E-learning

I've been back nearly 2 weeks from the Teacher's Aids Creating Content for Learning Environments (TACCLE) in Urbino Italy.

The course took place over 5 days in a school in the town of Urbino.  It was very intensive and by the end of the 5 days I was exhausted!

I had applied for the course because I wanted to

• become more confident in using online tools
• develop an understanding of the role of e-learning in the teaching pedagogy
• find out what was happening in this area in other parts of Europe - is the grass greener in Sweden, Belgium or anywhere else?
• identify how the school library can play an active role in supporting teaching and learning in this area

We started off by looking at a range of tools: using Audacity to create a podcast and Soundcloud to store them, Screenr to build a video tutorial, Edpuzzle to  add questions to a YouTube video, blogging options and learning apps to build some basic games such a hangman, racing games and many more as well as looking at different social media that could be used to disseminate information..

These practical tools allowed us to develop skills and play around with them, knowing that there was always someone on had to help and sort out any messes that you made! I was happy to realise that I was making good use of some of these resources already. I write a blog for myself and for my school library, use Diigo to share useful websites and Evernote to organise information.

Three days in and the focus of the course shifted to developing an understanding of the pedagogy, the course designers have experimented with the placing of this element. Last year it was at the end of the course and the previous year at the beginning but it had never sat right. I feel that this year it worked to a degree. The trainer came from a business background and though she had a good grasp of the of the pedagogy her presentation of a business training model did not sit quite right, it needed more of an education slant in my view.

Having spent 2 days experimenting with various tools we were able to start building our own online tutorials in a programme called EXE-learning (Xerte was also mentioned) which are free to use. For  me I felt that this was really useful as I could see ways of building some tutorials for post-16 users to develop independent study skills; it offers greater flexibility and freedom to build a taster course, students could learn at their own pace and go over things they don't understand. I admit it would be time consuming to build initially and maybe, if you are single-staffed, the task would appear to be daunting but I really believe that in these times of school library cuts and the need to justify our role, being proficient in e-learning is a very good string to have to your bow.

Interestingly one of the tutors asked me later why no teachers came from the UK but that every year school librarians from the UK could be found on the course. Why do you think?

Reflecting on this I felt that the pressure on teaching staff to meet deadlines, the timing of the course - just as exam season is about to kick off, and the fact that being allowed to spend 5 days on a course is seen as a luxury and not a necessity is hampering our development in this area.

Funding for courses like this is now changing and the onus is on the organisation not the individual to apply for the funding. I really feel that this will have a detrimental effect on UK attendance on courses like this and make us even more isolated and insular. This course was brilliant for bringing people together, sharing experience and knowledge and well worth the 13 hours it took to get there!.

My next post will be on the portfolio aspect!

Thing 3: Branding
This is the thing I was most worried about - the reason being that it makes me feel as if I am a commodity or shop window and as a private person I found this the most difficult thing to deal with. Having read the article it did make me stop and think - I have hidden behind my blog title as I want to be anonymous. One of the other participants commented (kindly) on an earlier post I made that she had felt blogging was "navel-gazing" and to be honest I felt that to some degree but also felt who would want to read my thought on librarianship and school librianship in particular? I'm not afraid to speak up at meetings in face to face situations - but online seems to be another matter.
The idea of creating an online brand has worried me - yes I have a Linked in profile which I barely look at or update and after reading the post I am going to correct that! I suppose one of the things that 23 Things for CPD is trying to to do is make us all aware of how communication and career development is changing - it is more online than face to face. We communicate with other professionals through online groups because we don't find it easy to meet or be allowed to leave our bases due to cost or staffing implications and so online sharing of expertise is the way forward. I know that when I read emails from some fellow professionals on online groups I already have an image in my head of who this preson is from the tone of their emails and the topics of discussion - and this colours my view of them and who they are - do I read it or skip over it? A personal online brand is a far more powerful than any of us realise.
The questions:
Name used: I have hidden behind this - it isn't my nickname but something I did very quickly - more thought should probably have gone in to it!
Photograph: None as yet - still not dipping my toe in the water on that one
Professional/personal identity: I keep my professional and personal seperate yes I'm on facebook and share some librarianship things on there but not much. I tried to use twitter for my professional side but it kept being blocked by school and need to address this - I know that I am missing out on a lot of useful professional material. I have a Linked in presence which is badly in need of updating
Visual brand: I chose the generic background because I liked it - will I keep it I don't know.


If nothing else this particular Thing is making me realise that I need to get a handle on my online presence and blogging on it is making me stop and reflect on this and what I may need to do.