SSI gets recognition for e-learning innovation with Great Gardens

Environmental Sustainabilit-e Online – Skills Strategies International In 2008, this project used online training to increase the provision of not-for-profit organisation, Great Garden’s, sustainable land management program, which delivers free environmental sustainability workshops across Western Australia. The workshops show participants how they can create a sustainable home and garden which uses less water, energy and nutrients, and produces less waste.

In its initial phase, the project used e-learning in a range of ways to supplement and support the delivery of Great Gardens’ face-to-face workshops. This included redeveloping the Great Gardens website, resulting in a 35% increase in use of the site. The revamped site comprised a mixture of:

• E-information – Skills Strategies International worked with the Great Gardens trainers to film and edit a series of short gardening instructional videos, which are available for free on the website.

The website also features an article database and soil search database, which allows users to type in their suburb name or postcard to access a document explaining the properties of the soil in their local area, and associated plants suitable for their garden.

• E-learning – Skills Strategies International used Ning software to create a social network which is accessible through the website. The network is a popular way for people who have attended a Great Gardens workshop to maintain a community of practice, and currently has more than 300 members.

• E-business services – The site includes an online events calendar, and an electronic booking system where users can see upcoming workshop dates, and book in to attend.

Project Manager Steve McVey explained that due to the success of the project in 2008, Skills Strategies International has continued to work with Great Gardens to extend their adoption of e-learning.

“Great Gardens is now working to deliver their workshops in remote areas via Elluminate web conferencing, and they’re also using RFID technology to deliver just-in-time learning to workshop participants.

“Great Gardens also recently negotiated to make the Western Australian Water Corporation’s Water Wise professional level training program available for free online. Great Gardens will transform the delivery of this program, making it more engaging by using Moodle software to give learners access to a range of material including PowerPoint presentations and interactive quizzes.”

Moodle and its pros and cons

Our online learners have noticed that we use Moodle and may notice that the online courses usually do not make adequate use of the excellent collaboration tools that Moodle enjoys. This is purely for pragmatic reasons. A full certificate course delivered collaboratively would take longer to complete than learners are usually willing to comit. However there are still opportunies to get a significant amount of collaboration occuring- and we are exploring them.

Read more about collaboration and Moodle in this article:

http://www.learningconversations.co.uk/main/index.php/2009/11/13/moodle-the-wrong-tool-for-the-job?blog=5

Retail Industry Project and Collaboration

The Retail Industry project that we are participating in in partnership with Retail Traders of WA under the Australian Flexible Learning Framework has provided some useful learning for us in terms of online collaboration........or should I say lack of it.

Engaging learners online has not been difficult. They definately engage with the notion of flexible delivery. But as Melanie Brenton from Service Skills NT said, "There will be barriers around online collaboration. They won't do it!"

This article also outlines barriers to collaboration in organisations http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=tutorials&article=9-1

Our face to face workshops have a heavy emphasis on collaboration and we are keen to see the same practice reflected online.

We are commencing a new course with Truck Centre - one team from 3 different locations........maybe an opportunity for success :-)