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.

Code of ethics

I had a discussion with Angelica about Bower Places' policy and procedures. Angelica identified the Australian Psychological Society's standards and the Australian Association of Social Workers' Code of Ethics as the foundation for Bower Places practice. Cheryl and I talked about ways of incorporating these standards into an on line experience for our students. Cheryl offered to explore webquest.
Cheryl and I also talked about videoing on the job scenarios at Anglicare and Bower Place. We will talk to Claire about this idea on Friday.

The 1st fortnight

The 1st two weeks has been a very successful time with the students developing relationships on line as well as in the classroom. The students have demonstrated a willingness to develop skills needed for e learning. A student suggested it would be good to have an introduction to e learning session early in the orientation fortnight and another one in the second week. I think this idea is worth considering for next time. Cheryl has worked extremely hard with the students giving technical advice as well as encouragement. I know the students have really appreciated Cheryl's time and effort. As a person knew to this way of learning I have also appreciated Cheryl's skills.
Many students are posting blogs confidently and there is a lot of on line chatter which I think has contributed to the cohesiveness of the group.

End of orientation

How can it be that the first two weeks of classes are over already and we are off to Bower Place tomorrow!!!! I feel like I have been glued to the Moodle for two weeks prior to orientation and now it is over.

What a good two weeks it was though! Full on but I think everyone, lecturers and students included all finished up with a sense of achievement. On Friday, only 7 students had yet to log on to Moodle. Out of the seven only one had attended an elearning session and she had just forgotten her password, so I think that is pretty good considering we had 40 students(?).

I have been really impressed with the students interacting on the Moodle. I created a new student account today as part of the video tutorials I have been creating for students (see http://elearningtutorials.blogspot.com) and when I logged into the classroom for Certificate IV I could see all the postings in the last ten days which includes around 230 postings made by students:



In the elearning sessions I ran I encouraged students to post their questions to the appropriate forums and I also encouraged them to answer each others questions if they could and they have really risen to the challenge.

I truly believe the orientation sessions are so important, especially to get them excited and really keep reinforcing the notion of community!!!

We are also using blogs for online journals and I think most students have created them. We have had some issues with privacy and I will collate a list of students email addresses and then everyone can invite each other to read their blog and set their blog up to be invited readers only. In hindsight I would do more investigation on privacy - I hadn't anticipated students having so many issues with other people outside of the class reading their blogs.

I am hoping the videos I have created at http://elearningtutorials.blogspot.com will help everyone with the blogs and the moodle. I will keep creating these as we go along with the aim of having a complete set of them for the students next time around. I also have handouts for some tasks and they are on this site as well.

I really would have like longer for the elearning orientation sessions (moodle and blogs) - I was meant to have a full day with all students but only ended up with 3 hours as we couldn't get computer suites all day!!! Students also stated they would have liked longer. It would have been handy to have some time in the second week also to troubleshoot problems.

There was only a small number of students who didn't have basic computing skills. In retrospect it would be good to be able to identify these students and get them some assistance prior to the orientation sessions. Although these students will have access to me in Bower Place on Wednesday afternoons and all day Friday from tomorrow it would have been good to alleviate some of their stress before the orientation sessions - I worry they will be behind the eight ball now. Though having said that, other students have been really helpful and I have been on the Moodle answering any queries every night and weekends so they haven't gone unassisted.

Overall though, I am very pleased with the outcomes from the last two weeks and can't wait to see what happens next! :-)

Project

Hello Cheryl & Helen,

Now that orientation has completed at TAFESA it is off to Bower Place, all the best. Don't forget I will need weekly blogs on the progress of the course please; and if you are able to capture any photo's of interesting students on placement, please do. I will keep you informed on my progress and anything else. The mid project report is due for posting this Thursday, wish me luck.

Cheers
Claire Ramsay

Workshop

Hi Helen and Susan,

Just a reminder we have our first professional development workshop for
the innovations project. You will find all the details on the TAFE @
Bower edna group ~ http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=1897
(Helen, could you please register with edna groups and join this group
before the workshop).

See you around 9.30am.

Cheers
Cheryl.

Meeting with Marlene and Janet

Hi all,

Just realised I made an error in my last email, Janet and Marlene are
coming out to Port Adelaide, Wednesday 23 July at 9.30am. Oops, sorry
about that.

Cheers
Cheryl.

Email to Susan and Helen

Hi all,

Janet McMillan and Marlene Manto are coming out Tuesday morning next week 22 July at 9.30am for around one hour if either of you are available and want to play that would be great.

Cheers,
Cheryl

Have a look at this ...

Very interesting concept!

http://www.webertube.com/mediadetails.php?key=5a9d989add6e92e23fef&media_edit=true

Fwd: Catching Up

>>> Janet McMillan 9/07/2008 3:49 pm >>>
Hi Everyone,

Good news - Marlene Manto has returned from overseas and is eager to find out how the Innovations projects are progressing. I will be in touch to organise a visit before August.

The contracts are on their way to you if you have sent in your business cases and posted on edna groups to introduce yourselves. [11 out of 12 is encouraging!! - c'mon i Qu Blue] I encourage all of you to go to http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/forum/view.php?id=52544 to read about fellow projects.

When you receive the contract, follow the instructions to return the signed contract plus any required documentation to us asap, so that the 40% funding can be activated for you.

cheers
Janet

Janet McMillan
TAFE SA Student Counsellor
Noarlunga Campus
SA Innovations Co-ordinator
Ph: 0422003120
janetmac@internode.on.net

Workshops

Well, it is starting to fall into place. Michael Coghlan is coming Monday 21 July 2-5 pm to do a workshop on voice and Janet McMillan is coming Friday 1 August all day to do workshops on digital storytelling and communities of practice. Now I just need to make sure I can get computer rooms!

Workshops

Hi Suan and Helen,

Thank you both for filling out the meetomatic request I sent out. There
are only two days that we are all available so could I please book you
both for those days. They are Monday 21 July and Friday 1 August.

I will be organising workshops for those days and will advise you of the
details once I have confirmed the presenters.

Regards
Cheryl.

Wow!!!

Just came across "Evernote". http://www.evernote.com/ This looks fantastic. I am not going to say anything more than that because you need to go to the web site and watch the demo video. No really, I couldn't do it justice!

Email from Janet

(Sent to Susan Johnson - forwarded to me)

>>> Janet McMillan 25/06/2008 4:16 pm >>>
Hi all,
Thanks for sending in your Business cases and posting your introductions on edna. To view each others postings and make comments go to http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/forum/view.php?f=9549
The contracts are being drawn up and Elena assures me that they will be posted out to you by 13/7/08 and then you will receive monies after the return of the signed contracts.
I am keen to visit and see how you are progressing (also provide a helping hand or two, as needed) in the next couple of months.I will be in touch for suitable times or you can email me if you know when you want to see me.
Keep eet up.
cheers
janet
Janet McMillan
TAFE SA Student Counsellor
Noarlunga Campus
SA Innovations Co-ordinator
Ph: 0422003120
janetmac@internode.on.net

Project Update

Our business case has been completed and was submitted as required on Tuesday, 10 June. Even though it was a time consuming task, it was extremely worthwhile as we were required to be very clear about what our objectives were and how we go forward from here.

The first project team posting to the SA Framework website has been done today. My apologies to everyone - I can't believe I forgot to do it on Friday!

Possible staff PD workshops have been identified and emails have gone out to the following facilitators requesting workshops:

• Michael Coghlan ~ podcasting, centra
• Janet McMillan ~ digital storytelling, communities of practice
• Judy Fawcett ~ ARED

Michael Coghlan, bless his heart, has visited us today at Bower Place. On further discussion with Michael, it was decided a course in online moderation and facilitation would be more beneficial at this stage for staff than centra or podcasting. Michael has agreed to run a three week course in Moodle for staff in August if we can get enough people involved to make it viable. He ran this course for some Bower Place staff last year, so other Bower Place staff and lecturing staff from CS&H at Port Adelaide will be approached.

Phone meeting with Janet McMillan

Susan and I had a phone meeting today with Janet McMillan, the Innovations Project leader, in regard to our draft business case. Janet was able to access it via the edna group.

Janet made the following suggestions in regard to:

(1) The budget:

• we need to be spreading items more evenly across the funding from the Framework and from TAFE, eg, catering costs, toolboxes, meeting costs
• we include consultants, eg, herself, Michael Coghlan and Margaret Granger
• include funding for more staff to go to e-dayz
• increase admin funding

(2) ROI:

• doesn't have to have $s against it
• sent email with attachment with ROI from Business incubator case which is applicable to us also
• is about deliverables that will be produced, for example
• theory model around integrated learning approach
• case study
• report
• student evaluation tool , ie, survey monkey
• presentation at e-dayz
• communication strategy
• student's journals (extracts from for feedback)
• it would be advisable to separate the ROI for TAFE, Bower Place and the framework

(3) Support:

• have done the section well on how project aligns with TAFE strategic plan but should include a paragraph on how it aligns to Bower Place business plan and about their business model and the sustainability of the project

(4) Risks:

• find out what's happening for students on an ongoing basis - suggested strategy would be to have them writing an online journal or blog so we can keep an eye on them along the way to prevent any problems further down the track

Meeting with Angelica ~ Tuesday 3 June

There is a need for some system that students can log on and log off when they are here at Bower Place so their hours are being recorded. Alison Roberts mentioned to Angelica previously this would also be required for AQTF. Angelicare been looking at JD Punch clock.

Requirements:

• not remote log in
• students log in in computer lab when they arrive and when they leave
• must be able to say why they are here, eg, transcript, client observation, seminar
• software must be able to be customised to make appropriate for Bower Place
• students could also be logged in and off by front desk person
• should have password so students can't log each other in
• must be able to generate reports for each student totalling hours etc

ACTION ITEMS:

1. Cheryl to investigate what software is available and easily customisable
2. Angelica to email Cheryl links for software she found

Meeting with Malcolm ~ Tuesday 3 June

Susan, Malcolm and I met this morning. There was general discussion on the outcomes of the meeting Malcolm had with Alison Roberts on Friday and on the future directions of Bower Place.

Malcolm talked about students being sent alerts when new articles were added to the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy.

ACTION ITEMS:

1. Cheryl to investigate the possibility of feeds from the Journal of Family Therapy on the moodle site.
2. Cheryl to obtain the Interactive Ochre toolbox for Malcolm and Susan.

Meeting with Angelica ~ Friday 30 May

Met with Angelica at Bower Place to confirm she was able to be part of the project. Angelica is happy to liase with Anglicare to obtain their legal and ethical requirements that students must be aware of before they go out on placement. The Anglicare contact is Helen Connolly. Simon Schrapel is the executive manager.

Client information forms for Bower Place can be found on the web at http://clientinfo.bowerplace.com.au/

ACTION ITEMS:

1. Angelica to create a log in for Cheryl at Bower Place
2. Angelica to register on edna groups and join the TAFE @ Bower group
3. Cheryl to investigate if posts can be emailed to this blog (we want to keep all emails from the different parties in one place and it would helpful if emails could just be forwarded to this blog)

Business Case meeting ~ Thursday 29 May

Susan and I met at TAFE to discuss the business case. We decided we will use the template provided so we meet all requirements. We also decided on the questionnaires we would use to measure the benefits of this project.

We discussed me taking a bigger role and Susan more of a support role as she has a number or other large commitments. I will continue working on the Business Case and include it on the edna group as a wiki so everyone concerned can edit it. http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=1897

Notes from discussion (will be incorporated in Business Case):

• developing really clear knowledge and skills around all of the legal and ethical requirements necessary in order to work in Community Services
• create a platform for students to access in order to have the necessary knowledge and skills whilst working at Bower Place and prior to working at Anglicare
• create a model that we can apply to any work placement organisation
• clinical setting for teaching of first point of contact skills
• students exposed to legal and ethical requirements in Bower Place and the legal and ethical standards required in the industry placement
• platform (moodle classroom) is to gain all of the information around requirements, protocols, mandated requirements of CS workers
• must also include any industry specific information around referrals, networks, support groups etc.
• understand the diversity of services available through the organisation
• understanding specialist areas (ie, Anglicare) eg, aged care, refugee, family and community development, poverty, housing
• questionnaires: (1) checklist before classes start, ie, skills audit type thing when they arrive at Bower Place (2) prior to Anglicare nb: placements in Oct and Nov (3) post Anglicare
• questionnaires looking to confirm we are successful in preparing students for their placement

ACTION ITEMS:

1. Malcolm to clearly define scope of project
2. Susan to email Malcolm and Angelica about getting Angelica's help with the project
3. Cheryl to keep working on Business Case
4. Cheryl to set up edna group for the project

Early days

The story so far:
Cheryl, Malcolm and Susan attended the e-learning Innovations day on the 23rd May at Sunnybrae (wonderful venue).

It was good to see what other groups were doing and to get a clearer sense of our process. As a team we had an opportunity to really get clear about the scope of our project.

We have decided to create this group blog to get a record of what we are doing. We are also going to create an edna group for this project which will allow us to store all of our relevant information. The link for the edna group is: http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=1897 and the invitation key is Bower. (Should be good to go by 1st June).

Exciting

This is very exciting to think we are creating a way of recording every step and learning new skills at the same time.