Action inquiry resources

We had our first Project Community Steering Group meeting yesterday which really got my senses going (I don’t know how else to put it; it was quite an emotional event for me and I was quite nervous leading up to it for a range of reasons). I’m really warming into this!

I’m collecting web resources about activist learning and development here on Delicious. I’d love to hear of sites you’ve used or seen that would be helpful too!

One article I’ve just read titled “Lucienne Roberts: A is for Activism” (2011) is a commentary by Roberts on the idea of design activism. She reflects on her work as a graphic designer and whether or not she sees herself contributing to activist movements and the social good.

Image : Steve Rhodes (flickr)

I’m sensing that given the participatory nature of the Project, it seems logical to develop an activist education design approach in service to the participants. Not only logical, but it FEELS right. I’m seeing many connections between ‘good’ education design and participatory action research both in shared principles and similar practices.

Briefly, shared principles might include:

• user participation and centredness
• collaborative design and development
• transformation and change
• emergent design (i.e. research design and ed design framework)
• critical reflection
• activism
• action inquiry

Some similar practices might include:

• ongoing consultation and feedback (dialogical)
• workshopping design elements using group processes
• developing mini scenarios and case studies
• (meta) reflection on the process(es)
• telling stories and active listening
• ensuring safe spaces to work together

I’m sure I’ll be delving into these points and more as my involvement in the project grows!

 

Re-emerging in 2012!

Well, a belated Happy New Year to you all )

Photo by bayasaa

After a hiatus designed by moving interstate and having kid number 2, life is returning to some kind of ‘normal’, and I have picked up a bit of work that is turning out to be most interesting!

My reflections on this work will appear here (minus any identifying information), but needless to say it is consulting on an education design facilitation framework/process for a participatory action research project in the area of Aboriginal health service provision. I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in and it’s certainly a change from education design work within the education setting!

Whilst away from ‘here’, I have been blogging our gardening activites over here. But more to come here shortly…stay tuned )

Garden in flow…!

MobilizeThis 2010 CIT link-up

I’m looking forward to our live link-up this Thursday at MobilizeThis 2010 (Darwin – http://mobilizethis.wikispaces.com/) with aAron and Steve who will be demonstrating the interactive whiteboard and POV cameras they’ve been using with students in the Fyshwick Trade Skills Centre (http://cit.edu.au/about/centres/fyshwick_trade_skills) Metals Fabrication workshop here at CIT!

Steve and fellow teacher Evan did a quick test of the webcam today using the eLearn Live Classroom (below) and it worked a treat. The wide shot looks a bit pixelated, but hope to remedy that with a better quality camera if we can get one hooked up in time. You can at least get a sense of the interactions that take place in the workshop.

Evan will demo the interactive exercises the students undertake in the workshop space (via Fyshwick), using the IWB to plan and cut the metal and shape it as required. Students record their work using cameraphones or POV cameras as available. It’s amazing how quickly the technology normalised with this student group!

Good luck gentlemen and looking forward to the presentation )

Advanced Moodle Training with Netspot

What a great day today, with Mark Dreschler (@markdreschler) from Netspot providing some excellent pointers on the ins and outs of Moodle features.

Things we covered broadly today:

• Groups and groupings: uses, differences, pros and cons
• Database activity: the more I see of this one the more I think it's the jewel in the Moodle crown! The Book Review example (a database preset via @moodleman) we looked at is a good one to demo database functionality to those who aren't familiar with database terminology (as MD says, good combo is someone with DB knowledge and someone with design/html knowledge)
• Forums: setting up assessable forums and groups (great functionality depending on the learning context and outcomes to be achieved)
• Quizzes, in particular, calculated question types: the granularity is great and so useful for those inclined (I have no personal comments myself having just scraped through Maths at school!)
• Glossary: differences between main and secondary glossaries and assessing activity using glossaries (some good examples emerging already from CIT teachers – you clever bunch

We have also been running weekly virtual sessions (via our eLearn Live Classroom) and these are generally going well, but I think we need a slight change in format and run these sessions focusing on a particular feature in eLearn (i.e. our Moodle) so teachers get a chance to see a piece of functionality from teaching/learning idea to execution. So, start with the teaching story or defined learning need, demo the solution as it has been delivered (to learners), then go through the 'how to' in setting it up and provide a cheat sheet as a takeaway at the end.

Another aspect I'd like to build up are some CIT-context specific learning objects that run through these features – as the virtual sessions would – but as self-paced resources. There are, however, soooooooo many tutorials and demos available from Moodle teachers and the wider Moodle community. Here are just some I've been using so far:

• http://moodletutorials.org/
• http://docs.moodle.org
• http://www.moodleman.net/
• the Drex himself: www.markdreschler.com
• and I mentioned 2 Minute Moodles in my last post.

…and my "things to do" list just keeps on growing!

2 Minute Moodles by Tomaz Lasic

This is a collection of 2 Minute Moodles – an attempt to simplify and show how to use a range of Moodle features to a busy teacher.

The tutorials try not to assume too much previous knowledge and are presented for the pragmatical and not necessarily tech-savy users (Moodle purists please excuse). They are a bit like that product I got the pun from – something quick and simple to get you going.

If you don’t know where to start, see the entire ‘progression’ list at
tomazlasic.net/​moodle/​moodle-tutorials-2-minute-moodles/​

Enjoy & feel free to contact.
You can also follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/​lasic

via vimeo.com

I’m drafting up an online, self-paced orientation to eLearn (CIT’s instance of Moodle) and have found @lasic‘s demo videos to be really helpful. Thank you for sharing these Tomaz!

I’ve incorporated one of his demos on the basic Moodle editing features into a matching quiz format – see screenshot below.

What do you reckon? Should get staff actively doing as part of the orientation I hope!

Are you doing online orientation for Moodle with your staff? I’d like to hear about your set-up and experiences!