Sourcing resources – get what you need for your students
ARTICLE | Rory OBrien , TaLe Professional Learning Coordinator, TAFE, Centre for Learning Innovation
Are you looking for teaching resources to support your TAFE learners? How do you find material that matches NSW curriculum? What national resources are available? Where can you find summaries of up-to-date information gathered in one place? One of the great challenges for VET teachers is knowing where to find quality resources to support their teaching practice.
The Teaching and Learning exchange or TaLe aims to provide DET NSW teachers with resources from a range of state and national sources. Whether your delivery is face to face, online or blended, you can discover digital learning resources for many TAFE qualifications through TaLe.
This article gives some examples of the range of resources available through TaLe.
E-learning resources
E-learning is one of the key focus areas for education with government initiatives like TAFE in the 21st Century and the Connected Classroom Program (for Schools), stressing the need for developing teacher capability in using e-learning tools. Examples of e-learning resources you can find through Tale include the following:
Your guide to social e-learning
Produced by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, this is a resource for teachers about how to use popular web 2.0 and online collaborative tools for teaching and learning. Covers blogs, wikis, virtual conferencing, podcasting, social bookmarking and social networking.
Prepare for e-learning
Created by the Centre for Learning Innovation for TAFE NSW, this resource also looks at some Web 2.0 tools such as wikis and blogs. In addition, it explores learning styles and strategies for e-learning and contains examples and practical demonstrations for using a learning management system, creating digital stories and creating e-portfolios with your students.
Build a resource collection
This resource contains four workshops that assist teachers starting out with e-learning to get the most out of the resources they can find online. It explores finding resources, downloading learning objects, unzipping multiple files and then compiling a resource collection for students.
CLAS
The Connected Learning Advisory Service was created to assist TAFE and school teachers to assess their ICT skills. MyMap is an online self-assessment tool that builds a picture of ICT competency that can be used as a basis for further self-directed learning.
Resources for Health
The Centre for Learning Innovation (CLI) has produced a large number of resources to support health services courses. Key resources have been created for courses in Audiometry, Dental Assisting and Sterilisation. Many of these can also be used in a broad range of health qualifications.
Anatomy for Dental Assistants
An example of a re-usable resource is Anatomy for dental assistants (essential knowledge), which could readily be used to teach anatomy in other contexts.
Resources for Dental Assisting Certificate III and IV
This is an example of a master list of resources available for Dental Assisting teachers. It provides an index of resources available online linked to the related units of competency.
Other qualifications with new resources are Sterilisation Services Certificate III and Certificate IV in Audiometric Assessment.
Sites2See: Exploring the human body
A general reference for health services and physical fitness is this new Sites2See resource from CLI. This single-page resource provides links to visual interactive resources, reference materials, specific organs and historical information. Also included is a set of delicious.com tags which teachers can add to.
You can use TaLe to discover other health resources such as Flexible Learning Toolbox resources, (e.g. 805 Fitness online) and Studylinks pages developed by TAFE NSW Libraries.
Workplace learning
A challenge to traditional VET practice is the demand for flexibility in training. Increasingly, employers are looking for custom-built training that fits in with their workplace needs rather than generalised curriculum-based training. Flexible delivery options include workplace training, flexible hours and blended learning approaches.
Sites2See: Workplace learning design
A resource for teachers and learning designers in TAFE and VET, this single-page resource provides links to a broad range of websites, documents and presentations that relate to diverse learning environments. It includes links for teachers and learning designers to share and contribute links to other useful sites via delicious.com
What makes for good workplace learning?
Published by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), this document summarises research on workplace learning in Australia
Monitor and evaluate workplace learning
Created by CLI for students in Business Services, this is a good example of a resource that could be used across a wide range of VET teaching areas. It outlines strategies to ensure that workplace training is delivered effectively and efficiently.
All of the above resources and support materials can be found by searching TaLe Note: TaLe search and some of the resources discovered by TaLe require a NSW DET Portal login, so some readers of the eZine will not be able to access all the resources on this list.