Online Distance Education for the Mature Student

I just attended a USQ focus group to get the views of students on technology used by the university (I was a USQ education student for two semesters). The focus group was conducted online via Blackboard Collaborate and worked well. It appears that I am a typical mature student who does not want mobile apps, twitter or Facebook, just ordinary old fashioned Moodle, email, lecture recordings and video conferences. ePortfolios appear to be popular and MOOCs may be appealing as a supplement to normal courses. I urged USQ to keep producing well designed online courses, delivered by well trained staff and not get distracted by e-fads.

E-learning For Regional Australia

As part of the National VET E-learning Strategy a free online industry forum on the use of e-learning for workforce training in regional Australia, 8:30am to 5:30 pm, 7 June 2012 (register online).

Program – Thursday 7 June 2012

8.30 am - 9.00 am

Audio testing

9.00 am - 10.00 am

Regional session 1

Emergency services, agriculture and transport

· Emergency services | Tasmania Fire Service (Tas)

· Natural resource management | Conservation Volunteers Australia (National)

· Agriculture | Rural Skills Australia (National)

· Agriculture | Qld Rural Industry Training Council (Qld)

· Transport and logistics | TDT Victoria (Vic)

10.30 am - 11.30 am

Industry sector session 1

Implementing industry-wide workforce development e-learning business plans

· Renewable energy | Clean Energy Council

· Surveying and Geospatial | Spatial Industries Business Association

12.00 pm - 1.00 pm

Industry sector session 2

KEYNOTE Managing change with an example from the manufacturing industry

· Manufacturing | Australian Industry Group

1.30 pm - 2.30 pm

Regional session 2

Aged care, nursing and health

· Aged care | Yass Valley Aged Care (NSW)

· Aged Care | Pakenham Aged Care (Vic)

· Nursing | Health Staff Ed Pty Ltd (SA)

· Health | Silver Chain Nursing Association Inc (WA)

· Health | WoundsWest (WA)

3.00 pm - 4.00 pm

Regional session 3

Apprentices and trades

· Civil construction | Civil Contractors Federation NT (NT)

· Civil construction | SWAT Skills Specialists (SA)

· Local government - construction | Local Government Association of SA (SA)

· Electrical supply | Essential Energy (NSW)

· Coal seam gas - water treatment | QGC (Qld)

4.30 pm - 5.30 pm

Regional session 4

Small business, tourism and retail

· Food processing and production | East Gippsland Food Cluster (Vic)

· Food | Northern Rivers Food (NSW)

· Tourism | Regional Development Australia - Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island Inc (SA)

· Tourism | Dolphin Discovery Centre (WA)

· Retail | Service Industries Training Authority Council (NT).

To participate in the online sessions, your computer must be configured to run Blackboard Collaborate (Elluminate v10) web-conferencing software. You will also need a headset with a microphone and a stable Internet connection. A practice session will be held on Tuesday 5 June from 2.00 to 3.00 pm AEST. For more information, visit the E-learning for Industry website at http://industry.flexiblelearning.net.au.

Web Conference for Teaching

Recently I took part in on-line training in the use of the "Adobe Connect", video conference software for education. The training was fun: Like a group of kids talking into tin cans connected by string.

Adobe Connect worked much better than when I tried Wimba Classroom and should be adequate for some teaching and research supervision.

I was able to install Adobe Connect for Linux and run the compatibility tests successfully. But it did not work for the live conference (I suspect there is just some little security setting to change for it to work). It worked well enough under Ms-Windows on a borrowed laptop (but like many in Computer Science I don't normally use MS-Windows).

While adequate, I did not think Adobe Connect as good as "Blackboard Collaborate" (previously called Elluminate Live!") and no better than the free open source alternatives available. In particular Connect is heavily dependent on Flash, giving it poor accessibility and limited support on non-Windows/Mac platforms. I was not able to increase the size of the text in the interface and could not move windows around on the screen.

I was able to change the bandwidth setting to "modem" and change to lower bandwidth audio and video settings. So this should work adequately for students on slow links.

A major lack is an automated on-line end-to-end test. What is needed is a place where you can verify the microphone, speakers and software are working, by sending audio and video over the network and having it played back.

One of the participants expressed surprise that video conference software has not improved much in the last ten years. What has improved is the training provided. Having the training on how to conduct a lesson on-line makes a bigger difference than the features of the software. But there are some extra features in the web classroom systems.

While I now know enough to use Adobe Connect, I am not sure what I might use it for, or how we use it with other teaching software, particularly Moodle. As an example, Adobe Connect has provision for dividing a class into groups.

In theory I could have a virtual TEAL room. That is 100 to 200 students could be on-line watching an instructor perform some demonstration or min-lecture Then the class world divide into groups of about 6 to 9 students and each try the experiment themselves or discuss the topic. Then the class would come back together and the groups report. But that would take more support than Adobe Connect provides.

Reducing the bandwidth requirements of web conferences with Adobe Connect

The use of web conferencing (that is video conferences using web based software) is becoming more common. Last year I tried out"Blackboard Collaborate" (previously called Elluminate Live!") and changed the settings so it would work on my slow wireless modem. At the moment I am trying out Adobe Connect at the ANU. I noticed it had similar options for reducing the bandwidth:

1. Set the maximum bandwidth to dial-up speed: Select Meetings > Preferences > Optimize Room Bandwidth and click on "Modem".
2. Set the video to low resolution: Meetings > Preferences > Video and select Video quality low. This is sufficient to give the sense of someone being there. Particularly if you are not the main speaker, this should do.
3. Set the audio to phone quality: By default the audio for conferences will be set higher than standard telephone quality audio (8,000 Hz). Unless you are conducting music lessons, setting this to telephone quality should be fine. This setting might improve the quality of the audio in some settings, as it will reject noise not in the range of the human voice. Select Meetings > Preferences > Audio and select the Speex Codec.
   
4. Set push to talk, with half duplex sound: Select Meetings > Preferences > Audio and set the Echo cancellation mode to "Half Duplex". By default the audio should be set so that you have to push a button to be heard. This prevents stray room sounds disturbing the participants and saves on bandwidth. Also setting half duplex helps with clarity: that is when your microphone is turned on, your speakers are turned off: you cannot talk and hear at the same time. People have to take turns to speak, which works well for large groups.

Reducing the bandwidth requirements of web conferences

The use of web conferencing (that is video conferences using web based software) is becoming more common. Recently I have been taking part in video conferences using "Blackboard Collaborate" (previously called Elluminate Live!"). When used in my office with a high speed cable connection it works fine with the default settings. But when using my slower (and higher latency) wireless mobile modem, there are delays. This can be fixed by changing the settings in the conference software (the place where this is set differs amongst products, but they all do much the same thing):

1. Set the maximum bandwidth to dial-up speed: Collaborate has a minimum setting of 28.8 kbps. While slow by broadband speeds, this is still fast enough for two way audio, a small video window and slides. Even if your link has a higher theoretical speed, it may be worth setting this lower to allow a slow PC to keep up.
   
2. Set the video to a few frames per second: Collaborate has a minimum setting of 1 frame per second. This is sufficient to give the sense of someone being there. Particularly if you are not the main speaker, this should do. You can also make the image lower resolution. It also helps to set the system to automatically highlight the video of the current speaker, so you know who is talking.
   
3. Set the audio to 8,000 Hz: By default the audio for conferences will be set higher than standard telephone quality audio (8,000 Hz). Unless you are conducting music lessons, setting this to telephone quality should be fine. This setting might improve the quality of the audio in some settings, as it will reject noise not in the range of the human voice.
   
4. Set push to talk, with half duplex sound: By default the audio should be set so that you have to push a button to be heard. This prevents stray room sounds disturbing the participants and saves on bandwidth. Also setting half duplex helps with clarity: that is when your microphone is turned on, your speakers are turned off: you cannot talk and hear at the same time. People have to take turns to speak, which works well for large groups.
   

Follow-me Sync-surfing For Online Push Web Conferences

On further consideration the feature I would like most in a Real Time Learning Management System is Co-browsing, with Push web pages implementing Follow-me / Sync-surfing. This is what the Elluminate product calls "Web Tours". The person giving a presentation brings up a web page on their screen and this web address is sent to all participants and the web page displayed on their screen automatically.

Real Time Learning Management System

Recently I attended a series of on-line web conferences during the day about e-learning by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework and weekly web conferences with the staff of ACS Education. Both series used the Elluminate Live product.

While described as "Web conferencing", such video conference systems do not actually use a web browser, except to to launch the application, which consists of Java software downloaded via the Internet. It is remarkable that such web conferencing works as well as it does, even on a slow wireless mobile Internet connection (set the software to use no more than 28.8 kbps and one low resolution video frame per second). However, such systems have not advanced much in terms of functionality over video conference systems of ten years ago.

Apart from audio and video, the systems offer a text chat window, a white-board, application sharing and some polling functions. A major limitation with such systems is that native documents cannot be shared. That is when a power-point slide or a word processing document is shown to the group, they do not really get the document, but an image of part of the document.

Another problem is that these applications are separate from the Learning Management System software which students will also be using. Web conference systems offer integration with LMS such as Moodle, but this integration is implied to being able to launch the conference from within the application. The LMS applications do not interact with the web conference in real time.

It does not seem to be widely realized that an LMS can be used in real time by a group. I have used Moodle live in a face-to-face classroom. I could see when a student had completed a task from my Moodle console. It should therefore be possible to expand this to provide remote real time facilities, within Moodle. These need not be closely coupled to audio or video conferencing and could be used with a separate audio or video conference product to provide the audio and video or live in a classroom.

Some of the web conference features are:

• Participant status: The list of participants and their status is shown (present/absent, happy/sad, asking a question, applause). Moodle already has an "Online Users" block, which could be expanded to add status.
  
• Polls: This allows the moderator to survey the participants with multiple choice answers. Moodle has a survey module, but this is designed for formal course evaluation surveys. Moodle also has a "Quiz module", but this is designed for complex assessments. What is needed is a simple way to create "clicker" audience response function, as provided with VotaPedia.
• Text chat: This allows any participant to send a short text message to the group. Moodle has a "Message" function, but this directs message only to one address. There are forums for groups, but these do not refresh in real time and are designed for longer more complex messages. It should be possible to provide a real time message function module in Moodle.
• Web tours: Elluminate and some other web conference systems, allow a web address to be sent from the moderator to other participants where the web pages is displayed in their browser. As most LMS are web based, this could be an easy to implement function which would be very useful.
  
• Slide show presentations: Presentation of images with a live moving pointer is the main function used in the web conference. Moodle has not "slide" function: Files for Powerpoint and other presentation programs can be provided, but Moodle can't open or control them. Providing this could be complex and use of web tours would be a simpler alternative, with web based slides.
  
• Live or Recorded Audio and Video: Audio/and/or video is played and in some cases transmitted live. Moodle has provision for video and audio playback built in. This could be expanded to control an audio/video conference.
• Meeting Recording: The audio, video, slides, text chat and all other interaction of the session is recorded. This is a useful function.
  
• Whiteboard: A drawing window is displayed which the moderation and optionally, all other participants can draw on. There is no draw function in Moodle and this would need to be provided as an extra module.
  
• Screen sharing: An application on the moderator's desktop (or one of the participants) is relayed to all participants. There is no such function in Moodle. This would need to be added with an extra module.
  

Of the listed functions, the easiest to integrate into a LMS such as Moodle, to form a a useful package, would be the status, polls, text chat and web tours. These could be used in a face to face classroom or with a separate audio/video conference system. It should be noted that such a system does not need all functions tightly integrated. Different components can be synchronized with timing, without being delivered via the same system.

What might be interesting is to add time to all relevant parts of the LMS. At present the LMS is static, responding only to user input. But there is no reason it could not be animated.

Web Conferencing for Education

Every week for the last four weeks I have been taking part in vocational education seminars using the Elluminate Live! is a web conferencing program (similar products include DimDim). This provided audio to about 24 people, along with slides, a text chat window and some instant surveys. The system worked well from my ANU office, which has a very high speed Internet connection, but did not work well when I tried it from home using Virgin 3G wireless broadband. The slides and received audio worked well. But when I tired to talk, no audio was transmitted and I lost received audio for a few seconds. The Virgin "broadband" works much of the time at only about 48 kbps. But even that should be enough for audio conferences.

It would be interesting to see if any HTML5 web conference systems are developed. Describing Elluminate and DimDim as "web conference" systems is misleading as they actually use Java programs to provide their services, not web pages. With the extra functionality and standardization of HTML5 it may be possible to have a truly web based conference system.

Also it may be possible to reduce the networking requirements by building in more specific education functions to the packages. These systems allow for audio and video to be sent from all participants to all others. However, in practice, there will be one person talking and everyone else listing to them. The packages provide a "push to talk" function to cut off extraneous audio, but this requires a level of discipline amongst participants.

It is very easy to leave a microphone open without having intended to and difficult to work out who to pass the microphone to next. If these functions were explicitly built in they would make the bandwidth use more efficient and also make the meeting flow better. One way might be to have a system where participants could register their wish to speak and the system would indicate where they are in the queue. By default speakers could be queued in order in which they requested. When their turn came they could be promoted to speak and optionally be given a count down clock to show how much time they had to speak for.

Another function which would help the on-line meeting would be an agenda. It is common to display an agenda in a window of the web conference. However, the agenda is just an image and is not a live document. Instead the agenda could be a live web page with links to materials for that agenda item and a time for the item set. By default the system would move through the agenda automatically, using the time allocated for each item. A countdown clock would start with each item to indicate time remaining. Time could be allocated to the su-components of the item. Where there was time allcoated for discussion, this would be automatically divided amongst the people who indicated they wanted to speak.

Creating agendas and allocating time for people to speak sounds very rigid and complex. However, the conventional wisdom for business is that these are useful to preventing wasting time in meetings. In the case of e-learning it should be feasible to integrate the web conference with the materials provided via the Learning Management System (LMS). At present while web conference systems are offered integrated with LMS, about all you can do is launch the web conference from the LMS. The resources of the LMS are not available within the web conference. If you want to display a resource from the LMS in the web conferecne, you have to manually do this after starting the web conferecne. It should be feasible to prepare the agenda in the LMS and then have that and all the needed resources linked in the web conference automatically. Rather than have a different instant chat facility in the web conference it should be feasible to use the same one as in the LMS. In effect the web conference would be a live real time mode of the LMS.

With a web conferecne function in the LMS, the participants would see the same LMS screen they normally do, but with some extra windows for controlling audio, video and other live functions.

Latency

One issue may be the latency of the wireless link. Here is a PING test. This is using a Huawei E169 3G wireless modem to the Virgin (Optus) network:

1. Using a Huawei D100 3G Router : dark blue light: 10 packets transmitted, 10 received, 0% packet loss, time 9008ms
   rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 381.034/461.056/827.322/125.449 ms
   Light blue light: 10 packets transmitted, 10 received, 0% packet loss, time 9001ms
   rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 179.573/223.091/238.168/16.470 ms
   
   
2. Without router: dark blue light: 10 packets transmitted, 10 received, 0% packet loss, time 9009ms
   rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 134.128/167.720/213.010/36.132 ms
   

This seems to show that the use of the router makes little difference.

Vocational e-Learning for Business

Greetings from my office, where I am taking part in the last of a weekly series on-line forums with about 25 people around Australia. This week the topic is "WHERE can I find a training partner to support my business?". This is part of the excellent work by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, a federal/state government initiative. The events are run on-line using run using the Elluminate product.

This week Nita Schultz and Brad Beach, are talking about their work on how training organizations can help business with e-learning. They are authors of "The role of RTOs in partnering
with business and industry to embed e-learning", published by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (31 May 2011).

Brad pointed out that e-learning was a way to make use of industry experts without them spending their time traveling to courses. He also described how the e-learning environment can be used to keep in touch with students and for them to have an alumni after the formal events. I asked Brad about the cost of keeping materials up to date and he responded that good design can allow for updates.

Table of contents

Table of contents i
Executive Summary 1
Literature Review 1
Key Findings 2
Introduction 3
What is e-learning? 4
Literature Review 4
Are you ready for a partnership? 4
Getting down to business 7
Who needs to do what and when? 8
Maintaining the partnership 11
What about the outcomes? 12
Insights from currently funded industry sectors using e-learning 13
Key informants 13
Negotiation of e-learning partnership 18
Implementation of e-learning partnership 20
Maintenance of e-learning partnership 23
Evaluation and review of e-learning outcomes and partnership 27
Key Findings 30
What does an effective business RTO e-learning partnership look like? 30
Is an effective e-learning partnership very different to other business and RTO
partnerships? 30
What action can an RTO take to foster and sustain industry enterprise e-learning
partnerships? 31
References 32
Appendix 1 – Full copy of responses for responses to the maintenance questions ..... 34
Maintenance of e-learning partnership 34
For more information 37
Australian Flexible Learning Framework 37

...

Executive Summary
The 2008-2011 Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework) strategy continues to build the capability of VET practitioners in the context of embedding good practice in registered training organisations (RTOs) and
businesses (also known and referred to as employers, enterprises and firms).

This paper considers a range of literature and good practices demonstrated in effective business and RTO e-learning partnerships

Literature Review

The literature review examines a range of Framework publications and the recent National Quality Council publication Working in partnership A guide for RTOs, enterprises and industry groups (Cleary 2010). The research suggests all effective partnerships are underpinned by:

• a demonstrated readiness by the RTO and the business to engage in partnership arrangements and an enthusiasm for e-learning solutions
• negotiations where the expectations of the business and RTO are clearly articulated and roles and responsibilities detailed, documented and signed-off
• supportive social and economic structures
• regular open and honest communications
• appointment of one key contact in the RTO with strong project management skills, high degree of customer focus and delegated authority to quickly make decisions relating to the partnership
• the RTO accommodating the changing business needs by organising training and assessment around business’ workload pressures and using authentic workplace tasks and skills development
• actively engaging business personnel in the training and assessment evaluating the outcomes of the training and assessment and reviewing the partnership.
• Every stage in effective partnerships between RTOs and industry business is premised on building trust and respect, having commitment to a common goal, working together to develop the training program, ongoing dialogue, flexibility in training and assessment arrangements, sharing ideas and developing a common language.

RTO champions and industry champions leading the industry sectors using e-learning were invited to consider the features of effective business and RTO partnerships described in the literature, in the context of their industry sectors. Survey questions and discussion starters drew on the features of effective partnerships described by Cleary (2010); readiness, negotiation, implementation, maintenance, evaluation and review.

The role of RTOs in partnering with business and industry to embed e-learning Commitment, collaboration, trust and respect are words repeatedly used by industry and RTO champions as characteristics of effective partnerships.

Mutual trust and respect built as a result of the collaborative actions of industry, business and the RTO in the e-learning partnership. In the minds of industry e-learning champions, the core ingredients of a trusting and respectful relationship were honesty in all communications, acting with integrity, the RTO showing a keen interest in the business and industry, finding innovative solutions to specific business needs, being responsive and meeting timelines.

RTOs met the businesses’ expectations in preparing for the partnership by reviewing internal capabilities to offer an e-learning solution to meet each business’ specific needs, researching the industry and the business and demonstrating commitment to an e-learning solution. Industry and RTO e-learning champions were unequivocal about the importance of unambiguous, detailed documentation underpinning the implementation, maintenance and evaluation of the partnership. Businesses expect to know what their specific roles and responsibilities are up front and performance measures to be mutually agreed. While businesses want a say in the design and implementation of the learning they do look to the RTO to interpret their needs and offer solutions and in some cases the businesses depended on the RTO to provide that advice.
Industry and RTO champions agreed that collaborative decision making, agreed outcomes, protection of intellectual property, the appointment of key contacts and embedded quality processes are catalysts to effective e-learning partnerships.

Key Findings

The features cited by Cleary (2010) as essential to effective partnerships
were rated as equally important by industry and RTO champions leading the 2008-2011 Framework funded industry sectors using e-learning.

However, the business may need guidance from the RTO to better understand the skills that need to be developed and the available training options for e-learning solutions.

To foster and sustain business e-learning partnerships RTOs need to have an attitude that is highly focused on service to the business, ensuring all communications are answered promptly and fully and by making the effort to build personal relationships with business personnel.

All industry champions interviewed for this paper agreed that respect is earned.

RTOs supporting the currently funded industry sectors have built the respect of the industry sectors and business partners by being action driven, making realistic promises to industry stakeholders and delivering on these promises. RTOs tangibly demonstrating commitment to, and collaboration with the industry sector, build trust and respect that translates into sustained partnerships. This may translate to the RTO becoming the provider of choice for the business partners. ...

From: The role of RTOs in partnering
with business and industry to embed e-learning, Nita Schultz and Brad Beach, Australian Flexible Learning Framework, 31 May 2011

e-learning for workforce development

Today I took part in the second of an weekly series on-line forums with about 25 people around Australia on this week the topic was "HOW can e-learning help with workforce development?". This is part of the excellent work by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, a federal/state government initiative. The events are run on-line using run using the Elluminate product.

This week, as well as listening to a live-to-air presentation with on-line slides, we also worked through some pre-recorded Flash based slides with audio and answered some questions. This made for a slightly complex setup, especially for an ad-hoc group of participants. The Flash presentation was supposed to appear in the Elluminate window, but I found I had just a blank square (I suspect that Elluminate does not work so well under Linux as MS-Windows). But the trainers had allowed for this and provided a web address so I could open the representative in my web browser separately.

To add to my confusion the live sound from the trainer came through my headset, whereas the prerecorded material came via the speakers in my laptop (perhaps because I have changed the audio settings). Some of the problems other students had with audio breaking up I did not experience, perhaps because I set Elluminate to run at 56 kbps (not propaganda speed) and set Flahs to play at low resolution. This reduces the communications and processing load, but still gives an acceptable presentation.

To enter answers to questions there was a separate workbook, in the form of a word-processing document. This made for slightly disjointed process, as I had to flip between Elluminate, the Web browser and the word processor. But it did have the advantage that I could use the native features of each.

Entering answers into a Learning Management System can be annoying, for example, if I can't get the spell checker to work. It is a pleasure to watch how an experienced on-line trainer handles the complexities of getting a group of people to go through an on-line training module and keep top the timetable.

Here is a summary of my answers to the questions:

• Obstacles to e-leaning in the workplace:Academic prejudice against e-learning. Lack of training with e-learning techniques.
• When and where e-leaning:In formal course times as part of the normal semester works well. Can also be used in an ad-hoc way.
• Travel and the benefits:More the case of not being where the training facility is. That is with mobile staff. Can save administrative time, worrying about getting to and from classes.
• What motivates industry to participate in training: Meeting mandatory qualification requirements.
• Importance of learner support: Being in the IT industry have good technical support. But still have difficulty getting things like Elluminate and the Flash player to work on my Linux computer.
• Learners comfortable with e-learning: Most experienced with IT and relaxed. They will appreciate not having to attend “lectures”. They like it.
• Learners prepared for e-learning:
  
• About 10% drop out in the first few weeks as they cannot cope with having to do work every week.
• Motivation of learners: Get a better job.
• How many learners are there? I expect to have classes of 100 students.
• Learners locations: About one third India, one third China and one third spread across Australia and the rest of the world.
• What particularly motivates learners: Practical exercises relevant to jobs they can get.
• How will the learners benefit: Get a qualification they can use to get a better job.
• Previous training experience influenced attitude to learning: Boring lectures and irrelevant paper based examinations.

Some useful links were also provided:

1. Enabling workforce development: Insights from industries using e-learning report

2. Role of RTOs in partnering with business and industry to embed e-learning
3. Guidelines for supporting e-learners for support
4. Enabling workforce development: Insights from eight industry sectors using e-learning
5. Enabling workforce development: Learning sequence

Overcoming e-learning challenges

Greetings from my office at the ANU in Canberra, where I am taking part in an online forum with about 25 people around Australia on the topic "Explore the practical challenges in using e-learning". This is one of a weekly series run by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, a federal/state government initiative. This is run using the Elluminate product, over the web.

The good part of this is that people from the vocational education sector demonstrate how to use the technology and that they can use it, for the sessions. They use the facilitates of the technology, such as display of slides, conducting polls of participations, as part of the presentation. What I find annoying is when I am invited to a presentation on e-learning and find it is an old fashioned set of slides with now use of the technology. The Vocational people are showing they know what to do.

The session explored a "Preview: refreshed Practical guide to e-learning" this is available as web pages and down-loadable as PDF:

• SECTION 1 - E-LEARNING OVERVIEW
  • What is e-learning
  • Examples of e-learning in industry
  • Nationally recognised courses
  • E-learning motivators
  • Benefits of e-learning
  • Barriers to e-learning
  • Workforce Development Barriers
  • Types of e-learning
    • Self paced vs. live e-learning
    • Use of a facilitator
    • Blended learning
    • Delivery method
  • Learning systems
    • Choosing a learning system
  • Learning Objects / SCORM
  • Supporting e-learning
    • Skills needed by learners
    • Skills needed by facilitators
  • Costs of e-learning
    • Calculating the cost of e-learning
    • Low cost / free e-learning tools
    • Cost comparison e-learning vs. facilitator led
  • Who is using e-learning
  • How to get started
    • Talk to other people
    • How to find a partner
  • Is e-learning suitable
  • • What's the training problem, and will e-learning solve it?
    • Needs assessment matrix
    • Who are the learners?
    • Is my organisation ready
    • Will e-learning deliver benefits over facilitator-led training
    • When is e-learning most effective and most utilised
    • E-learning suitability checklist
    • Resources for learning more
  • 
    
• SECTION 2 - THE E-LEARNING PROJECT
  • Analyse
  • • Deciding on an e-learning strategy
    • Content and learning styles
    • Establishing and managing the team
    • Effective management
    • Identifying technical needs
    • Dealing with disability / accessibility
    • Funding e-learning
    • Preparing a business case
    • Identifying success factors
    • Other project stages
    • Project plan
    • Am I ready to start
  • Design
  • Develop
  • Implement
  • Evaluate (and maintain)
• SECTION 3 - TRENDS AND FURTHER INFO

Teaching Green IT at World Computer Congress 2010

The World Computer Congress 2010 has invited me to talk on "Teaching Sustainable ICT Competencies with Tablet Computers: My first year's experience setting the global standard for professional education" (as featured in my book Green Technology Strategies), in Brisbane in September. This should be a more relaxed experience than WCC 1996, when I was President of the Australian Computer Society, hosting the event in Canberra.

The list of confirmed industry and plenary speakers so far has some familiar names:

WCC 2010 confirmed industry and plenary speakers

Plenary

• Nicholas Carr, Author of The Big Switch
• Prof Penny Sanderson, University of Queensland & NICTA
• Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation
• John Suffolk, CIO, British Government

LearnIT

• Sir John Daniel, President & CEO, Commonwealth of Learning, Computers for Secondary Schoolchildren: A Busted Flush? New book: http://www.col.org/mega-schools/
• Mr Nick Weidemann, CIO, Education Services Australia, Aligning existing digital learning resources and systems with the Australian Curriculum
• Steve Hargadon, Elluminate's Social Learning Consultant & founder of the Classroom 2.0 social network http://www.classroom20.com, Web 2.0 in Action
• Dr Marcus Bowles, Director, Institute of Working Futures, ICT Competencies
• Mike Collett & Jenny Hunt with Prof Phil Candy, USQ, Principal Consultants, Schemeta, United Kingdom, E-Learning Readiness Toolkit
• Prof James Dalziel, Director, Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE) http://www.melcoe.mq.edu.au , Web 2.0 Meets Lesson Plans: Sharing Good eTeaching Ideas
• Dr Yong-Sang Cho, Director, Korea Education & Research Information Service (KERIS) which is a government institution of the Ministry of Education & Science Technology (MEST), e-Books & e-Learning The Korean Open Digital Publication Forum
• Simon Brown, http://simonbrown.wikispaces.com, Success Factors in Online Teaching
• Carol Skyring , Founder and CEO, LearnTel Pty Ltd, Visual communication: From zoopraxiscope to YouTube
• Adrian Janson, Director, ICT Melbourne High School, The National ICT Curriculum Controversy
• Allyn Radford, Director, Learnilities Pty Ltd, Lessons from an Open World
• Mark Keough, Principal, M2 Consulting, Toward Learning Utility with Ultra Fast Broadband
• Steve Sudgen, Editor, Spreadsheets in Education, Spreadsheets in Mathematics Education

TreatIT

• Bill Vargas, CIO, Children’s Hospital - Westmead, eHealth - Beyond a Hospital's Electronic Medical Record, what we do need from a consumer's perspective?
• Adam Powick, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, eHealth in Australia - The Way Forward
• John Neville, CEO, Data Agility
• Peter Grant, Consultant, Intelligent Business Research Services (IBRS); Professor Information Systems, QUT & UQ
• Denis Tebbutt, Managing Director, iSOFT
• Phil Gurney, Australian e-Health Research Centre

TrustIT

• Marcus Sachs, Executive Director - Government Affairs for National Security Policy, Verizon, Cyber-espionage and Cyber-warfare
• Paul Ducklin, Head of Technology, Sophos, Asia Pacific, Malware analysis and detection
• Dr Peter Gutmann, Researcher - Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland, Unsolveable problems in computer security (TBC)
• Dr Wietse Venema, Research staff member, IBM T.J. Watson researchcenter in the USA, Software security and secure programming

ValueIT

• Dr Eva Hopper, European Patent Office http://www.epo.org, Intersection between protecting IP and making innovation happen – in time!
• Mr Ralf Abbing, European Patent Office http://www.epo.org, What are the “big” issues in IP in relation to computing technology?
• Lachlan James, Business Director, NICTA’s Queensland Laboratory, Innovation processes in Commercialization of ICT
• Robert Hillard, Partner, Consulting, Enterprise Information Management, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu , Information-Driven Business http://www.infodrivenbusiness.com
• Peter Nevin, Executive General Manager - Business Processes, Sedgman Limited (previously CIO Apac, Sinclair Knight Merz)
• Vince Gill, Director, Capability Consulting, IT is not about me
• Guido Governatori, Business Process Compliance Project Leader, NICTA’s Queensland Laboratory, IT role in business process compliance
• Stephen Kowal, General Manager - Finance, CSC, TBA

• Dharmender Kapoor, Associate Vice President, HCL

GovernIT

• Peter Harrison, IBM, Value Governance
• Peter Carr, Longhaus
• Peter Green, University of Queensland, TBA

• Tony Hayes, Director, ISACA
• Carsten Larsen, CIO, Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
• Rimas Skeivys, Principal, Ugovern, Governance of IT - the role of the project sponsor

SustainIT

• Bianca Wirth, CEO, Computers Off, The global "Computers Off" campaign
• Graeme Philipson, Research Director, Connection Research, Australia’s IT Carbon Footprint
• Bob Hayward, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, CSC Australia & Asia, Data Centre and Cloud Computing innovation
• Glenn Gore, CTO, MelbourneIT, Enterprise virtualisation automation and green computing
• Dr Paul Campbell, Principal Consultant, Cogentia, Control Modelling and Energy efficiency in Software Engineering
• Josh Millen, Corporate Social Responsibility, AIIA, A national approach to eWaste management
• Tom Worthington, Australian National University, Green ICT Education of ICT professionals
• Phillip Nyssen, Delivering sustainable business benefits through GreenIT
• Turlough Guerin, General Manager - Sustainability, Telstra, The Australian NBN enabling sustainable workforces
• Craig Roussac, General Manager, Sustainability, Safety and Environment Investa Property Group, Buildings come clean: it’s time to see the data!

DeliverIT

• Ashley Goldsworthy, Director, Unidap Solutions; Chairman, CertainEdge, Business Models of the Future - Certain Edge / Unidap Solutions
• Ben Patey, CIO, CSC Australia, Leveraging Social Networking
• Brett Hooker, MD Roarz
• Clarence Tan, Qld Technologist in residence, Enabling mobile transactions with information assurance
• Craig Batty, CTO, Fujitsu, Changing Needs of Data Centres and use of Clouds (TBA)
• Damian Hickey, CEO, Zac-Ware, Profits and pitfalls of segmenting web presences on a regionalised basis
• Dharmender Kapoor, Associate Vice President, HCL Australia
• Dr Kelvin Ross, Managing Director, How does Australian Industry Measure Up for Software Testing and Quality
• Ian Dennis, Chairman, Whitehorse Strategic, Changing structure of ICT occupations and the ICT industry in the Digital Economy
• Jackie Korhonen, CEO, Infosys Australia
• John Puttick, Chairman, GBST Holdings, If IT is to be…
• M. Rosemann and Stephen Goodwin from BAC, Professor, Airport of the Future
• Nick Brandt, CIO, Brisbane City Council, Virtualisation and Clouds (TBC)
• Peter Effeney, CEO, Sparq Solutions, Electricity Utility related presentation
• Peter Grant, Consultant, Intelligent Business Research Services (IBRS); Professor Information Systems, QUT & UQ, Influencing Industry and Government Technology Decisions and Alliancing
• Prof Reg Coutts, Principal, Coutts Communications, Network of the Future
• Prof Simon Kaplan, Executive Dean, QUT - Science and Technology, Socio-Technical Networks - Panel Discussion
• Robert Hillard, Partner, Consulting, Enterprise Information Management, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Information-Driven Business http://www.infodrivenbusiness.com
• Rob Livingstone, CIO, Ricoh, Is your organization instrument-rated to fly in the cloud?
• Rohit Gandhi, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific, Satyam
• Scott Stewart, CIO, Wilson HTM, Convergent roles of IT and Business
• Stephen Kowal, CSC General Manager Financial Services; Past Vice President, ACS
• Stuart Guest Smith, Thoughtworks, Agile delivery and unique models
• Todd McGregor, Commercial Director, Any3 connectivity – Anywhere, Any place, Any time
• Max Jennings, Director, Wireless Engineering Telstra, Mobile / comms network design, embedded systems
• ACS Award Nominee, Student, Super Performance Database Web Grid (with Locked Record update)
• Aileen Cater-Steele, CS Award Nominee, IT Service Management
• Les Williamson, Vice President, Cisco Australia & New Zealand
• Phil Mumford, CEO, QLD Motorways, Free Flow Tolling
• Baden Sharples, CIO, Qsuper, Transformation Change

PlayIT

• Fergus Carroll, General Manager, Krome Studios
• Morgan Jaffitt, Impossible Changing Brain Foundation, Casual Game Development in Australia
• John Passfield, Chief Creative Bloke 3 Blokes Studios, Social Games
• George Fidler, Business side of Casual Game Start-Ups
• Eve Penford-Dennis, FreePlay, Creative Side of Games

YoungIT

• Rangan Srikhanta, Executive Director, OLPC, One Laptop Per Child Program
• Anastasia Govan, ACS NT Branch Chair and the First YIT Board Director. Anastasia won the 2006 Young Professional of the Year Award, How I made a Business out of Information Management
• Jill Noble, Pivotal HR Resume Professionals, Communication with a focus on speaking and elocution for Young ICT Professionals
• AJ Kulatunga, Darwin-based entrepreneur
• John Ridge AM, Executive Director, ACS Foundation, Accelerating Your Career
• Kate Southam, TBA

Pearcey Roundtable

• Dr David Skellern, NICTA
• Dr Alex Zelinsky, CSIRO
• Dr Arun Sharma, QUT
• Dr Rohan Gilmore, AIC
• David Waldie, Allegro Networks

Mobile real-time e-learning tools needed

Is online real time interaction feasible on limited Internet connections, such as those on mobile devices? I was invited to try "Learn Central" with the Elluminate Live! collaboration tool. However, this requires a Java download which will take 11 minutes on my slow wireless Internet connection. Even after that I was not confident that Elluminate would have options suitable for a low speed high latency connection to my low performance Linux netbook computer. That may seem an unusual configuration of computer. But it is not that different to the smart phones many people have and could use for education, if a workable configuration could be found. As it is, it seems that every week or so someone offers me what they claim to be a revolutionary online education tool, which turns out not to run on anything other than a Microsoft Windows computer with a high speed broadband connection and a lot of very fragile add-on software. What we need are some really revolutionary tools which are not just adaptions of business video conferencing.