2008 - 2013 Flexible Learning Course

There has been lots of activity this week with draft plans whirling around like the snow flakes which have started to arrive. I hope you can all rev up the effort and give each other feedback on your plans. This is a really important part of the creative process as our artist colleagues can tell us - critique and constructive suggestions from your peers. I have had the privilege of talking to a few people about their plans and/or giving electronic feedback.

Hopefully you all received the email about the presentations session this week. More on the next post. Meanwhile here's what has been happening.

Chef at Flexible frying is "practising what is being preached" for week 13: National and nternational support for flexible learning development, and also week 14 - preparing the draft plan. Congratulations are in order for the Otago Polytechnic innovation funding which he and colleagues obtained. Now the creation and editing of video resources will be much easier - the right tools for the job. Great to see your presentation at the teaching and learning forum too. A question - are students able to subscribe to the video material as podcasts so they automatically download onto their ipods? Next stop national funding.....

Chef has been very innovative with his presentation, putting his draft flexible development plan on Youtube and his blog. It has wonderful pictures of food as well and is very interesting listening. I really like the mix of strategies such as web-based materials, slide presentations, video and ipods and DVD resources in your plan for those who have compromised access to the Internet.

Megan at Nutrition matters has been zooming along, posting about sustainability and she discusses some good practical examples of how to embed sustainability into curriculum areas such as midwifery and sport, eg informing students about sound food practices such as buying local produce. Check out Megan's plan on her blog presented using an innovation called print2flash.

Athena is reaching the end of the Odyssey and has details of her plan available for your scrutiny - the use of WikiEducator for Occupational Therapy programmes. It was interesting meeting on an atoll to discuss her initial ideas and hear how the crew might make use of WikiEd in the future. Be sure and fill out the poll.

Alli has been firming up her plan and her work policy requires that she does most of this off the radar. You will be able to hear all the detail about it in her presentation this week. I can promise you, it is a very intriguing topic and an adventurous plan. She is also on the lookout for funding and a Learning Management System.

Something like Moodle which is an open source system can be hosted externally or on organisational servers might be useful. It works like any other LMS with passwords but has the advantage of being constantly developed by an open community and there are no licence fees. Or as Leigh has suggested in the comments, post materials using CDs and use email. The important thing will be to assess the needs of the target audience - the learners.

Tracy has mentioned in her latest post, her dilemma about whether to present her ideas for a plan as they stand at the moment. As the draft plan does need to include some of the issues with flexible learning such as the modern internet, sustainability, access and equity, cultural diversity, perhaps it is not quite time yet. I hope you can attend the presentation session to listen and if there is time near the end, present your ideas as they stand at the moment and get some input from the group. It can be a bit like finding your way across a river blindfolded if you don't have all the information on hand when creating a plan. Scary! Tracy has also posted about some feedback she has received.

Annalynn has been doing some major catching up and writing about the issues. To start with her post for week 6 - open and networked education is very thorough and she critiques writing by Stephen Downes, Dale Spender and Christine Geith. Annalynn says, "there may be a danger of technology outrunning social changes needed in education to enable teachers to keep pedagogical practice in line with technology." Some of her reasoning around this make for a very interesting read; watch out for the "mosquito" as an example of how technology and the generation gap can be put to good use. Annalynn has also been listening to Willie Campbell's presentation and discussion session about RPL - recognition of prior learning. She was wondering, "What was the difference between APL (assessment of prior learning) and RPL (recognition of prior learning).” See what you think.

Annalynn has also done a week 7 post with some excellent ideas for her flexible development plan. This is around an online solution to help students with group work and "making of a video to illustrate group concepts", and how to cater to diverse learning styles.

In her week 8 post, Annalynn has some wonderful discussion around that week's question about the modern Internet: What are some of the issues that the video, the debate and other participants in this course highlight that you think are significant in terms of what the modern internet has to offer flexible learning? See if you agree with Annalynn's discussion about the items by Stephen Downes, Christian Dalsgaard and David Weinberger and Andrew Keen - recommended in the course schedule.

If people are feeling a bit behind, reading Annalynn's weekly critique will give you some direction of where to go, as she is following the weekly schedule and presenting some excellent discussion around the topics. She is also demonstrating how to link to other people's discussion about the topics on their blogs.