated a new feature called "following". This would have got around some of this issue but there has been some inconsistencies in being able to follow private blogs so we have not been able to successfully implement this feature.

For future semesters we need to investigate what other blog options are open to us. I am wondering if edublogs is a better option and if they have the same issues (I need to follow this up with edublogs guru Sue Waters). Ideally we want the privacy but we really want to be able to do feeds to make reading blogs easier. I am also wondering if we had blogs hosted on the TAFE servers would privacy be any less of an issue but I'm tired and it is late so I could just be delirious at this point.

We also need to make sure we plan for extra time in orientation to ensure all blogs are set up correctly. I think it would be useful to have two sessions with students not just one.

Whilst we haven't had too many problems with students who have had no computer experience, we have had a couple of students who have fallen into this category who I think we could have served better. We really need to identify these students during enrolment and ensure they have extra help prior to orientation. These students would need at least a couple of days being taught computer basics as well as internet and email basics. All students should be able to access web pages, as well as send and receive emails before the orientation sessions. All students should also have a current email address as well so time is not wasted setting these up for some students.

I think that is all for now. I leave for Brisbane on Tuesday for a three day Moodle conference and then a week's holiday with my family in Brisbane and Byron Bay. I will still get to be part of everything that is going on via Moodle and our blogs so won't be missing out on much at all.

Protopage

I have just created a protopage for the competency Legal and Ethical Framework which contains feeds etc the students can use to access current topics in the news. The protopage also contains feeds from two Australian lawyer blogs and del.icio.us links as well. The page can be viewed at http://www.protopage.com/chccs301a.

The moodle contains a link to this protopage as well as the fantastic powerpoint presentation that Helen and Claire have been working on. This contains audio from Helen who narrates the slides.

Week 6

Have had further thoughts of the Legal and Ethical powerpoint so shall talk to Claire about making it more 'lively' also need to add direction regarding what needs to be posted on the forum.
Have had to address a matter of breaching confidentiality in a student's response. Have told students that identification of clients needs to be as brief as e.g Monday's client.
Shall talk with Cheryl and Susan regarding the resource books and questions that we have used this time. Need to be clear about their purpose and if we could do something more innovative next time.
A few students developed discussions on the forum so have directed the other students to look at these examples.

Week 5

Cheryl and I have been working on the unit Recognise and respond to domestic and family violence. We are pleased with the end result. I am trying to encourage students to discuss ideas in the forum. My forms of encouragement have been modelling and face to face encocuragement. Not much success so far but the answering of questions from a resource book limits the opportunity for discussion. Hopefully the format of the domestic violence unit will encourage discussion.
The course content for the next unit Maintain Organisation's Systems is ready for Cheryl's magic.
The students continue to support each other with helpful hints like how to make sure you save your work as there have been a few sad stories about lost work.
Cheryl's contribution continues to be invaluable.

A challenge

The main development for me this week has been a significant shift in my understanding of discussions in the forum rather than just answering questions as the students are doing at the moment.
One student included in his blog an observation made by another student which of course could be the start of discussions amongst the students.
I have challenged the students to use this student's blog as an example for this week's postings. I will also pick up the challenge.
We decided to discontinue face to face tutorials sessions because of a few factors, OHS issues, student preferences and a realisation on my part that this learning methodology is counter productive to e-learning principles.
Cheryl has suggested training in forum discussions which will greatly benefit the development of the program. Cheryl is pursuing training options for us.

More ideas for e learning

Had a terrific meeting with Claire, Cheryl and Jeff Mee on Friday. As the student counsellor Jeff agreed to develop a scenario around Duty of Care which Claire will video. I will develop some scenarios to be filmed at Anglicare and Bower Place. Confidentiality will be one of the areas to be explored. Cheryl has offered to explore how webquest can be used. Advocacy may be a topic to be explored.
Suggested ethical game with appropriate activity to go with it. I have emailed a powerpoint presentation to Claire so that she can think about links to the topics covered in the presentation. With Claire or Cheryl's guidance I will speak to this powerpoint.
I used one of Cheryl's videos successfuly the other day and shall talk to the students regarding their access to these excellent videos.

End of week 1 at Bower Place

Overall a good week, apart from a few teething problems which of course is to be expected. The students are so excited to be at Bower Place, everyone was very keen and a lot of students turned up on Monday. It was maybe a bit disappointing for them there were no clients but Marten organised DVDs and exercises for the students in observation so I think that was very valuable for those that were there.

My week has been full on with students on the Moodle keeping track of what everyone is doing and problem solving. Still lots of activity from students and still lots of interaction on the forums with students answering each other's questions. People are starting to blog and I have collated a list of emails so students can "invite" readers as a way to keep their blogs private.

Wednesday afternoon, I only had 3 students in the computer room wanting help. I don't think this was necessarily a reflection of all who needed help but I had to laugh when a couple of students said Wednesday lunchtime after we had all been to the tutorial together that they would leave coming to see me until another day because I looked so tired. :-)

Today we had lots of students in the computer room including three who still hadn't got onto Moodle so that was fantastic to know at the end of the day everyone was in. I pointed a number of students to the videos I had created as I couldn't help all of them at the same time so I was very glad I had done those. I was surprised more students hadn't looked at them but my observation today would have been most were just looking for the instant answer to their questions or someone to show them what to do. I did get some positive feedback about the videos once they saw one or two so hopefully they will go there for help when I am not available.

The forum for the competency "Utilise specialist communication skills" was opened on Sunday and at the time of writing this had 77 posts. This is where students are answering activities. I was very pleased to see how quickly they started this task and how quickly they are posting answers.

So, to sum up, I think it was a good week with lots of positive outcomes and continued improvement by the students with the technology.