really- is this 2010

As you can see I have neglected this blogspace shamefully. I am looking forward to being one of the memebrs of this group after July, as I need to have a reason to work in this way.
Also, I'm delighted to see that skill in the use of wiki will be developed- I'm very much in favour of open learning resources and wiki is a space for that to happen.
Look forward to meeting you all.
Go well.
Willie

reflection of academic year

this is the time that we reflect on our work during the year. Over the last two days I have attended several "boutique" pre-graduation events and witnessed the power of success. Tomorrow is our Polytechnic Graduation. We will walk in procession through the main street of Dunedin and many folk will stand to applaud our graduates. Post school education is taken very seriously in this city. BUT one of the more powerful events was the pre-graduate evenrt for Maori graduates. Many were distance people working through blended learning courses and the Assessment of their Prior Learning through our unique facilitated process.Powerful because their communities need these people to have qualifications and are prepared to travel from one end of New Zealand to the other to support their folk at Graduation. The process towards success will include engagement through Moodle (a learning management system), Mahara (a digital portfolio tool) and/or the commercial Skype as well as regular phone and e-mail. The challenge of the distance candidate for APL is an ever present one and those of us who facilitate their progress towards assessment need to be constantly upgrading and practisign our computer and digital skills.

What is it about Elluminate that so many of our institutions can't/won't host it? Are the choices they make so cautious as to allow nothing other than the microsoft colonisations to enter the institituion? Last year visiting TAFE colleagues carrying out Skills Recognition (RPL) in the state of Victoria, they couldn't understand why we didn't all use Elluminate routinely to help people prepare evidence for RPL and to carry out interview type assessments.

The pedagogical move to diversity of learning facilitation as shown in the open education resource movement on Wikieducator and the possible use of digital tools used routinely by students (Facebook/mobile phones/Skype etc) keeps being subverted by the IT policies we function with.
A tension indeed here for us to grapple with.

cairn terriers

alter personas

I have been intrigued with the names people have chosen for second life- I see so many Jungian archetypes there as to be unfuuny. BUT also it has been brought home to me this week, the parallel nature of some of these activites. I have had one of my granddaughters for a sleepover and we worked on selecting names for ourselves if we were to be Disney Fairies.

I suspect that many second life avatars are really Disney Fairies.Do they ever age?

the considered choice of technical platforms

i am conscious of the constraints and affordances of any platform you use to work with others in an educational way. Doesn't matter whether or not it is digital or manual. SO choose wisely- is this piece of digital technology able to be accessed, understood, interpreted by your group of learners?If not, then why are you choosing it?

surface or deep online environments.

I am interested in the discussions on groups and blogs- have listened to the last meeting. I think that George Siemen's comments around what style each environment encourages is so apt- the groups tend to short chatty pieces, while the blog both allows for and encourages longer, moire reflective work. As for where the "community" happens, I suspect that Sarah's idea that the blog groups that spring up spontaneously around a shared interest have more motivational pull and real purpose for existance than the managed ones- I guess my comment to Rachel on the hospitality blogs is to do with that. They always seem to me to be thinly disguised advertising.

Willie