Communicating

Online communication can be used to keep communities in contact and learning. Click the short-cut links, below, to read the case studies eg. communicating with a group of people.

Then click on the Tools listed under each communication mode to explore which ones to use.

Communicating with a group of people

logo - ALARPM

Milang Old School House (MOSH) is in the Alexandria district, 70 kms east of Adelaide. Shirley and Stuart (workers at MOSH) engaged their community members in scrapbooking and digital photography activities through a CD rom based activity. They have set up online communication through a website built with two free Australian softwares: Mambo, manages their content, and Moodle manages their learning groups.

As a result of Shirley and Stuart's curiosity and hard work, the Milang Old School House is now providing guidance to community members wanting to explore e-learning. Click to view their friendly 'Byte-On' website.

The Milang Old School House is involved in an e-Learning Creative Community Partnerships project designed to enable communities to use the internet for learning.

Communicating through an e-learning 'virtual space'

(eg. classroom) where the focus is on a more formal learning process aimed at developing specific skills or knowledge

Brett Lamb, a secondary school teacher at Leongatha Secondary College needed something really stimulating to engage his Year 8 English students. Leongatha Secondary School, part of the Leongatha Education Precinct, in south eastern Victoria, has access to the TAFE Virtual Campus which uses Web Course Tools (WebCT) as its chosen Learning Management System (LMS). Brett is also the school's Information Technology teacher. He has used a large range of technologies and sites on the internet to create a ‘one stop shop’ for his entire thematic unit called Pirates, Ahoy!

logo - Pirates, Ahoy!

He has used great graphics, audio, interactive websites, discussion forums, quizzes and voice boards. It is so vibrant and interactive that students are voluntarily logging in from home to continue class work! Come and have a look for yourself. You will need good bandwidth and before you start, check that you have the latest player to make the most of the experience. Click to download it.

Go to www.tafevc.com.au Click Quick Login from the left hand menu (under Quick Select drop box). Use any one of the following for your login and password: guest2, guest3, guest4, guest6, guest70519 or guest80519 eg. username: guest4 password guest4

Make sure you use lower case and have no spaces. If the first login you try doesn’t work, try another – there may already by another ‘guest’ using that login. Enjoy! Once you're into the course space, click Pirates, Ahoy! (top left, in bold) to view the course.

Central West Community College (CWCC) is a leading community based provider of education services based in Central West New South Wales. Click to read their journey into e-business and e-learning started in 2003. Based on this research they decided to form a partnership with an e-learning company the Learning Seat to deliver e-learning to their communities. Click to listen to Sandra Gray explaining how the organisation came to that decision and the network CWCC has fostered, with other community providers, to offer more learning options to communities. This file is an MP3, size 445KB.

 

Communicating within a virtual community

logo - byte on

For a Community of Practice, a community of interest or an informal learning group

The Action Learning Action Research and Process Management (ALARPM) Association wanted to:

a) manage the meetings of its international management committee cheaply,

b) network its international members more effectively,

c) share resources and skills within a Community of Practice setting and

d) provide a virtual environment through which practitioner members could communicate and work with their community stakeholders and participants to bring about change.

The Management Committee started by setting up an email listserv using Yahoo! Groups to enable their various committees to meet virtually. Committee members either browsed to the discussion boards on the Yahoo! Groups website OR elected to receive and reply to the postings during meetings direct from their email.

Once the Management Committee realised the value of the online environment, they elected to redevelop their 'static' website, so that it became a communication hub, providing spaces in which members could:

a) congregate to discuss particular areas of interest, research, methodologies, processes, conferences, facilitation processes, case studies

b) invite their community members to discuss issues and

3) facilitate action for change. Check out their website at http://www.alarpm.org.au

communicating one-to-one

Jo Murray, of Pelion Consulting, a micro home-based business, provides mentoring to her clients in how to design and facilitate e-learning. Her favourite way to communicate one-to-one with her clients is to use Skype, as it keeps her STD telephone call bills right down! When Jo starts with new clients, she encourages them to download and install Skype and before long she can see when they're online and vice versa, so staying in touch is much easier than having to write down (and then find!) a phone number.

There's no problem with calling anywhere in the world, any time, as it costs nothing, apart from your internet connection fee. Anyone who has the software, anywhere in the world, can speak for free for as long as they want. Jo has now found it even more rewarding to link her clients together through Skype conference calls, with up to five participants, all free!

SMS messaging is very popular in Australia, as nearly everyone seems to have a mobile phone these days. Jo uses text messaging (Short Message Service) to invite her clients and learners to individual sessions, to praise them for jobs well done, or to remind them of future commitments. It adds a very personal touch, which most people have found pleasantly surprising and engaging.

So here's how to do it for free! ;-) Jo's mobile phone doesn't work in her nook of regional Australia, so she has joined SMSPup, which provides free web-based mobile text messaging (SMS) services to Australian mobile users. So, think about innovative ways to use free SMSes, from any telecommunications company, to connect with your community members, for example, alert them to upcoming meetings, new course updates, activity sessions, fund raisers, outings etc.

So, if you are ready, here are some ideas for teaching strategies to get you going .. :-)

You can read more case studies here .

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