IMS GLC Learning Impact Award Australian Regional Finals

Showcase and judging: Afternoon of 12 November 2008
Awards ceremony: Afternoon of 13 November 2008

The Technology in Education Open Forum will include a showcase and judging of the Australian Regional Finals of the IMS Global Learning Consortium Learning Impact Awards. The Learning Impact Awards (LIA) and Recognition Program recognizes outstanding applications of technology that address the most significant challenges facing the education community. The awards are unique for their recognition of the use of technology in context. The top Australian finalists will receive support to attend the international IMS GLC Learning Impact Awards in Barcelona in 2009.


IMS Press Release

The IMS Press Release is now available; announcing the Australian Learning Impact Award Winners.


Winners

Congratulations to the Learning Impact Award winners. The following finalists will now represent Australia in the 2009 Global Learning Impact Awards to be held in Barcelona:


Judging

Judging will be carried out by four expert judges and criteria is based on:
  • Access
  • Affordability
  • Quality
  • Adoption
  • Accountability
  • Organisational learning
  • Interoperability
  • Innovation
 Judges:

Rhyan Bloor - Branch Manager, Broadband Infrastructure Taskforce, Digital Education Group, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), Australia

Ross Treadwell - Assistant Director, Learning Technologies Department of Education and Children's Services (DECS), South Australia

Dr. Kathryn Moyle - Associate Professor, University of Canberra and Director, Secretariat for the Australian ICT in Education Committee (AICTEC)

Professor Alan Smith - Executive Director of Division of Academic Information Services(DAIS), University of Southern Queensland
Full judging criteria available at: http://www.imsglobal.org/learningimpact2009/awards.html

Finalists

We would like to congratulate the 11 successful finalists as follows:

  1. Murder under the Microscope (MuM)
  2. Chartered Accountants Live Online Training (CA Live)
  3. Deloitte Leadership Academy
  4. Social/Professional network for educators
  5. Connecting to the Globe at Hawkesdale P12 College
  6. LAMS and the LAMS Community
  7. SkillsTech Australia's ESI program - Employability Skills Induction training for trades
  8. QTImPlayer
  9. What is Scootle?
  10. EndNote Tutorial
  11. Commerce eLearning Module (CeLM)

Murder under the Microscope (MuM)

Organisation: Centre for Learning Innovation
Website: http://www.microscope.edu.au/

Murder under the Microscope (MuM) is a successful online educational game in which teams of students compete to solve a fictitious ecological 'crime'. Clues to this eco-mystery are progressively delivered via a sophisticated multimedia web interface including online communications with science experts. In the last 2 years over the six-week period of the game, more than 1000 teams of at least 20,000 Australian and international school students engaged in a battle of wits to be first to correctly identify the specific ecological victim, villain and crime site. Typical victims are endangered animals or plants, typical villains are ecological pests or contaminants, and typical crime sites are ecologically sensitive environments. After solving the mystery, students collaborate to create an environmental management plan to help prevent the fictitious eco-crime from occurring in real life.

Murder under the Microscope began in 1995 as a series of televised dramas to students in the state of New South Wales with live broadcast components and fax communications with scientific experts. Over recent years it has evolved into a fully online, web-based interactive experience, drawing in excess of 11 million hits per game. MuM's fame is spreading with teams from all States and Territories in Australia and several other countries registering for the 2008 game.

MuM 2008 game archive: www.microscope.edu.au/2008 (click Guest Access)

Supporting information for this submission: www.microscope.edu.au/submission

"MuM is motivational, engaging and a task that immerses students in real issues and science to solve very real problems." (Teacher)

Chartered Accountants Live Online Training (CA Live)

Organisation: The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia & CPDlive.com Pty Ltd
Website: http://www.cpdlive.com/

CPDlive.com Pty Ltd (CPDlive) was established in Melbourne in 2007 by its two directors, Anthony Morris and Errol la Grange. CPDlive facilitates live and interactive learning and development through the internet (live online training) for professional associations, government departments and national and multinational corporations. In particular, live online training is geared to meeting the learning requirements of organisations with a large number staff, students, members or other stakeholders (participants) located in different venues around the state, country or world.

In live online training sessions content experts (facilitators) interact directly with groups of participants (in various locations) over the internet in real time. Sessions are engaging and designed to encourage frequent interaction and feedback between participants and facilitators. Facilitators present and engage exclusively with online participants. It is not a broadcast of face to face presentations by facilitators. Participants access the audio and visual tools used by the facilitator (for example, white board, power point, web based applications, etc.) via their computers. Participants communicate with facilitators and other participants by typing in messages in the chat box, which appears on the screen of the participants, facilitators and hosts.

All live online sessions are chaired by a CPDlive host, who plays an active role in linking facilitators and participants, maintaining the flow of sessions and encouraging participation if required. The host is also responsible for ensuring optimum use of the technology platform and resolving any technical difficulties should they arise. CPDlive uses a Webex platform to conduct the live online sessions. It has also built supplementary systems that integrate with the Webex platform. These systems are designed to provide the facilitators and participants with easy and seamless access to sessions and other features that specifically enhance learning capabilities (such as summative assessment features). Systems have also been developed to assist in promoting and administering ongoing professional development and other learning programs of implementer organisations.

CPDlive works with implementer organisations to build, promote and conduct their live online training programs. Apart from providing the technical capabilities of live online training, a crucial aspect of CPDlive's role is to coach facilitators in planning and conducting engaging and interactive live online training sessions.

Deloitte Leadership Academy

Organisation: Deloitte Leadership Academy
Website: http://www.leadershipacademy.com.au

The Deloitte Leadership Academy ("DLA") is a unique online learning management and networking site that provides the best of leadership training, collaboration tools and access to an exclusive community of business leaders.

The DLA offers a selection of the world's best e-learning content and certification courses from Harvard Business School Publishing, Stanford, and leading Australian universities and institutes.

Features include:

Social/Professional network for educators

Organisation: Education.au Limited
Website: http://me.edu.au

me.edu.au provides education and training professionals with an online network and profile.

Users can:

me.edu.au enables users to document their lifelong learning journey and to share that with others.

Teachers are using me.edu.au in classes as part of the delivery of their classes.
me.edu.au has been in operation for approximately six months and has over 13,000 users.

The technology for me.edu.au was developed by education.au. There has been substantial interest in the product and we are now in the process of releasing it as a product to the wider community.

For an overview of how to use me.edu.au and the types of things that it is being used for please see the following video from one of our users: http://me.edu.au/b/aboutme/entry/me_edu_au_intro_video

Connecting to the Globe at Hawkesdale P12 College

Organisation: Hawkesdale P12 College
Website: http://hawkesdale.globalstudent.org.au

A blog which was initially seen as an online journal and writing tool, has gone from being a backyard blog (http://backyard.globalstudent.org.au) to being fully utilised across the staff, classes and students of Hawkesdale P12 College in rural Western Victoria. Our blog started as a "backyard" blog to record the evidence of volcanic activity, in local backyards as we were producing podcasts for the Penshurst Volcano Discovery Centre. Our area is now a geopark, Kanawinka, in the Western District, of Victoria.

This blog became global and encouraged blogging to be taught and used as a communication tool in ICT classes (http://murch.globalteacher.org.au) and LOTE (http://technolote.com). The powerful learning outcomes that this has provided, encouraged the majority of staff to blog and manage class blogs. All students from grades 4 to 10, and some year 11s and 12s have their own blogs. Class blogs for years prep to nine are also maintained.

A container blog, or webpage, to manage local, countrywide and global access to these blogs has been set up at http://hawkesdale.globalstudent.org.au. Links to all these blogs can be found here. Blogs allow pages, posts, blogroll, url links, comments, widgets and have allowed us to connect, communicate and share with each other, our parents, our community and the globe.

Winner - LAMS and the LAMS Community

Organisation: Macquarie University & LAMS Foundation
Website: http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4686160

LAMS is a Learning Design system adopted around the world in over 80 countries, and translated into 27 languages. LAMS provides educators with a visual drag-and-drop environment for authoring and sharing Learning Designs, together with a Learning environment for deployment with students, and a teacher Monitoring environment for tracking student progress. LAMS is freely available as open source software. LAMS is a leading system for capturing and sharing best practice pedagogical approaches, especially those that involve a structured sequence of content and collaborative activities.

Complementing LAMS is the LAMS Community, a global community website for 3600+ educators sharing 300+ LAMS Learning Designs and 3800+ discussion forum postings about implementing LAMS. The LAMS Community realises the goal of a community of practice sharing "pedagogical know-how" based on the LAMS Learning Design approach.

For an animated introduction to LAMS, please go to the following website:http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=4686160

SkillsTech Australia's ESI program - Employability Skills Induction training for trades

Organisation: SkillsTech Australia
Website: http://lms.skillstech.tafe.qld.gov.au

The Employability Skills Induction (ESI) program provides entry level apprentices and school based students with the essential knowledge and skills to carry out basic tasks on the jobsite. At the completion of the program the learner and their employer can feel confident about their level of competence at completing basic tasks that are required on the job in a safe and effective manner. The highlights of the program are that it provides
i) Safe, effective, interesting and highly interactive training
ii) OHS, communication and hazards training which is applicable to all trades.

ESI adopts a blended delivery approach to trade teaching utilising tools such as videos, online tests, online assignments, electronic crosswords, flash objects, audio narrations, toolboxes, web based research and practical exercises. The ESI program is presented as an online program and it is accompanied with a stand alone CD-ROM, a teacher based CD-ROM and documentation to assist with the delivery.

To see the online ESI program visit http://lms.skillstech.tafe.qld.gov.au.

Login details:
username: esi
password: guest

Select ESI demonstration from Study Groups on far left hand side to open program.

2nd runner-up - QTImPlayer

Organisation: TAFE Tasmania
Website: http://qti2007.flexiblelearning.net.au/qtimplayer/index.html

This project was led by TAFE Tasmania in 2007 and completed in conjunction with the private research and software engineering company, Intelitec Pacific based in Launceston and New England Institute of TAFE in NSW. The field tests provided acceptance testing and proof of product for a mobile application enabling the user to access, read, play, complete, record and report outcomes for IMS QTI 2.0 (question and testing interoperability) compliant and validated assessment tools.

The QTI m-Player™ for mobile devices will initially operate on any handheld mobile device with Microsoft® Windows® mobile™ 2005 or 2006 software.

A portable device running Windows Mobile 2005 or 2006 is loaded with a QTI assessment application for performing on site assessment. The assessment tools are AQTF compliant and may include Observation Checklists, Testimonials and Oral Questions. Oral questions types can include (eg short answer questions, long answer questions, multiple choice formats etc). Once an assessment has been completed the QTImPlayer creates a 'zip' archive that contains a content package described by an 'imsmanifest.xml' file and along with the assessment xml files and various media files including audio, photos and videos of the assessment that can be uploaded as evidence. This package is sent via email to the assessors email address or a nominated student admin person. Email is the lowest common denominator of functionality and is potentially accessible from any of the mobile devices. There is no current functionality to upload to other software systems such as Student Management Systems or ePortfolios but research is continuing to help achieve this.

The main goals of the project were to ensure VET staff could access and download validated assessment tools to:

The target audience were teachers and trainers in the VET sector who are responsible for "on the job assessment" of trainees and apprentices.

The scope of the project included the TAFE Tasmania and New England TAFE staff having the agriculture Industry bodies in Tasmania and NSW supportive of what we planned to do by reviewing and validating their assessment tools to ensure they met AQTF requirements in both states

The outcome of the project is a very successful piece of technology that can streamline the professional assessment process by digitally recording the assessment and evidence of competency whilst on the job. The assessment results are then emailed to the VET RTO organisations ICT system for entry into the Student Information Management System.

The feedback from both teachers and students is very positive with learners indicating that the use of mobile devices does not appear as cumbersome and threatening as large folders of assessment tools and records. Both teacher and students also reported that the ability to attach to the assessment a variety of files as evidence was very powerful from an assessment perspective. The Agriculture Industry have been very supportive of the project outcomes claiming it will benefit their industry through a streamlined and professional approach to assessment on the job.

In 2008 the QTImPlayer is being implemented and trialed by TAFE Tasmania in the Plumbing sector and in partnership with the National Centre for Dairy Education in Victoria and Tasmania. The tool will be used in both trials for both assessment and recognition purposes.

1st runner-up - What is Scootle?

Organisation: The Le@rning Federation
Website: http://www.scootle.edu.au

Scootle is a secure online teaching and learning environment providing access to all Le@rning Federation digital curriculum content. It enables users to easily find the digital resources in direct relationship to curriculum. The process of finding and selecting resources is underpinned by the automated Schools Online Thesaurus, an agreed Australian and New Zealand vocabulary of curriculum topics and terms, which relates those terms to refine the teacher's process of selection.

Who is it for?

Scootle was designed and developed for teacher education students and teachers to access and use the national digital resources. It is now available to, and used by, teachers and students in jurisdictions that choose to provide registration. Some jurisdictions use Scootle as teachers' main access, others for teachers with difficulty accessing the resources through local portals. Other organisations can also arrange licensed access through The Le@rning Federation office.

What does Scootle do?

Scootle's Potential

EndNote Tutorial

Organisation: University Library, University of Newcastle
Website: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/

EndNote is an essential bibliographic management software tool used by thousands of University of Newcastle students, researchers and academics to manage their research through the organisation of references, formatting of in-text citations, and the automatic creation of bibliographies.

The EndNote Tutorial (www.newcastle.edu.au/service/library/tutorials/endnote) is the University Library's key support tool for enabling users to understand the fundamentals of EndNote. The Tutorial's innovative design, online availability and ease of use, combined with its extensive incorporation of demonstration movies ensures that all EndNote users, including those enrolled in off-shore and online programs, are provided with the opportunity to learn EndNote at their preferred time, pace and geographic location.

The Tutorial was also developed in response to an identified need within the Australian Library sector to provide an innovative approach to Endnote training (A Collaborative Approach to Developing and Maintaining EndNote Support Resources, CAUL Meeting 2006/1 Agenda Item 7.13B). Absence of a commercial product provided the impetus to develop this resource and make it available to the wider community.

The Tutorial has been recognised locally, nationally and internationally. At the local level, the Tutorial was the recipient of a Vice-Chancellor's Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2007. At the national level, the Tutorial was awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation in August 2008. Additionally, the Library has been approached by numerous Australian university libraries to use, adapt and link to the Tutorial. Internationally, the EndNote Tutorial has been recognised as an exemplar online resource for the enhancement of the student learning experience through its innovative and pedagogically effective instructional design. This recognition was achieved in January 2007 when the Tutorial was peer-reviewed by the American Library Association's ACRL Emerging Technologies in Instruction Committee and included in the PRIMO (Peer Reviewed Instructional Materials Online) Database.

Commerce eLearning Module (CeLM)

Organisation: University of Wollongong - CEDIR & Faculty of Commerce
Website: http://www.uow.edu.au/commerce/

The Commerce eLearning Module (CeLM) was implemented in February 2008 as a compulsory activity and assessment. At the time of writing, a total of 3600 students completed the module during that year. CeLM provides students with an orientation to the skills involved in using evidence effectively and avoiding unintentional plagiarism in their academic writing.

The module, accessed through the secure student portal on the University website, is a web-based learning resource incorporating a 30 minute streamed audio presentation given by the Faculty's Learning Developer, a text-based version of the presentation and a link to the University's Harvard Referencing and Citing guidelines. Student understanding of the content is assessed with a quiz (20 questions). Students who fail to achieve a satisfactory result are required to attend a workshop where the principles of academic integrity and effective use of evidence in their writing.


Sponsors:

Supported by:

Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations logo Link Affilliates logo IMS Global Learning Consortium