1. self-awareness,
2. generosity,
3. humility, and
4. willingness to risk.

.. because Tony was looking for the technical details, the actual “how do i learn” skills. So Nancy wrote a second version, this time elaborating on the abilities to:

1. scan and filter (manage the “river of information”),
2. connect with other people,
3. synthesise the streams of incoming data to create your own “reality frameworks”,
4. ask good questions, and
5. mentor people through technologies (“stewardship”).

i enjoyed both posts from Nancy. i like the way she writes, including images for every topic, keeping the chunks of information small enough to digest, adding in headings to make things more readable, connecting with her audience as she writes. i’m looking forward to tomorrow’s post on “network weaving” and “reflective practice”.

Others have weighed in..

• Drawing on a 2008 article, Harold Jarche suggests that attitude is the key: openness to sharing and constantly learning from people in your network: while it takes time to build up the trust required, he concludes that “it is now a significant disadvantage to not actively participate in social learning networks“.
• Jay Cross revisits the topic and covers a big range of teaching roles including: writer, presenter, designer, producer, moderator, connector and “learnscape architect” (i like that last one!!)
• Ken Allen reminds us to look back at the fundamentals of learning, for example Bloom’s taxonomy, and recall the importance of focussing on the learner, relevant application, available time and resources.
• Jane Bozarth tells us to first become comfortable with technologies so we can recognise them for what they can do for us, and secondly to let go of control.
• Michael Hanley reckons that learning professionals need to be able to do just about anything across these various job descriptions: communicator, consultant, learning innovator, learning technologist, human capital management strategist, business-savvy educator, learning & knowledge manager, organizational change agent.

This reminds me of a fabulous cartoon i once had with the job description of a teacher.. along the lines of: “curriculum designer, facilitator, mentor, coach, newsletter editor, publisher, film director, morale officer, police officer, nurse, sandwich maker, bus driver..”

i did like Clive Shepherd’s point that many regular teachers have decided to delegate the technical side of things to the experts. “Twenty-five years ago, every l&d professional ..would have been familiar with every medium then available, i.e. overhead projectors.. black/whiteboards, 35mm slide projectors, VCRs, etc. At some point since then, as new learning media began to proliferate, they backed out and started leaving the job to specialists. Big mistake.”

Do you ever feel like people ask you to do things because you’re the “tech person”? Things that shouldn’t be so difficult?

Michael’s list:

My overall take on skills for a “learning practitioner” is this:

1. find ways to manage the incoming flow of information (eg use some tools to manage torrential flow from blogs and micro-blogs, forums, news outlets and other sources, synthesise the information for ourselves and others);
2. build our ability to interact with people across a range of environments (participate in discussions, filter information flows for others in our networks, engage colleagues in the world of possibilities, improve written and spoken communication skills, share more of what we do ..eg the help files we create in our role as “technology steward”);
3. remember to get things done as well as responding to the outside world (is your twitter, blog, ning etc really as important as that project timeline?) .. and
4. constantly adapt to change (in our relationships with people around us, in the projects we’re doing each year, in the technological tools we need to do our job even better, in the time available and the outcomes required).

..

• photo credit: theloushe
• photo credit: Another Pint Please…
• photo credit: markrabo

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The theme of the day is “Yes we can“, and it’s all about finding the easiest ways to give your students more flexible options for learning. Multimedia, group writing, social networking .. online resources for your classroom.

With Delia Bradshaw giving her perspective on “The Power of e”, and Michael Coghlan on “Tools and technologies for forming communities: Yes We Can” .. it’s going to be an inspiring day.

Friday 20th March in Melbourne, at William Angliss Inst. overlooking the lovely Flagstaff Gardens, minutes walk from Flagstaff Station. Only $82.50 registration, deadline now extended to the 13th March.

Get your program on the on the site wiki / wibsite: eshowcase.acfe.vic.edu.au/

i’ll be presenting one session based on the Can You Hear Us? project, and another with Lynne Gibb the wiki magician from Coonara community house.
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Also you can join the ACE e-learning network over at acenetwork.ning.com/

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photo credit: gptraveler

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For this live conference session (details below) Josie Rose started us off by leading some group brainstorming: what does ‘mainstreaming’ mean to you? On the whole, it was about normalising, acceptance, integration.

Josie then spoke of the wonderful “e-mentor” program that she has pioneered, and which ACFE has funded for ’08; a program which emerged from the Access ACE research of ’07. People in the session remarked that it was a brilliant model for other states to follow.

Lynne Gibb showed us an amazing range of applications for their in-house wiki system, over at Coonara Community House. Blended learning in the classroom, student e-portfolios, collaboration between teachers, main website for e-business .. and more!

Denece Sippo – one of the great minds behind the terrific 23 Things Community Engagement project in East Gippsland last year – told us about many programs happening in the local libraries around Victoria, including the local history project known as WikiNorthia. She also focussed on one project down East Gippsland way, known as “Talking Visuals“, for people with complex communication needs; (they use a blog for sharing information, plus live classroom sessions which are recorded and shared.)

Myra Cake from WA gave us a beginner’s perspective, describing the rollercoaster ride of an organisation taking its first steps into the whole e-learning adventure. moving from fear and trepidation, into excitement and fun.

Stuart Jones talked about how Milang Old School House (MOSH) has moved from strength to strength, engaging adult learners in the local community through innovative uses of technology. They started off in 2006 with a combination of different open source web development tools (moodle and joomla) .. and now they’ve built in other things like google calendars and regular skype meetings.

i told people about one of our (PRACE) new “e-business” strategies, moving the website from the old-style Dreamweaver/FTP model across to content management using WordPress. (Not yet launched, but a sneak preview here.)

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‘Mainstreaming e-learning in ACE: is it an impossible dream?’, presented by Mary Hannan, Josie Rose, Lynne Gibb, Denece Sippo, Stuart Jones, Michael Chalk and Myra Cake.

This Adult Community Education session with practitioners from across Australia was held 3.30pm Wed 12Nov. You’ll find a link to the recording via http://snipr.com/e-ACE (registration req’d i think

It was part of “inspiring innovations” – a huge online conference on the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, 11-12 Nov.

(From the publicity blurb: Inspiring Innovations: national e-learning highlights online mini-conference ..showcase strategies and innovative examples for embedding e-learning ..across Australia ..include a program of 14 synchronous (live, real-time) web conferencing sessions ..
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image and photo credits: licensed under creative commons at flickr: Thanks very much: Andrew* .. and also photo credit: greyhound dad

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