This tool will allow you to view summaries of all funded 2008 projects nationally, it links to the project sites, all project documentation and presentations are shared.

We’re planning on showcasing what people are doing with their course delivery and to try to inspire others to give it a go.  The first meeting is in being held in Port Macquare 10th March and I’ll do updates as how it goes.  The LTT might find some of my expereinces (!!) helpful.

I know Linda Johnston uses Second Life for her beauty therapy students and possibly there are others out there that use it as well so, I thought this paper might make interesting (holiday) reading.

It was presented at the 2008 Annual ASCILITE (Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education ) conference.

Here’s the abstract to give you an idea of what it’s all about…

Regulation, governance and harms stemming from the use of virtual worlds and other Massive Multi Media Online Role Playing Games (MMMORPGs) in higher education, are poorly understood and under-researched issues. Second Life, developed by Linden Labs, provides users with a series of generic ‘terms of service’ and codes of conduct, yet place the bulk of responsibility on individual users or groups to report misbehaviour or develop their own behavioural codes, enforcement procedures and punishments suited to their particular needs. There is no guidebook to assist users in the processes of risk identification and management. As such, the various benefits of MMMORPG technologies could be offset by the risks to users and user-groups from a range of possible harms, including the impact of actual or perceived violence within teaching and learning settings.

While cautioning against the direct translation of real-world regulatory principles into the governance of virtual worlds, this paper suggests theoretical and practical guidance on these issues can be taken from recent criminological developments. Using Lawrence Lessig’s (1999) landmark work on cyber-regulation as a starting point, this paper examines the literature on video-game violence to illustrate the need for educators show awareness of both real and perceived risks in virtual worlds as a core element of an emerging educational pedagogy. We identify how the multiple roles of the virtual-world educator become useful in framing this pedagogy to improve student learning, to dispel myths about the risks of immersive technologies and advocate for their adoption and acceptance in the educational community.

Here’s the paper!

cheers,

Neal

Not your usual Seasons Greetings

This a great example of how LTT members continue to engage staff and the positive effects these tools are having.

How?

Well,  CS&H teachers from:
  Child Studies,
        Nursing and
                  Welfare
met with Alex (from the Hub) .

We were sitting in
  Port Macquarie
      Taree and
          Coffs Harbour.

We achieved great outcomes,
    worked on Moodle course creation, and
           shared destops using Adobe Connect …  

with no travel involved.

The vision is working.

Local Construction teacher Shane Johnston contacted me recently (approximately 3 or 4 weeks ago) regarding developing some courses in Moodle. He had previously used quite a few technologies in his classroom, but was keen to go a bit further.

Shane is now starting to develop teaching resources in the Construction area of our North Coast TAFE Moodle site. Coming to the end end of this two years project, his interest and support has really given me a boost and engaged me to work closer with him to progress our Faculty Moodle space.

Well done Shane, see you at the end of year bash!!

(sorry Paul, I had to put your photo in, it’s such a good one! Alex)

iTunes U is a part of the iTunes Store featuring free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more, that you can enjoy on your iPod, iPhone, Mac or PC. Explore over 75,000 educational audio and video files from top universities, museums and public media organizations from around the world.

Click here and watch this video on iTunes U

8 teams of 4 library staff.

With more staff we can now increase service flexibility outside the library walls both physically and virtually. We’re looking forward to liaising more closely with teachers, WeLCs and FeLCs.

We also have specialist library teams and faculty aligned teams. I’m in the Educational specialist team which has identified del.icio.us, Netvibes  and rss as useful tools we can introduce to teachers. In 2009 I aim to take my support directly into the teacher offices to help set up del.icio.us on teacher pc’s.

Moving towards providing virtual library services, in 2008 several libraries have already developed campus wikis and blogs – NCTAFE Wikis - NCTAFE Library Blogs

NCTAFE librarians have been using Adobe Connect for meetings and training. Travel time saved has meant F2F customer service could continue with minimal disruption, not to mention the valuable safety and environmental benefits.

With the Don’t be afraid celebration coming up on 11 December I hope you can meet a few librarians there and share 2008 success stories!

Click on the link to see an interview with one of our CGVE students who had just watched videos from teachertube embedded in our CGVE wiki- these gave her intro information on the Global Warming topic and helped motivate her to get started with further research. The main point she makes is that the info presented this way meant she was not nervous, anxious or negative prior to hearing the data- whereas  reading thick wads of text freaks her out befroe she starts.

I also made one with using wikis with youth students. Here are the links.

• http://webconf.det.nsw.edu.au/youthgened/
• http://webconf.det.nsw.edu.au/youthgenedwiki/

Writing this now as I know I’ll have so much work to do soon at end of year that I may not get this done. Just want to thank the whole LTT- especially Arabella, who really has been our intrepid leader into unchartered territory for many or of us- didn’t lose a traveller! To Alex and Des who have never lost patience with my silly questions and confused state at times (what’s the URL? Is this a Blog or a wiki?)-their assistance, advice and leadership has blown me away! The things/projects I am now working on are evidence of your success:

• Using Share Point like a trooper- helping Gen Ed Faculty with maintaining resources and our Assessment Validation site and process.
• Developing a CGVE Moodle site with interactive TaLE activities and many other great web tools and sites to engage students-something I thought only the ‘tech’ people could ever do! Making videos, finding great activities for youth students. Wouldn’t you rather see it in color/movement/interactive than read a #!… 20 page handout on the same thing!?
• Starting to run meetings in Adobe with staff to demonstrate software, moodle and  have convenient, safe, environmentally sound meetings.
• Using iPod & Italk with students and staff- Just today we had evidence of a major breakthrough- one of our very technophobic staff rang to say she was using the iPod for recording assessment tasks with students!! WOW that is fantastic.

Thinking about our youth students-we need to present activities using current technologies but in an educationally sound way. Listened to a great lecture by Baronness Professor Susan Greenfield on her thesis on “People of the Book Vs People of the Screen’ discussing the differences between we Digital Immigrants & those Digital Natives in the ways it effects learning and more importantly the development of how mental constructs, scaffolding, schemas and brain /thinking formation occur and develop. Made me think that we have a responsibility to engage our students using the technologies, but more importantly to offer this in a critical way- many youth use the technologies in a negative way- we must use them, but in ways which not only engage but EDUCATE, not just the content but the tool itself.

Listen to Professor Greenfield’s interview on All In The Mind-Radio National November 1st 08 (click on the Listen Now link) http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/default.htm

Also read script from Enouh Rope interview with Greenfield for more background on her. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1198694.htm

My goal for 2009 is that I actually assist more Gen Ed staff with the myriad skills I have learnt this year- I am feeling confident and ready to move on-just can’t wait to see what is around the corner next year!!!

Also important to remember that variety is the spice of life- we had a systems failure day last week and as a change my students just loved picking up a pen and making notes on paper whilst chatting to the group- didn’t last long but reminded me that too much of anything is wrong- good education offers it all-keep the changes happening.

Click to Play in a new window

Now I have discovered another tool which I am having some amazing results with.

Facebook has allowed me to engaged not only students but also pharmacy publications who also use Facebook.  This tool allowed me to connect with people I would not normally be able to connect with.  Pharmacy currently has many groups on Facebook and they are used for providing pharmacy assistants with - Product Knowledge, positions vacant, tips and advice, competitions, conferences and Events.

This year I built up a relationship with two pharmacy publications and this has given me the opportunity to contribute to their magazine which have a distribution of 10,000+ nationally.  This would not have been possible I believe without the use of Facebook.  Facebook also allows students to connect with me in another space.  I also use this tool to upload surveys which allows me to get in touch with any Industry needs out there.

Unfortunately this is blocked at TAFE so my use of Facebook is after hours.  Facebook has certainly been a great way for me to enagae and collaborate with industry.

Linda Johnston

FeLC & Community Pharmacy Coordinator