Training Police On-line

Helen M Lynch will speak on the "Distributed Content Environment" developed for the CSU School of Policing Studies, at the Australian Computer Society e-Learning Special Interest Group in Canberra, 5pm 11 May 2916.

"The distributed content environment (DCE) is a system developed and implemented for the School of Policing Studies, CSU, to customise, reuse, update and deliver teaching and learning resources in mobile ready formats to students, teachers and classroom. The DCE has wide application as it enables a truly “digital“ classroom and supports the use of mobile devices by teachers and students in and outside of the classroom. DCE enables the distribution of teaching and learning resources by harnessing a range of educational technologies that are common to most universities and TAFE institutions in Australia today.

 

The core technologies of the DCE are the digital object repositories and the online learning environment e.g. Moodle and Equella, as well as content authoring tools which when harnessed together create a seamless distribution of teaching and learning resources to a range of audiences.

 

This session explains the DCE and how it can be applied to a range of teaching and learning situations."

Free Online Short Courses to Prepare for Certification

Charles Sturt University (CSU) are offering a Free Short Course: Network Security Administrator Certification. This is run on-line over 5 weeks, with live webinars (and optional recordings) and students expected to do 10-12 hours of study. Several aspects make this different to Massive open Online Courses (MOOCs) being offered by other institutions. Fist of all there is a live component to the course, not just recordings. Also the course is intended to prepare the student for an external certification (ENSA). It is also significant that this  is described as a "short course" with no mention of "MOOC", or the hype surrounding them. As I said at the Inaugural Student Experience Conference, in Sydney, I expect to see the MOOC Bubble burst, with most MOOCs abandoned by the end of 2014.

CSU point out that the short course is based on their Master of Information Systems Security. Clearly the short free course is being used to promote the full for-fee degree program. This would appear to be a viable business model for free courses. A student who completes the short course would be predisposed to enrolling in the degree program.

However, students who undertake the free course to prepare for external certification may not realise the large commitment of time and effort required. Last year I completed two certificates in education, one through regular courses (partly in the classroom and partly on-line) and one by Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). In theory the RPL should have been easier, as it just required me to collate and present evidence of what I had done previously. But this turned out to be harder than going through a structured course, where you get guidance on what to do and where there are many small milestones on the way to completion.

Also, using a free short course to promote longer for-fee programs might backfire on some universities, presenting a false impression of their programs. Some MOOCs appear to be provided by universities which don' generally offer on-line courses (not the case with CSU who are a leader in on-line education). Also the MOOCs are at a far lower academic standard than regular courses. It will not do a university much good to attract students with one type of course at one level, sign up and pay for a degree program, only to find it is not offered on-line and is far harder.

Canberra Innovation Competition

The 2013 "Innovation ACT" completion is being launched 6pm, 28 August, at the Australian National University in Canberra. 
Over nine weeks, teams of higher education students and staff from the Canberra region compete for $55,000 in prizes, for the best new business ideas.

The teams are given help with preparation of business plans and to prepare a pitch to investors. Institutions include the Australian National University (ANU), University of Canberra (UC), Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT), Australian Defence Force Academy (UNSW ADFA), Australian Catholic University (ACU) and Charles Sturt University (CSU).

In past years I have helped with presenting to the teams on sustainability for business ideas and as a team member. The competition is challenging but fun. Some student take part in the competition as part of their formal studies in business and innovation disciplines, but this is not required.

Master of Education in Knowledge Networks and Digital Innovation

Having completed the Australian National University (ANU) Certificate in Higher Education, my intimidate task is to apply what I have learned to help individual academics and universities with e-learning. This new blog, Higher Education Whisperer, is part of that.

Also I am looking for a Masters in Education to undertake. Unfortunately ANU discontinued theirs before I could enroll. But Charles Sturt University (CSU) have a new one which looks interesting, in "Master of Education (Knowledge Networks and Digital Innovation)". Courses include:

1. INF532 Knowledge Networking for Educators
2. INF533 Literature in Digital Environments
3. INF535 Information Flow and Advanced Search
4. INF536 Designing Spaces for Learning
5. INF541 Game Based Learning
6. ETL411 ICT for Innovative Practice
7. ETL402 Literature in Education
8. ETL523 Digital Citizenship in Schools
9. INF506 Social Networking for Information Professionals
10. INF443 Digital Preservation
11. EER500 Introduction to Educational Research
12. ESC515 Classroom Technologies