New England Institute Adobe Connect Project
Cert IV in Building Studies Residential
- Teacher Graeme Wilton taught 40 students in two cohorts of 20.
- The first group came to campuses of NEI to interact with the teacher. Campuses included Inverell (14 students), Narrabri (4), Moree (2) with the teacher at Armidale Campus.
- The second group consisted of individuals connecting from home from locations such as Boggabri, Barraba, Walca, Muswellbrook, Scone, Kempsey, Punchbowl Sydney (student relocated during the semester) Glenn Innes, Armidale, Gunnedah, Tenterfield.
- Sessions were run mostly weekly during semester. A face-to-face induction session was held the beginning of semester 1, a three-day mid-year workshop (1 day for assessment, 2 days for instruction), and a final one-day assessment session at the end of the year.
- The teacher would also receive emailed answers to questions and answer the emails the following day.
- Sessions were recorded and made available through the Adobe Connect site to those students who missed a session.
- The teacher carefully set up his webconferencing workstation, with three screen views- a student view so that he knew exactly what the students were seeing, his ‘interaction view’ and his own desktop view. He also used a writing tablet to help with drawing screen diagrams.
- Was the program successful?
- The teacher considered the program very successful. He indicated that out of the 40 students at the beginning of the year, he lost only four students during 2007.
- Bulk SMS messages were sent to students the day or night before an Adobe Connect session to remind the students to attend. The teacher said that this was a key reason why attendance at the sessions was high.
- The teacher said the face-to-face sessions helped him to be confident that his assessment of students was valid and also helped with student social networking and peer group learning throughout the year, in particular as a result of the initial induction session.
- The teacher also implemented a successful ‘mars bar mail out’. Whenever he experienced a lull in webconferencing interaction, he offered a mars bar to the first person with a correct answer to a question. The screen would ‘light up’. The mars bar would be mailed to the winner the next day.
The teacher will expand the program. He will also run ‘train-the-trainer’ sessions with his Faculty of Trades and Primary Industries colleagues.
General Education and Equity Services Faculty
A strategy was developed by Vivian Evans to use webconferencing throughout the faculty for general and issues- based meetings. Approximately 130 headsets and some webcams were distributed to staff within the faculty.
For further information see http://neigees.wikispaces.com
Was the program successful?
- The program was considered successful in terms of raising awareness among staff about new learning technologies, in particular webconferencing, and providing new skills and knowledge.
- Faculty staff workload and varying enthusiasm meant that some staff took a stronger lead in participation compared with others.
In semester 2, 2007 in the program there was a stronger emphasis on issues and topic-based interactions which generated more committed involvement amongst staff. Sessions on assessment validation in particular were highly regarded.
The model of issues and topic-based sessions within the faculty will be followed in the future. The sessions have provided an example which can be followed by other NEI faculties.
Webconferencing using Vet Virtual
- See http://vetvirtual.com/ choose Enter Vet Virtual, and register for a Room.
- Self-registering virtual meeting space. No need to book.
Vet Virtual is part of a national project to explore the use of high speed communications between providers in the National VET sector.
Vet Virtual provides a virtual meeting space for practitioners.
The space was used by the Pumpvideo 2007 project to explore use of high speed communication in collaborative video and audio production between three jurisdictions: NEI in NSW, TAFE Tasmania – Launceston and Hobart, Charles Darwin University (CDU) VET in the Northern Territory.
See http://vetvirtual.com/ and choose the Pumpvideo link.
Was it successful?
Vetvirtual webconferencing space was used by a wide variety of practitioners in 2007.
The quality of the video and audio connections is determined by the speed of the user’s network.
Pumpvideo project achieved some good production and collaboration outcomes for video, audio and multimedia production students of NEI, TAFE Tasmania and CDU in the NT.
Vetvirtual will continue in 2008.
It is proposed to continue Pumpvideo in 2008, starting with video being produced by the NEI ‘pumpvideo’ students as part of the Tamworth Country Music Festival in January 2008.