Caecilia


 * [[image:CR.JPG width="161" height="234" align="left"]]Caecilia's Learning Space.**

Now in our second year of e-learning exploration at YWCA NSW, I'm looking forward to working with everyone this year on our [|LearnScope] project & trialling this with some Y students. I will be liaising with the project facilitator and our two sub-groups, based in Campbelltown and the Shoalhaven region, to see where we can create synergies and collaborate with each other, other YWCA staff and others in the wider community to achieve our goal of delivering training online with our students in the near future.

**So many tools - so little time...**
One of the challenges we face as a team relatively new to the e-learning journey is coming to terms with the vast amounts of information and tools available to us. Which ones are useful? Which ones are 'higher quality? Will we ever have time to explore enough of them to make a good enough choice on which ones to use!?! In the end, we need to just jump in & try them to really see what they are like as people on both sides of the page - both front & back end, as trainers developing learning startegies, and as students engaging with them to enhance our learning.

Another thing we need to come to grips with, as LearnScope project participants, and as learners discovering new communication tools ourselves, is how to accommodate these newer forms of communication in our working (and personal) lives. It's all very well having a blog on which to post information, but if nobody is going to the blog to read it, we need to ask the question whether we would be better off sticking with other (more effective or reliable?) methods of disseminating the information instead, such as emailing to individuals. As trainers, we need to be aware of this when we are introducing new ICT strategies with our students so that the time spent developing tools & learning strategies and publishing it for the group pay off for both trainer and students alike. For some of us, the jury is still out on the costs vs benefits of additional time spent choosing appropriate communication tools & strategies and overcoming the technical challenges of developing, posting & publishing to integrate this into the training that we do. Hopefully, our project this year will shed some light on how we can most efficiently use the increasingly little time that we have to maximise the benefits for our students now and in the future.

Thanks to Sandra & Scott for your help preparing our presentation at head office on 7/8/07. The planning days were attended by staff from all YWCA NSW branches as well as Y staff from Brisbane, Toowoomba & Adelaide. It was a great opportunity to talk to others at the Y about what we are working on and the potential we believe it has for training and other programs. Several members of staff and senior management now see our LearnScope team as a valuable resource for the rest of the organisation.
 * Outcomes from presentation on 'E-Learning & Communication Tools' at YWCA NSW Staff Planning Days 7-8 August 2007**

Staff from the Finance First financial literacy programs have been particularly interested in finding out how to use blogs and/or wikis as a tool for communication & resource sharing, particularly as a dynamic resource tool for teachers implementing their program in schools across the state (and soon also nationally & internationally). Encore have expressed an interest in using online tools in a similar way to facilitate communication between their programs operating all over NSW. Our training teams in Parramatta and Toowoomba are also interested in Scott's edublog for it's potential as a tool used for resource sharing (such as Parramatta's recently revised teaching & learning tools for Certificate II in Hospitatlity) and for the introduction of online training across the organisation.

LearnScope 2007 Impacts & Outcomes
This year's project activity has helped us work further towards achieving our goal of being able to offer training online. Participation in LearnScope has helped us to find ways to respond to some of the challenges of going online. For example: - converting training and assessment materials to the online format whilst maintaining quality, validity and authenticity - ensuring the learning experience is engaging and interactive to maximise positive outcomes for our learners - planning and utilising available resources well to ensure we have the required technological and human infrastructure to make online training possible and sustainable in the future. Other positive outcomes of the project have included increased skills and knowledge of staff and increased communication and collaboration between staff teams from different branches and departments of YWCA NSW as a result of the work-based learning model.

Our journey in e-learning is my no means over at the end of the LearnScope 2007 project period. We look forward to continuing to work collaboratively, explore possibilities and find creative solutions so that we can offer quality online learning experiences to our students.

=2006 Text:=


 * Hi everyone.** //Looking forward to learning how to make this space a little more useful & exciting looking...//

[|**Here is a link to my blog**], 'Y Training News' and I hope that's what it will become. I get lots of info via email & post that I would like to distribute to all our trainers, so this may be a way to do it. I'm trying to find out if it would be more useful to use a blog or a wiki to keep all our fabulous Y training staff in touch with the latest developments & resources relevant to us as an RTO.

Thanks to everybody who attended our workshops in Campbelltown on October 18th & Nowra October 20-21. Looking forward to implementing some of the suggestions for 'next steps' over the coming weeks.

It will be interesting to see if people prefer blogs, wikis or other methods of sharing information across the organisation. Please let me know what you think - send me a comment on this page, on my blog or just an email or plain old-fashioned phone call...