Leading the field at Randwick – a conference with a difference
Crowd in the Framework & LearnScope space at eLearning06
…and we were racing out at Randwick in October for eLearning06!
The event brought together NSW LearnScope and a variety of other Australian Flexible Learning Framework projects, with support from ICVET, the TAFE Managers Association and the TAFE NSW Centre for Learning Innovation (CLI). It’s remarkable what a small team and low budget can achieve with passion and enthusiasm.
The annual NSW LearnScope showcase offers a forum for teams to demonstrate learning and project outcomes. For many years this has been framed around stalls where project teams had posters, displays, products etc. Unfortunately this has been people hungry, demanding all day labour on the part of participants, and usually detracting from networking time with fellow LearnScopers.
Nancy
White's session at eLearning06 – image by Stephan
Ridgway
This year the LearnScope management team was keen to experiment with an alternate structure and program that would better enable presentation of project outcomes as well as opportunity for extensive cross-team discussion and networking.
eLearning06 focused on:
- connections and networking
- pushing boundaries and challenging comfort zones
- highlighting and modelling innovation and new/emerging methodologies
- capturing the diversity and the breadth of elearning pedagogy in NSW
- balancing presentation and conversation
The event stretched over three levels at the AJC Randwick Race Course. Our 2006 LearnScope showcase covered the top floor and was the focus on both mornings. Teams were asked to present a poster summarising their project (artistic talent shone through) and a 10 minute project snapshot presentation which could lead into extended conversations around tables. The 10 minute snapshots will soon be available on the NSW LearnScope podcast site (see links below) so why not head in and subscribe now.
Michael O'Hara from The Parramatta College viewing LearnScope posters at eLearning06
Of course when new and complex formats for engagement are implemented, when risks are taken, not everything goes to plan. We battled technology - inevitable isn’t it! In elearning we simply take it for granted that not everything will run as planned. And we battled noise - the result of close quarters, high energy and enthusiastic communication. Overall however, people responded well to the new structure and potential it enabled.
Timing of the event was guided by availability this year of two recognised international speakers, Nancy White and George Siemens who presented before, during and after lunch on the two days. Nancy stopped over as part of an Australia wide speaking tour for the Framework’s eLearning Networks and spoke on the tensions around Web 2.0 for individuals, groups and networks. George’s visit to Sydney and eLearning06 was sponsored by education.au and the 2006 Global Summit; he spoke on Day 2 around connectivism and implications for VTE. Check out the Global Summit papers and podcasts, including those by George.
Both presentations were supported by SMS activities and while Telstra’s portal service proved somewhat unreliable, Alex Hayes did a great job demonstrating group SMS potential.
On Thursday afternoon a range of workshops were offered to event participants. Again the focus was on diversity.
In addition to a workshop by CLI, several Framework New Practice projects were offered:
- Michael Coghlan covered voice technologies in Beyond Text
- Jeff Hunter introduced the new additions to Interactive Ochre, now a Toolbox – this is one tool that should be right out there across all departments and organisations to help raise cultural awareness.
- Applications for Rapid Elearning Development (ARED) The project will produce ready-made, re-usable interactions that can be used by developers to generate high quality, cost effective e-learning resources.
It was a big two days and we pushed the venue and crowd to new limits. While we have learned a lot to inform future planning, we proved what could be done and set the scene for further innovative ventures in 2007.
Read our blog posts and visit our FlickR Feed for more information. All feedback from the event is available online and you can add your responses to others’ comments and further reflection.
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