Barrie Matthews (LEARNZ Project/Technical Manager) facilitated this session (with Vicki Hagenaars – a classroom teacher extraordinaire with a focus on digital based learning - also sharing some of her experiences). The session  covered the benefits of Virtual Fieldtrips, looking at pedagogies, and encouraging participants to consider opportunities for, for example, students with SEN – due in part to the virtual nature of trip. (You can access a recording of the session here: http://connect.vln.school.nz/p89382630/; and the presentation show during the session here: http://connect.vln.school.nz/p36401599/).

Previous to the session, Vicki wrote I have used “LEARNZ as a method for making my students aware they can be part of an online, collaborative learning environment.  They are always amazed that their questions are mirrored and answered during audioconfereces. The best learning engagement so far has been the one trip last year that we sent an ambassador on – huge buy in to the daily diaries and fully understanding the trip we sent our dolphin friend Poseidon on”.

Barrie started by providing a brief overview of LEARNZ, but giving an overview of a recent trip called Kids restore the Kepler. As well as students being involved, it also showed that individuals can take positive actions themselves. Barrie talked about how to choose fieldtrips, and Vicki gave some insight how she goes about choosing trips by, for example, having a look at the planned fieldtrips at the beginning of the year and taking note of what and when so that she can plan them into her. The fieldtrips are also supported by outside organisations.

The online space for LEARNZ has recently been re-designed and it’s much easier to use than it used to be to find your way around and use. The site has a range of features such as an integrated glossary. Vicki said that she uses the background pages about a week ahead to help start her learners thinking about the subject. She usually uses a buddy reading approach, followed by a lot of discussion and research around further ideas before the fieldtrip ‘kicks off’.

All of the fieldtrips are curriculum integrated, and even though the most obvious link are science, maths, environmental education, there have been other focii such as health, art and history. For example, a recent fieldtrip involved students working with Ngāi Tahu visiting sites around Timaru, making the pigments, history, contemporary use etc.

Vicki mentioned that the curriculum objectives are really useful, and helps her to engage students with relevant authentic activities and tasks. Many of the fieldtrips are aimed across sectors, and can be adapted for junior secondary.

Newsletters are quite useful because they provide deadlines, especially when ambassadors from a school have been sent.

The LEARNZ initiative is organic, and the team really appreciate input from the students and teachers who participate. Pete Sommerville (the LEANRZ project director who was also at the session) mentioned that “Without exception the evolution of LEARNZ has been as a result of excellent feedback from teachers”. One example shared by Pete was re the Kids restore the Kepler: ”The two versions of the text was useful.  The inclusion of te reo Māori was excellent ” (teacher feedback). A comment  from another teacher was ” I find the field trips as a great way of introducing vocab and scientific language to students. As well as teaching inquiry skills and science knowledge. I used the glossary section of the web site and selected words to use for word study prior to the field trip. We used the words for spelling activities, dictionary skills and quick writing activities. This is helpful for ESOL students that can have difficulty with vocab”.

Teachers can send a class mascot or toy, for $30, on a trip. Each of the mascots has their own page. It helps cement the relationship and gives a bit of buy in. Vicki was a bit unsure that Intermediate students would buy into having a mascot go on a trip, but she found that having a mascot involved, and reading their ambassador’s diary really helped engaged the students. Barrie also mentioned that secondary schools have had similar experiences. Anne K, in the chat said “Love the idea of a mascot travelling…. adds another dimension to the class involvement. [Brings] an almost face to face dimension tot he virtual trip”. Ambassadors are usually returned, although there was a recent fatality rafting the Tongariro.

Students can post questions on the forums for the experts on the fieldtrips. Using an landline phone, Skype, and the audio bridge, students are able to connect with folk on the field trips via audioconferences, and post their questions in advance. Vicki mentioned that the “kids get quite a buzz out of being involved”, and Pete said “Visual learning in a shared group is much less threatening than learning by yourself so there is a greater level of focus as you are supported”. Often there are students from a number of schools, geographically dispersed, all online and asking questions at the same time. There is no video with it, for many reasons, but Vicki advised that “When we are listening I tend to have a print out of the questions for the students to make notes on.  Gives them focus”. One teacher commented “Sometimes our computers don’t oblige and that can be frustrating for the kids and me – that’s a school issue but does affect how we use the website. But this won’t put me off continuing to use LEARNZ as for the children who take part, it is the audio conference that stays with them. And for me especially  it is the way Andrew relates to the children – his commitment and warmth come through in all his interactions, even though he has done these trips before he always makes them fresh and exciting”.

The videos are one of the biggest learning opportunities  and a couple of iterations later the videos are being put on to Vimeo, and are being accessed by mobile devices, as well as being downloaded to local machines or networks to be watched. Examples of videos can be accessed at: http://kidsrestorethekepler132.learnz.org.nz/ (Usr: webinar1Pwd: webinar1); and https://vimeo.com/68100107. In reference to the videos and engaging the students, feedback has included “they said they did no real work watching the videos and completing the questions independently, however the level of understanding was higher than is typically observed from text based resources”.

Pete explained that “during field trips we aim to develop meaningful relationships between experts/students, LEARNZ Teacher/class teacher, LEARNZ Teacher/students and the mutiple media helps this getting to know”. Merryn, in the chat also commented that “It’s amazing how much thought has gone into every aspect of this – so many ingredients, active and reflective”.

Kids are challenged to ‘do’ something, and to take it to the next level. Schools have been inspired to create their own trips, and Pete shared that “Ah yes we do hear of schools organising their own trips – Stuart Cook from Methven School has a great story to tell about that”.

Barrie shared that if you are interested in signing up for any of the fieldtrips you can:

• Register: http://www.mylearnz.org.nz/index/register
• To choose field trips: http://www.learnz.org.nz/field-trip-chooser.php
• And to get started: http://help.learnz.org.nz/getting-started/

This was an incredibly comprehensive session, which clearly showed the development of a wonderful resource that has been developed over the last 11 years. Anna K commented that this was an “awesome opportunity to see the richness of LEARNZ – can’t believe I have never been involved with this wonderful programme!”

Images:

• ‘The path‘ http://www.flickr.com/photos/28989956@N00/4126509030 Found on flickrcc.net
• Returning birdsong to a Great Walk; LEARNZ http://rata.learnz.org.nz/summary.php?vft=kidsrestorethekepler132

Student voice can be gathered in a number of ways, and should be, rather than a harvesting, box-ticking exercise, becomes something that informs the way we work.

Rachel spoke from personal experience about how, when growing up in Kerikeri, she set fire to the hall when she was part of Brownies. The thing she remembered most was that she was rebelling against a system where she did not fit. Her brothers were part of scouts, and they did well, because they made bridges, tied things together, and make things…rather than do macramé and sew. She also talked about the leader of the brownie group who bullied and crushed the girls in the group. At the age of 14, Rachel became a scout leader, and she felt insightful, and was using her skills.

What culture do we create as teachers? What do our students feel as far as their own identity and engagement are concerned?

“The issue of democracy. Consultation and participation in schools is now central in terms of the learning process…taking the pupil voice seriously remains a difficult area for teachers, particularly as schools continue to be judges by narrow attainment targets” (Fielding).

Showing the video to “Another Brick in the Wall”, she then guided us through unpacking some key points in relation to student voice. It illustrates some key messages, for example, Roger Walters put the song together as a way of protecting himself. Every interaction with education created another brick in the wall. Her purpose of using of this, however, was to illustrate the student voices. The school, Islington Green, was approached for students to participate in the song. What happened was that 23 students were part of the choir, and their voices were dubbed over 32 times. When they created the video, those same students were not allowed to be part of the video because they didn’t have acting cards, so there are students mouthing the words of the other students singing. The students did not get paid for sharing their voices, and in 1996 the copyright laws changed and the students got together to try to sue for some of the royalties. The school got given a donation and a plaque, but there is no word of the court case – the voices have been silenced.

We need to ask ourselves about the spaces that are created for students to share their voices? In terms of the acoustics of the school, whose voices get heard, and whose are silent? What shape can student voice take? Have we got this right – evolving, rethinking? How are students’s voices manipulated into different forms? How ‘loud’ are the voices of the teachers and leaders in a school, and what are they ‘drowning out’?

Part of listening to student voice is shifting from an instructional to a pedagogical focus. In part this is predicated by teaching as a profession, and is underpinned by the building of professional learning communities, is sustained by professional learning, has distributed relational leadership, with a focus on students learning, and determined by student needs.

The research suggests that student voice is under-rated and under- utilised in curriculum development, even though student have unique knowledge and perspectives that adults cannot replicate. When voices are valued student may develop a stronger sense of membership, agency, respect and self-worth, as well as developing a clearer sense of self as a learner, and realise that they can have an impact on things that matter to them in a school. Young people should be afforded these opportunities to shape their education, and when this is the case they are more likely to engage as learners – when the power has been shared.

But what is student voice? There is complexity, history, philosophy, dignity, humanity, mana, and has “aspects of participation and crossing boundaries. Involvement of learners in a meaningful conversation which then has the power to transform, by the act of learning and teaching and also the institutions in which they learn” (Fielding)

Student voice can be communicated via student councils, post box activities, brainstorms, student notices, surveys, class speeches, photographic journal, video, scrapbooks, one-to-one conversations, and guided tours. Mitra (2005) has put together a pyramid around ‘being heard’, and bottom of the pyramid are post/suggestion box activities, brainstorms, and student notices, rather than ways of doing things differently. So we can engage beyond surveys, so that we are helping students build their capability for learning, and this could include student focus groups, interviews, students as governors, and taking on leadership roles.

Some of the most powerful voices are the silences. Also, just because we have collected student voice does not mean that we have evidence. Students are often saying what they think a teacher wants to hear. There are also cultural barriers and protocols, as it is disrespectful to speak out. Other things to be careful about are:

• Romanticising the notion of voice…and uncensored acceptance
• Totalising / essentialising – ‘one voice’ of a collective used to reinforce status quo vs a collection of voices
• marginalising of groups
• tokenistic changes or responses

There needs to be a shift toward student-adult partnerships, where meaningful, powerful conversations are undertaken. When this is the case, it shifts the focus and moves to a point where we share some key understandings. Sometimes you will need to search for student voice.

Some of the examples that Rachel shared were revealing. Juliette Hayes (Geraldine High School) & Amy Clode (Grantlea Downs Primary School), undertook a project that developed creative leadership of Maori student partnerships…and the end of the project a significant number of students identified themselves as Maori. She also mentioned a student who, during the conversation, it took a sustained set of questions to move past the ‘I don’t do anything’, to then discover that the student and some mates run a charity that raises money and give it away. they turned over $20,000 last year – but she had to really dig to find this out.

Rachel recommended that it is worth looking up Adam Fletcher from Soundout.org, if you are interested in finding out more about student voice.

A primary head said to me recently: “Wouldn’t it be marvellous if we could do the daily literacy and numeracy hours Monday to Thursday, and then have Fridays free for more flexible approaches?” One of the best literacy activities I do involves children acting as radio journalists and compiling a radio news bulletin. It needs a whole day, however, if a visit to the local radio station is to be included.

A newly-appointed geography teacher in a very academic grammar once persuaded his head to suspend the timetable for two days so the whole school could do Project Africa. It was a knockout, and he went on to be one of the best heads of his generation.

There is also the negative effects that timetables can have on the teachers. For example, in this paper Living by the clock: the tyranny of the secondary school timetable, Kathy Brady quotes:

Bells ring to signal the passing of classes, each of which will spend some parcel of time with the teacher in his or her classroom. Though students may move throughout the building, high school teachers often never leave their rooms in the course of a day. For every ‘period’ or ‘hour’, there is a routine: taking attendance, continuing from yesterday, introducing today’s material, winding down. Repeated five times a day. (Johnson, 1990, p.6)

I wonder if some of the notions about organisation and standardised assessment tend to go hand-in-hand with timetables?

I know, from a personal point of view, when I am learning something it can take ages to get my head down and ‘into it’, and sometimes it’s really frustrating to have the flow broken. And when you get back, sometimes those good ideas will have dissipated…along with some of the motivation to continue.

I would say, though, that in my experiences with working with students, there needs to be quite a lot of initial support and guidance up front with a less formal, time-tabled structure…and skills to be taken on board such as time-management, digital literacy, research skills, self-reflection etc. (see, for example, Meeting diverse learner needs through blended learning). A continuum where you move from a relatively teacher-led approach at the beginning of a year, to a student-led/directed one by the end of the year seems to be fairly effective, and helps ensure that differentiation can be built into a programme…especially if a blended approach is used.

What are your thoughts? Are you tyrannised by a timetable? Or do you and your learners have heaps of freedom?

Image:  ’Alternative Pedagogies, hosted by Barry Joe &+Jill+Grose‘ http://www.flickr.com/photos/59217476@N00/7093752299. Found on flickrcc.net

You may, or may not ;-p be wondering what the differences are between aims, learning outcomes and objectives. In a nutshell:

• Learning Outcomes (LOs), aims and objectives are often used synonymously, but in fact refer mainly to intentions.
• LOs are related to the achievements of the learner rather than what teacher hopes to achieve in a session or course.
• Aims are focussed more on the teacher’s intentions, and individual sessions that they are facilitating.
• LOs and objectives are more difficult to differentiate because objectives are frequently expressed in ways that are similar to LOs, and express statements about what a learner will gain from participating in a course or activity.

Click here to access a thorough guide to learning outcomes(UCE Birmingham)

Click here for a briefer overview of learning outcomes and questions to ask yourself while writing them.

Do you have other great sites or resources that either illustrate the differences, or are really helpful for developing LOs? Please share.

Images

WWW. cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo by lumaxart: http://flickr.com/photos/lumaxart/2364727849/

Students learn from those who care. cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo by shareski: http://flickr.com/photos/shareski/2712355703/

Creative Commons by Ethos Consultancy NZ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Personally and professionally, I don’t know what I would do without being a member of online communities.

I am constantly challenged to think and reflect, as well as affirmed or guided in some of the ideas I am developing.

On the social side, I have had the pleasure and privilege of ‘meeting’ a vast variety of people from around the world, including Madelyn, who are incredibly generous with their time, and with sharing their thinking.

You might be saying to yourself,

• “But I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said,”
• “I don’t have time,” or
• “What if I say something wrong?”

I know I had similar concerns before I started getting involved in online communities.

So why might you want to get involved?

In July 2011 in her blog post Creating Community Together, Madelyn threw down a challenge that read as follows:

“Let’s work together for the mutual good of our communities and our planet – becoming resources for each other because it is simply the right thing to do – meaning the thing that will create the kind of world we want – a world that works for EVERYONE.”

You may have already taken up her challenge and are comfortably participating in and contributing to online communities. But you may also be sitting on the fence and not feeling very comfortable about jumping into the online community spaces where you may feel you need to build your digital literacy skills before joining the conversations.

In this blog post I would like to describe what I mean by digital literacy skills, give a brief overview why your voice is important in online communities, and finally, I’ll provide a grab-bag guide to getting involved.

Why online communities?

Over a period of about 13 years I had become increasingly interested in how human beings interact and ‘learn’ in online spaces, especially when they are offered opportunities to become **immersed. An immersive environment enables people to experience a variety of approaches and ideas, at the same time as exploring them intellectually.

During this period the Internet grew in popularity as a place for formal and informal learning, and hardware and software became more affordable. I have become increasingly excited by the potential of eLearning and Mobile Learning (mLearning). Being able to connect is providing a range of ways to co-construct understanding, to develop creative problem solving skills, and to become more culturally aware. This, however, entails a paradigm shift away from content to a greater focus on mutual support and synergistic thinking, as well as an increasing requirement for individuals to possess digital literacy skills.

**Immersive digital environment / experience: Adapted from gaming environments, references to immersive experiences illustrate instances where an online CoP member becomes immersed in the ‘narrative’ of the community and its interactions. As such, the member feels as though they are part of an online ‘universe’, where they have the option to create and design the spaces (Adams, 2004).

What is digital literacy?

Digital literacy can be broadly categorised in three distinct skills sets (Reynard, 2009).

• The first skill set is being able to navigate the Internet to locate and evaluate resources.
• The second skill set includes being able to create, repurpose, share and comment on resources hosted on the Internet.

These skills usually require some sort of account creation or membership to a community (for example, YouTube), as well as awareness of rights to use and re-use digital objects. Associated activities may include the sharing of links, images, or commenting on blogs.

To move to this stage of development is to move from the consumption of digital resources to the creation or adoption of an online identity.

• The third skill set involves the co-creation of ideas online and the active cultivation of an online identity. This requires a sophisticated level of digital literacy skills, whereby participants make sense of existing knowledge and reinterpret it in a way that fits within their existing knowledge framework, thereby, disconnecting, and reconnecting “knowledge fragments through knowledge creation” (Littlejohn, 2011, Para. 3). This sense-making will often occur within learning ecologies, online communities and networks (Siemens, 2003).

Healthy, established online communities tend to have members who have developed mutual trust and respect, and are reasonably confident in their digital literacy skills.

Other members, who remain readers of conversations and content (sometimes known as ‘lurkers’) are likely to have developing digital literacies, less confidence in their online persona. That is not to say one is necessarily directly related to the other, but rather to highlight that full participation, which leads to an immersive experience, requires digital literacies development.

Why your voice is important

I have explored online communities in a variety of situations, prior to taking on the position of national coordinator in New Zealand of a pilot project to develop a Virtual Professional Learning and Development (VPLD) Model (initiated in October 2009 by the Ministry of Education, who also funded the project).

My initial experiences were in line with the current research findings of the time (e.g. Hallam, 2008; McDermott, 2002) – but it was one thing reading about the challenges and another thingexperiencing them!

I found that a vibrant online community depended on establishing a balance between too little and too much communication, between facilitated and organic activities/contributions, and between confident and ‘developing’ contributors.

I discovered that, with encouragement and support, members could be mentored through the process of developing digital literacy skills. However, many members had not participated in an online community before, and were not aware of the level of engagement required to really get the ball rolling, so community enthusiasm waxed and waned.

I was frequently disappointed that I was the only one to respond to a post or discussion, or that responses were superficial.

Without a reasonable level of engagement from online community members, there was little sense of a mutual support network, and in turn, of their voices influencing developments and policy.

Nevertheless, slowly but surely, membership, momentum and the quality and quantity of contributions grew over the next 3½ years.

Some of the challenges

Time and opportunities are needed for the more confident members to ‘model’ some online community building behaviours, so that other members are able to build an identity within a newly formed group. Individual participants also face challenges that include (but are not limited to):

• unfamiliarity with netiquette and notions of reciprocity in an online space
• uncertainty of purpose
• lack of confidence in the value of their contributions
• workload and other life commitments (which impact the level of community engagement)
• little or no peer support
• lack of access to appropriate technology and connectivity.

A grab-bag guide to getting involved in online communities

One of the things you need to do, if you want to get involved, is join a community. First you’ll need to find an online community that is formed around a topic that interests you. This could be through recommendations from friends or colleagues, or through a simple online search.

Once you have found a likely community take a trip around – set by 30 or 40 minutes to dip into all the spaces on the community site, and get a feel for the tone of the conversations.

• If you don’t like the tone, don’t join the community.
• Don’t give up though – find another one that seems to be more your ‘fit’.

And then, once you have joined:

• Set up an online profile.

Start by considering what other members of this specific community would be interested in; keep it short and sweet initially. And don’t share anything you wouldn’t be comfortable sharing with someone if you met them face-to-face for the first time.

• Upload an image to your profile; it doesn’t have to be of you – it can be your dog, your cat, your garden, your car, or something meaningful to you.

An image helps people feel as though they are ‘getting to know you’ because, as humans, we are pretty visual creatures.

• Within two weeks of joining the community, find a blog post, resource, or online discussion that resonates with you in some way and ‘like’ it.

• Within one month of joining keep your eyes open for a blog post, resource, or online discussion that resonates with you in some way and leave a comment.

• In no longer than two months, locate a resource you think is interesting or useful, and share it with the community.

You only need to add a couple of sentences about why the resource caught your attention.

And don’t get disheartened if you don’t get any responses…other folks are going through the same online journey as you 

LAST COMMENT

So NOW you know that if you found this information helpful, “reciprocity” means you INTERACT, right?

So THAT means that you do one or more of the following –

You:

• click “like” on the page (from the TOP on the WordPress Menubar for WordPress.com visitors – anyone can “like” at the bottom, near my tiny photo below, where I clicked to “like”)
• share it on one of your social networks, like FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. (at the bottom of the article, on THIS blog)
• leave a comment (keep scrolling down for comments – AND you can reply to comments from others to get a full-fledged conversation going), or
• rate it five stars, found at the top – you’re pretty great about that already, btw!

As always, the goal is to affirm and acknowledge, not to “vote” or argue — so keep things totally positive as you interact, even if your point of view is completely different as you speak your truth ~ mgh

Image

Techsoup’s online community. cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo by techsoupglobal: http://flickr.com/photos/techsoup/6002875102/

References

• Adams, E. (2004). Postmodernism and the Three Types of Immersion. Retrieved December 26, 2007.

• Hallam, G. (2008). The Australian ePortfolio project and the opportunities to develop a community of practice. Paper presented at the Ascilite 2008: Where are you in the landscape of educational technology? Retrieved December 20, 2008

• Littlejohn, A. (2011). Collective learning and charting. Retrieved November 6, 2012.

• McDermott, R. (2002). Knowing is a human act. Upgrade: The European Online Magazine for the IT Professional, 3(1), 8-10.

• Reynard, R. (2009) Beyond social networking: Building toward learning communities. Retrieved June 22, 2010.

• Siemens, G. (2003). Learning ecology, communities, and networks: Extending the classroom. Retrieved February 28, 2007.

Related Articles from Ethos Consultancy

• The Ethos Consultancy Homepage
• Hazel Owen’s Profile on The Ethos Consultancy
• ICT Enhanced Learning and Teaching Wiki
• mgh Ethos Consultancy Profile Page – with links to blog articles there

Related Articles ’round the ‘net

• What Is Digital Literacy? (webroot.com)
• Why universities should acquire – and teach – digital literacy (guardian.co.uk)
• Non-Profit Works to Raise Digital Literacy Rate (foxcharlotte.com)
• Digital Literacy and Libraries (cherylbecker.wordpress.com)
• Digital Literacy in the Disciplines Application Form (digitalliteracywork.wordpress.com)
• The Importance of Parental Involvement in Digital Literacy (webroot.com)
• Participating in Online Communities for Mutual Support (addandsomuchmore.com)

Related articles

• Participating in Online Communities for Mutual Support (addandsomuchmore.com)

In a paper recommended by Tessa Gray (here), she pulls out the following quote:

There is an ongoing need to examine the pedagogies that are suitable for m-learning, and to conceptualise m-learning from the perspective of learners’ experiences rather than the affordances of the technology tools (Traxler 2007, p. 1)

Tessa goes on to explain that Viewing mobile learning from a pedagogical perspective ”unpacks a pedagogical framework – developed from two mobile learning projects (Australia and UK) from a socio-cultural perspective”. She also indicates that the 3 aspects highlighted are authenticity, collaboration and personalisation.

What are your own experiences with mLearning (either as a learner or a facilitator / teacher / trainer)? What are your responses to the framework in the paper? Is it something you might find useful?

Reference: “Guidelines for learning/teaching/tutoring in a mobile environment”. MOBIlearn. October 2003. p. 6. Retrieved June 8, 2009.

We would like to acknowledge and thank all of the participants who shared their reflections in the video. The camera and editing work for this video was done by Michael Lintott.

With thanks also to the Ministry of Education and Te Toi Tupu for their ongoing support.

The executive summary for the report reads as follows:

The key findings of this annotated bibliography are:

• The most common organisational approach to e-learning is where high-level objectives and supporting policies and plans are set centrally but the responsibility for implementing these is at the faculty or departmental level.
• Organisational approaches to e-learning are more likely to be successful when they are supported by institutional strategies, policies, plans, monitoring and evaluation. E-learning strategies are more likely to be effective if they take into account organisational culture and are underpinned by a rationale that has strong support from stakeholders.
• Organisations need to consider student preferences. They also need to ensure students have the skills and capabilities needed for success in e-learning. It is also important that organisations provide relevant and timely support, particularly technical, for both their students and staff.
• Organisations need to provide infrastructure that supports their e-learning objectives and meets stakeholder and learner needs. It is important that organisational ICT systems can link with each other and with students’ information technology devices.
• Staff development and support are essential if organisations are to adopt e-learning successfully. Organisations should consider providing incentives for staff to adopt e-learning and participate in associated development. Staff efforts in adopting e-learning also need to be recognised. Staff must be given time to explore and experiment when they are adopting e-learning.
• Benchmarking of e-learning capability has been used by a number of organisations. Benchmarking can be used not only for comparisons with other similar organisations but also to more clearly identify performance in an e-learning context.
• It is unclear if organisations can save money through e-learning. While it requires investment in infrastructure, staff development and the creation of supporting materials and resources, cost savings are possible. Savings are derived not only from economies of scale but also from other measures such as reuse of materials.

Source

Image: ’workstation‘ Found on flickrcc.net

For a full overview (and access to the interesting comments that follow, click here. I would highly recommend checking out the podcast, which is part of the Chronicle’s Tech Therapy offering, hosted by Jeff Young and Warren Arbogast.

Download this recording as an MP3 file, or subscribe to Tech Therapy on iTunes.