edna.edu.au

e-pd project 2008: the partners

The SLASA e-pd project for 2008 is entitled Learning with Web 2.0 and aims to provide practical ideas for library staff on how Web 2.0 tools can be incorporated into their professional learning and ultimately their professional practice.

The project is supported by CEASA and offers a variety of online and face-to-face activities open to all school and community library staff in SA. Wherever possible we are building partnerships and co-presenting with other organisations, including:

• Education Network Australia: through workshops and me.edu.au
• Public Libraries of SA: workshops and mentoring
• JULA: Joint-Use Library Managers meeting presentation
• Catholic Secondary Teacher Librarians conference 
• Junior School Heads Association Teacher Librarians
• ALIA SA: Web 2.0 workshops adapted for school library staff

We have already exceeded the target of participants without even trying, but the challenge is collecting evidence of the impact of this project on the learning of participants. The impact has to be reported in relation to:

Tags: learning professional professional associations slasa libraries e-pd web2
Posted at 02:52PM Sep 28, 2011 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

Eviction

Inspired and gratified by blogs, emails, tweets and rants from a wide range of people - both friends and strangers - I am gradually resigning myself to the fact I need to make some decisions on where to go now. My issues are nothing compared to edna team members who are losing a lot more than a blog and aggregation space, however I have three months to pack up my professional life online and either ditch it, archive it or republish somewhere else. Thank goodness I have never been a prolific blogger!

I know I have been lucky to contribute to the design of this home, have some very clever people build it using public money, and then to live here for 3 years in return for providing some community building support and PD. What has been sad is watching the abandonment of the building process just as it was starting to become liveable, and facing the fact that in 3 months we will watch all that investment turn to rubble with no opportunity to salvage code, content or community.

So what's next? Free accommodation or living in a workhouse don't hold much appeal at the moment, and I'm not even so sure about renting or cloud-dwelling. E-portfolio on a stick? Should I read anything into the announcement today of me on the web - have never felt inclined to get too close to the G up to now.

Other professional profiles I have checked out (many of which reinforce the transience of online homes):

• About me: http://about.me/pru
• Academia: http://adelaide.academia.edu/PruMitchell
• ALTC Exchange: http://www.altcexchange.edu.au/user/184
  BTW I don't feel any better that me.edu.au cost much less and lasted longer than Carrick Exchange.
  
• edna.tv Mahara: http://www.edna.tv/mahara/view/view.php?id=13
  This one could perhaps be salvaged with an arm-wrestle for the domain
  
• Elgg: elgg.edna.edu.au/pmitchell 
  Interestingly this is stlll consistently the highest ranking in terms of hits despite not being updated since 2007. Probably because it has the exceptionally highly ranked edna brand in the url which me.edu.au eschewed for a combination of brevity, cuteness and independence reasons.
• LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/prumitchell

And of course I now have to go around to all those places where I've left my house key as security/identity when I used my me.edu.au profile as an openID. Lucky I kept a list of those here in my blog...

Tags: edna life blogging
Posted at 01:29AM Jun 17, 2011 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

WASLA Workshop

WASLA workshop, Friday 8 October 2010

Presentation

Activities

1. Poll: Where are we in Web 2.0?
   Using a modified version of the Forrester Research 2010 Ladder of social media participation, participants indicate their experience of Web 2.0
   Link to article on the ladder
   
   
2. WWW: What We Want
   This is a wallwisher activity for brainstorming and collecting questions for the session. No login required
   Post keywords and questions for this session
   
   
3. Check your digital footprint
   Search for your name in Pipl and find out what the world knows about you and your work. Check in some other search engines
   
   
4. Register with a social networking service
   To register and login to a social networking service you will need an email address which you can access
   Follow the instructions for me.edu.au, facebook, twitter or librarything
   Go to your email and confirm your registration
   Login to me.edu.au and fill in your profile
   
   
5. Subscribe to watlnet
   Information about watlnet: the email list for Western Australian school library staff
   http://www.wasla.asn.au/?page_id=685
   
   
6. Searching and bookmarking
   Find an image that has a Creative Commons licence and share the link to it using a social bookmarking service.
   Add a sentence description that includes the correct attribution.
   Use the wasla tag so others can find your bookmark
   

• Wikimedia Commons: A database of over 7 million freely usable media files and growing everyday
  http://commons.wikimedia.org 
• flickrCC: Creative Commons licensed images from flickr with built-in attribution tool
  http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net
• Smartcopying
  http://www.smartcopying.edu.au
  
• Creative Commons
  Creative Commons videos: try Wanna work together, and Mayer and Bettle
  http://creativecommons.org/videos

Tags: school libraries wasla
Posted at 08:02PM Oct 10, 2010 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

Open Education Update

In July last year I reflected on Open Education and what we had achieved as an organisation in the previous 12 months. Preparing for the Adelaide Creative Commons Roadshow 2010 gave me cause to create an update.

What's changed?

• education.au website adopted CC-by-nc licence
• Report on growing importance of Open Education Resources (OER) at GLOBE meeting
  
• Educational copyright consultation research conducted for DEEWR [not released]
• Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) implement Copyright matrix in their content portal FUSE with descriptions based on a 5 colour scheme: white, blue, green, yellow, red and grey allowable use traffic light system
• Merger of education.au and Curriculum Corporation to become Education Services Australia
  a not-for-profit, ministerial company established to provide services to the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA) and other education and training bodies, as outlined in the company objects
  One of these company objects is: facilitating the pooling, sharing and distribution of knowledge, resources and services to support and promote e-learning
• A priority area for government and the Australian ICT in Education Committee (AICTEC) is intellectual property, including
  
• appropriate open content licenses for the education sectors; and
• electronic tools that assist the education sectors with meeting intellectual property obligations;
• There is increased interest in open licensed material in state and national education content portals and learning management systems
• Gov 2.0 agenda starting to influence some government departments
  
  

What's the impact?

Downloads or hits on websites and presentations?
One edna presentation from last year Finding free stuff to date has 1577 views and 16 downloads

Proportion of resources in edna collection with open licences?
Despite a priority for collection of open licensed content, this proportion has fallen to 2.7% of the collection compared to 4% estimated last year. I have no idea why this has occurred. We did some further breakdowns for the schools collection and found that 66% of these Creative Commons licensed resources were professional resources for teacher use and only 34% were curriculum resources. For the Early Childhood sector only 26% were curriculum resources. 

An increase in the quantity of Australian education material being licensed openly?
Current activity in locating free, online and open interactive resources to support the draft Australian Curriculum reveals that there is still limited material being published under Creative Commons licences. The education licence NEALS is seen now on many Education Department sites and resources, but other than the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Geoscience Australia we are still waiting for most government material to become accessible to education without the overheads of copyright charges.

Reduced costs of copyright within the Australian education sector?
While access to quality, open content that students and teachers can re-use and remix creatively is the primary driver for interest in Creative Commons, it would also be extremely beneficial to see some reduction in the cost of payments by the Australian education sector to copyright agencies. In 2006, according to Delia Browne of the Copyright Advisory Group, the education sector paid copyright agency costs of $45m (see Slide 12 http://bit.ly/b0Alss). With the implementation of the Digital Education Revolution there is no doubt the 2010 costs will be more than this.

Tags: creative commons conferences oer
Posted at 11:42PM Sep 21, 2010 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

ePortfolios

ePortfolios: where are we?

What an amazing interest in ePortfolios at the moment. The quantity of literature on portfolios in education is significant; however the availability of real world examples, particularly in the school sector is limited. This article published in the VITTA journal, InfoNet 2009 presents a scan of some recent initiatives and publications about ePortfolios to see where they are heading

Tags: eportfolios assessment
Posted at 02:23PM Sep 09, 2010 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

Research Training for Teachers

RT4T

The Prospective Students' Office and the School of Education, The University of Adelaide are presenting a seminar series for South Australian teachers and school library staff which is intended to provide an update or booster shot of professional learning about doing research, as we start preparing students taking part in the new SACE Research Project.

Slides and video are available of Professor Tania Aspland and Meredith Coleman, School of Education who presented the first sessions.
(Presentations are not labelled as Creative Commons, but presenters stated that these could be re-used at school for further presentation to staff meetings).
I can recommend Stephanie Hester's enthusiastic pitch for humanities research when it becomes available. A couple of great messages from Stephanie:

To do HUMS research you need to be human or at least have access to a human

Qualitative research is all about you

Details of the remainder of the series at: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/schools/training

As well as being very useful and timely professional learning, here's hoping that some participants get inspired to get involved in some research themselves.

Tags: sa.edu.au university of adelaide research project research
Posted at 03:14PM Jun 20, 2010 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

What is desktop research?

Having been involved in several projects recently that required a desktop scan, I was a little surprised when asked to define it, that finding an authoritative definition has consumed almost as much time as doing a desktop scan on the original topic. So perhaps if I write my own definition it will save others facing this problem in future.

'Desktop scan' seems to be synonymous with the term desktop research, described by Delaney Woods (2005) as 'secondary research' (ie using secondary sources) that involves "the accessing of information from published resources and non-published sources."

When is desktop research appropriate?

As a method of investigation that involves use of predominantly freely-available online sites and documentation, desktop research can be used to gain an overview of a current or topical issue. It may be used prior to conducting market research, or other quantitative or qualitative research, to identify key issues, inform research questions, or in some cases to select potential research subjects. Desktop research is particularly relevant in situations where:

• academic research literature on the topic is limited
• the most recent and relevant material is likely to be published by government or commercial organisations
• reference to trends in very rapidly moving fields of study is required, eg ICT, government policy or business analysis
  
• collation of publicly available but unstructured information is required and where it is held across diverse organisations
  

What are the advantages of desktop research over other forms of research?

• It can be less expensive and less time consuming than original research
• It takes advantage of documentation and research already undertaken, and should add to that body of knowledge on completion
  
• It ensures that key research subjects or government departments are not constantly being contacted for similar research questions
  
• It is particularly suitable to online publication as most of the sources will be website links which can be hyperlinked, but it can also be produced as a printed report

What format does a desktop scan report take?

In a desktop scan from the Delaney Woods research service you can expect to find the following sections:

• Executive summary
• Scope
• Sources searched
• Full report with the information referenced, categorised, summarised and evaluated
• References listed and documented 
  

 I would welcome any other questions or answers about desktop research, and perhaps some links to examples (that aren't under embargo)!

Tags: research projects writing
Posted at 11:07PM Jun 05, 2010 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

Online Assessment

On Wednesday 21 April I attended a session on Assessing Online presented by Judi Barron and Tristram Lawson of the University of Adelaide Centre for Learning and Professional Development. It was an excellent overview of the types of assessment tools available to staff of the university, and provided an opportunity to consider the practicalities involved in implementing online assessment in formal courses.

Various disciplines were represented amongst the participants including Engineering, Library, Dentistry, English, Earth & Environmental Science, Paediatrics and Reproductive Health. Not surprisingly Blackboard tools featured strongly, as that is the platform used for Adelaide's MyUni.However several of the tools highlighted also interface with other Learning Management Systems, including Moodle.

Some of the useful links we received include:

• Using MyUni for Assessment: Test Manager (Quiz) - Assignment - Safe Assign - Self and Peer Review - Grade Center and MyGrades - Pools - Discussion Boards
  
• Using Respondus
• Using Publisher Test Banks, eg Pearson
  
• Using other software, eg Articulate Quizmaker  Adobe Presenter   Wimba Create
  
• Using Rubrics
• Using e-portfolios - Mahara
  Interested to learn about a Mahara trial with one course and availability of Mahara for staff through CLPD
• Transforming Assessment
  This is an amazingly rich Moodle-based site being used to support an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Fellowship looking at the use of e-assessment within online learning environments, particularly those using one or more Web 2.0 or virtual world technologies. There is an extensive Webinar series on offer during 2010.
  

Tags: e-assessment assessment and moderation
Posted at 04:39PM Apr 21, 2010 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

Faceted search

The edna simple search project beta has been quietly alive since the beginning of 2010. It was interesting to view the statistics for visits over Term 1.
Read more about the project at http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/about/labs/searchlabs

 In this period frequently searched topics were:

1. adolescent health / sport young people / lifestyle youth (service=resources & sector=school)
2. chinese new year (service=resources & sector=school)
3. winter olympics
4. lesson plans
5. assessment (sector=higher education)
6. sustainable living
7. interactive resources (sector=preschool)
8. cooking (type=movie)
9. astronomy (userlevel=Year 5-6)
10. national+curriculum+and+vet

Tags: search projects
Posted at 04:14PM Apr 17, 2010 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]

e-assessment

I am currently working on a national project that involves collecting examples of assessment that uses ICT. First task is the literature review (or literature scan may be a better term).

This post contains a brainstorm of terminology. Hoping colleagues can suggest others that we have missed.

annotation

audience response systems

authentic assessment

automated assessment

computer assisted assessment

computer based assessment

diagnostic assessment

digital markup

dynamic assessment

e-assessment

e-marking

e-portfolios

electronic grading

electronic voting technology

formative assessment

learning objects

markup

moderation

online assessment

paperless submission

peer assessment

response tracker software

self-assessment

simulation

simulation games

WebQuests

Tags: assessment and moderation e-assessment rictat
Posted at 06:31PM Feb 23, 2010 by Pru Mitchell  |  Comments[0]