New England – Expanding our Universe
Jupiter and Ganymede
New England Institute continues its adventures and exploration of new boundaries with its shuttle load of teachers coming along for the ride.
Shifting, shaping and Moodling!
Since our last meeting we’ve run 6 face to face Moodle training sessions at Campuses around the Institute, travelling around 2000km to do so.
At the same time the team has worked with CLI to get the LRR underway. We’ve garnered strong Faculty support from Assistant Directors to facilitate uptake of their resource repository which will help with storage and retrieval of resources, validation, sharing of resources and also improve Institute wide storage management and requirements. This has been extended to a Data Classification Project which is a joint project between Information and Communication Technology Unit and Educational Developments Unit to establish a NEI data classification framework and rules.
Janison transfers have continued, based on an audit of enrolments and usage (type and frequency). CLI’s IMS extraction tool has been a great help in this.
Playing and planning!
Knowing how we love to play- ICT has decided to give us our own Educational Developments Unit sandpit so that we can extend our trials including integration of Mahara and Skillsbook, Joomla, and more…
The team have also developed a plan to repurpose our IDL studio into a dedicated M Studio- multicast studio, which we’re really excited about.
Spruiking!
Campus briefings for returning and new staff have been underway and the team has, via various means, managed to get around to nearly all Campuses to spruik about the “wonders” of the Learning and Assessment team and how we can help staff to effectively use learning technologies in their training and assessment.
We’re sure that 2009 will be an exciting year – full of challenges and opportunities, and new destinations to explore.
And… I’m sure we can help each other to expand the universe of our staff and communities, and to avoid those dreaded black holes we occasionally come across.
New England Rockets into the 21st Century
New England Institute has ventured into new territory, setting up its three Moodle LMS servers. Since then we’ve been busy testing modules, playing with very nifty plug-ins (eg. Audio recorder, podcast manager, menu block, flash media player, video conferenicng by Moodle, SMS via Moodle), and transfers from Janison.
David Gilchrist (astronaut extraordinaire) and Dianne Van Berlo attended Moodle Moot 08 which confirmed we were heading in the right direction in our Institute travels and only excited us more about Moodle’s potential. We’re also about to start f2f training after developing a self paced course for Moodle course creators.
Course Creator's Guide
Audio recorder topic
CLI have been travelling with us as we link to the LRR, after we consulted with our Institute passengers – through user and technical forums.
We’ve also been providing some in house entertainment and learning opportunities to our 21st Century Institute travellers including a Virtual Worlds presentation to demonstrate innovative use of learning technologies, appearing “live” at AgQuip for three days, spreading the vision for the Institute through vodcast, our Learning Technologies Road show online, and Toolbox customisation and ARED workshops.
Throughout our journey we’ve also chatted to students, the community and industry, with many wanting to join us in our journey.
Like any good trip we’ve enjoyed the opportunities as well as the challenges that we’ve encountered.
To make the trip as smooth as possible for our travellers, our EDU Learning and Assessment team tour guides have:
-
needed a team wide EDU approach to change management, supported by the establishment of strong cross functional relationships
-
needed to influence in different ways with different approaches- up down across
-
many and regular conversations with ICT, Institute Executive and visible presence across Institute
-
spreading use of learning technologies to other functional unit’s daily activities
-
overcome resistance to change.
EDU Learning and Assessment Team- Sphere of Influence
So here’s to sharing the excitement as more and more people join in our travels through the 21st Century.
-
Subscribe
·