VET elearn conference - Speaker Programme

Cathy is based in Bloomington, Indiana and has used technology to help people learn for more than 25 years. These days, she helps people strengthen their instructional design skills, and also designs and writes elearning for businesses with many of her materials used worldwide by professionals at Fortune Global 500 companies. Her talents with a variety of audiences though are exemplified through the writing of marketing copy, fiction, and materials for kids, in addition to regular Seminars and Webinars which demonstrate how to create memorable elearning to meet business goals.

Through the use of techniques from her varied experiences Cathy strives to make elearning more powerful, with examples of some of the techniques evident in her blog. Cathy’s Elearning Blueprint.is a resource popular with practitioners and managers alike as an interactive job aid that helps anyone design lean, lively elearning. It can be used by one person or an entire team—including subject matter experts.

Cathy will feature on Day 1 of the conference and also provide more insights into the elearning experience at the networking breakfast and in a practitioner’s workshop on Day 2.

PLENARY Speaker: Dominic Thurbon

Dominic Thurbon Dom Thurbon is a world top-ten speaker and a leading authority on Generation Y and workforce trends. He is also co-founder and Managing Director of the Centre for Skills Development, a multimillion dollar company which connects organisations with important messages to hard-to-reach markets. He has worked with a number of large corporate clients here and overseas, including GlaxoSmithKline, Oxfam, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and The Executive Connection.

In his role as Managing Director of theCentre for Skills Development, an organisation thatheco-founded,Dominicworks with partner organisations to address important social issues in areas such as health, education and skills shortages. Major projects include promoting financial literacy amongst teenagers, helping teachers adopt new technologies in the classroom, and assisting education leaders in better attracting, engaging and retaining young teachers. Currently Dominic is involved with the The Productivity Project- an educational outreach partnership between the thought-leaders at IBM and change experts at the Centre for Skills Development.

The Productivity Project uses practical case studies, as the foundation for inspirational sessions focused on helping individuals and organizations to save money, increase productivity and promote value to the bottom line. This is achieved through a focus on how technology can drive innovation, boost personal performance and increase staff engagement.

Dominic is a powerful and dynamic presenter, capable of shifting the mindsets of leaders out of the world as it used to exist and into the world as it exists today.

Peter Higgs

PLENARY Speaker: Peter Higgs

Peter Higgs is Tasmanian Polytechnic's Manager of Learning Technology. Peter has led the redevelopment of the QTImPlayer since 2007, with funding and support from the Framework. Peter also led Tasmanian Polytechnic's QTImPlayer and camera glasses trial in 2008, allowing learners to video record themselves performing workplace tasks and submit this video evidence for assessment.

In May this year the Tasmanian Polytechnic and Skills Institute won the IMS Global Learning Impact Award with QTImPlayer which was presented in Barcelona, Spain. These awards aredesigned to recognize the most impactful use of technology worldwide in support of learning. This unique program evaluates established, new, and research efforts in context at an implementing learning institution.

The QTImPlayer is a handheld mobile device built to AQTF requirements and IMS QTI (question and test interoperability) standards.The purpose of the QTImPlayer is to assist teachers and assessors to assess “on the job”, collect additional evidence and then email the results and supporting evidence back to their organisation. The additional evidence can include any word document, excel spread sheet etc, photographs and/or videos of the assessed work and audio files used when the student is provided feedback about the assessment. The results are both machine and human readable meaning that the file has the ability to be transferred directly into a student management system as the student result.

As the criteria by which the assessment tools on the QTImPlayer are AQTF compliant it is also possible for the player to be used for recognition processes. This provides opportunities for VET organisations to address Australia’s skills shortages using recognition. What is means is that employees who have no formal qualification but many years of experience can be assessed against competencies whilst working. This has the potential to lead to qualification acquisition through a “fast track” method.

You can see more about the QTImPlayer at http://qti2007.flexiblelearning.net.au/qtimplayer/index.html

Peter will also facilitate a workshop for practitioners on Day 2..

PLENARY Speaker: Clint Smith

Clint Smith

Clint Smith is Director and Senior E-learning Consultant at LearnWorks, a learning and performance design company in Melbourne specialising in e-learning.

He is an experienced consultant, facilitator, researcher and learning designer and has worked in a range of training and education settings, including schools, community, TAFE, private providers and business. His training designs and user-friendly information products have won several national awards.

Clint was co-designer/writer and manager of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework’s Designing and implementing e-learning website at www.designing.flexiblelearning.net.au which has consistently topped Google searches since 2005. Clint’s continuing focus is the clever integration of web-based tools to enhance learning and improve performance http://pre2005.flexiblelearning.net.au/leaders/fl_leaders/fll04/report_interim/c_smith.htm

His current research interests include models for supporting e-learning in workplaces, the cost effectiveness of Web 2.0 tools for structured training, and strategies for activating e-learning leadership in organisations.

Recent consultancy work by LearnWorks has focused on implementing and embedding e-learning in training providers and businesses, including accelerated planning for e-learning startups. LearnWorks also assists businesses and training organisations to prepare business cases and funding applications for e-learning.

Clint will also facilitate a workshop on Day 2 with managers and key organisational decision makers, looking at the ‘Business of elearning’.

QLD Innovation Projects 2009 – an overview

In 2009, Queensland (QLD) was allocated $838,445 for E-learning Innovations projects that assist RTOs to embed e-learning as a key aspect of their business strategy, focusing on:

business-training provider partnerships driving the integration of e-learning into business and training
empowering individual learners through stimulating demand, providing greater choice, responding to the needs of disadvantaged learners, and through facilitating increased RPL (recognition of prior learning).

Managers of these projects will offer opportunities for participants to hear what has happened with their projects and ask questions about how the learnings will be embedded into organisational practice.

[ Back ]

Joomla Templates by Joomlashack