Talk:Designing for flexible learning practice

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Development meeting - 3 10 08 (1)

The new course will be more focused around the process and development of a plan. To this effect it will be renamed Planning for Flexible Learning. Each weekly topic for blogging, will in fact become an entry in a field of the final plan. The initial ideas will be presented on the participant's blog for feedback and followup with the final week spent reviewing the posts at the end of the course to complete the actual plan document.

Learning objectives

At the successful completion of this course, participants will be able to: 

  1. Discuss principles and processes of flexible teaching and learning to facilitate culture sensitive adult learning;
  2. Critique the design and application of existing flexible teaching and learning options in relation to the literature;
  3. Analyse and evaluate challenges that arise in the design of flexible learning environments;
  4. Explore and justify the strategies for the development of flexible learning environments;
  5. Create and evaluate a plan for the implementation of a flexible learning experience.

Proposed new weekly schedule:

  • wk 1: orientation - intro and background
  • wk 2 - 4: what is flexible, why it is needed, and looking at examples - what is their idea for flexible learning
  • wk 5 - 6: exploration of learning and design theories and strategies relevant to their learners and FL ideas e.g effectiveness of simulation in nursing [I feel they need this grounding before they can go further - otherwise there is too much emphasis on learning outcome 3 and not enough on 1. & 4. --bron 06:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)]
  • wk 7:issues and considerations - Sustainability
  • wk 8:issues and considerations - Access and equity
  • wk 9: issues and considerations - Cultural diversity - A statement on issues and considerations relating to their plan
  • wk 10: Flexible learning in educational organisations and funding opportunities - A statement [explanation - would be better--bron 06:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)] for how the plan meets organisational objectives [AND - National and International support for flexible learning development [feel this should go last after educational organisation strategy --bron 06:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)]- A statement of what funding opportunities exist for the plan + a draft budget - this posed difficulties in 2008 - I think we should leave budget out - only relevant if applying for funding or advising HoD re capex - can do this afterwards if they want to take it further --bron 06:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC) - best to focus on a manageable ...timeline for the plan
  • wk 11 - 12: Finalise plan by collecting blog entries into a final proposal document with a slide presentation to go with it

Assessments:

  • Blog entries with linked references, feedback and followup
  • A final plan ready for proposal and presentation - due date one month after course ends --bron 06:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)(spoke to heather re this and is done in other courses).

Thanks for your comments in there Bron. Good to be reminded about the learning objectives, although it would be nice to review them some day (aware this is an admin hassle though). I suspect "learning design" is an area I am theoretically weak on and wonder what resources we would use to guide such a thing. I'm not sure learning design is something I would want to introduce in this course. Pedagogy or andragogy are areas I hope are covered in the other course "Designing for Learner Centredness" and so theories there can be applied (by the participants) here. Perhaps Instructional Design is the area you want to introduce so as to cover the learning objective with the word design in it? I wonder if there is a way we can have people consider the design in the weeks we look at examples. For example:

The next 3 weeks we will look at 3 examples of flexible learning. In the final week you are to choose one example (or find another) and comment on the flexibility afforded to learning. The flexibility afforded to teaching. What might have been involved in developing the example you are considering (time, resources, training, etc).

Don't be afraid about the word "design" Leigh. I agree they should have done most of the general theory around learning/pedagogy in the "Designing for Learner Centredness" course but some will not have done this.

My thoughts for this section are to help them focus in more on design/learning theory which is related to their ideas for flexibility. It is something we asked for in 2008 for them to provide in the plan but they did it very poorly because they were not guided or given the opportunity and I do not think they knew what we wanted.

What I am meaning is for example...if a participant wishes to introduce video resources into their teaching, I would like them to look at the literature around the benefits of visual/video material for learning. If they wish to introduce authentic learning activities or problem-solving or gaming - I would like them to have the opportunity to explore the literature/research around gaming for learning. If they have predominantly kinaesthetic learners with low literacy they need to consider the best approaches for them. Some of it will overlap into the issues section but I want to get them started on thinking about strategies in their context and why they will work or not.

I just want them to have a theoretical basis from which their practical plan develops. There is no point in adding in bells and whistles etc if there is no evidence it is going to improve achievement, reduce attrition, enhance learning etc. Even if they did this in the other course they may not make the connection and see it as necessary to justify their plan with evidence. I am trying to get them to do some critical thinking about their design ideas. it is not so we cover the word design in the objectives but more to ensure we cover the necessary areas for them to have adequate knowledge so they can design and plan for an optimal flexible learning experience for their target audience.

List of blogs (1)

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Participant intros (1)

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Hello. Any introductions and get-to-know-yous from participants? Please reply to this message

Hello my name is Leigh and I'm an educational developer for Otago Polytechnic. I try to keep up with developments in the field of education, tending to focus on the use of the Internet. I sometimes facilitate this course for Otago Polytechnic. I keep a professional blog at http://learnonline.wordpress.com which gets postings on all manor of things to do with educational development. My email is: leighblackallATgmailDOTcom. More info about me can be found by clicking my name in the little grey box below:

Hi, My name is Megan and I lecture in Nutrition at the Institute of Sport and Adventure and in the School of Midwifery. As a lot of my coursei n Midwifery is taught by online methods I have decided that this course will be of great help to me. I am looking forward to learning more about methods to enhance e-learning and flexible learning. I have now created my own blog - which was easier than I thought it would be. The address is http://megansmutterings.blogspot.com/

Love the title!! Sarah

←In reply to Participant intros (2) by Leighblackall, above:

Hi

Raewyn Lesa here from the nursing school. This is all pretty new to me. I have 4 children and the oldest is 16 so between them all and there Dad I'm always the last to get on the computer. I've sneaked on before they get home from school. I'm planning to try and set up my blog shortly (if I don't get kicked off)Hubby and oldest son are off to England shortly so I'll have to make the most of computer time. I'm looking forward to expanding my knowledge over the next few months...I have really noticed lately how lectures don't always get the message across clearly, no matter how good you try and make it!I teach and coordinate in 2nd year courses and spend a reasonablr amount of time in the hospital setting doing clinical.

Hey that wasn't too hard its Raewyn again, haven't been chucked off computer yet. Anyway my blogg address is http://raewynbusymumof4.blogspot.com/

Hey Raewyn.!! i'vr made it....now its time for you to get back on the ground after being in Disneyland ! literally. --Mereana 02:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

←In reply to Participant intros (2) by Leighblackall, above:

Hi, Steve Ellwood here I'm a Cookery Lecturer on the level 4 programe up @ Tennyson Street. We have various platforms we are delivering our E-learning from, Blackboard being the main site for all of our theory and communication with our enrolled students, our blog http://otagocookeryl4.blogspot.com/ and YouTube, as our video platform http://www.youtube.com/ We are also starting to gather information from students with I-pods which we have loaded with their assessment instructional videos and pictures. This is to see if in the future we could offer such a service for distance learners with the intent of having them come in every few weeks to be assessed in the kitchens. We still can't get away from tasting the food, nor should we try. I'm looking forward to reading everyone else's idea's on flexible learning have have no dought it will help us in improving the service we provide. Cheers, Steve.

Back again, I,ve just set up another "BLOG" so I can keep track of this course. http://flexiblefrying.blogspot.com/ Flexible Frying As i've got another 20 credits in my GCTLT this year I think I'll be using a few BLOGS to keep track of everything.

Good work Steve getting your intro up and your blog up and running. My mouth is watering with the lovely pics of food. Not fair! The cookery blog is just great and I can see I will be spending many a happy hour watching food. I am interested in how you are gathering information from students and would love to hear more. Do they have to provide an ipod or is this provided? Bronwyn

Thanks Bronwyn, We are gathering info (evidence if you like) in a video diary from our students, hopefully we could possibly use this in the future to get some funding to supply i-pods to our students, distance or not, as a means of demonstration. We aren't sure how to go about this properly yet, maybe you could suggest the right track to go down. They do provide their own i-pods or mp3/4s at the moment.

the video diary sounds very creative Steve . Is it like big-brother where they sit down at regular intervals and talk to the camera in a room? Maybe you could also record a focus group discussion about the experience at the end - either video or audio - using an independent interviewer. Someone not directly involved in the course who is good at extracting information and facilitating discussion. If you write this up it could form the basis for an external funding application 0 see AKO Aotearoa info below.

Otago Polytechnic has the new innovation fund ($5000) - the flexible learning development plan will help with this.

AKO Aotearoa is offering up to $10000 funding for innovative teaching and learning - and this would go a long way towards setting something up. You could run a research evaluation with another pilot group - supply ipods etc and use the funds for an external interviewer and researcher time. See: Wk 13: June 2-8: National and International support for flexible learning development.

Bronwyn

Hi, thank you very much for the info, we will be looking into that application straight away as we have just put together a distance package for Level 4, year One Part Time for a student. I've recorded what we have done on my blog and will be communicating with the student on a regular basis to see how he feels about the package.

←In reply to Participant intros (26) by Stephene, above:

Hi Steve Um yes YUM. I am interested in the sound of your information gathering project re improving on your service! Are publishing the info I'll visit your pages and ....watch that spot Susan

Thanks Susan, check out the blog for info. Cheers, Steve.

←In reply to Participant intros (2) by Leighblackall, above:

Hello Leigh - it has taken me a while to introduce myself and I've overdone it by posting two introductions - how do I get rid of the first introduction?

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Hello all I am Bronwyn Hegarty and one of the facilitators. I am an educational developer in the Educational Development Centre here at Otago Polytechnic. I have been involved in flexible learning since my time in the School of Nursing (1993 to 2002) when I used to run a full day face-to-face bioscience course over a semester, plus an online version of the course. As well as that I have done the usual lectures and tutorials and computing training workshops. My background is in bioscience and zoology and nursing all of which have been very useful in my work at the polytechnic. Since 2002 I have been involved in facilitating online and blended courses in educational topics.

For fun when not teaching or helping people design and develop flexible courses or doing research, I love to go for long walks with my husband and the dogs....cats follwing at a distance. Our latest fad is to watch tv series on DVD, and we like to go to the movies and theatre and concerts. The highlight for us in March is going to be the Wellington Arts festival - Black Watch, Book of Longing and the Dentist's chair - and we get to go with our son who lives there. Then we are off to Womad in New Plymouth. The rest of the year I will be ensconced at home and finishing my Doctorate. I look forward to meeting more of you on here and on your blogs. My blog is up and running. Bronwyn

Morning all, I'm Cherry. I am an educational designer at the University of New England. I am currently working on two projects - teacher training via distance (using Sakai) and nurse education (using Blackboard).

We are considering structuring the nurse education program using case studies. I begin that project next week, so it will be very helpful to discuss this type of education and the use of wikis for the purpose.

I have been involved in online learning for about 15 years. I am a former primary school teacher who moved into technical education and am now in the university sector. I look forward to establishing a great working relationship with you all.

Cherry

hello cherry great to see your interest in this topic. I am looking forward to "talking" with our global participants and your perspectives will greatly enrich this course. Bronwyn

Hi cherry, I'm a midwifery educator so will be interested to hearing more about what you are up to: http://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com cheers Sarah

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Carolyn Here. Hi all, I am just completing another course led by Bronwyn and Leigh. In that course we also had to create a blog so mine has been up and running for a wee while. I started it in September last year and it has become part of my life now. If you visit my blog you will see that I have a wee game I loaded on to the end of it, be warned it is addictive. Once you start it is hard to stop, well for me anyway. Apart from blogging and cruising the web I do enjoy crafty things, just starting to get into making jewelery and enjoy painting, (not really good at it though). I have had a go at spinning in the past and when I am old and grey and at home I plan to do more of that and weaving, maybe:)I want to take up golf and fishing I think. I like folk music and used to sing a bit, lucky Bronwyn going to Womad here is my blog Carolyn's blog Just started a blog for this course at wordpress called Fled: Flexible learning education design. Hope to connect with you all through that.

Phew, its great to have you in here Carolyn. Your enthusiasm and experience in these sort of courses will help us immensely.

You are right about the game! I've just had a go and it is hard to stop. Will have to make sure I don't spend time heaps of time on it!!!

great to have a Second Lifer in the course Carolyn. i look forward to hearing about your antics and plans for flexible learning. Bronwyn

Just edited the comment above to include my new wordpress blog which I have started particularly for this course,learning and reflections. My new blog is called Fled: Flexible learning education design good don't you think I think I will have a lot of fun with 'Fled'.

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Hello everyone

My name is Sarah Stewart. Last year I did the 'Online learning communities' course so I am now familiar with blogs. In fact, I'd say it has become an obsession for me! Here is my blog: Sarah's Musings.

I am currently a PhD candidate at the Centre for Online Health, UQ, Brisbane. For my research, I developed an email mentoring system for nurses and allied health workers as a means to support professional development and life-long learning. Unfortunately, it has not worked very well at all. So I plan to use this course to explore how I could change the system I developed into a flexible system that would engage people more.

sorry to hear your initial research did not work out - often a pilot is like that and the same thing happened to me. It will still be excellent data for your final writeup. The research strategies I eventually ended up using for my main study were quite different to those in the pilot. I am looking forward to reading your thoughts around flexible learning on your blog. Bronwyn

thanks for your reply bron. it wasn't my pilot that didn't work-it was my main study. any changes i come up with will go into my discussion/recommendations chapter. but have just had good news - my scholarship has been extended for another 6 months so i'm going to be financially viable again!

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Hi Leigh Bronwyn and others at the face to face first session today. Tracy here from Fashion - I am off to a fashion conference (IFFTI)in Melbourne tomm until next Tues so will have to set up my personal blog when I get back. Here is a hyperlink to the IFFTI website if ur interested in what I will be doing over the weekend. [1] We have two members of the fashion team presenting at the conference and we are lucky enough to be the only fashion school in NZ to be part of this international fashion tertiary organisation.Todays course intro was both informing and exciting - looking forward to learning lots and using it in my current practise. Cheers Tracy Kennedy

It was really good to meet you today Tracy, and to hear how your students are challenging you to change the way you are teaching. The conference looks like it will be very inspiring and I am looking forward to hearing about it when you return. I went to the Fashion show at the Railway station on Saturday night and was amazed by the clothes, the poise of the models, the pizzazz and the long, long walkway. It was great to see so much creativity. Bronwyn

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Re: email group

Hello everyone, if you visit the course blog you will see the email group that was set up last year. May I suggest that we use that group rather than set up another one? cheers Sarah

Good idea Sarah! The old students are still on there, so might be good to introduce yourself :) Bronwyn and I probably won't have a lot of time to moderate that discussion list, but it would be great to see you guys use it to your advantage :)

Of course, we could use this for our discussion rather than email. What do you all think?

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Hi I'm Alli. Life beings at forty! It did for me. I have over twenty five years crime scene examination / forensic support experience. I'm currently a Senior Project Officer for NZ Police looking specifically at creating a world class forensic provision. Have been in NZ for over three years. Having worked for the same organisation in a similar role for twenty plus years I decided to develop my professional skills to open up other options. Started with a Diploma in Operational Management - University College Worcester UK Then caught the study bug - a Diploma in Management Studies again from Worcester. As my boss in UK did not support my study towards a Masters I resigned and came to NZ. Completed my MBA from University of Otago - 2006 Now because I'm reviewing training courses I have started a Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Learning and Teaching. There's so much out there to learn and I'm loving it. E-learning is very new to me but there must be others out there who can help!

I'm married with four 'imported' dogs and two locally acquired horses. I don't really teach although I did contribute to the Crime Scene Induction course at the Police college on Monday. To reach the project objective - training is the key. Due to NZ being geographically challenged (access to further professional development)I feel e-learning / flexible learning is the way forward. I am very excited about this course and the range of valuable contacts to 'poach with pride' from! I think I've set up a 'blog': http://allibarty.blogspot.com/ Cheers Alli

Well done Alli. The perspectives you bring from outside the Polytech will be very valuable to this course. I'm looking forward to reading your impressions on how the things we look at relate to your context.

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

This is amazing and so many blog links already. I am impressed. it was really good to meet so many enthusiastic people today and hear about the areas you work in and the type of flexible learning you are already doing, and what you would like to do more of in the future. Already you have your own definitions of what flexible learning might be, and as you may have realised today, the ground is always shifting. I thought I had it sorted when I got to grips with Blackboard. Now I am venturing, like you into new territory. This year I am using WikiEducator for the online content for two courses (this one and a TANZ Grad Cert in elearning in which I teach) - it is the first time I have primarily used blogs for communication.

Those of you who got your blogs up so quickly have illustrated how easy it is to do. Well done. Now I am off to do some more reading of blogs. :) Bronwyn

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

G'day. I've been hanging around WikiEducator for a short while now and am very impressed with the activities here. I've decided to join in with this course for a number of reasons.

1. It looks interesting.

2. There seems to be some interesting people here

3. I might get to do more with my blog (http://vicariousconversations.com/blog)

No matter how hard I try, I don't seem to be able to develop my blogging 'voice' even though I've been blogging for years. Maybe through the interactions here and the prompts, I can finally get something going.

I'm a full time academic, so I don't know how much time I'll get to read everything, but hopefully, I'll keep up to date.

Alison

I'm very much like you Alison, I have been hanging around, but not getting involved. Now most definately is the time to do so. I am impressed by the wide spread participation and hope to meet lots of interesting people here. cherry

hello alison great to have you join us. I was unable to set up an RSS feed from your blog - are you able to add this feature? We are very lucky to have participants from around the world and this will give us a much broader perspective about flexible learning. Bronwyn

Hey Bronwyn, I *think* I've fixed the RSS feed on my blog and actually started to catch up. I've also set up a google alert for flexible learning, so I might be able to identify all the participants and slowly subscribe to their blogs.

Is there any communal page for blogs of people in this group? It might make it easier to identify each other. Hmm, can we bring in RSS to WikiEducator? I've got feeds going out, would be cool to see some coming in.

Alison

hello alison the course blog is where all the participant blogs are located. Have a look at the content page and the news feed coming in there from the course blog. Bronwyn

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Hello all! My name is David and I'm a member of the Instructional Technology faculty at Utah State University. Like Leigh, I try very hard to keep up with what's going on in the practice of applying technology to solve educational problems. My main area of interest is increasing people's access to educational opportunity. I keep a blog at http://opencontent.org/blog/ and my email address is davidDOTwileyATgmailDOTcom.

G'day David,

I think you have an international technology conference in your neck of the woods. I read about it somewhere, thought how wonderful to be able to meet up with a few of these people, but alas, wrong timing for me. I am way down in Australia and will have little chance of travel except via this means.

hello David It is great to see you the originator of this type of flexible learning design join us. People may not be aware of the attribution we have made to David's work - at the bottom of the page. I am impressed by the global interest so far and looking forward to lots of stimulating interactions. Bronwyn

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Hi all, My name is Penelope Kinney and I am at the School of Occupational Therapy. I have only very recently joined the team there. I've been here 5 weeks!!! Every thing is still a little confusing but I'm getting there. I am involved in lecturing in the degree programme and co-ordinating the postgraduate programme. I get to complete face to face teaching and working with our programmes which are 100% distance based. It gives me a real insight to different methods of delivery!!

I have come from a clincial background in Forensic Psychiatry. Its a specialist area of Mental Health. Have to admit its lovely not having to come to work through a series of air locks and jiggling keys!! Oh and being able just to pop out for a walk at lunch is a bonus too.

I've created my blog and all going well you can access it on http://otpenk.blogspot.com

I'm looking forward to meeting everyone over the next few months.

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

hi from Susan,

I enjoyed the discussion that flowed throughout the introductions from the meeting 6th March. I'm looking forward to exploring the application of flexible teaching of music and building some content and to peer to peer collaborating over the DFPL course. The first thing that occurs to me is to launch into a digital technical support network- that is once introductions are through. This will already happen via my posting blogs, reading yours and (even) posting comments which I realise is going to present quite a - challenge. http://susamellis.wordpress.com

Its early days - go for it -Thats in response to Sara suggesting the optional network of a google group.

hello susan great to see you on the go already. It is great to have so much interest in the course. We need to be careful that discussion on the blogs is not impaired due to having extra stuff to do on an email group. Perhaps this is a place for quick messages and alerting people to interesting stuff. My thoughts.

If everyone ticks the email alert box when they post a comment to someone's blog, they will start to see alerts coming into their email inbox when the person replies to the comment - then they can reply to this on the person's blog. If everyone makes an effort to watch each others' blogs we will soon get lively discussion going on the blogs. Bronwyn

Gooday Just to alert you of a change -I've just posted a weblog link to http://susamellis.wordpress.com.

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Hi everyone, my name is Michelle, sorry that I missed the workshop yesterday. Leigh & Bronwyn, thanks for the wee tut this morning. I am now officially here. I have just set up my blog on the blogger http://nzbibi710.blogspot.com Hi Tracy, hi Ali, hi Penelope, glad that we are classmates agian!!

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Hi everyone, My name is Katy Molloy and I work in the Design department at Otago Polytechnic. I am a Teaching and Research Assistant in Arts and Design papers, and a Lecturer. I consider myself computer literate, but this Wiki and blog thing is foreign to me. I'm sorry I missed the Introduction workshop, and hope to warm up to this digital environment soon! My blog is http://katymdesigning.blogspot.com/ Cheers

Hi Kate, I too am a newbie both as a teaching and research assistant at Edc Otago Polytechnic and at Web 2.0 blogging, wikieducator collaborating. There is always plenty of digital challenges. Although with practice and perseverence and time, I have learned to weblog theres been lots of points where I needed to ask for help. Susan

←In reply to Participant intros (1) by Leighblackall, above:

Hello,

My name is Fiona (aka Athena, my middle name) I have set up my blog at http://athena-odyssey.blogspot.com/ It was great to meet everyone at the face to face on Wednesday the 5th of March. I have been attempting to use a flexible delivery process in my teaching for a while now and have badly needed to up skill in this area. As I mentioned in the workshop, the school of occupational therapy is selling the bachelors course to Wintec in Hamilton and the staff (especially myself) need to learn to up skill on e-learning and flexible delivery asap. I am also very interested in the concept of sustainability and education and plan to do some research around this area. On a personal note, I am from Scotland, traveled out to New Zealand 12 years ago as a WWOOFER (http://www.wwoof.co.nz/ ) and ran out of petrol in Dunedin 11 years ago and met my husband Ben on Quarantine Island (Kamautaurua or St. Martin's island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Martin_Island/Quarantine_Island ), had my daughter Zoe 7 years ago and youngest daughter Amy 5 years ago. Currently building a eco/sustainable house (completion date end of July) which has us mortgaged and me working now at full-time for the next 30 years! Plenty of time to learn new skills.

Hi Fiona - I am extremely interested in the integration of sustainability into the curriculum and am embarking on research in this area. In particular I will be looking at current practice/s and models within the NZ fashion industry and the implications for fashion education & educators. Havent had the chance to set up my blog yet but can keep u posted on progress - this is brand new research and I am a new researcher with limited hours so it will be slow prog