Authoring for e-learning

Well I completed the authoring training for e-learning,very interesting but difficult at times for someone of my limited word processing skills.
What I have found is that downloading the authoring tool to my personal computer at home has made the whole thing a lot clearer.
I have made the time at home to "play" with the system,tried different things and generally become more comfortable with the notions and ideas of putting things together.I am now part way through completing a package for food hygiene training.
The whole e-learning/social media world at Brockwood seems to gathering some momentum at present,which I feel is good.
I will keep this blog updated on my progress.
Peter

alright!!
i did that authoring course years ago and really enjoyed it
found time to write a rudimentry e-learning course which never went anywhere and then changed jobs and lost any momentum i had
it occurs to me that momentum is REALLY important in this....before using a blended learning approach becomes a habit you've got to make yourself do it
after the LeTTOL course me and geoff went on, i stopped, became wrapped up in other things and now feel de-skilled........it's upto me to become "skilled" again, but i wonder whether that skill is as much about familiarity and, as i said, habit, rather than simply knowledge
thoughts??
bob

Authoring e-learning

Well I have just completed two days of learning on how to author and publish e-learning.
Very interesting course but also very heavy.What it clearly illustrated was that e-learning is no quick fix,it takes time to produce,check and then consider how its going to be published etc.
In the whole aspect of social media/e-learning what I am learning is that it is a very complicated area and one that is far more in depth than I ever considered it to be.
The social media site appears to have become a little becalmed at present,we need to get people contributing,any thoughts on how are more than welcome..
Peter

Update on My Blog Learning Experience

Well I have finally made it back to Brockwood.
I keep having brief conversations with Geoff my co blogger,we really in my view now need to set some time aside to progress the whole function of this blog and social media in general.
I have learnt so much about the functions of blogs and I really now want to see this thing become a huge success.
The latest problem we have encountered is the settings on the computers this had somehow been changed so that access was restricted,luckily Geoff managed to find his way round the problem.I am due to attend a two day learning event on authoring via the learning pool this I hope will help me to gain a further understanding of the process of social media and e-learning.When I have attended this event I hope to be publishing e-learning events etc.I will keep the blog updated on my progress.
Peter

My Social Media Experience Update

Well after another very busy week I have finally made it to 5-40pm Friday evening.
This is my first chance this week to engage with our blog I am actually doing this from home because work is so busy at present.
This raises a very interesting question in relation to the use of social media if we are to engage fully with this new venture we will need to carefully consider the allocation of time to ensure that posts on the blog are moderated in timely fashion and questions raised are also dealt with in an appropriate time scale.
I have briefly mentioned the use of the blog with colleagues in social care management today(6/8/2010)and they appear to be very enthusiastic about the whole social media notion.
I think the time is close when we need to carefully consider our next steps,I don,t want us to fail in this venture due to lack of time.

Identity, Responsibility and Moderation

(Graphic from Fred Cavazza used by virtue of Creative Commons licence)

We've decided that we needed a seperate identity.

• talkbrockwood

This to use in a social media sphere so it's not Geoff or Peter.
It's talkbrock talking!
So a continuous identity can be presented and individuals are "protected"
We also decided that we would have identities of our own.
So, according to the Councils e-communications policy, we shouldn't,

• Participate in chat rooms or forums unless this is authorised and is explicitly on behalf of the Council.

We got authorisation by emailing our supervisor with details of where and what and asking if it's okay.
How do we use these two identities?
(BTW that is a question - answers/discussion in comments please)

Now with have the dynamic duo being talkbrockwood but we don't know who's responsible for what and when.
Do we need duty rota's, job descriptions... probably.

This post was prompted by an anonymous comment - which is still waiting for moderation.
With 2 of us in charge we could have a discussion and decide to publish or not.
Soon, there may be 4 of us.
Not as easy then.
With the whole unit it would be impracticable/impossible

Finally I've got to moderation.
We must use the e-communications policy/ codes of conduct to decide whats acceptable.
(if you haven't got some sort of acceptable use policy - get one)
That deals with the easy stuff - if the contribution is offensive or illegal.
What about irrelevant or stupid stuff?
Whose irrelevant?
Whose stupid?

(Geoff)

E-Safety, Codes of Conduct And Professionalism

(this image is from the National Education Network)

The next step in the development of our first project was to consult the e-safety guidelines from Becta.
I couldn't find the risk assessment document that's referred to in the Cambridgeshire documents so I consulted the Council's E-safety officer.
(Your organisation should have some one with similar responsibilities)
Over to them.

"I do agree that you cannot rule out children being involved if you are using social media. The involvement of children does open up the whole discussions of how you keep them safe, moderation etc. etc.

There are guidelines for Professionals working with Children and Young People or their Families in Sheffield which is included in our E-safety Protocol for Digital and Interactive Technologies which you may find useful. This can be downloaded from our website at http://www.safeguardingsheffieldchildren.org.uk/ from the E-safety link in SSCB/Service. "

I also ferreted around for other useful stuff to help us decide what we need to do.
Here's that research

The link above leads to Delicious which is another social media or Web 2.0 site.
I classify ('tag') and share websites I find, then I can use the tags to find other sites that other people have tagged.
It's like having one big favourites with endless different folders.
Here's an explanation from The Common Craft people

Blog posts can also be classified ('labelled') to make the blog easier to read.
I've labelled all the project posts 'Project' and you can select just them to read.

(Geoff)