The previous post on this blog features a series of screencasts I prepared for a presentation/workshop I hosted for an institute-wide PD Day last Friday.
Given that I was so flu-ridden on the day I was wondering if I was going to actually be able to stay up on my feet for the whole session, the screencasts could have come in very handy in the event of a presenter collapse... From a prone position on the floor, I might have been able to just click on play and let the attendees watch the presentation up on the screen while I crawled feebly for the exit.
However, what really struck me with this experiment was just how beneficial it can be to "perform" your presentation or workshop in advance via video or screencast.
For one, it's an excellent way to rehearse your material. Sure, you could do this in front of a mirror, but actually recording it gives you that very real feeling of a live performance, on the spot, and you can go back and listen/watch your performance, get a feel for the timing, delivery, etc. It's a confidence builder as well as (to some extent) a bit of an early warning system!
Once you've screencasted your whole presentation, it then makes for great review material to follow up a live, in-the-room workshop. This review mechanism is facilitated in multiple ways:
- Attendees can relax, go with the flow of the actual presentation on the day and not worry about extensive note-taking or handouts (they can review the material later at their own leisure);
- Your pre-recording means that if something goes horribly wrong on the day (for example: you're allocated a room without a beam projector despite your specific request for one), you can still refer workshop attendees to the screencast version;
- It's really interesting, for yourself as the presenter (and possibly for your attendees as well) to compare the live in-the-room performance with the recorded version, especially in terms of how well the presentation ended up wrapping around the actual needs and influence of the audience on the day;
- If you pre-record your presentation in specific parts or segments, you might look at playing one or two of them during the actual workshop so you can give yourself a short break, move the eyes off you for a little and give you a chance to wander around and see what people are doing;
- As per the parts/segments idea above, if the parts all have targeted ideas or examples, you might be able to cherry pick from an overall bank of screencasts to put together future presentations.
Beyond all that, I guess, screencasted versions of your presentations or workshops allow you to share your work or ideas far more widely. If your material is worthy enough of an audience of 40 on a given day, why not make it available to 4000 other people on any day of the year?
If workshops and presentations are things you do regularly (or want to do more) I really recommend considering some screencasting for a bit more of an edge when it comes to rehearsing and reviewing your ideas.
This is an online workshop resource I have put together, both as support/review material for attendees at a recent PD session I did at Gordon TAFE but also for people completely fresh to the notion of DIPA(CT) who might like to utilize the tutorials below for some personal professional development or just exploration of ideas.
DIPA(CT) is a personal and rather simple approach to teaching and learning, and while the examples provided here are meant for a vocational education context I daresay that the basic principles are at least reasonably relevant to almost all subjects and teaching/learning contexts.
For the sake of convenience, I have broken the workshop into separate parts, in order (though of course you may like to pay more attention to some over others).
PART 1: Introduction and Warm Up
PART 2: DIPA(CT) Defined and Explained
PART 3: DIPA(CT) in Action - Manufacturing Technology
PART 4: DIPA(CT) in Action - Applied Literacy
PART 5: DIPA(CT) in Action - Carpentry
PART 6: Wrap Up and Final Reflections
The two references at the end there are to this actual blog post and the extensive step-by-step tutorial I made some time back for screencasting - available here.
Hope DIPA(CT) gave you a few things to think about... thanks for watching (and thinking), if you did! And don't be shy in dropping any feedback or impressions in the comments section below.
In a previous post I demonstrated how to set up basic groups within Moodle courses, and mentioned that one of the advantages of this set up was that it becomes easier to check or track grades and activity according to specific groups (for example, individual classes of learners) rather than having to wade through the results of an entire cohort.
When you go to check grades or progress, two of the most common routes are via the grader report or user report. Here's how you can check results for designated groups for both of those report settings:
Just note that if you're having trouble seeing those group options in the reports (drop down menus), you may need to go back and do a tiny bit of tinkering with your overall course settings:
Settings > Edit Settings > Groups > Group Mode > Visible Groups
Trust me, when you're doing a lot of checking and tracking across a number of different classes, having them set up in groups and accessing the grader or user reports in this way can save you a lot of time.
Hope you found this useful, and if you're after more Moodle tutorials the entire bank is here.
If you have a course with a lot of users enrolled, you might like to consider setting up groups within the course. You could do this to designate class groupings, levels or other groupings according to your needs.
There can be a lot of benefits of having groups within the course; key among them to my thinking are (1) the capacity to monitor and check grades by group rather than entire cohort, (2) allocating specific tasks or content to particular groups (facilitating customisation), and (3) setting up collaborative tasks or projects to be handled in designated groups.
Here are the basics involved in sorting your enrolled users into specific groups in Moodle:
In a follow up tutorial I'll be demonstrating how to quickly check grades and activity by group rather than whole cohort, and other practical uses for group settings will be added in due course.
You can see all of my Moodle tutorials at the central resource page here.
This is a beautifully simple and accessible telling of the Rainbow Serpent story which is so central to so much of Australia's indigenous dreamtime culture.
Here are some activity sheets to go with the oral text:
Certificate III ESL (Access) components targeted and tracked through the activities:
Unit C22 (VPAU503): Give and respond to a range of straightforward instructions and informational texts.
Element 1: Interpret an informational oral text
Performance Criteria 1.1: Identify the context, topic and purpose of an informational oral text
Performance Criteria 1.2: Outline main ideas, opinions and attitudes expressed
Performance Criteria 1.3: Locate supporting information or details
Performance Criteria 1.4: Identify the tone and register of the text, and any inferred meaning
Performance Criteria 1.5: Express an opinion about the ideas or issues raised
Just note that there is also a nice written text accompanying the video which gives some interesting background information about the dreamtime notion. It could make for a reading outcome as a natural extension or follow up from the oral text.
So, that's all done then... My final online report card upon completing the Cert IV TAE
If you intend to work in any sort of vocational education training role, in Australia the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment (or Training and Education - things seem a bit fuzzy about the exact terminology since the earlier TAA was upgraded to TAE) is a baseline qualification you simply must have.
Coming back to Australia after a decade teaching abroad, I was rather frustrated to find that not only was this certificate mandatory as part of any ESL or other vocational training role, without it you couldn't achieve even the baseline salary offerings.
So when I took up a VCAL Literacy teaching role at GTEC at Gordon TAFE, I enrolled in the TAE as part of the position requirements but also to help me climb a little higher up the pay scale. It looked like I would be able to apply for RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) for rather large portions of it, but in the end I decided to challenge and renew myself a bit. I took the entire course from the ground up, doing every module and task, challenging myself to apply everything to new areas or in new ways. I wanted to take on the 'newbie' perspective again, and see what I was capable of.
I enrolled in an online TAE course with Cengage, which during my course went through an expansion and name change to Open Colleges. I had an opportunity to do the TAE with a range of local providers, but (to be frank) hadn't heard a lot of ringing endorsements of those particular programs, but most of all I didn't relish the idea of doing the course face to face twice a week at night time after work (or on weekends).
The online Cengage/Open Colleges course was excellent. It was delivered via the Moodle LMS with a very tidy interface and nice organisation of resources and materials for each unit. This was actually really interesting for me, as I was building courses in Moodle for my own learners at the same time and got to engage with the LMS from both a teaching and learning perspective.
I had to complete ten units to get the certification, and while there is mention of 'core' and 'elective' units, in reality as a Cengage/Open Colleges student the whole course is already pre-set and mandatory (in other words, the 'electives' apply to the training provider - not to the learner). This pre-set/mandatory unit selection alongside the mode of material delivery struck me as slightly ironic, given the very sharp and very regular reminders throughout the coursework to get to know learners' needs, learning preferences, contextualize, etc. The course (the way it is selected and structured on paper/screen) didn't exactly find out or take account of any of my particular needs or preferences...until the online tutor flexed her influence - more on that slightly later.
From the start I looked for ways to deeply embed the course units into my work role and made up my own learning plan based on a careful look over the official unit documents and guidelines (the ones provided for the training package on the central training.gov.au website, that is). It ended up looking a bit like this:
TAE Unit Code
Unit Title
Typical GTEC Applications
TAEDES402A
(core)
Use training packages/accredited courses to meet client needs
Unpack trade-related training packages to better understand integration of GTEC/Trade School
Better understand VET/TAFE sector
Foundation for documenting VCAL in TAFE context
TAEDES401A
(core)
Design and develop learning programs
Design and document VCAL courses so they are interpretable and applicable in a TAFE context
TAEASS401A
(core)
Plan assessment activities and processes
Develop VCAL assessment plans so they are interpretable and applicable in a TAFE context
Improve GTEC/VCAL assessment documentation and processes
TAEASS502A
(elective)
Design and develop assessment tools
Develop specialised range of properly documented assessment tools (by subject/stream) for VCAL and GTEC cohort
TAEDEL401A
(core)
Plan, organise and deliver group-based learning
Improve ability to teach/apply VCAL with GTEC student groups AND/OR
Pass on specialised (skill/subject/stream) knowledge to GTEC teaching colleagues
TAEDEL402A
(core)
Plan, organise and facilitate learning in the workplace
Guide and facilitate learning for GTEC students on work placement AND/OR
Pass on specialised (skill/subject/stream) knowledge to GTEC teaching colleagues
TAEDEL403A
(elective)
Coordinate and facilitate distance-based learning
Create online/distance-based applications for regular in-class VCAL programs
Build more integrated bridges between GTEC class work and learning at home, Trade School or work
TAEASS301A
(elective)
Contribute to assessment
Improve ability to gather quality evidence for assessment
Improve the validity and reliability of GTEC’s assessment procedures
Facilitate a better team/collegial approach to quality assessment
TAEASS402A
(core)
Assess competence
TAEASS403A
(core)
Participate in assessment validation
This plan mostly came off. I was able to negotiate almost all of the units with my tutor and really contextualize them so they were deeply embedded and relevant to my day-to-day work role.
The exception was the first unit (TAEDES402A - Use Training Packages and Accredited Courses to meet client needs), where I was forced to roleplay my way through unpacking a range of training courses and units for... a funeral park! It was interesting, in a way, but gosh - I'm not sure how many people enjoy starting a course making training arrangements involving units to do with gravedigging, etc.
However, the flexible contextualisation more than worked for all of the other units. Here are some of the things I built/designed/applied and got credit for during the course:
Detailed Delivery and Assessment Plans (DAPs) for the subjects I am responsible for teaching, which also managed to integrate VCAL (traditionally a secondary school program) with the more vocationally and adult-oriented TAFE documentation requirements
Comprehensive assessment plans and a range of highly detailed assessment tools (for example: portfolio, oral questioning and observation of demonstration)
A series of professional development sessions targeted screencasting skills for the whole team I work with
Individual workplace learning plans and documentation (oriented around developing e-Learning design and application skills with various members of the teaching team)
Extensive documentation for one of the online/blended learning programs I developed in Moodle
A portfolio of assessment tasks, evidence of assessment and an extensive assessment validation process
Quality Assurance and auditing are big (and getting bigger) in the TAFE context in Australia - part of an important strategy to help TAFEs differentiate themselves from private RTOs on the quality and reliability fronts. The Gordon was going through the process of introducing a highly detailed Teacher Toolkit at the same time I was doing the course, and I found myself well ahead of the curve. Admittedly, that's a nice feeling - to know you are delivering above the documentation requirements ahead of time.
But here's the rub: the reason this course worked so well for me was purely and simply because I had an outstanding tutor on this course.
Megan Funston epitomised everything that is is excellent in both a course tutor and an e-moderator:
She knew her stuff (as a trainer and guide through Australia's Qualifications Framework) forwards, backwards, sideways, upwards and downwards.
She provided a wealth of supplementary material via the forums that made a lot of the main/official dense booklet-style content suddenly comprehensible.
You never waited more than a week to get things graded.
You didn't just get grades - you got comprehensive targeted and motivating feedback.
She bent/molded the course to the needs of the trainee - the reason I got so much of my 'work at/for work' done was because Megan took the time to get to know my needs and context.
I've worked with and had more than my fair share of teachers over time, and this lady was just amazing. I really looked up to her. She made the course what it was - not the materials, not the curriculum, not the LMS... it was the tutor.
So all up this was a great experience for me and I got a lot out of it, beyond a pretty bit of paper qualifying me for a pay rise.
Actually, that's the only thing that's missing now...
I finished the course almost a month ago and still don't have my certificate or transcript. The company took four seconds to accept my online payment when I was enrolling, but four weeks afer all the work has been completed and graded they still haven't given me my very important paperwork.
Cengage/Open Colleges:
Ditch the funeral park unit at the start, offer more electives the students themselves can choose from, keep Megan Funston, pay Megan Funston more than you do (whatever amount that currently is, because quite honestly she is the heart and soul of what is a very good course based on her presence/influence in it) and:
The lucky country. Bright weather, bright people, bright future.
Those were the messages that were consistently drummed into me as a young person growing up on this island continent. But as Iva Davies would tell you, it can also be a prisoner island hidden in the summer for a million years.
For all its brightness, this is a country with a shadow; and nowhere is that shadow more evident in the geographical and spiritual red centre of things, in a town called Alice.
The English Oz materials and activities on this page represent a collection of learning resources that can hopefully bring this issue to the ESL classroom. You can cherry pick from them as you please, or tie some or all of them together to create a larger ongoing project. Generally speaking the resources are selected and sequenced in a logical way that helps explore what is a very complex issue via a series of interlocked steps.
The first three resources target listening skills and align well with Certificate III in ESL (Access) unit VPAU503 (Give and respond to a range of straightforward instructional and informational texts) - in particular Element 1: Interpret an informational oral text.
The three that follow that are geared towards VPAU505 (Read and write a range of straightforward informational, instructional and other texts), in particular Element 1: Analyse a range of informational texts.
The astute teacher will also find ways to tie in speaking and writing elements from the various units in a nicely integrated way; the opportunities to do so are there in abundance.
At the very bottom of the page you will find a resource to facilitate the ESL Elective unit VPAU560: Investigate Current Issues, with the preceding materials and activities making for a nice resource list to draw on and (again) useful opportunities to extend out into speaking and writing elements.
All the relevant performance criteria has been built into the resource sheets, and you will find both blank versions for students and a TG version with some notes to help you scaffold the learners through the activities.
Okay, let's start with a bit of a contrast, shall we? Two very different sides to a red centre coin...
1. Get ceNTred in the Red Centre
Nothing like a good tourism advertisement, is there? Present the following video to the learners and apply the activity resource that follows:
Hang on... What happened to the lovely hot air balloons? And the glasses of bubbly and sparkling stars at night? And the amazing galleries of indigenous art?
So, poor old Alice is copping it because indigenous people can't drink out on their home turf and need to head into town... So has the so-called INTERVENTION improved the situation out in the camps, and was it worth the price of applying the equivalent of apartheid?
So let's get closer to the bottom of this whole idea of interventions and race discrimination acts. The BBC are sure to be a nicely reliable outside impartial observer, surely...
A song by one of Australia's most popular bands of all time, whose lead singer eventually decided to go into politics... Spot the current Federal Minister for Education in the clip, but also look at the lyrics and take a journey into the dying soul of a fiercely proud people.
(Another good one for blending reading and listening, and your students might enjoy a song at this point if they've been wading through the texts and listenings above):
So, what's the issue exactly? What is the significance? What do your learners make of it all?
Here's where you can tie on an ESL Elective Unit incorporating current issues in Australia, bringing together the 'research' conducted above and coming up with some conclusions. The material can then become a drafting process for a writing element or an oral presentation or discussion of some sort:
As I said at the beginning of the post, lots to choose from or work through here, but there are certainly multiple opportunities to help your learners meet a plethora of their ESL outcomes through this sequence of activities.
More importantly, the dialogue about how Australia handles its indigenous people needs to continue. Goodness knows the locals (both newer and older) haven't come up with too many effective answers; perhaps the newest migrants of all might have some better suggestions...
You've entered your Moodle page for the first time, and managed to put a basic header image at the top of the course...
Now, what to do with all those blank unit/topic blocks?
There are plenty of ways you might go about utilising these topic blocks to organise, sequence and present your course content and activities. It depends a lot on the nature of the course and what is involved, but here are a couple of examples and options that might help you at the initial stage:
These examples are fairly basic for now, so don't be afraid to experiment and play around with how you utilise the unit/topic blocks.
Check out my Moodle Tutorials page for other demonstrations on what you can do with unit/topic blocks, like adding content and 'decorating' them to look more appealing on the course page.
I think one of the important things to come to grips with when it comes to Moodle is that it is an LMS -- a Learning Management System, and not (by default) limited to being only a system for online tasks and grades for those tasks.
As we all know, not all learning happens (or needs to happen) in front of a computer. But that doesn't mean Moodle can't be your central gathering place for all task work and assessments, irrespective of the context or objectives they involve.
You can, for example, use the Moodle LMS as a place to feature introductions and instructions for offline, more hands-on or F2F interactive tasks, as well as incorporate assessment for those tasks in the one central Moodle gradebook.
One way to do that simply and conveniently is to set up a section in your gradebook for 'offline' tasks (named however it suits your course -- for example: fitness tasks, class discussions, onsite work tasks, etc.) and utilise the 'offline assignment' tool:
See a larger, higher definition version of this video here.
That's all fine and dandy, but you might like to go a bit further than that...
Even though a task happens offline, there are ways we can facilitate reflection and deeper awareness of those tasks here in the Moodle interface (encouraging more integration of LLN, for example), AND provide crucial evidence of those offline, F2F, practical, action-based tasks.
To do that, the 'offline assignment' activity tool probably isn't our best option, because (based on the format of that tool) the learners can't contribute any sort of follow up work to the task and we can't attach any files of our own.
Using the 'upload a file' assignment activity, we can document and work around offline tasks to include valuable follow up and consolidation for the learners and provide specific evidence of task performance or completion via photographs, audio or video.
Here's one way this can be done in Moodle:
See a larger, higher definition version of this video here.
Basically, using Moodle task and assessment tools, you can still create a sort of 'one stop shop' for all the important documentation and assessment information, but do so in ways that allow you to document and track a huge range of both online and offline tasks.
Great for centralised tracking... whether you're a learner, a teacher, a program manager, or an auditor.
Last week I ran some sessions with my Year 12 Applied Literacy students based around helping them design their own curriculum. It consisted of a sort of open worksheet/grid, with the broad literacy outcomes listed in one column and three open/blank columns with the headings 'My Trade', 'GTEC projects' (meaning the projects they are involved in at or as part of school), and 'Personal Interest'. From there it was just a lot of chatting as the groups negotiated with me about what sorts of material would best fit where, some note-taking on the grid, then reviewing and typing out the self-directed learning plan and uploading it on their Moodle course page.
Here is a sample self-designed literacy curriculum made by a carpentry student:
And here is one designed by a heavy (diesel) automotive student:
They only need to meet each outcome through two separate tasks, so having three is a bit of a safety measure, bearing in mind that topics we think of today may not be topics we want to do in 3-4 months' time. They can change any part of the grid they want at any time (including the column headers), except for the Literacy Outcomes one -- which we are obliged by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority to address if we plan to hand out Certificates in Applied Learning at the end of the year...
Basically, now they work to their own plan at their own pace in the order they feel most comfortable with from one lesson to the next. They find their own texts using the Internet, or texts they already have access to (magazines, Trade School books, etc.), access a range of writing and reading report templates I've created for them, and from there my job is to just facilitate (especially with regards to the generic program outcomes) and then assess.
In other words, we have 47 separate syllabuses running for Year 12 Literacy at GTEC this year, and there is nothing frightening about that at all.
Funnily enough, towards the end of the week I returned to my desk after a class and found a publisher's brochure sitting there waiting for me. I glanced through and found a Literacy Skills textbook on offer. I scanned through the archaic looking list of unit and topic items there, thought about the 47 syllabuses we'd generated that week, and couldn't help but notice that this coursebook someone was trying to sell to me and my students only had something that looked like a single silly bus.
I couldn't for the life of me see that book, or any other single book, ever making the cut for the classrooms I work with now.
Using Moodle to complete coursework isn't always a walk in the park for a lot of learners, depending on the course content, design and relative online learning experience of your students.
One way to facilitate understanding of where to go, what to do (and how) for your learners is to create a unit walk through resource for each Moodle unit/topic block. You could do this with text and images, but I've found that an audio-visual resource like a screencast gets things across in the most dynamic and effective way.
Here is an example unit walk through video I've just finished as part of a new Moodle course:
That's fine, and perhaps that's all the learners will need. We could create a link to this video at the start of the unit it applies to, perhaps supported via a direct email with the same link.
However, I've generally found it's better to go a bit further than just showing an instructional video. I feature my unit walk through as an introductory 'assignment' that learners need to complete before engaging with the main unit materials. They need to take notes about the video to help them pay more specific attention to it, and to show me just what each learner has understood about what they need to do in the unit.
This process can help answer a lot of questions or misunderstandings before learners get into their coursework, and it helps me target the students who need more specific or hands on assistance.
Here's how I do that in Moodle using the Lesson -> Essay Question function (basically, access to the unit walk through an embedded video and some prompts in 'essay mode' for the learners to take notes or ask questions in response to:
If you're curious about the screencast angle here, I've got an extensive tutorial on how to make screencastselsewhere on this blog.
Good luck with it!
;-)
All of my Moodle tutorials are available in an ongoing bank of resources featured here.
Our Year 11 Applied Learning students have completed their intensive foundation literacy course in Term 1 (mainly geared around some literacy basics and integrated with tool and workplace safety considerations) and next week many of them will commence the next (Intermediate VCAL) level.
Based on a revision of what we did with students last year, and bearing in mind we teach 16-17 year old learners preparing for trades, here's what we have in store for them...
The learners read a complex text written by a teacher, talking about a particular skill or attribute he has. The text explores where the skill might have developed from (in childhood experience), how it helps in professional life now, and how it might be developed further for different future applications.
Following a range of comprehension tasks targeting purpose, main ideas, supporting ideas and effectiveness of the text, students then compare this text with one they did themselves last term listing their own skills and attributes (with the comparison being more about how the texts are organised and presented).
Students then write their own 'in the know' texts, talking about a particular skill or attribute of their own.
The learners work their way through an assignment that helps them identify all sorts of important information about their given trade and regulations governing apprenticeships. It features everything from trade-specific union details to government regulations and minimum wages for different years of an apprenticeship.
Based on what they find and read, the learners compile a detailed report to present the important information.
The learners read an advisory/instructional text from one of the country's most popular recruitment websites explaining what should go into resumes for school leavers. After demonstrating a comprehension of the text, they compare it to an actual resume made for an apprentice electrician and see how and where the resume applies the specific advice from the article.
Of course, from there the learners go ahead and create their own work resume.
The learners read two very different texts that both present information about they key (pun intended) tools for locksmithing. They complete comprehension questions and a detailed comparison of the two texts (particularly in terms of which would be more useful for a beginner level locksmith apprentice).
Following that the learners create their own 'tools of the trade' texts, targeting 4-6 of the most important tools they think new apprentices need to know about for their own trades and emulating the more informative of the two texts they read about locksmithing tools.
The learners read two different texts explaining how to do or build something. They demonstrate comprehension of both texts and compare them in detail, commenting on their effectiveness.
Based on the text they found to be clearest or most useful, the students then create their own how to texts, based on a process or outcome common to their personal interest or work experience to date.
The learners compose work journals based on a period of work placement, integrated with material they already put together for their Work Related Skills modules.
Following this they then look at two fellow students' work journals and complete some comprehension and comparison/effectiveness notes. This, in addition to comprising reading comprehension outcomes, becomes a feedback process for students to adapt and improve their own initial work journal drafts.
The learners read an extensive comment made on a forum about the topic of bullying apprentices at work (in this case an older experienced tradesperson reflecting on his own experiences and lambasting some of the comments from younger people on the forum claiming that bullying is just fun and games). They then compare this with a recent report on a news website explaining new laws and punishments for workplace bullying in the wake of the suicide of a young person who was bullied mercilessly at work.
Based on what they have read and explored, the learners are asked to respond to the question: Should workplace bullies be sent to jail? They have the option of completing an argumentative or discursive piece on the topic.
Students read a text from a newspaper about the issue of Lewis Hamilton being fined for 'hooning' and having his car impounded while in Melbourne for the Grand Prix a couple of years ago. In the same article, Mark Webber is quoted as saying that his own state (Victoria) has become a 'nanny state'.
This text is explored and compared to two other texts: one about a journalist who lost his own brother at a young age from a road accident (in response to Mark Webber's comment and quoting all sorts of statistics based on Victoria's TAC campaigns), and an obituary article written by our school's own principal following the horrific road accident death of one of our own students (weeks after he obtained his license) a couple of years ago.
Based on these readings, learners are then invited to respond to the question: Do we in fact live in a 'nanny state' in Victoria, when it comes to road rules?
All of this material is facilitated through our Moodle LMS, with both in-class and distance mode options available. And of course, in support of the 'emergent' curriculum, learners are free to replace any or all of these units with ones of their own design -- so long as they can show that they are meeting the VCAL Literacy outcomes at Intermediate level.
Later I'll present Part 2 of this applied literacy curriculum business and try to demonstrate how we do things at Year 12 level. Very different!
This is a bit of a Moodle tutorial 'by request'... As part of a kind comment on the post and tutorial I featured about making navigation menus to avoid the so-called 'scroll of death' in Moodle (available here), Julie asked me how I managed to format background colours for individual table cells as opposed to having the whole table change to one background colour.
The solution/process is demonstrated below, Julie!
I made this tutorial some time ago and for some reason neglected to upload it here on the blog. It covers some of the important basics for someone new to Moodle in terms of just working with topic/unit blocks to start featuring and organising content and assignments within a given course unit or focus. In many ways this draws together a number of other targeted tutorials I've already made (you'll see the relevant links below), but in this case the whole process of creating a unit is built and presented in one sequence.
What you will see here includes:
Making a simple name or title for a unit/topic block
Adding different learning resources to that particular unit (in this case a video file and a worksheet in MS Word format) -> Also demonstrated here
Including an assignment upload requirement -> Also shown here
Demonstration of how students can go about uploading their assignments
Finding the uploaded assignments students have submitted -> Shown in detail here
'Dressing up' the unit/topic block with a picture/icon and some introductory information (this is also featured in a targeted tutorial located here)
All of my Moodle tutorials are now gathered in one place here, so hope you find something useful there!
Here are a couple of new Moodle tutorials I've just finished putting together for colleagues. They cover some of the basics of setting up and organising gradebook items -- including some of the confusion and mistakes you may need to deal with -- for a Moodle course (Part 1), and then how to upload assignments that can align with your gradebook categories, or create independent grade items not linked to specific uploads or tasks on the course page (Part 2).
Part 1:
Part 2:
For more of my Moodle tutorials, check out the posts here.
To guide a single student through the multiple and occasionally complex procedures involved in setting up a Mahara e-Portfolio (according to the requirements I have created for our overall senior literacy course) takes something like 20-30 minutes.
I have approximately 50 students in the senior literacy cohort. To give them all the 1-1 attention to set up e-Portfolios would take around 20 hours.
Okay, admittedly there are more efficient ways of guiding groups of students through processes like this one.
I could, for example, work through the set up procedures on the wall screen while students watch and follow along and apply the same procedures on their own computers. Generally speaking, given the different pace of each student (for various reasons), the pausing and checking and fixing involved would probably mean something close to 1 hour to get a whole class up and running on Mahara the way I've planned for them to.
One hour is a lot less than 20. But given we have at least five Year 12 groups attending separate classes at separate times, the process is still going to take at least 5 hours. If all goes well and nobody is away...
So, depending on circumstances, let's conservatively estimate that getting 50 Year 12 students thoroughly set up on Mahara and submitting their literacy tasks there is going to involve somewhere between 5 and 20 hours of (my) overall classroom time.
Considering that I planned, rehearsed, recorded and uploaded a series of four screencasts demonstrating how to do this for students in a period of about 2 hours, and that every student has managed to follow and apply them (not always on the first try, but certainly by the second or third) almost fully indepedently, I have saved myself -- depending on how you calculate the alternative measures -- somewhere between 3 and 18 hours of overall classroom time.
If that isn't enough bottled time to impress you, consider the fact that I also use screencasts for a whole range of things from outcome overviews to practical applications and skills demonstrations, supported with a range of automated quizzes to check students' understanding... I'll do the math at some point (and perhaps, recognising my limitations as a mere English teacher, enlist the help of my Numeracy teacher colleague) but I figure that I'm firmly on track to make time something I have more of for the things that really count.
That's time I have been able to put back into the sorts of teaching/learning activities (getting to know learners as people, discussing and negotiating tasks, giving feedback on writing efforts, etc.) that make teachers indispensable in classroom contexts.
Just as importantly, I think that 20-30 minutes each learner has gone through setting themselves up with an e-Portfolio is a crucial confirmation that they can do complex multi-layered tasks on their own at a pace they personally find manageable.
My Year 12 students are moving along to this outcome now in their VCAL Senior Literacy coursework, and I thought I would share the outcome overview video I have prepared for them as part of their Moodle course.
Based on the video, my students need to prepare a detailed report explaining, in a logical and concise way, what writing for practical purposes involves.
Sort of like writing about writing for practical purposes, for practical purposes...
One of the great things about being a literacy teacher in a vocational/applied learning program is the regular opportunity to integrate literacy tasks with real world applications, but also to use literacy to reinforce knowledge or awareness about important considerations students really need take on board.
The example above shows how we have taken our students' Practical Placement Invoice Book -- a really crucial piece of documentation for our students' workplace experience blocks -- and reinforced students' awareness of it via an applied literacy task.
Leesa, our eminently talented ILO (Industry Liaison Officer), made good use of our GTEC team PD sessions last December (on how to make screencasts) to produce this very clear and professional screencast demonstrating how to complete the practical placement invoices and why various sections were really important:
[Note: Personal details in the screencast version of the form are purely fictional examples!]
This follows up from in-class demonstrations and instructions and one-on-one checking and follow up, but the aural as well as visual approach is really important in making crucial information accessible to the students in our particular cohort. And yet, there are still many individuals who forget things or don't pay attention when they really should...
... which is why a literacy task applying the video and asking students to write an email to a classmate explaining all the ins and outs of the invoice book can be just the ticket to check and make sure every student has really been paying attention.
Literacy gets a VCAL Foundation Writing for Practical Purposes outcome task out of it, learners get a real world application, and Leesa gets some reassurance that students are actually watching the video and paying attention to it.
It's not every day you learn how to build a desktop computer from the ground up, and it's not every day you see a student sit there in front of you and write something like this out as if it is the easiest thing in the world to remember how to do (and how to explain).
I daresay this fellow has met the requirements for the Writing for Practical Purposes outcome in VCAL Senior Literacy...
He has uploaded this to his Mahara e-portfolio and plans to edit it a little (along with the inclusion of some instructional pics he hopes to take while out on work placement at a biggish computer store).
His e-portfolio has progressed to the point that we're ready to 'go public' with it, so once he's decided that's what he'd like to do I will happily link to it from this blog. This kid is quite a find, believe me.
Well, perhaps that's not strictly true: anyone who knows me much at all knows that I hardly know the first thing about manufacturing technology, much less how to teach it effectively.
So how, then, can we account for the spot-on work a group of Year 11 students--newcomers to CAD--produced in the morning class I took in place of Frank, our gifted CAD/MTech teacher?
Frank was sick today and Gavin and Robin (our other MTech teachers) were full up with other classes and duties to take care of. I had a break first up and slotted in for Frank. The usual process in this situation is that I--as a Literacy teacher--would deliver an extra Literacy class in place of the scheduled MTech class.
Not today. The group in question already had a Literacy lesson scheduled for later in the day. First lesson, as per their schedules, they did MTech. And they did it very well indeed.
This very pleasant little miracle came about as a result of careful planning and the production of top-class screencasts targeting specific CAD skills prepared well in advance. The results are extremely exciting in terms of the potential for flexible teaching arrangements, independent learning and blended classroom-based online lessons informing the viability for a course to become more distance-based.
Here's how it basically went down...
I started the class and asked them to open their MTech course pages in Moodle. I pointed them to an early/beginner unit and asked them to download the worksheet presented there. The worksheet is one of my own design which applies what I call the 'DIPA' instructional model (Discover-Instruct-Practice-Apply), and it began by asking them to predict--based on the assignment/unit title--what they were about to learn or be shown.
Here's a student sample response for this section:
Once the students have made an effort to predict what the lesson is going to be about, they then watch the screencast tutorial (Task B), in this case:
Based on this video tutorial, the learners complete Task C, which is a summary of important information, processes, or techniques explained or demonstrated in the tutorial. Somewhat unsurprisingly, this requires most students to re-watch the video, pause at intervals and in some cases replay information in order to catch it effectively.
The result is a summary that looks like this:
So far, so good.
Task D in the worksheet sequence then asks students to apply some critical thinking and propose some conclusions about how and why the information in the tutorial might be important or useful. The example below hasn't been done as well as it might have been, but it's a positive start:
Next comes the 'hands on' stage. In Task E the learners are asked to apply the skills/techniques from the tutorial themselves and create and insert a screenshot to show what they've managed to come up with:
Excellent... students have managed to use the AutoDesk Inventor software to replicate the shape in the drawing so that it matches the one produced by the teacher in the video tutorial.
A few students struggled here and there with the summary of instructions and the actual Inventor work...so how did I--the non-MTech teacher--help them out?
I looked over the instructions and directions they'd documented and informed them whether they were useful and logical to me, as someone as new to Inventor as they are. When they were applying Inventor and got stuck, I encouraged them to brainstorm, try things out and assist each other as a group.
Everybody got there without too much fuss, and the result was a handy little two-sided assignment sheet which they uploaded for Frank or one of the other MTech teachers to check, grade and respond to in the MTech Moodle course page:
Each at their own pace, they all then went on to try out the next worksheet and screencast in the tutorial sequence on Moodle, which built on the one already completed here and extended their skills in some way.
What really fascinates and excites me about this is that Gavin was in two places at once during this lesson. He was out in the corridor, getting new students organised and making calendar and schedule adjustments for students whose work placements or trade school arrangements were causing the usual start of week headaches.
He was also in my classroom, teaching my students MTech skills.
Likewise, Frank was at home not feeling very well, but MTech work was facilitated and completed for him, uploaded into a repository from where he can view and respond to it later, and he was then the teacher presenting new skills in the very next screencast tutorial.
And me?
Well I was a facilitator and classroom manager. I wasn't the MTech teacher, but I was a teacher in the MTech classroom.
I don't for a second want to imply that pre-bottling your curriculum in the form of screencasts can completely replace the specialist teacher here-and-now in the classroom.
But gosh it can help, and make potentially chaotic rainy Monday mornings run as smooth as clockwork, irrespective of who happens to be available to host a classroom learning space.
I also think this is a foundation and a positive process for developing blended distance programs for applied learning that might actually work.
You've set your assignment on the course page as an upload option (for tips and demonstrations on how to do this, click here), students have completed and uploaded them... so what do you do now?
This tutorial shows two different ways to get to the submitted assignments and a couple of options for grading and responding to them.
(To get a larger and higher resolution version of this screencast, click on the YouTube link at the bottom of the video and select one of the larger viewing modes).
Of all the great things we experience as teachers, I think trying out new things and stumbling upon new revelations about what works and what doesn't would have to be right up there. In my field (literacy) with my learners ('disengaged' students aged 16-18 preparing for work in the 'hard trades' area), the challenges can be steep and the rewards quite remarkable.
Three weeks into a new term in a new year, I've really been enjoying VCAL Senior Literacy. The curriculum I inherited part way through the second term last year (when I commenced) ticked all of the boxes when it comes to overall VCAL cross-curricular integration, but it had been built from a teaching and teaching team perspective with very little input from (or scope for negotiation with) the actual students. The result was a constant struggle for traction on a track the learners found themselves slipping and sliding all over (if not off completely, with the muffled sound of crashing amongst trees in the wilderness), in the end made to happen/work through the painstaking building of rapport and trust with the teacher.
Let me just point out that these sorts of programs are not inherently poor. A lot of painstaking work and sincere effort goes into them. They occasionally feature real gems and meet audit requirements admirably. They just don't always work all that well, and sometimes--based on over reliance on and misplaced faith in design and documentation features--it is the learners who get the automatic blame if they don't perform all that well within certain parameters.
This year has been very different.
The first formal outcome listed for Senior VCAL Literacy is Writing for Self Expression. This can be a hard one to pitch to lads who are disengaged from the broader high school landscape and want to qualify themselves to become tradesmen. Builders don't generally want to 'write about me' and young plumbers and mechanics generally don't want to engage in any sort of storytelling that isn't strictly audio-visual and available on YouTube.
Despite those challenges, writing for self expression is actually working this year, and here's how it has gone so far...
1. Starting with and focussing on the outcome
In a move that some teachers might find themselves instinctively disagreeing with, this year I have avoided an attempt at subtle 'embedding' or 'naturalisation' of the outcome. I've approached the learners from the same perspective I find myself approaching courses I've recently done or am currently doing -- qualification stuff that doesn't always passionately interest me but has to be done if I am going to get through and advance my prospects.
Basically, that means explaining the outcome in formal and logical terms somewhat similar to the way it is presented and documented in the official VCAL curriculum guide. To successfully pass this outcome, you need to do a, b and c (etc.).
So we start with a short screencast explaining the outcome...
... which is followed up by an interactive quiz in their Moodle coursework page to check what they've understood and how they think the outcome might be applied.
So far so good. My learners always respond well to screencast tutorials, and they seem to appreciate having the learning requirements spelled out for them. I'm not hearing (as many) complaints about having to do tasks as part of this outcome, and this is very different from the cacophony of objections I heard last year about having to write a work journal entry or respond to an 'expressive' newspaper article nailed down and pre-embedded in the curriculum.
Which brings me to the next consideration...
2. Learner-selected topics for self expression
As nice as it can be to have a limited number of ready-to-use writing topics and tasks that address the outcome and help to tick off outcomes in other parts of the overall VCAL curriculum (and as convenient as it can be to look at and grade learners according to consistent topics across the whole cohort), I've done away with this completely and let the learners choose and negotiate their own topics.
Of course, this can result in the blank stare and despair of not having a clue what to write about, so what I have done is create an extensive list of thematically grouped writing topics which they can pick and choose from and adapt and negotiate with me.
As you can see, this goes beyond a simple list of writing topic suggestions. It includes a range of suggestions covering things like titles, audience(s), purpose(s) and text types.
It also includes links to my own writing in response to some of these topics. Learners who really need samples to work through and emulate in terms of style and topical focus appreciate this, and I think most all of the learners appreciate the fact that the teacher is willing to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.
So far, no complaints about not having a topic to write about (or not knowing what to write about in response to a topic), and that's a welcome change.
3. An emphasis on literary devices
Before the learners choose and write in response to topics, their Moodle course page includes an interactive tutorial about a small range of literary devices that can help make creative/expressive writing more interesting and effective. These cover, as a base, things like point of view, similes, effective use of adjectives and what I like to call 'expressive action words' (for example, saying a nailgun spat a nail into some wood, or a song roared out of the living room).
Extensive examples are given for each literary device, including ones from my own writing attempts (mentioned above) to help showcase them in the context of full length texts. The learners then need to create their own sentences applying each literary device via controlled practice and then an overall review incorporating them all.
Some of them have grumbled a bit about this, but most have had fun with it. The building and construction student who turned 'the hammer is old' into the hammer is as old as my grandpa's balls showed how creativity and vivid imagery aren't lost in/on trade students, but also sparked a useful conversation about the notions of audience, purpose and appropriacy...
Following first drafts I now ask students to point out the literary devices they've used. Some have had go back to the tutorial again to re-examine the devices and then make them the focus of an improved second draft. Most, however, are already using them quite readily in the first draft and can point them out to me on the page without hesitation.
Generally speaking, this emphasis on literary devices has resulted in far more creative and expressive writing right from the start (compared to what I saw last year).
4. Multiple text types and points of view
Given the outcome requires two or more complete writing pieces, I've asked the learners to ensure that each one applies a different text type and point of view (as in, writing 'voice' from the first, second or third person).
In essence, what the learners see and are expected to choose and plan their different pieces according to is:
So to meet the outcome, we need at least one of each text type, and one of each point of view.
To some degree the identification of text types in topic suggestions (see point 2 above) has helped the learners here, as has the emphasis and controlled practice with points of view (see point 3 above), but this has been a real revelation in terms of getting the learners to widen their writing experience and express themselves in different ways from different angles.
As an example, the plumbing student I have who always claims to 'HATE writing stories' found it was a bit of a different prospect to write one from the second person point of view. The challenge of writing the story 'to' a reader ended up capturing his interest and moving him away from his automatic dislike for story writing.
Another student discovered how much more freedom there was in writing an 'expressive' piece from a third person point of view (rather than the first), as well as protection (he could make it not look or feel like a 'this is me' piece). A couple of other students have written some quite fascinating stories based on (or 'inside') songs and video clips, with different points of view resulting in very different effects.
Some are struggling slightly with the two angles to consider, but the result has been a lot of questions and requests for confirmation in response to attempts to angle a piece of writing this way or that way -- not automatic or outright negativity.
I see more width and depth developing in these kids' writing (as well as overall critical thinking and empathy) based on different text types and points of view, and it makes my spirit soar.
5. Published pieces of writing in an e-Portfolio
Last year completed writing work was printed and stuffed away into a folder. This year it gets published on the Internet in an e-Portfolio platform provided by Mahara, which allows them to integrate their writing with images and video clips.
First person narrative fiction...
Third person expressive/narrative based on music clip (featured alongside)
I've written about these e-Portfolio developments elsewhere and it's a bit of an ongoing project I have going this year. Let's just say these notions of using technology and the cloud, applying multiple forms of media and actually 'publishing' finished writing are having a majorly positive impact on most of my students.
So all up, VCAL Senior Literacy and Writing for Self Expression have progressed wonderfully for us so far this year.
More to live and learn in this process, of course, but I suspect a lot more to enjoy as well.
Another quick tutorial here for relative newcomers to Moodle design: this one demonstrates how to use a nice image icon and introductory spiel for your unit/topic blocks.
More for the appearance and aesthetics side of things, but generally speaking I think attractive presentation should always be a priority in online course work.
For more Moodle tutorials, check out the Moodle category on this blog...
If you're building course work through the Moodle LMS, one method of gathering content you might like to explore is the book module.
I've found this a very useful way of presenting a sequence of content in Moodle, with easy navigation via a sidebar menu (removing a lot of the potential clutter that can appear in regular course pages) and the possibility of linking to specific pages in the book from various quizzes or assignments.
The book module is not a place for interactive elements (like quizzes or essay submissions, for example), but is a great way to gather together the content-rich elements of your course unit or units and keep it from cluttering up your topic blocks or becoming scattered via various individual files or pages.
Having built book modules into a couple of my courses, I created a series of three screencasts for a colleague looking to find a better way to gather together the video tutorial content he has been making for his own course.
1. How (and why) to set up the 'book module' in Moodle
2. Adding content/chapters to a book module
3. Linking to specific parts of the book module from other areas/resources
Hope those put the book module into some sort of perspective and provide some solid tips on how to implement it.
I'm helping the team of teachers I work with to build their own courses in Moodle and gathering screencast tutorials as I go...
Here are some tutorials for teachers at the 'starter' end of things, covering some basics concerning the building of downloadable work files (in a variety of different formats) and creating an assignment upload option.
In essence, this allows you to feature content or work files (for reading, viewing or writing) which the learners download and complete. They can then upload it for the teacher to view and grade via the upload option.
I've generally found that this is a good starting layer for teachers who want to allocate and collect task work on Moodle. There are other (more advanced) options, of course, but these skills are pretty easy to master and facilitate teachers getting a course happening without too much of a steep learning curve or big investment of their time (and hair pulling).
Another (major) advantage with the file download/assignment upload approach is that learners can save work files to their computer and not necessarily need an Internet connection or continuous access to Moodle in order to do their work.
Trust me... after a week that included major Internet access and operating system problems, I can assure you that this can be REALLY handy!
In a recent post (E-Portfolios Away!) I demonstrated the initial building process for our VCAL Literacy e-Portfolios using Mahara.
I was very excited today to see several students go beyond those templates to start submitting full writing pieces, complete with images, using the writing work file in the margin to document their draft work. It was also a joy to see them start personalising their general interface, including favourite YouTube music tracks and images that have particular meaning or appeal to them as individuals.
Here's a small showcase...
Of course, the best thing in all of this was the buzz... the lads were seriously into it. Students still engaged in their draft work were glancing over at the Mahara portfolio pages appearing and getting into their work with renewed vigour in order to get them up to this 'publishing' stage.
This is SOOOO different from literacy work that appears as printed out pages of text to be filed away in plastic folders...
Just made these screencast tutorials for the team I'm working with as eLearning coordinator and thought I would pass them along here on the blog for those in my PLN who are starting out with Moodle and want some tips and tricks...
The idea here is to create a simple menu at the top of your Moodle course page that allows your learners to click and have only the relevant unit or cluster appear on the page. Essentially, this removes the 'scroll of death' issue if you find your learners are having to wade down through dozens of units to find something.
If you've found a better way to do/present this, please, by all means let me know (and even better: screencast how/why to do it!).
Having fun doing the same VCAL portfolio work I'm asking students to do...
One week into the new term at GTEC at The Gordon and I must admit that I am delighted at how well the e-Portfolio project I've initiated with our Year 12 cohort is turning out.
We're using Mahara e-Portfolios, attached to our Moodle coursework pages. I've written previously about the blogging with students initiative as part of VCAL Senior Literacy (part 1 and part 2), as well as the decision to broaden out the whole blogging idea into an e-Portfolio with Mahara.
It's been interesting to experiment and see what might best facilitate quick uptake of the e-Portfolios in terms of interest level, independent set up and then actual use. So far, the strategy of building a portfolio myself (applying the same literacy outcomes I am asking students to tackle--as demonstrated in the picture above) and screencasting each stage as a demonstrative tutorial seems to have paid off quite nicely.
Mahara set up and application screencast tutorials featured on students' Moodle course page...
In what I consider to be a masterstroke of practical forward-thinking, the education development team at The Gordon has created a seamless link between Moodle and Mahara applications. What that means is that students who have already been registered in Moodle as course participants get their Mahara account activated using the same user IDs and passwords. So essentially, we can link straight out of the Moodle coursework to their e-Portfolio accounts and they're instantly accessible at the click of a link.
Using the screencast tutorials for students to set up and format their e-Portfolios has also worked out well. Out of about 50 students, approximately half or so have managed to get the whole set up organised fully independently (including many who did so over at The Gordon library or at home). Of the remainder, about half managed to get most of it right but needed some assistance to tweak certain things into shape. The rest needed some active guidance from (either from teacher or fellow student), but even then the screencasts formed a background awareness that allowed the helper to just give oral instructions or gesture to parts of the screen; students were still building the e-Portfolio with their own fingers at the keyboard.
It's so important that, with about a dozen students needing active assistance, it was possible to have the remainder of the students going ahead and doing things independently while the students who needed the help got it, and promptly. Nobody has been left behind in the overall process.
Based on my sample e-Portfolio and the screencasts showing how I built it, all the students quickly developed their Mahara 'Views' into a basic template that looks like this:
Our basic layout template, with scope for individual 'decoration' in the left hand column...
The basic idea is to have profile and personal features (like pics and videos) in the left hand column, a 'blog' occupying the broader central column where literacy task final drafts are uploaded (with planning and drafts attached), and a list of blog posts and writing/reading work folders in the right hand column. The work folders have been set up in a way that means the attached planning and drafting files appear here in list format automatically, with coded abbreviations referencing specific VCAL Literacy outcomes.
An uploaded student blog post, with planning and drafting files attached and listed
I'm also very happy with the individualisation going on with the writing. Some pretty exhaustive preparation of potential writing topics has been done, with grouped themes and information about potential audience and purpose as well as writing prompts organised by text types. There has been no room whatsoever for the oh so common 'but I have no idea what to write about' complaint, and students are still free to adapt or work completely outside the suggestions given.
One of several thematic groupings of writing topics for 'Writing for Self Expression' provided to students
What we have going here now is a very effective tool for gathering and presenting literacy work, with lots of scope for individualisation and personal preferences via multimedia applications. In many ways it brings teenage literacy more into the real (contemporary) world.
It is also set up in a way that admirably covers our auditing and QA needs. Grades and feedback are delivered privately in Moodle, with direct URL links to both finished products and the files showing the process that built them on Mahara.
And 'literacy' is just the start... Once they've learned how to build all this for one subject, the other teachers will be encouraging and facilitating them to build additional 'views' (or other folios all linked together within the one overall e-Portfolio) showcasing things like manufacturing technology skills (CAD), tool skills, work experience, community projects, fit for work development, etc.
However, and this is where it gets intriguing, we are also now in a zone where intellectual property (one quick example is the covering of creative commons options for images and appropriate methods of attribution or ownership) and responsible use of social media can be tackled.
At the moment, all of the e-Portfolios are in private mode linked only via the 'friends' option. Part of this course will be about how to analyse and differentiate between something like Facebook and a school/professional platform, and what is involved when it comes to certain (what I call) 'social media graces.'
Already we have a couple of Mahara pages that sort of resemble the grunt and grime of your average teenage boy's Facebook page. But it's there for us to see (within our private school circle), address, discuss and tackle from a social education perspective. And these are very much a tiny minority; already the vast majority of students (despite their so-called disengaged 'youth gone wild' reputations) are using these pages seriously and responsibly.
Eventually, when I and the school are satisfied an e-Portfolio is being used and presented appropriately, there will be the option to switch it over to public viewing and (we hope) as an online extension of the resume sent out to potential employers. Hopefully, we can lead the students towards these realisations and expectations through a process that involves individual development and judgment.
The most encouraging sign in all of this has been the students' reactions. Not a single complaint or whine about 'having' to build an e-Portfolio. For most, they've taken it so naturally in their stride that it's been rather like handing an apple seed to an orchard owner.
One learner even suggested, enthusiastically and somewhat more than half-seriously, that it was about time we renamed this course subject 'Literacy ICT.' It got me thinking, because I honestly see them as (increasingly) seamlessly merged anyway...
Anyway, initial successes with the VCAL Literacy e-Portfolios at GTEC. Let's see where it heads from here.
After one of the most pleasant breaks I can recall, and then a deliciously frantic couple of weeks mastering a new online delivery system alongside all the content I needed to gather together, tomorrow morning I finally get to meet a new cohort of 60-70 applied learning Year 11 students... and welcome back a similar number of Year 12 students from last year.
The eve of a new school term always intrigues me. Non-instuction periods can often feel great in terms of having the time to really think your way through and around your course offerings, but it never really feels quite right. Over the years I've come to realise that, without the learners in the building and in contact with you from day to day, it's never quite possible to capture the pulse of what is likely to work well and why.
I mean, we can do our very best to be professional and prepared. Like this (the introduction to one of my courses, followed up with a quiz to see how much of it has been absorbed and then a needs analysis activity):
However, in my final checklist of what I needed to have ready and waiting for the first day back at school tomorrow (today, actually, as I write this post), I ended up visualising the seat of a pair of pants.
"Those'll need some wings," I thought to myself.
Then, finally, I felt prepared.
Ready.
Excited about all the things Idon't know about the term ahead... Yet.
In a couple of previous posts (Part 1 here and Part 2 here) I looked at the rationales for blogging with students and what sorts of platforms I was considering.
In the end what I've decided to go with is Mahara, which includes a basic blogging platform but incorporates it into a range of features to build a full, highly logical and engaging e-Portfolio tool.
I think Mahara has enormous potential and given we have automatic access to it at our institute via our Moodle set up, I'm ready to give it a red hot go with our Year 12 cohort. As part of my preparations for the new school year I've gone into Mahara and made my own portfolio to really test it out, see what's possible and what could be potentially complicated or easy for my students.
The following screencasts have been put together to help get my students started with this e-Portfolio tool. Although they are obviously course and context-specific, if you're wondering what Mahara is and how it can be set up then these peeks might help to give you a better idea...
GTEC Mahara Set Up Tutorial 1
How to access the tool, set up a basic profile and get some file folders in order...
GTEC Mahara Set Up Tutorial 2
How to get a specific portfolio (or 'View' using the Mahara vernacular) set up...
GTEC Mahara Set Up Tutorial 3
How to select, store and apply images for some basic decoration...
GTEC Mahara Set Up Tutorial 4
How to 'show' the e-Portfolio by connecting with other users (teachers and classmates, etc.)...
GTEC Mahara Application 1
How to upload written work into a Mahara e-Portfolio in a way that captures final drafts as blog posts but also attaches a full file of all drafting work...
This is all for one subject (VCAL Senior Literacy) and Mahara allows for different Views/Portfolios for things like multiple subjects. It will be intriguing to see whether students and teachers go for it and add other portfolios for other subjects, and from there I will be interested to see how an e-Portfolio of this nature could be useful for things like job applications.
Entry/menu page for VCAL Foundation Literacy Course ready to go...
A little over a week from now, I'll be back in the classroom and doing my best to keep on my feet on a pitching deck full of new Year 11 VCAL students.
In addition to my Literacy teaching role, in 2012 I've taken on our Skills Centre eLearning Coordinator role at about the same time the organisation I work for (The Gordon Institute of TAFE) begins a pretty massive transition from Blackboard to Moodle for its LMS.
Hence from mid-December last year, on top of preparing for my own courses, I've needed to come to grips with this Moodle thing in a pretty big way, and fast, so that I can help facilitate eLearning for approximately 10 other teachers as well.
It's certainly been a rapid and steep learning curve, but a very satisfying one as well. What I thought might take myself and the teaching team anywhere from 6-12 months to come to grips with has actually become something we're well on top of before the first term even begins.
And that led me to thinking a little more... about what facilitates effective adoption of learning technologies. Here are some reflections at this point in time.
1. 'Faffing about' with edtech is SO important
Moodle, like a lot of other platforms and tools out there, doesn't exactly come easily -- particularly when you are looking to put together something that works well administratively from the 'back/teacher end' but is also practical and attractive from the 'front/student end.' It takes a lot of time to figure things out.
At a rough estimate I would say since the start of December last year I've put in about 100-200 hours of solid, occasionally hair-pulling work wrestling the Moodle Beast to the ground and subduing it to the point that it does what I want it to do. Getting the gradebook to work with our particular outcomes, using a specialised scale I built and embedded, took up an entire weekend alone. I'm also big on professional design and layout at the other end of the beast, so the hours have certainly slipped away on that front as well as I try and re-try all sorts of different applications and combinations.
This is the all-important 'faffing about' that you just can't avoid if you really want to understand a tech system and what it can do (and how it may misbehave). There's no gratuitous flick of a switch, nothing served up on a platter. You've got to be willing to put in the hard yards at the beginning, do a lot of playing about and experimenting, and even deliberately see how much you can 'break' stuff.
But to effectively faff about with edtech, you need a couple of other facilitative factors as well, and the most obvious of those is time.
2. Edtech development requires sufficient time
Prior to this position with this organisation, all of the other edtech tools and courses I've developed happened in contexts where time was either (1) just not available (think 50 week work years in places like North East Asia), and/or (2) not paid for (the organisation I worked for prior to this one in Australia wanted to pay me $21 per teaching hour, with a couple of hours for prep each week thrown in and no paid annual leave). Basically, I developed online courses and tools for institutes in my own time and out of my own pocket.
Here (at GTEC at The Gordon) things are very different. I've had close to 6 weeks of paid non-instruction time to get my head around and grapple with learning materials and Moodle. Splitting that period in half was close to three weeks of paid annual leave where I actually did go on holidays and not think about work. My colleagues are on the same basic wicket.
Time to recharge the batteries and time to really faff about with the edtech, without having to forfeit regular income. What a peculiar notion that feels like, after what I've experienced in the 10-12 years prior to that (but hey: I'm certainly not complaining!).
But consider also the results. In less than two months we have full courses ready to go on Moodle. Everyone on the teaching team has learned how to create screencasts, and a couple are now already starting to take ownership of the Moodle pages I set up for them.
GTEC's Manufacturing Technology course homepage on Moodle, already handed over to teacher Frank Priveti, who has commenced an absolutely brilliant series of screencasts on how to access and use the Autodesk Inventor (CAD) tool...
Our eLearning output and capacity has increased exponentially from one year to the next.
Why? Because the organisation and Skills Centre concerned were willing to invest one of the most absolutely crucial ingredients. Time. And time at the right time (if you get my drift).
But that idea of one person building and teaching and handing over to other teachers reminds me of the third essential thing that has struck me on this front...
3. Edtech development requires a person on the scene as part of the team
In a team of 10 teachers, we now have one teacher who is also the eLearning Coordinator, with one full day per week to develop and build up our edtech (a bit of a combination of building stuff for teachers and helping them to then go ahead and build it on their own). That person is also a member of the teaching team, doing for four days a week what everyone else has to regularly do: cope with the pressures and demands of a challenging teaching role.
This is far different from having, say, one teacher walk across to the other side of the campus once a week or fortnight for an hour or two to get specialised assistance with edtech development. And it is worlds away from going to the occasional half or full day 'edtech professional development' day, followed up by frustrated messages left on voicemail pleading for help on how to just open a new lesson activity (for those teachers who actually get motivated or brave enough to try on some edtech clothes as a result of the once-off seminar).
Teaching teams braving the complicated waters of edtech uptake need someone in the same office or just down the corridor, someone they know and who knows what they do and how and why. In some ways, I might even go so far as to say that until the edtech initiative gets a regular and accessible (known, trusted, empathetic) human face, it's always going to suffer from a relative tyranny of distance.
However, this is not to say that the expert in the distant office doesn't have a crucial role to play...
4. Edtech requires effective leadership and administration
To put it simply, one of the reasons we are forging ahead so quickly and well with our edtech development is that we have good support from 'higher up the food chain' (in a manner of speaking). Even as I work to help the teachers on my team, there are copiously competent people in various layers above me in the organisation that I have ready access to if and when I need it. They get back to me the same morning or the same day. They respond well to problems. They get things fixed or improved. They seem to have the attitude that they have as much to learn from us as we do from them. They remind us that what we are doing is valuable and great.
The larger the teaching/learning organisation, the more crucial this sort of support and access becomes (mainly because organisations necessarily apply rules that can sometimes result in boxes it becomes hard to do your particular dance routine inside). Luckily for me and my team, we have that support in spades.
So yes, I guess thanks to the faffing about factor, sufficient time to faff about, the team-embedded (or team-emergent?) eLearning person and effective assistance and leadership from higher up (or further across?), we are indeed Moodling along quite nicely indeed.
And 2012, from an eLearning perspective, is looking like turning out (to use local parlance) to be an absolute crackerjack.
In my first post based around the idea of getting students to blog, I explored the important question of Why? Following that, and assuming we've come to the conclusion that there are some strong rationales for using blogs with high school literacy coursework, the next important questions become Where? and How?
As in: we've decided blogging can be a great thing for learning outcomes, but where and how are they going to do that?
And of those, I have to admit I think that Tumblr would be the one that would appeal the most to my 16 and 17-year-old students. If fact, I've already heard some students talking about finding things on Tumblr, so perhaps there is already a link there. Posterous would have been an equal favourite, but their recent transition to something called Posterous Spaces does, I think, cloud their offering with a bit too much information and the potential for confusion or overload.
In the end, however, I realised that the best person to evaluate and eventually choose the blogging platform for each student will be the student him/herself. In fact, this becomes a very useful way of making the blog platform selection a learning task in itself.
So basically, I think I will start by presenting the four free blogging tools above as initial options, give my own opinions about each, and then give the students an assignment to choose their own blogging platform (they may, of course, go outside the selections I've introduced) with some rationales for their choices.
Before my kids even blog, there are chances to make blog platform selection an active part of the Literacy and Oral Communications outcomes in our VCAL curriculum.
One of my more ambitious and exciting projects for the 2012 school year will be to get my VCAL (Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning) teenage students blogging.
I would have started it this year, but I commenced my teaching role roughly mid-way through the year and it would have made integration of blogs into the curriculum somewhat messy. More importantly, I needed to develop appropriate relationships of respect and trust with the students before floating the idea of blogging with them. The response was very positive and I think I have the all-important green light from them along with the break between academic years to get it organised and set up properly.
At this very early stage, it feels important to establish a solid rationale for making blogging part of the Literacy curriculum. "Everyone blogs" just doesn't cut it (and it's obviously not true anyway: out of 100 VCAL students I informally surveyed this year, only one of them had and maintained a blog). The blogging rationale is crucial, I think, in selling the idea to all the different stakeholders in our VCAL endeavour: school, teachers, students, parents and prospective employers.
So here, in no particular order of priority, is why I'm really hopeful I can get my VCAL students blogging next year.
1. Blogging facilitates many aspects of the VCAL curriculum
There are eight specific outcomes involved in the Literacy part of VCAL alone, and of them things like Writing for Self Expression and Writing for Public Debate are almost taylor-made for delivery via personal blogs. Quality posts can also facilitate the mirror outcomes of Reading for Self Expression and Reading for Public Debate.
But it could, depending on the commitment and interest of the student, reach much further across the outcomes than that. Reading/Writing for Practical Purposes and Reading/Writing for Knowledge can also be catered to via appropriately planned and delivered blog posts.
Also, it needn't be limited to just Literacy. I see a lot of potential for blog posts to cater to VCAL's WRS (Work-Related Skills) and PDS (Personal Development Skills) units. Via audio and video postings (or just through discussion and response in class to various blog posts), we can also incorporate Oral Communication unit outcomes.
Unsurprisingly (remembering that blogging is about a platform and a mode), the composition and maintenance of a blog is potentially nothing short of a curricular winner, and I think it has the power to cater to pretty much any curriculum model out there.
2. Blogging encapsulates the notions of purpose, audience and public expression
My students are very capable consumers of Internet and Social Media, but not necessarily all that savvy in the way they use and contribute to these media. I see what they post on things like Facebook and how they respond to each other and, while respecting this mode of communication amongst their peers, I quite frankly blanch at times and realise that they are missing out on -- at a relatively crucial age -- some very important social skills which could very well become important in their adult lives.
Having them think about, plan, draft and produce for a potentially public audience represents a very important opportunity to rethink the way they communicate and express themselves.
Beyond that, I think blogging is a unique opportunity to escape the audience of 1.8 (the writer him/herself and the teacher checking and responding to the writing). Not all of my students write well, but almost all of them have incredibly interesting things to say. It feels like such a waste for such textured and unique expression to live on paper that is very briefly read by an instructor and then filed away into oblivion. There is a potentially massive audience of peers who can benefit from and add to the issues and experiences my students are capable of expressing, but they are shut out if I continue to facilitate yesteryear's closed-shop approach to Literacy.
I think blogging can change that.
3. Blogging represents a chance to create a positive digital footprint
This is somewhat related to (2) above, but in this case I don't so much see blogging as a tool to rectify poor judgment on Facebook as a chance to (a) connect with other people based on mutual interests and (b) create a really positive stream of evidence that could become useful for future work opportunities. When you consider the weight given to blog posts in search engine listings, this digital footprint can become very rich in potential.
Looking at (a) first, if my students use their blogs to explore their personal interests (and these vary hugely) I think it becomes a great way to find others beyond their immediate location who like similar things. Relationships and recognition beyond the 'home town' can mean a lot to young people, especially if the situation in the home town isn't always all that rosy.
And as for (b), well I'm assuming that many of my students will be open to the idea of blogging about their trade education and work experience. If they can learn to be expressive but savvy about the way they portray and discuss this, the blog could make for a useful inclusion on a resume (or a useful thing to pop up when a prospective employer does an online search about them).
There are some risks here, as well, but I think learning about and managing risk is an essential part of progressing through teenagedom. My learners will have a mentor and a guide (me!) with their first forays into blogging, and I think that counts for a lot.
4. Blogging can showcase talents that lead to alternative opportunities
One of the biggest disadvantages of almost all education systems is that, to a greater or lesser extent, many young people become pigeonholed at a relatively early stage based on apparent skills and proficiencies (and bits of paper to prove them).
I have students who have really unique talents that would never make it anywhere near (or beyond) the qualification papers they currently have access to. This year I had a plumbing student who also turns out to be quite a brilliant amateur photographer with a targeted interest in cars. I had an automotive student who is an absolute gun online gamer, and a carpentry student who -- beneath all the gruff and bluff associated with his trade -- is one of the most eloquent writers I've ever come across in my teaching adventures around the world.
I think blogging can become an excellent way to encourage these extra talents to float up closer to the surface of things. They might even facilitate extra avenues to income, whether it is via being 'noticed' or just through advertising and promotions connected to future blogging activity itself.
5. Blogging can turn my students into trailblazers
Most of my students are involved in the 'hard' trades. They're school-based apprentices, or looking to get an apprenticeship.
I did some extensive searching this year, looking for blog posts written by and/or for teenage apprentices and it turned out to be rather futile. Searching even for just general teenager blogs can result in a very mixed and limited bag.
So perhaps my students can become relative pioneers in this space. If they blog about their trade education and experiences, the skills they are picking up, the transition from school to work life, etc., then perhaps they can start creating the content that future applied learning students will be able to access and benefit from.
And perhaps, just perhaps, this will motivate my students with another sense of purpose and worth.
Those are five of the areas that appeal to me most at the moment as I contemplate the hows and whys of blogging with teenage students. In your opinion and experience, have I missed anything? What else can blogging potentially bring to my students? In my enthusiasm and drive, am I overlooking any major caveats or risks?
Following a session of teacher training I recently facilitated in my local context, I couldn't help but ponder (for what feels like the upteenth time) the differences and interactions between the notions of teacher training and teacher development.
In the end, what I did discover is the value of blogging when it comes to thinking about what we do and why. This post from a little over two years ago, when I was still entrenched in a TEFL mode of thinking, still pretty much sums up my feelings about teacher training and development and applies just as well in my new teaching context (vocational and further education) as any previous ones.
What now has my reflective teaching gears grinding away is where educational technology issues fit in. Given it is as much a mode as a (facilitator of) method, contemplating teacher training, program development and teacher development does indeed appear to raise a rather unique set of challenges.
Screencasting can be a bit of a messy and frustrating business if you are using one of the free tools with time limits and are not sure how to manage your time and content well. Even if you don't have to work with time limits with the tool itself, you do of course still need to think about the timing and organisation of your content presentation or demonstration from the learners' perspective.
One way to develop your screencasting proficiency is to prepare storyboards in advance, as I explain and demonstrate below:
Here are the templates and examples I mention in the tutorial above:
As a person who has conducted and attended hundreds of teacher training workshops, it's been interesting for me personally to see not only how teacher training is becoming increasingly about educational technology but also how limited (or limiting) some of this training can be.
I am in the middle of preparing a series of edtech training sessions for the institute where I currently work and two priorities in particular struck me as being particularly important compared to previous workshops I have arranged more around the issues of teaching methodology and classroom management. Actually, these two considerations can certainly enhance those sorts of workshops as well, but for edtech in particular I think they become vital.
I call these two priorities FO-FU, which stands for 'Finding Out' and 'Follow Up'.
Starting with the FO, it worries me somewhat that so much edtech training appears to involve an expert (usually a visiting expert) demonstrating one or a small range of edtech tools that have been preselected in advance. I don't see anything inherently negative in that, but with the wealth of edtech tools and possibilities now available I think teachers need more than that. They're often given fish, but not taught how to go fishing.
Hence FO involves identifying a teaching/learning need and then actively looking around to find out what tools are available to meet that need or possibility. Teachers need to learn how to find and evaluate these tools across a range of criteria including things like cost, platform, accessibility, viability and reliability. And they need to work themselves into this finding out process in a way that allows them to increasingly do more of it on their own with other teaching/learning needs and facilitative edtech tools.
FU is, in my opinion, an even more important concern. Given that teachers are often being exposed to a tool for the first time, often using technology that mightn't exactly be within many teachers' immediate respective edtech comfort zone, without some sort of follow up it can be a little bit like grasping at ladders made of ice; they melt into liquid before teachers can learn to climb anywhere (if at all).
The solution? Edtech training sessions need to come (as a minimum) in pairs. The first session covers orientation, finding out, selecting and learning how to use one or more edtech tools. The follow up session comes later (anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, but certainly in my opinion no later than that) and teachers are encouraged to bring along some of the work or experience they've managed to complete using the new tool and/or a list of specific problems or successes they encountered along the way since that first lot of training.
Again, this represents a problem for the fly-by-night visiting expert who is here today and gone not only tomorrow, but possibly forever. This is not to say that the visiting expert isn't worth your investment for edtech training; but it is to say that both you (if you are organising the training) and your visiting expert need to have a longer term plan that includes some sort of follow up to explore what has been taken up and achieved (or not taken up and not achieved) since the initial training.
In fact, I think it is quite essential for edtech trainers visiting contexts for once-only shows to have, as part of their offering, some sort of online meetup or gathering space where the trainees can come together again and share the fruits (or fruitlessness) of the training. Most edtech experts I have met are open to this idea, but it often turns out to be a rather vague offering. The follow up needs to be intrinsic to the F2F training session from the start and clearly and pragmatically facilitated.
FU doesn't just ensure you are getting appropriate bang for your buck with the expert, however. It also becomes a very important fire under the bottoms of teachers to get out there and try and use the tools they've been trained to find and use.
Let's imagine a trainer has taught teachers how to find and use a one or more social media platforms to engage in education resource finding and sharing, for example.
Knowing that the trainer will be back in a week's time (or available online) to facilitate a session sharing what has been used and gleaned can be just the catalyst some teachers need to get out there and try it and not just put it into the vague mumbly 'might try that thingy sometime' basket.
Less confident teachers may be more willing to have a crack if they know they can have questions and problems addressed afterwards. Teachers need to realise successes and progress, no matter how small, if the edtech spark is to get the oxygen it needs to burn into something brighter.
It also means that there is more potential for teachers (whether from the same team or from different departments) in a given session forging and maintaining connections with each other. They have something they need to try and achieve and they will be meeting up again later to share it, so why not team up after that first session and try stuff out together?
All in all, I haven't seen a whole lot of FO-FU in the edtech training I've experienced as a teacher. I think both Finding Out and Follow Up are becoming increasingly vital for edtech, and I am in the process of making them cornerstones of the edtech training I am starting to put together for others.
You might like to think about FO-FU yourself, whether it be in evaluating the edtech training you are receiving or the training you are thinking of facilitating.
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