I would like to invite you to the ACT Launch of the 2009 Series 11 Flexible Learning Toolboxes on Wednesday 18 February at the Crowne Plaza Canberra Hotel’s Glebe Room (1 Binara St, City). A hearty cooked breakfast will be served from 7.15 am with Jenny Dodd (ACT Flexible Learning Advisory Group member) opening proceedings at 8am. The Launch will include a Showcase of the Series 11 Toolboxes and conclude around 8.45am.

Series 11 Toolboxes address competencies in the Health, Community Services, Water, Business and Finance, Tourism/Eventsm Manufacturing and Areoskills, These will be of interest to a range of RTO’s in the ACT.

11.01 Aeroskills Airworthiness Administration
11.02 Community Services Children’s Services (Cybertots)
11.03 Health Help from Within (Working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients)
11.04 Water Industry Splash
11.05 Business Services My Micro Business
11.06 Financial Services A Balancing Act
11.07 Process Manufacturing Optimate
11.08 Tourism, Hospitality and Events Events Alive!

Flexible Learning Toolboxes represent excellence in harnessing online instructional design strategies and multi media interactivity to develop online learning resources that are engaging, comprehensive and fully customisable. I’d like to draw your attention to the Business and Finance Toolboxes for their approach to book keeping and small business planning, and Splash for its group work scenarios.

I do hope you are able to attend.

Helen Lynch, ACT Toolbox Champion
Please RSVP to Helen Lynch, ph 74031, by Monday 16 February

Tags: Toolboxes

The Customising Toolbox workshop of June 4 held in B107 went down well. The coffee was hot and most came early so there was time for introductions and a chat. Sixteen Trainers from ActewGAL, Retail and Office Training Centre, ACT Education Learning Technologies, LEAD, Supabarn, Accolade and CIT attended. They brought with them family photos on thumb drives so they could immortalise loved ones and valued pets in customised learning objects (forever beautiful, digital and forever here). They took away free and open source software packages for web editing and image manipulation. Ive already had one phone call about video files and NVU. I expect a few more as everyone learns to feel comfortable with WYSIWYG web editing.

There were more than a few trainers who had little knowledge of Toolboxes (shock, horror). It turns out they are from newly ACT registered RTO’s who have recently opened for business. Just as well or Marketing and National Positioning would have my (in late anglo saxon terms) “guts for garters“.

My thanks to Tenille Piagno for helping out with patience, grace and that ineffible 20 something unflappability!!!

Come to the next workshop and see what I mean: Web 2.0, Toolboxes and Toolbox learning objects
Web 2.0 has given us wonderful social software applications like Blogs, Wikis, Youtube and Widgets that we can use to add new levels of interactivity and collaboration to our online learning. The challenge for VET teachers is to make use of these tools for teaching and learning and to incorporate them into existing e-learning resources such as Toolboxes and Toolbox learning objects. This workshop shows you just how easy it is to embed, frame, RSS and link Web 2.0 applications in Toolboxes and Toolbox Learning Objects Some examples of Web 2.0 applications: Wiki, Voicethread, Youtube, Blog, Flickr, del.icio.us

WHEN Wednesday, June 18th, 8.15am to 9.30am
WHERE B107 B Block, Upstairs
Southside Campus , Canberra Institute of Technology
Cnr Ainsworth Street and Hindmarsh Drive, Phillip.
Register: Call or email Helen Lynch, 6207 4031 or helen.lynch@cit.act.edu.au

Why Workshop?
The “open-to-all VET practitioner” workshop series lets the Toolbox Champ reach into the VET community and connect with teachers, trainers and managers who have an interest in Toolboxes, flexible learning and the Framework. VET educators see the word Toolbox next to words like Web2 or Self Opening CDRom or WebCT/Learning Management System and are instantly curious about the workshop subject matter. They are happy yo come along to a workshop to find out what its all about. The workshop registration process and post workshop follow-up often leads to invitations to deliver organization specific Toolbox training and showcases…. because when teachers have the chance to experience a Toolbox for the first time they are always impressed by the sheer quality, innovation and relevance of these resources. Veteran Toolbox users continue to enjoy the workshop series because each event is a chance to catch a new ideas, pick up a new skills and meet other teachers and trainers. Smart people don’t come to these events for the coffee.

So.. what are some of the 2007 additions to the workshop series?
Customizing with Web2 shows users just how easy it is to incorporate Web2 applications in Toolboxes and Toolbox learning objects in order to add further immediacy and interactivity to Toolboxes resources.
Building on the way Toolboxes have spaces for educators to add chat, email and forums – framing, syndicating, embedding and linking are methods by which teachers can incorporate youtube videos, news sites, blogs and del.icio.us tag clouds in a way that is sympathetic to their use of the Toolbox. The workshop gets teachers and trainers discussing when it is best to frame or embed, link or syndicate from an educational perspective and shows how easy it all is to do using sites like htmlbasix.com and feed2js.org that generate the html script for you! ( Thank you Alan Levine for creating this site some time ago).

From the Repository to the CD was very popular with small RTO’s who have limited server technology or just want a way to use TLO with students via a different format or with students who perhaps have limited or no internet access.

We need to remember sometimes that when we step outside a capital city in Australia (and in the ACT we don’t have to step far) we step into a world of pretty poor ICT infrastructure, little choice of ICT provider, and into towns and villages where incomes are generally much lower: both these factors can make internet access a bit of a luxury. The CD can plug the gap between the internet haves and the internet have-nots by at least making sure both have access to the same Toolbox or TLO resource.

Toolbox Learning Objects and WebCT is directly designed to support teachers who are trying to incorporate a TLO as a resource for teaching an element of competence or part of a subject topic and who are doing so through a learning management system (LMS) such as WebCT. LMS’s have different ways of dealing with such objects and these are not always obvious, easy or satisfactory!!!

There are of course other workshops that have been added to the series, but these have not been about customization but about, among other things, unconventional ways to apply Toolbox resources in the ACE sector. Customization issues still remain of keen interest to experienced and new Toolbox users and continue to attract workshop participants.

Sourcing Workshop Skills
These workshops have been developed with the knowledge of people like Moir Holms, who first raised the Repository to CD idea with me, and with the flexible learning expertise of fellow FLS educational designer Margaret O’Connell and the Flexible Learning Team at Canberra Institute of Technology.

Developing the simplest and educationally sound approaches to framing and embedding, and working out how to do the CDRom stuff – was something I had to discover for myself!!!!!

Toolbox Learning objects are reuseable digital resources – mini web sites – that have been stripped from their parent Toolbox and made avaliable in the Toolbox learning object repository for free download. While this might sound unaccountably cruel for both the object and the Toolbox, for us teachers it means quick access to 1300 free, easily customisable, WebCT compatable resources from a goodly number of the 100 Toolboxes currently in use.

There are objects avaliable for example in effective communication; a clever and comprehensive sequence covering most aspects of communication in a office setting… and 1299 other objects covering topics too many to mention.

It is a relatively simple process to upload these objects to a content module in WebCT or if that sounds like too much trouble just link to the object live from The Framework site to your WebCT course page.

If you would like to know more visit The Framework Toolbox site and try a few searches or call me, Helen Lynch, 74031 for more details.

You can get a partial preview of the series 10 Toolboxes at The Framework Toolbox site already!

Series 10 is looking good with BuildRight, Certificate IV in Building and Construction (Building); Retailer, Certificate II in Retail and others in competitive manufacturing, Water and Aged Care.