Live and let learn

Attended a great workshop/training day at Nepean TAFE yesterday called “Learning for the Future” as a part of the Networking 2004 conference.

The day started with a talk by Richard Neville (entitled “Engaging the Future”) that pulled a few interesting thoughts together about the future of technology, kinda looking at the effects of globalism, the acceleration of technology and sustainability. Although I’ve already been told to “get out of my silo” for saying this, I’ll say it again: I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t put just a little bit of effort in to talk about the future of education and learning. But it was interesting non-the-less :-)

Then there was a talk by the Alan Morrison from the NSW Ambo service demonstrating how they’ve been using flexible delivery within their training programs. This was also interesting to see such a different application of online learning. I was particularly interested in the emphasis Alan had on the need for online socialisation before interaction and - more importantly - knowledge construction can be viable online.

Microsoft then had a quick explanation of their own focus in education, majoring on their Learning Gateway integration tool. Really it didn’t seem to add any value to a custom integration suite for a Uni or othe Educational institution… only seemed to lock you in to using MS technology - both software and hardware (see the Solution overview for Microsoft’s Learning Gateway). Given that most LMSs are using standards-based technologies (XML-RPC or SOAP) for integration, I can’t see the the value that Learning Gateway can add. None-the-less, I got the guys card so I can find out more…

But by far the most interesting session for the day (am I biased?) was a workshop by Leigh Blackall entitled: Using Free and Open Source Software to Create Free and Open Courseware. Guess I was just excited to find someone else more enthusiastic than me about the possibilities of Open Source software and Open Courseware in TAFE!