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Learning Technology Mentor Program 2009
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Program Quick Links |
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Program Description
The Learning Technology Mentors (LTMs) program focuses on building Institute wide staff capability to use and embed new technologies in teaching and learning. This will result in more flexibility and responsiveness to the needs of customers and students and enhance student engagement and personalised learning opportunities.
This program builds on the 2008 LTM program which developed a group of 12 Sydney Institute practitioners as LTMs. As a result the 2008 LTMs (one at each campus) formed a network of mentors across the Institute skilled in the use of a wide range of new technologies.
The range of technologies covered by the program has been prioritised to the institutes 5 key elearning platforms
- Moodle
- Mediawiki/Wikispaces
- Wordpress/blogs/podcasts
- Adobe Connect/presenter/captivate
- Connected classrooms/Video Conferencing/Smartboard/ebeam
Staff who have skills in using one or more of these technologies will be identified through an Institute wide Expression of Interest (EOI) process.
New LTM's will be released to participate in a 3 day induction program delivering a series of professional development activities designed to increase Learning Technology Mentor skills in the use of all the technologies. Four mentors from the 2008 program will be invited to participate in the induction program on a technology of their choice and provide coaching to the new mentors for 1 hr a week over the course of the program . The mentors will then embark in a 10 week mentoring program where they will mentor teachers/teaching sections for 3 hours a week.
Teachers/teaching sections targeted by LMTs will be selected by College Management Teams to ensure alignment with College Business Plans.
Program Rationale
The TAFE Workforce Development Guarantee, a capability development initiative of the TAFE 21st Century document clearly identifies “using technology to do business” as one of five key capability areas to be developed for TAFE in the 21st Century.
This project also aligns with the Sydney Institute Business Plan 2009 identifying “Innovative & personalised products and services, meeting customer needs & exceeding their expectations” as well as “accelerate workforce development solutions & drive new product development initiatives” as a College priority under the Products and Services key area.
Project Objectives
The objectives of this project are to:
- Better utilise existing technologies to enhance teaching & learning practice
- Build institute staff capability to use these new technologies
- Be more responsive and flexible in the delivery of services to customers and clients
- Enhance student engagement and personalised learning opportunities
- Expand the institute wide network of Learning Technology Mentors (LTMs) in 2009
- Provide a recognition pathway for attaining the elearning & coaching/mentoring skills sets identified in the Workforce guarantee program
Project Deliverables
This program will deliver the following outcomes:
- A 3 day induction program delivering a series of professional development activities designed to increase Learning Technology Mentor skills in the use of the following technologies:
- Moodle
- Mediawiki Wikispaces
- Wordpress/blogs/podcasts
- Adobe Connect/presenter/captivate
- Connected classrooms/Video Conferencing/Smartboard/ebeam
- A 10 week mentoring program where the LTMs will mentor teachers/teaching sections that will be identified by College Management Teams (this is to ensure that the program is meeting the strategic directions of the Institute)
- Embedding of technology in teaching and learning
- An institute wide network of Learning Technology Mentors
- An evaluation of the project will be undertaken by survey and focus group meetings.
- A final report will be developed on the results and outcomes of the project.
Surveys & Mentoring Plan
Please take the time to complete these surveys. Some of them are for you to complete, and others are for your mentorees. They are ours and your way of monitoring the effectiveness of the program and improving it for the future.
Mentors
- Learning Technology Mentors: Pre-Workshop Survey. Could you please complete this survey before you start your training on Monday 6th April?
- Learning Technology Mentors 2009 Post Workshops Survey (Day One)
- Learning Technology Mentors 2009 Post 'Workshops Survey (Day Two)
- Learning Technology Mentors 2009 Post 'Workshops Survey (Final Day)
- Learning Technology Mentors Program 2009: Capability Development Survey for Mentors To be completed at the end of the program
- Mentoring Plan
Mentees
- Learning Technology Mentors Program 2009: Initial Survey for Participating Teachers
- Mentoring Plan
- Learning Technology Mentors Program 2009:Exit Survey for Participating Teachers
Roles and Responsibilities
Your Role as Mentors
Your role as mentors will be to up-skill upwards of 15- 20 teachers over the 10 week period, by assisting them in developing and implementing new methods of delivery to their students. This will involve:
- Helping teachers to assess their own skills and skill needs
- Introducing teachers to the institutes 5 key elearning platforms (you’re not expected to be expert in them all!)
- Moodle
- Mediawiki/Wikispaces
- Wordpress/blogs/podcasts
- Adobe Connect/presenter/captivate
- Connected classrooms/Video Conferencing/Smartboard/ebeam
- Helping teachers choose the most appropriate methods for their students.
- Advising and supporting them in delivery.
- Assisting to report on project outcomes and evaluation.
The aim is that by the end of the 10 week period each of the teachers you are supporting will be using at least one new learning technology with one group of students, in a sustained and ongoing way, and their students will have engaged successfully with the technology.
You will have the resources of the Workforce Development team to support you in your role, and have the opportunity to be mentored personally by 1 of the 4 of last year’s successful LTM08 as well as being able to draw on each others’ skills and experiences. (The LTM Blog and resources on the myLearning wiki will be one of the ways we support you and you support each other.) There will be a Zoho data base to collect your contacts and progress.
You will be expected to create a personal mentoring wikispace to record the mentoring journey over the ten weeks and to collect evidence through images and /or recording to this site.
You will be expected to produce only ‘two case studies’ as evidence of your mentoring program to showcase at the end of the year to be shared across the institute s good model of embedding technology in teaching practice.
You will be required to survey your mentorees (15-20) at the beginning and the end of the 10 week program so that we can evaluate the progress of the mentoring program and its outcomes.
Note: Many of you have been chosen to be part of this program because you have been change leaders in new ways of teaching and learning. But only part of your role in the project will be to impart new skills. Equally important are the ongoing relationships you create and the building of a community of practice so that the outcomes of the project are sustained, with teachers continuing to share new ideas, skills and resources.
Role of the Workforce Development Team
- To plan and facilitate the workshops for Induction
- To develop resources and assist LTM in technical requirements and or issues difficulties
- To manage the LTM blog and Project wiki
- To conduct fortnightly Adobe Connect sessions (5 ) with the entire team (includes 12 mentors and the 4 mentors and WFD team.
- To gather regular feedback from mentors, teachers, Head Teachers and CEO’s and report against Project milestones
- To conduct the evaluation of the project and develop future strategies.
Uber mentors 08 Team
- To provide ongoing support to your 3 allocated mentors
- To assist with how to plan and facilitate a workshop and /or Showcase in their College/Cluster
- To assist with skills development and the uses in any of the 5 technology platforms specified
- To assist how to post to the LTM blog and edit their personal mentoring wikispace
- To meet regularly 1 hour a week over 10 weeks with feedback from mentors, and their milestones in line with the Mentoring Learning Plan
- To tabulate your contacts in Zoho and make comments to progress.
- To ensure that surveys are completed by your mentors mentorees and themselves
Tagging (Sharing) our content
To assist aggregating our content across the the range of web2.0 services we are utilising use the following tags ltm2009 ltmnetwork siwd to tag our content.
For example here are source the images uploaded so far to the media sharing service flickr from the 3 day induction which are being displayed above in the slide show using the ltm2009 tag
Platform Sandboxes
We have set up sandbox test environments so you can experiment for your own learning and use for training purposes.
SI blog/podcast/vodcast platform
http://sydneyinstituteonline.net/sandpit/
This blog is fully enabled for podcasting/vodcasting and it's feed has been registered with iTunes so that one click subscription works.
You all have accounts as editors on this server.
SI Wikispaces
http://sandpit.sydneyinstitute.wikispaces.net
Here you will need to join the wiki, from there we can make you an organiser of the wiki.
SI Moodle
http://sielearning2.tafensw.edu.au/moodle/login/index.php
You can log in to the Moodle using your netwotk profile (the one you use to log into your computer @ work with) One in there is a course title FAQ & Course to test new features which your automatically have course editing rights. You can use this to experiment.
Contacts
Please contact Workforce Development Team for further information:
siworkforcedevelopment[@]tafensw.edu.au
Ph: (02) 9217 3731
Expression of Interest EOI
LMTs, who have skills in using the technologies will be identified through an Institute wide Expression of Interest (EOI) process.
For more detailed information on the process see the Learning Technology Mentor Program 2009 EOI page
Other resources
TAFENSW libraries subscribe to a number of periodical databases which provide you with full text articles available to you online. One example is the suite of EBSCOhost databases. Click here to link to articles from EBSCOhost databases on wikis. If you wish to find out more about how to set up a RSS feed for a topic of your choice from one of the available databases please contact library staff at your college library.
