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About the Author
Copyright � 2004 Stephen Downes
National Research Council
Canada
Contact: stephen@downes.ca
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License
.by Stephen Downes
October 24, 2004
Between September 15 and October 13, 2004, I undertook a 10-stop cross-Australian tour, giving sixteen talks or so. This page contains the record of that visit.
New Students, New Learning, Canberra, ACT, September 16
What is quality in e-learning and what do organisations need to do to get it happening? Identifies the major elements of quality we need to aim for and considers some of the practicalities of achieving it. The new student: What will be expected of us? What will the digital generation mean for the schools of the future? Do we need to consider the 'new literacy', adjust our understanding of values and learning, or change the way we deal with diversity? The future is not as far away as we like to think and organisations need to be planning now.
Edging the Techno Frontier, Canberra, ACT, September 17
Round Table for technical staff. This session looks at leading edge technologies to support learning, and the pros and cons of supporting them in educational instutions and considers the promise and the reality of LMS and LCMS, the role of learning objects and operation of LOR, the value of RSS, and optioans for conferencing tools.
The Canberra visit was sponsored by the Open and Distance Learning of Australia in collaboration with UNSW @ ADFA, UC, ANU, ACU (Signadou) and CIT. More Information.
A Dog�s Breakfast: Roles and Responsibilities for Managers in the Cyber Era
For managers and supervisors from all sectors on the responsibilities and roles of managers in driving elearning. Looks at the nine rules for good technology and adapts them to define good management. This talk was given twice, once in each location.
Knowledge, Learning Objects and The New Student
Intended for teachers, administrators and support staff in Primary and Secondary Schools addressing the strategies available to access and use knowledge and learning objects to meet the needs of the new learner. This talk was given twice, once in each location.
Open Education, the Semantic Web and the Personalisation of eLearning
For teachers, trainers, administrators and support staff in Post Compulsory Education and Training on open education, the semantic web and the personalisation of eLearning. This talk was given twice, once in each location.
The Queensland visit was sponsored by eLearn Australia in association with the Queensland Flexible Learning Leaders. More information.
E-Learning in Easy Pieces, Darwin, September 24
When we think of e-learning these days, we tend to think of learning management systems, enterprise systems, and integrated courseware. Large, complex, do-everything pieces. But when we look at the internet technologies that have actually been successful - things like email, web sites, and blogs - we find that what works is exactly the opposite: small pieces, loosely joined. This lecture looks at what's wrong with enterprise e-learning and why the small pieces approach will work better, and will describe recent and innovative work using such technology, including the use of blogs, wikis, and RSS.
Not sure exactly who is sponsoring this bit - some or all of Training Advisory Council, Australian Flexible Learning Framework, Net*Working 2004. The URL for this event will be posted as soon as it arrives.
Blogs, Learning Objects and Other Cool Stuff! September 27
This session introduces and defines blogs and blogging, shows how to create a blog in just a few minutes, gives advice on blog content and format, suggests educational and classroom uses of blogs, defines and outlines blog syndication using RSS, provides practical examples of RSS syndication formats, applies syndicated blog content in course web pages, suggests sources of RSS content, and outlines future directions for the medium.
My visit in Alice Springs was hosted by School of the Air.
The Future of Online Learning and Knowledge Networks, September 29
This talk outlines ways in which the 'consensus view' of e-learning technology misunderstands the technoilogical and business models offered by the internet and describes as an alternative the resource profiles picture of metadata and harvesting.
Collaboration Workshop, September 29
This workshop explored the need for and methods of collaboration available to TAFE SA staff. It was very unstructured (mostly because I didn't know what the topic was until we started).
This visit was sponsored by education.au.
ICT Roundtable, October 1
Short outlines of projects by instructional technology leaders in Tasmania, each followed by commentary and discussion.
Positioning Tasmania as a Leader in ICT Enabled Education and Training, October 4
This full day session was a wide ranging discussion centered around four major themes: the role of government, the role of industry, the role of education, and a wrap up, bringing it all together.
This visit is sponsored by The Office of Post-Compulsory Education and Training, Department of Education. Flyer with full detauils. More information.
The Buntine Oration: Learning Networks, October 9
I had this vision, you see, that the use of learning objects would, in effect, make learning content seamlessly and effortlessly available not only to all students, but to all people in the world who wished to learn, and that the portability and reusability of learning objects meant that we could develop an educational environment where students were not marched in lockstep through a predefined curriculum but instead could have the freedom and capacity to explore the world of learning according to their own interests and their own whims. Learning, genuinely free and accessible learning, could be produced and shared by all.
WestOne Workshop, October 11-12
Topics during these two half-day workshops included knowledge and learning, the new student, personalization, communities of practice, and other issues.
The sponsor of my visit to Perth, and the major sponsor of the trip as a whole, is the ACEL-ACE Checking the Pulse conference. The Sponsor of the October 11 1nd 12 talks was WestOne.
And finally...
