End of term reflections - Wavlink

I started putting something together for my e-champ report for Lynne - getting to you very soon Lynne :) - but soon found that I was writing a longer and more reflective view - so thought I'd improve on my blogging absence of recent weeks and write something on each of my projects here.

Starting with Wavlink - where I was again today. Judy was on holiday with her family in China at the start of the project – so she has had a slower start – but we are making good progress now. As Judy said in the last elluminate session, she felt she was a bit techno phobic, and participating in the project is helping her to gain confidence and to feel more at home on the screen. I think one of her frustrations is that she likes to be able to do everything easily and quickly, and when the technology doesn’t seem to be playing along with this, she gets exasperated. At the same time she is enthusiastic about becoming more technically savvy, and is determined to master these technologies – as much for her own personal development and future work options post retirement – as well as for increasing the technical capacity and usage at Wavlink itself. Judy has a daughter who is a keen (prize winning) blogger – and that’s one of the incentives for Judy for learning about new techie things – keeping up with her daughter.

Judy has been giving a lot of thought about how to best meet the needs of her students. To date the focus has been on basic computer literacy rather than elearning . They run self-directed pre-accredited computer courses, and as Wavlink is a disability-focused centre, their students obviously have special needs. Most of the students are adults with intellectual disabilities, and come as part of the HACC programme. Others have Acquired Brain Damage. Writing can be difficult for them. She told me about one guy, for example, who was able to write but for each letter in a word had to work his way through the alphabet starting at ‘a’ because that was the only way he was able to remember how to spell out a word. He couldn’t remember the name of a letter without going through this ritual. This was obviously a slow process, so he had been learning how to prepare what he wanted to say offline in Word, and then how to cut and paste it online.

Wavlink has one paid computer tutor and between one and three volunteer tutors at any one time. Judy is very keen to see her students use computers to progress their literacy skills – and the tutor has been working with the ABD students to raise their levels to be able to use Facebook and to play basic matching games on the computer. The students are beginning to get the hang of Facebook – but the text-based nature of it is a bit of a barrier to them.

Judy was inspired by a project she saw – or heard about - in the Western suburbs. This was a nursing programme for adults with disabilities which was using Skype to help the adults reconnect and re-engage with their families. She had been impressed by how well this worked and by the way that as a result the technology became a real and authentic part of the adults’ lives. I think this is the kind of direction or result that Judy would like to achieve in the e-leader project at Wavlink. It made me think that another time a good way forward for starting these projects might be to have a ‘toolbox’ of ideas to hand that are specifically related to different student and tutor needs – eg ideas for things to do with people with disabilities, or youth, or ESL students; or 10 ways of getting tutors on board with elearning or, using a wiki etc – so that there is a kind of map to help the e-leaders link the tools to the outcomes – or what they want to achieve. Ken, my husband, went to an inspiring conference the other week for the 2011 International Day of People with Disability on IT enables: life, choice and participation – so I gave Judy some of the contacts he picked up which looked like they might be interesting in terms of this project.

We’re still in the process of refining exactly what Judy’s project will be – our discussions centred around Skype – supporting tutors and students around the process of installing and using Skype, and building on the students’ basic skills. She also wants to look at mailchimp, and ways of drawing volunteers and tutors into the idea of elearning.

But in the meantime we’ve been focusing on building up her confidence levels with some of the technologies. She has also been practising or experimenting at home with facebook – and thinks she has made some progress there. She made the comment today – that there wasn’t really any time for her to do any learning herself during the typical day – there was so much to do, and shutting herself away to get on with some e-practising wasn’t really on. I think we’ve all shared that problem – how do you schedule your technical upskilling into an already packed day? Perhaps it’s something we could talk about in one of our elluminate sessions next term – get some tips on how to make time for it.

Judy set up a blog last time I was there, and at home added a photo to her profile which was great. Today we went through all the tabs on her dashboard – settings, formatting etc – and I think she felt a lot more au fait with it after that. Next time we meet, we are going to look at Wordpress – which is what the Wavlink website is based on. I’m going to help her upgrade and do the drop down menus.

Judy also came to the last elluminate session – which was great – and seems to have found it a positive experience – at least she felt comfortable enough to declare her techno phobias! And she really is keen to pick up the skills and can see the potential. Her first entry on her blog was:

Today is a great day as have a blog where I can now keep you abreast of what I am learning and the progress that I am making on this fantastic journey.

Judy's blog is here: http://wavlinkelearner.blogspot.com/