"Getting the most out of online teaching resources"
Gerry is CEO of education.au his presentation on Day 1 addressed some of the issues confronting practitioners and how we would be able to navigate our way through the swamps of information available.
education.au has some of the world's largest repositories of high quality online teaching resources for lecturers, teachers and trainers in TAFE, industry, schools and universities. But to make the most of this vast and ever-expanding pool of quality digital content both educators and learners need services that respond to their expectations to search, explore, self-improve and participate via their web services.
And he's not talking about "googling it"!!!
They also expect quick, uncomplicated, intuitive and cheap access to online content and to one another via devices that are efficient, quick, uncomplicated, intuitive and portable.
Gerry believes that we need to re-conceptualise our approach to curriculum and move from print to digital medias and within that framework there needs to be a global sharing of resources - across countries and disciplines.
Our new frameworks need to address the following issues:
- IP and how digital resources can be managed
- Teaching & Learning - and the acknowledgement of more informal learning occurring outside our institutions
- Our relationships with technology and how it is changing things
- Teachers may no longer be in total control
One of our biggest challenges will be the ICT skills of teachers - not the students - they already know how to do it! Gerry's advice? Just get on with it and use it! But remember - our business is to focus on the learning!!!! (A valuable reminder to all practitioners!)
A gem from Gerry was QECS - whatever we do, make it Quick Easy Convenient and Simple!
Gerry also referred us to a number of valuable resources (other than Google!) - Edna.au. For students - My Future - a career guidance site.
Thanks Gerry - you certainly left the audience with some thought provoking issues to take back to our contexts and apply!