Scott+Dickenson

=Campbelltown e-Learning Team=

Scott is working closely with Aged Care trainer Judith Basil and manager Paul Thomas developing e-learning strategies for students studying for the Certificate III in Aged Care. We believe that the use of e-learning tools have a lot of potential for students who have completed Statements of Attainment with YWCA NSW and wish to study additional units to complete their qualifications with us. This could also be a potential learning mode for those engaged in traineeships.

We have been trialling some e-learning tools developed by WebTrain with a small number of Aged Care students. The students have given us feedback on technical glitches they encountered as they are working through the materials. We have also identified a need to use supplementary materials for some of the units to make the learning process more engaging and interactive for the students to keep up their motivation.

At the beginning of our 2007 LearnScope project we discussed the pros and cons of wikispaces vs blogs and other Web2 tools to see what would be most suitable for our students and trainers. As a non-profit organisation with limited resources, we wanted to find a low-cost space that would provide reasonable security, protect our intellectual property, limited or no advertising and remain lo-tech enough for our trainers and students to be able to learn and use the tools quickly and easily. We found that Blogs have changed so much in the last 6-12 months that many are now very similar to wikis in their structure.

[|Here is a link to Scott's YWCA Edublog] started in 2007, focussing on Aged Care units. This has been designed as a space for all YWCA future students to access our learning materials.

[|Here is a link to Scott's YWCA Wiki Space]started in 2006.

Scott's report:
I have been working with Judith in the development of these online resources and we are very proud of our outcome. As you can see in the picture below, edublogs is a professional looking blog which has the tools that will allow us to keep students interested in their programs. I have add elements from other sites such as You Tube and Free Online Surveys to create audio video presentations and assessment questions.

In the meeting on the 11th of September, I hope everyone has ideas in how we can create an even better elearning environment for our students.

Now the big question, have there been any trials? Well not at all, this has been a fun working experience, being a nerd there is nothing more fun than working with this kind of platform! There is still alot of work to be completed, as can be seen from the above edublog link.



Although I would like nothing more than to go on about the site, I would rather let the blog speak for itself, im sure that it meets our needs. Note: If anyone needs access to the various units from the site, they are password protected. Email me on scottd@ywcansw.com.au|and|scottd@ywcansw.com.au]] and I will grant you access.

Impact on learners
As a part of my role on the YWCA NSW Learnscope team I had been invited to lead a panel discussion on the use of electronic social networking tools and the impact that it has on our younger learners. During the development of our e-learning site, I have had the opportunity to pilot our site with several work for the dole participants. These individuals have demonstrated a fluid working knowledge of different electronic tools and an eagerness to use these tools for both a educational purpose as well as for personal use. Please watch the video down below to view the our opinons and to watch a couple of interviews with a few of our younger participants during which they discuss th

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My Experience