Wednesday, 26 September 2007

Final Project Scope

Terry met with me yesterday to go over our Project and advised us to add some additional information. Here is the final Project Scope:

Project Scope for Emma and Sheryll

Project Name: More Word Processing

Date: 20/9/07

Department Contact: Jean Tilleyshort

ECD Contact: Leigh, Terry and Bronwyn

Project Leaders: Sheryll and Emma

Project Summary

The aims of this project is to provide students with extra wording processing skills not already covered in our current resources. Students will be able to work through this new resource in there own time in our community learning centres.

Project Background

This project was developed because we found there was a need in our Community Learning Centres for students to learn more word processing skills. We know this because students often asked “how to do” things that were not covered in our current resources, or not covered in depth.

The work books will be designed for self paced learning so the students work on the work books during class (with our help when needed). Useful handouts will also be offered for students to take home as references. Videos on “how to do” things will also be available.

This project will be designed for our Community Learning Centres as we see there is a real need for it.

Steps to be taken

1. Outline what is needed – requested from the students
2. Consult all CLC’s re: what else they think is needed
3. Emma and Sheryll get together and discuss theses areas that were missing and students requested.
4. Draft course outline for approval within C4Free programme
5. Gain approval of course
6. Compile the information and transfer this into a draft copy of a possible work book and resource sheets.
7. Create the draft
8. Test the draft copy
9. Improvements made necessary to make this an easy to follow instruction book.
10. Create training videos to be used along side the book.

Learner and Graduate Profiles

The resource will be used for students of all ages and backgrounds who wish to learn more skills without necessarily getting a qualification. There will be a range of skill levels. Some people will come with no skills in word processing this book will follow on from our current word processing resource, which would be at level 1. This More Word Processing book would cover students at level 2. The book and handout sheets plus videos will cover all learning styles, visual, auditory, read/write and kinaesthetic, (VARK)


Visual
For Visual students the book has picture/diagrams for example showing symbolic arrows and buttons and other items that will help the student find the item on the PC that could have normally been presented in words.

Auditory
For auditory students we will have videos created in Cam Studio with talking instructions on “how to” which follow the pages of the book. Students could either use the videos as instructions alone or use the book alongside the videos.

Reader/Writer
For reader/writer students the book is text base so all of these types of students will be covered.

Kinaesthetic
For kinaesthetic students, the book has exercises to do following the instructions which are also in the book, or they can use the videos as instructions and they also can take home handouts to refer to after there class.

Students with a disability which will make it hard for them to come to the Community Learning Centre may be able to purchase the book to work on in there own time at home with the videos as well. We will also be available by phone/email to support them with their learning where necessary. Students with learning disabilities will have support during the session from a Community Learning Centre Facilitator.

Students will leave feeling more confident working with word in home and office situations.

Possible Issues and Considerations


This module will help encourage unconfident learners’ to build their skills to a higher level, so encourage them to enrol into a qualification.
The book will only be available in the Community Learning Centre and unable to be removed, although reference sheets will be available for the student to take away. Students with a disability who are unable to make it to a Community Learning Centre, could be given the opportunity to purchase the book at a small fee.
The cost of the book to be produced for all the Community Learning Centres to be considered – although this could be minimal.
Although the Community Learning Centres are designed for a flexible learning situation they are only open during selected times and this may not be suitable for all possible students.

Monday, 24 September 2007

Project Scope

Emma and i have put our heads together and realised that there is a real need for another word processing book for our students as well as some handouts for students to take home so they have a reference for their learning. We have put together a draft book and sheets for our project.
Terry is coming to Cromwell this week so i hope to catch up with him to see if we are on the right track.

Project Scope

Project Name: More Word Processing

Date: 20/9/07

Department Contact: Jean Tilleyshort

ECD Contact: Leigh, Terry and Bronwyn

Project Leaders: Sheryll and Emma

Project Summary

The aims of this project is to provide students with extra wording processing skills not already covered in our current resources. Students will be able to work through this new resource in there own time in our community learning centres.

Project Background

This project was developed because we found there was a need in our Community Learning Centres for students to learn more word processing skills. We know this because students often asked “how to do” things that were not covered in our current resources.

The work books will be designed for self paced learning so the students work on the work books during class (with our help when needed). Useful handouts will also be offered for students to take home as references.

This project will be designed for our Community Learning Centres as we see there is a real need for it.

Steps to be taken

1. Outline what is needed – requested from the students
2. Emma and Sheryll get together and discuss theses areas that were missing and students requested.
3. Compile the information and transfer this into a draft copy of a possible work book and resource sheets.
4. Create the draft
5. Test the draft copy
6. Improvements made necessary to make this an easy to follow instruction book.
7. Final product produced and distributed to the other Community Learning Centres.


Learner and Graduate Profiles

The resource will be used for students of all ages and backgrounds who wish to learn more skills without necessarily getting a qualification. There will be a range of skill levels. Some people will come with no skills in word processing this book will follow on from our current word processing resource. Students will leave feeling more confident working with word in home and office situations.

Possible Issues and Considerations

• Book will only be available in the Community Learning Centre and unable to be removed, although reference sheets will be available for the student to take away.
• The cost of the book to be produced for all the Community Learning Centres to be considered – although this will be minimal.
• Although not all learning styles are covered with this resources friendly facilitators are always on hand to show the student or explain in more detail.

Friday, 15 June 2007

Flexible Learning Project

At our community learning centres we get a wide range of students from 16 to 80+ and from very different backgrounds and cultures. Most of the students that enrol have never sat in front of a computer before and/or have not been in a learning environment for a long time.

Because our courses are self taught and self paced we have a introduction book that students are ask to go though, after the initial enrolling process, called “Back 2 Basics” This is the first book the students are given to go though and read and follow the diagrams and instructions. For some students this book will either make or break them into wanting to come back and learn more.

There is a real need to have this book in video form for students to access at any time.
The students that like to have a more visual approach to learning will be encouraged to learn more. These videos could be on all those simple things that we find we just do everyday without thinking about it. Also the videos would help with the language that we use for computer programmes etc.

Some Ideas for the videos are:
What is the desktop?
What is a screen saver?
What the mouse is used for….left click / right click?
How to play solitaire…..or other games that are helpful to learn how to use the mouse.
How to open a word document?
How to save a document?
How to find my files?
How to print a document?
How to Shut Down the computer?
How to turn the speakers on?

Some of these could be put into one video…….

Some more advanced video’s could be:
How to…. Anti Virus software on my own computer?
How to….System maintenance, disk cleanup, error checking and disk defragmenter?
How to create shortcuts to programmes for easy access?
What is hardware and software?

These instructions would be there for all the students to access and view at any time on the desktop.

At our community learning centres we like to make our students welcome and comfortable about being here and learning something new….I find the first book is helpful to some students, but there is a need for something better to work with the book. Some learners at the start need to have a facilitator beside them reading the words literately from the book and also pointing to the computer and explaining what is being read also. This would be ideal to be able to do this for all students but is very impractical as our Central Venues are usually run by only one facilitator at one time.

These would also be helpful to other students from different courses that will be accessing our venues in the near future.

Tuesday, 15 May 2007

I'm having trouble getting my blog to edit gggrrrr

First attempt at CamStudio and YouTube

First attempt at CamStudio and YouTube

This is my first attempt at CamStudio and YouTube. I will have a go at putting voice to them soon. I would like to do some videos for our new learners that come in....so instead of having lots of reading to do they could watch the videos instead....i find we sometime loose newies because there is too much reading at the start and not enough computer stuff. Alot of our students haven't been in a learning environment for a long time, so reading a lot of stuff can become very frustrating for them. Having short videos on... How to access our files....How to save files.....etc would be great to have on the desktop of our computers for the students to access when they need to see them. These would be great for the visual learners instead of having to read the information they could see whenever they want.

Playing with CamStudio and YouTube