MCGirr

LINKS numeracy is close! Everyone involved has been working really hard to get LINKS ready to go and we'll have a demo on the website before the end of the week. The team has done an amazing job and it looks fantastic, is easy to use and is pedagogically sound. LINKS (Literacy Numeracy key Skills) is a tool for adult learners that will be able to help 'plug the gaps' in their learning. Check out the shot below. This screen shows how a learner will use a variety of tools to model numbers. there are singles cubes, tens rods and hundreds mats as well as interactive number lines. This will help a learner to develop strategies to solve numeracy problems. Pretty cool eh?

This week we're heading into the studio to record the voice over. Voice plays a very important role in LINKS as those learners who might struggle with the text on screen can use the friendly kiwi voice to guide their learning journey. We put together a panel of learners to discuss their favourite voice and they settled on Tama from Cloud. Tama manages to sound authoritative and non threatening at the same time. It's also great to hear New Zealand English being used. You'll be able to hear for yourselves when the demo is posted on the site, come back soon and check it out.

I'm a big fan of top 5 lists.  So here are the top 5 topics of discussion in the development office this week

1. Distance Learning Systems.  Systems are great!
2. 0800 numbers.  it seems there are no good 0800 numbers left but 0508 are bountiful.
3. Learning progressions.  A lot of time has been spent reading the TEC literature.
4. The weather.  In Wellington it's become an obsession.
5. The english language.  We are a multi-lingual workplace and often have to deal with the difficulties of English pronunciation.  It's a pretty tricky language

That's it for this week.  Take care

I often get asked "What exactly do you do?"  and I've never managed to find a quick and easy answer.  This post is not an attempt to provide that answer but instead is a quick glimpse into our world.  It is, I think you'll find, pretty much like every other office in New Zealand.  We do however get to use "I'm being creative!" as an excuse for all sorts of mess and mayhem.  So here is a picture of my beautifully organised work space and a brief guide to what goes on when I'm sitting at it.

1. Assortment of charts and silly pictures.  Currently: LINKS mapped to numeracy progressions, list of Ministry of Education IT groups, lyrics to songs by Radiohead and Arcade Fire, Comic by Kate Beaton who is very clever and generally writes comics that I'm not smart enough to understand.
2. The Learning Progressions.  Check out the TEC info here.  pretty important for anyone working in Adult Literacy and Numeracy in NZ.  We're matching the LINKS resources to these.
3. My lovely wide screen.  Good for having many windows open at once for someone who leaps from one item to another without warning.  Right now I have LINKS Numeracy, Photoshop, 3 word docs, 3 browser windows and 4 emails open.  You probably had no interest in that but now you know anyway.
4. Whiteboard for trying to write lists I have no hope of finishing.
5. Stack of CDs for helping 'creativity'.  At the moment stack includes: MGMT, Kaiser Chiefs, Radiohead, Miles Davis, The Rat Pack.
6. The ubiquitous wall planner.  Sometimes it's just easier to have it on the wall than on the screen.
7. Secret stash of wine hidden behind my chair.  Wedding day supplies.
8. Photos of good times and sunny climes.  When you work in a windowless office you need all the help you can get.
9. Horde of coffee mugs.  Life without Tea and Coffee is not a life worth living.

So there you are, it's not glamourous or wildly exciting but I've got to fill the blog post somehow. 

Distance learning can be really hard sometimes!  I'm doing a few university papers at Massey and have recently experienced an affliction that affects many distance learners.  De-motivation!  It only takes a small thing to kick it off: a busy week at work, a bereavement, the olympics, the flu.  Whatever the cause, once you get behind it's really hard to catch up.  If it's hard for someone like me who has the support of my workplace, a very understanding girlfriend and an uncanny ability to get extensions for essays then how hard is it for a learner without this support?

We've been trying to put together a distance learning course for the Horticulture ITO (HortITO - sounds like a Japanese Emperor).  It's a financial literacy course based around basic bookkeeping and the MYOB software.  The resources are pretty cool and the online stuff is really easy to use but there's still a lot of work for a learner to do before we can dish out any Unit standards.  The learners are all working, many are running their own businesses and have families and many demands on their time.  So we've realised that no matter how cool and fun the training is if we don't keep in touch with them, support them and motivate them then they are going to struggle.

With regular emails, an 0800 number and some great tutors hopefully we'll be able to keep them going long enough to get their units.  Oh yeah, if anyone wants to write an essay on the reasons for the first crusade then feel free to email it to me.

The DEANZ (Distance Education Association of New Zealand) conference, recently held in Wellington, featured many presentations on the uses of 'Web 2.0' technologies.  This leads to the inevitable question of "What's a web 2.0?".  Web 2.0 is a term being used to describe the increased interactivity of the web.  back in ye olde days of web use we lived in a 'read-only' world of static website crammed to the gunwales with text.  Nowadays the web is a 'read-write' kind of thing.  People use the web not only to read but also to publish, edit and distribute text, video, audio and perhaps educational content.

This has opened up a world of possibilities.  I can sit at my desk and watch the Olympics, reword world history on Wikipedia, network with colleagues, get instant answers to all of my questions or even attend a Las Vegas wedding live via streamed video (don't scoff, I actually watched Elvis perform one such ceremony this morning).  The educational posibilities aren't quite so clear cut though.  If educators are using these technologies purely because they can, then they are doing their learners a great disservice.  If, however an educator is using the web to reach out and provide support to learners who would otherwise have been uninterested or unable to get access to learning then 'bring it on'.

To be honest, I'm still pretty unsure as to how we can make best use of this whole web 2.0 malarky.  Without good infrastructure and web access in remote and disadvantaged communities it's hard to see how this technology can help those that need it the most.  The best we can do for now is to keep making resources that help a learner get to where they need to go.  We may not be making full use of video conferencing, shared documents and other web technology yet but we've got our thinking caps on and are keen to have some fun with it.  I'd better go, the olympics are about to start for the day.

This week myself and a handful of colleagues are attending the Distance Education Association of New Zealand conference.  It's proving an incredible insight into the amazing technologies and strategies that are being used in the world of distance education.  it's pleasing to see that in a world of blogs, Wikis and online communities there is still a focus on learner support.  It looks like the future of education and training will include all sorts of virtual  elements and some e-learning resources but there will always be a need for quality support and here at McGirr we are starting to look at ways of using technology to provide this for a learner.

So this week we'll open our minds to all the possibilities that the future holds.  Whether a learner uses online 3D worlds to learn or is given a book there will always be a need for someone to guide them and help them to make sense of whatever resource they have.  I guess that's where we come in.

McGirr Training and the resource team have finally got a web presence. It may be a bit rough but it's here and it's a start.  Expect plenty of changes to the site as we tweak, write and rewrite content. A big thanks to Boost New Media for all their work to get this site up and running in such a short space of time.

There will be plenty of news as we continue our work creating some fantastic training resourses. We'll keep you posted.

Cheers,
The Resource Team