Through 2006 and 2007 the EDC ran a range of professional development activities 1 for staff, including 2 instances of the teacher training course Designing for Flexible Learning Practice 2 (which is part of a larger teaching qualification now required by teaching staff at the Polytechnic) and 1 instance of Facilitating Online Learning Communities 3. These courses, along with numerous informal workshops and professional networks 4, have helped to develop critical digital and network literacy's as well as general awareness of the popular Internet amongst staff - particularly blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and RSS.
Currently there are a number of Polytechnic staff actively documenting their work and progress on individual weblogs. By subscribing to the RSS feeds from these blogs, it is easy for colleagues and EDC to assess and keep up to date with experiments, new ideas and methods, issues and concerns, and, of course, the development of digital literacy and networked communication skills. We can also observe the progress of specific projects, and in some instances, educational courses being run through a weblog. With this level of access we can enter into discussions, offer timely advice as well as point to best practices when needed. By comparison, obtaining this level of access and overview through traditional communication channels (such as face-to-face meetings, email or formal reporting) is not only inefficient but typically lacks accurate and authentic insight or opportunities for wider consultation.
As an example of the level of access and insight that can be obtained through staff blogging, and the extent to which some project documentation is being done, the following list points to some of the more active bloggers in the Polytechnic. These blogs should be considered as personal documentations beyond the formal job descriptions of the authors and so, authentic accounts of their work so far.
- Bronwyn Hegarty 5 - Education
- Kim Thomas 6 - Horticulture
- Hillary Jenkins 7 - Tourism
- Leigh Blackall 8 - Education
- Helen Lindsay 9 - Learning support
- Sam Mann 10 - Software Engineering
- David McQuillin 11 - Massage Therapy
- Rachel Gillies 12 - Visual Arts Photography
- Carolyn Mcintosh 13 - Midwifery
- Sarah Stewart 14 - Midwifery
- Merrolee Penman 15 - Occupational Therapy
- Graeme Dixon 16 - Occupational Therapy
- William Lucas 17 - Languages and learning support
- Matt Thompson 18 - Building
- Jacquie Hayes 19 - Community Learning Centre
- Wendy Ritson Jones 20 - Librarian (on leave)
- Pam McKinlay 21 - Visual Arts Historian
And there are a few who are using blogs to channel communication and information relating to courses.
- Tour Guiding 22 - Soon to migrate to http://tourguiding.edublogs.org along with several other course blogs for the Applied Travel and Tourism Programme.
- Cookery 23 - a video blog presenting videos recorded in class.
- Learning English 24 - with reguler posting of what is to be done in class.
- Participation in Occupation 25 - Access to lecture slides, notes and supporting material.
- Peer Tutoring 26 - Short course for people interested in becoming tutors.
- Designing for Flexible Learning Practice 27 - announcements, updates and related links for a teacher training course.
- Facilitating Online Learning Communities 28 - cross institutional course blog with announcements, updates and related links for an online facilitator training course.
Some staff see little value in documenting their work with weblogs, but are non-the-less interested in activities and initiatives to do with flexible and online learning, open education, and socially networked media. The Networked Learning email forum 29 was set up in mid 2006 as a channel for informal learning and to support staff development through more widely used email communication. Formal learning opportunities are also provided through courses like Designing for Flexible Learning Practice 30 and Facilitating Online Learning Communities 31 already mentioned.
- 901 reads
