Vocational Teachers Website

I am at the stage of posting once a week, something inovative and great in my proffession associated with e-learning.

I have had trouble this week however because wordpress has been down. Now that it is not my latest information to show is Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) http://www.sae-a.com.au/. I am a memeber so I have full access to this site and the various e-learning pathways. If you are in the automotive field it would be worth your while and becomming a member of this cool site.

Cheers & Bye for Now

P.S My Brothers wedding is this Friday so I am going to have some fun…..

This week my discovery was two things related to automotive training.

• Mount Auto Equipment
• Knowledge Publications

The fisrt site has a description of new innovative car scan tools and a description of how to use them.

The second site has very interesting e-learning in alternative fuels for motor cars, like HYDROGEN.

Both sites are hyperlinked to the headings under the bullit points.

Cheers 

ANALYSING CASE STUDIES

The case study I have analysed “Student Centered Teaching Meets New Media: Concept and Case Study” ‘in a nutshell’ is about students who have been discovered to perform well when left to self directed methods. The writers Renate Motschnig-Pitrik &  Andreas Holzinger believe that when e-learning is coupled with this method of learning the student performance should be superior.

Focus of Inquiry Questions are: 

1. The researchers are completely biased to e-learning. How has the research been presented in what colourful context?
2. What are the implications for students who are not comfortable with computers?
3. Are the facilitators trained in how to deal with software and computing problems?
4. Are students expected to have a internet connection at home? If so can they access the server from home?
5. Are students with disabilities catered for with e-learning?
6. This learning suits category 2 type learners what about other students with different learning methods? This wouldn’t suit a hands on learner?
7. Where are the statistics to show that this method of self-teaching with e-learning produces superior students?
8. This method of learning can only suit particular students in my mind.
9. Students naturally want to talk and communicate, will the server be as effective as imagined? Will it be used as an email terminal? Or as a research server?
10. What are the implications for virus attacks?
11. What happens to learning if the server is down or a blackout occurs?
12. My main question is: Does e-learning really produce good learning placing knowledge into long term memory? Or does the computer simply tell you the answers as a calculator does (as times tables are no longer remembered) producing a less intelligent product of people who are only good at using concepts to finding information as a librarian is?
13. There are no bad points or things that did not work well in this paper, this does make the reader suspicious?

Searching For Case Studies.

How do you select appropriate information sources – where do you start? 

• By using good reliable search engines like ‘www.google.com’ or the ‘UTS library data bases’

What key words may help narrow your search?

• By using “?” around the actual word or question you are trying to find. For example I used “Case study E-learning Students” to find my paper. For a more generic view you can type into google Case studies in e-learning. This helps you narrow your search from the thousands of articles you could possibly find.

Which UTS Library databases or journals may be useful? 

• For me “INFORMIT” for educators was very useful and “EBSCO HOST” was helpful in finding my case studies.

How do you evaluate and filter information?

•  For me I am very descriptive in my search this helps me filter the articles that I find may be appropriate. Google will highlight search words in HTML mode to make finding things easier. For example, if I am searching for a dog breed I don’t type in “dog breeds“, I would get thousands of articles to filter. I would type in “Labrador dogs” and I would find the information I am after by being descriptive. Also using the google feature. An abstract helps as well.

How do you distinguish points of view from facts? 

• If it is emperical quantitative research with statistics then it is fact to me. If it is qualitative then it is a persons point of view to me. Usually qualitative has in the sentence ‘I believe’ or the ‘person believes’ this is a point of view.

Are your resources: reliable? Credible?? Authentic?? 

• Yes, if the article has in the top or bottom corners information to correctly reference the material. Secondly, my papers are University papers with copyright. Thirdly, the writers have many references that I am familiar with like “Carl Rogers” and I am aware of his work and the cites the writers have used.

Are your resources bias in any way? What do you do about this? 

• Yes, all research and writings are biased in some way. A researcher needs to expect this, it is only human nature. When you have read the paper it is up to you what you take or leave from the research you have analysed.

Case Study Student Centred Learning found by Google

Motschnig-Pitrik, R. & Holzinger, A. 2002, ‘Student-Centered Teaching Meets New Media: Concept and Case Study’, Educational Technology & Society, vol. 5, no. 4, viewed 5 September 2006,

LEARNING IN AN ORGANISATIONAL CONTEXT

At Blacktown TAFE in the automotive light vehicle section we use CDX http://www.cdxglobal.com/ to deliver e-learning to our automotive students. Our section has purchased the rights to show all the e-learning footage that has been produced by that company specifically for automotive training institutions.

The level of delivery is in the form of the Guerra & Heffernan (2004) ‘intereation level 5′ type of delivery. This means that ” elements of multimedia, including audio and static or moving graphics” (Guerra & Heffernan, 2004, p5) are used.

When implementing this form of learning I need to be aware of the latest generations expectations of e-learning. Research conducted by Zemsky & Massy (2004) shows that the modern adolesent generation sees “it at best as a convenience and at its worst a distraction” (Zemsky & Massy, 2004, p3). I have to admit that even I can tire of certain e-learning if it is not delivered well in the right context.I believe this is because it is so impersonal Zemsky & Massy (2004) found that students like to feel conectedness when learning. Something e-learning fails to do.

Employees of the Paychex company are trained formally and this form of learning is working best for them. “We just use a lot of good classic classroom, good trainer modality. We mix up the delivery,” Kutchta says cited in (Johnson, 2001, p2). I think this is the best form of training , it creates conectedness, however factors have to be considered.. Paychex’s employes many trainers and conducts internal ‘train the trainer’ courses so there are high employee costs.

ISSUES TO CONSIDER WHEN TAFE INTRODUCED E-LEARNING:..

Good Points that we considered..

• For my particular area e-learning is cost effective now that we have the program from CDX
• it shows ’parts moving’ that is hard to describe
• It is great to complete a lesson on by reaffirming your main ponts
• It is great for recording results after online exams
• It prevents cheating to a large degree
• All our courses are covered.

Bad Points that were not considered 

• we do have an issue with equipment between students
• We need more computers in our section
• Older teachers are unfamiliar with the technology
• Our support only comes from CDX if there are issues
• learner readiness (up to the teacher to read the class)
• We do not know how often the software is up dated.

My final comments on this task are that the teacher needs to be flexible in the lesson to allow for e-learning delivery. However, it should never be relied upon as a fallback for poorly prepared lessons. E-Learning is here to stay although personal instruction is by far the best as you can read the persons attitude, body language, voice pitch/tone to get more out of the information you are recieving.

References 

Guerra, T & Heffernan, D. 2004, ‘The Guerra Scale’ in Learning Circuits,  American Society for Training & Development, viewed 5 September 2006, Reference

Johnson, H. 2001, ‘Training’ in Training Mag.com, viewed 5 September 2006,Paychex Reference

Zemsky, R & Massy, W, F. 2004, ‘Thwarted Innovation. What Happened to e-learning and Why’ in A Learning Alliance Report, viewed 5 September 2006,Thwarted Innovation Reference