Monday, April 20, 2009

Facebook and life's predictions

Hi everyone

Back from holidays having had the pleasure of catching up with friends who were over from Australia. Nice to have new, but always great to catch up with the old.....!

On the subject of new....I have been experimenting with facebook. A one time anathema for me, I now find I quite enjoy the e-catch ups especially with our overseas friends and family....how their kids grow! I was invited to take part in a couple of questionnaires......what nationality are you really; what grade and subject should you teach; where in australia should you live and what was you occupation in a former life......? The results were interesting.....I should really be a French, kindergarten teacher living in Tasmania who once was an accountant......now there's an irony!!

I was invited to pitch up to the CFOs office (again) to have the same conversation about imaginery budgets and capex (I really can't believe this was my previous occupation!!).......I finally got my feet out of his in-tray an hour later, still having to 'demonstrate' how much hardware we will need for the LMS pilot. I am not one to throw my hands up in despair (tho can I tell you that this is sooooooooo draining, I am getting close!!). So, my thinking has changed again and as Bronwyn rightly highlighted, I was probably going to need to think in a more compact way anyway!!!.....I am not going to be able to have anything other than a moodle sandpit if I can't answer the hardware question, so........I will back up the bus a little and look at our organisational readiness and accessibility in relation to the development of an on-line waterlow scale learning resource in the LMS pilot setting.

Accessibility Evaluation

Front-end (needs) analysis in relation to my chosen e-learning guidelines which were:

Students/Learning Design SD7Is there a defined process to follow that identifies the feasibility of and appropriate delivery modes for the course and

Managers/Other support MO1 Can staff and students easily use the learning technologies and online resources

Mixed methods approach (to allow for the alternate perspectives!)

using an adapted ADDIE (because of the depth and it includes the performance space which is essential for nursing) by catherine lombardozzi (2008)....I will discuss this model another time to include some of the reasons I like it and the thoughts I have had about it.....

URL: http://learningjournal.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/learning-environment-design-a-next-generation-addie-model/
retrieved April 14 2008

with the collection methods as follows:

confidence logs for using technology to learn (what can they do now/ where would they choose to be when they are learning on-line for example. This part will also inform later parts of the process and whether to include getting used to the technology and help desk etc etc...)

Mapping technique for determining computer usage in the pilot area (it will look like a 24 hour graph and show use/no use) to determine when computers are free and for how long. This may help with demonstraing the level of investment in new hardware required in the areas when couple with individual intentions indicated in the confidence log.

I would also like to talk with the nurses in the LMS pilot site about their experiences of using our on-line library as I think there will be some valuable lessons here about accessibility...and trust the responses these will steer us wisely.

....and hopefully not into teaching French to 6 year olds over the ditch!!

Sam

References:

Evaluation Cookbook.....Did veryone else know this was available via PDF in a far more readable format than the website?

URL: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/ltdi/cookbook/cookbook.pdf

Accessed 21 April 2009

8 comments:

  1. Hi Sam, yes the PDF is much better, and the same is true for the elearning guidelines PDF.

    I am interested in hearing about your confidence log as I would like to use one in my evaluation.

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  2. Hi Adrienne
    Try page 26 of the PDF cookbook. I found it to be a good starting point.
    Sam

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  3. thanks Sam I have downloaded the cookbook as well and will be a good start. I haven't looked at the specific collection methods yet, so its good to see you and Adrienne outlining something already.

    cheers
    Debra

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  5. http://www.nature.com/bdj/journal/v195/n6/full/4810535a.html

    Hopefully this one will be a hotlink!
    Real example of the use of confidence logs in evaluation
    Sam

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  6. a quick response and I will read your post in more detail and respond further tomorrow. A solution you may wish to consider which will bypass the need for hardware. Otago Polytechnic Moodle LMS is being hosted by an external company called Catalyst. They get the headaches - we get the system. More tomorrow.

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  7. Sam from your overview your initial ideas for the evaluation project look really appropriate. The eLearning guidelines look promising and I am interested to see how they fit once you have written some sub-questions.

    It will also be good to see how the confidence log develops. Here is an example I found which was used in a statistics course. The mapping of computer usage will be an important part of the needs assessment. And getting the perspectives of the nurses already using some of your services, e.g. the library will be very valuable. Let me know if you wish to use an Elluminate meeting and I can set this up for you or you can use the existing meeting link. I can go in when you start and give you staff member rights so you have more control.

    http://www.gla.ac.uk/rcc/projects/tltsn/evalres/confidence.html

    I can give you access to a self-efficacy in elearning questionnaire which we used in three research projects, one of which was a research evaluation of online information literacy modules. http://oil.otago.ac.nz and another about digital information literacy. (http://wikieducator.org/DIL)

    I can email you a copy of the questionnaire if you wish to look at it. In the meantime you can view it in the Appendices of the full report at: http://cms.steo.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/8C221A73-CF28-4CC9-83E8-B8FD7D9C1164/0/ALETfinalReport251006.pdf

    The questionnaire is based on work by Renata Phelps who has done a lot of work around confidence in using computers for learning. http://works.bepress.com/renata_phelps/

    All in all you have a lot of meat in this initial plan - where to next?

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  8. One of the best article of my life and inspired me lot.I also decide to share some experience with my friends also.Any way i am waiting for another finest post like this!! eLearning

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