Links to the presentations from the E-learning symposium

http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/communities/e-learning-education-and-training

The different presentations are here for you to read. They clearly outline the aspects we all need to come to terms with. They are easy to break down into an end-user way of doing things and build up from there. Starting with what we have, share with our neighbours and work up from there.

The buzz

The after the event buzz!
A brief review of my own situation  means I have to take baby steps through a largely unplanned process..at this stage; and see where tutors are up to first.
Once they get a bit of a handle on what they have and decide what they want, then I can plan where to next.
Its going to be an interesting journey for us all. Over that is the introduction into the place of the things I want  ahead of our tutors and their work. The resistance to new things is natural but leaning how easy it can be  will help overcome suspicion. I have two drivers to use as benchmarks;
1. Costs, it has to be affordable for my tutors.
2. Easy to use, it has to be easy to use.

The process should be seamless with the outcomes expected.
It should not take 3 hours to use the programme and processes to do half an hours lesson.
It has to be replicatable.

Keep up with crowdvine - e-learning. It could well become our community of practice for e-learning.

The West Coast part

It was indeed a lovely day.
The travellers came down from Westport, the locals from the various education  organisations came and we had a relaxed, day long discussion around E-learning, the problems, the work arounds and identified some of the issues most important to the Coast.
We need to support each other here on the Coast, its the easiest way to deal with problems by sharing them round. This needs to lead the way to an association of E-learning practitioners that is composed of those who deliver the learning to students. Those who live with the technology, who use it day to day with students either in a classroom or at a distance.

Change of venue

Due to unforseen circumstances, tomorrows' event has a change of venue.
We will be at the Literacy Westland rooms in Turumaha Street, Greymouth.
We are between the old swimming baths and the Sante Fe fish and chip shop, opposite Dixon Park.
There is parking down the side street by the old Baths and plenty of room.
Look forward to a relaxed day with a good flow of information. Come with questions you are burning to ask, and lets explore the difficulties we face and find answers if we can. Dr Bennett is from Australia, no one has more distance than they do, how are they dealing with it? How are they overcoming the obstacles? How do they integrate the development form the top to the end user?

QR codes

This another site, Mofuse, that utilises QR codes and you can use their site to adapt your blog to a mobi form suitable for  mobile phones.

This looks a likely place to set up a blog, and adapt it to education suitable for adapting further into mobis using QRcodes.

Distance in education

The trip to Haast and back was beautiful and uneventful.
The School at Haast has satelite access for the internet, the downloads are extremely good, however uploading is too slow to take advantage of, and the problems around setting up the technology involved is also problematic. The slow upload does not enable the children to take advantage of  video conferencing for educational needs.
Cell phone coverage, although promised by June/July this year, has not happened. The problems around reliable power supply, weather at any time, technology to make the adjustments in delivery of signal, router boosters, adequate aerials etc. All these items are the essential nuts and bolts to any system set up . They are not properly resourced or planned for or even considered until much later.
The weather can be lived with, but the additional technology required for supporting the  client at the end of the system, is not researched nor have standards for equipment been developed. UPS for power supply support, boosters for computer networks that are powerful enough to cover 100 metres or more.
I have an adult student in Haast, and the the links between my work and the School could be a dream system to use for the community, but it does not work! The people are very disappointed, they have a desperate need for the access this technology can provide but the shortfall in understanding what is needed between the cable or satelite reciever and the users ability to access it and use it.

The use of QR codes has wide reaching and simple application to so many uses. You do not need a 3G phone, just as long as the one you have has a camera and can access the internet, and I reccommend Opera Mini for your browser for this, then you can download the reader from I-nigma and away you go.
This one is quite big. The codes can contain pictures, maps, any information you want to include. Try this one and let me know how you get on. Keep your camera/phone at least 10 cm away from the screen, the bigger the code image, the further away you will be. Keep it as steady as you can, get the image so it has a white border round it. Wiggle round till the image is flat on your phones' screen and click.

using new technologies

http://www.i-nigma.com/CreateBarcodes.html

I have created my first QRcode. So easy!
Now to go mad and inflict them on everyone I can think of  wether they want them or not!
Using whta we have most of, throughout a wide spread low population area, by its very nature an area that has limited access, this new concept covers a lot more than conventional thinking about technology can provide.
I recently had a mission to get a new dial-up modem for some rural folk. They are no longer considered an item of importance in retail shops in our largest town, simply because they are stocked from high density population head offices, for whom broadband is the norm.
Rural retail stores do not consider local solutions to local problems any longer.
Finding simple solutions so important.