Eddie\’s Bloggage –>

At this point of time, I am almost to completion of Module 1 out of the 3 that we need to do. There were a few problems during the way for example, certain jargon that was used to ask a variety of questions. the other Modules seem to related to the Module 1 after briefly skim reading it. So far, I’ve learnt many things during these few week of classes. Its very interesting and can’t wait to get started on the next modules.

My group that I am in for assignment 1of this subject has been overall been very good. Everyone communicates well and we all put in the hard yards. We have managed to compile the wiki in which our group has been chosen to research on ’synchornous technology.’ Personally, it seem to very detailed and answers all the targeting questions in which we needed to do research on. Our case studies are also well chosen and all make sense.

However, in saying that, it is probably in its draft stage. The teacher will likely read it and give us an overall score of what she thinks of it and comment on the things that we may need to fix up. In addition, our group started off with 5 members but 1 member had dropped out of the subject because she found it difficult to do this subject by not doing the prerequisite. Whilst we are short one member, this has not stopped us from achieving our goals in creating a detailed and beautiful wiki.

During the past few weeks of class, we have been put into groups to work on a group assignment. The assignment was that each group would be assigned a particular technology and how it could be used in a learning environment. There were a good variety and my group was given ‘Synchonous Technology.’ In the beginning, I had no idea as to what that was but I gradually researched about it, it became apparent that it was about tehnology that involved interactive and real time communication. Some examples were webinar and web chat.

Personally, I can relate to web chat and that is because I use it very often when I am on the computer with an internet connection. I didn’t know much about webinars so I decided that when my group was given a choice to either research on webinars or web chat, I quickly jumped in to do webinars as I wanted to do something new also because I had no idea what it was. My initial thought were that it was similar to a seminar but with computers. From the looks of things, it looked like I was right, a webinar it a web based seminar.

My group have planned a few meetings so that we can get it up and going. Different people would have the responsibility to undertake some research on specific synchonous technologies so that we can add it into our wikis which are due in the next coming weeks. Our wikis had to incorporate some real life examples of organisations that use these particular devices and how it affects the communication amongst its stakeholders.

It seems interesting and relatively non complicated. Now all my group needs to do is be motivated and get started on starting on the assignment. For future reference, the wiki can be found at this web site:

 http://elearningdesign3.wikispaces.com/synchronous

For homework, we had to research on a council service in my local area. I am not sure if this is correct, but hope it may guide me as to how it can be relevant to DoCS and their assistance in helping the community out.

 Randwick City Council Services:

In 2009, Randwick City Council will celebrate their 150 years of local government in the area. Thus, the council is planning a big year of celebrations. This has been a great achievement with many triumphs of the true spirit and heart of the individuals in the area and the community service provided by the council. Randwick has also been known and progressed to the affluent and multicultural city that has made the Randwick area a very pleasant area to live in.

With regards to the artistic and cultural aspect of Randwick City Council, a set of cultural activities and events have been proposed. Their aim was to ensure that their plan reflects all elements of culture from heritage and multiculturalism in Randwick with the use of art in all its form including dance, performance, drama, music and much more. The benefits of doing this include increasing partnership with local community groups and supporting a local culture and educational program. This also provided a supportive bond with the local community and allowed better communication and care with locals.

 Randwick City Council also held other events such as the library service and held their annual Summer Reading Club a few months ago, allowing school-aged children something fun and worthwhile to do over the school holidays. This was a great way to get the children out from behind the computer or television and increase their creative-thinking and imaginations. This program proved very popular with approximately 145 children registering as members, ranging in age from 5 to 12 years. The purpose of this was that for every ten books read, the Council made a commitment to plant a new tree in the Randwick local government area. All together, the children read over 1,395 books, and as a result, planted 140 new trees. 

In a recreational point of view, Randwick Council also planned to deliver a much needed improvement to the Heffron Park area in Matraville, creating state of the art indoor and outdoor sporting and leisure facilities for the community. This new multi-purpose indoor sports and leisure centre is also known one of its kind in the eastern suburbs, and the entire upgrade of the park has utilised best practice in design and environmental sustainability.

This is the first post that I have done for a new subject that I will undertake this semester called eLearning design. So what did I learn about eLearning design? Well, it is a pre-requisite from eLearning experience. That meant that we needed to do that latter subject prior to undertaking this current one. Last year, we did a lot of work with wikispaces, edublogs etc that have enhanced the experience with using technology in a workplace and learning perspective. I found edublogs to be the most useful as it allows me to reflect on my current thoughts and feelings in which allows me to go through what I have written in the long run.

The past few weeks during the course of this subject have been interesting. We were provided with the competencies that the class will gain after the semester and also the learning tools through technology that we can use and apply in the future for our adult learning careers.

One of the interesting things I have learnt recently was RSS feeds. Some web sites have this in which allows viewers to watch videos and enable us to be notified when there is an update from our favourite web sites. Therefore, instead of us going through the web sites to see if there are updates, in which we are notified when there is. From my point of view, I visit many automotive forums so having these feeds have been beneficial.