Catching up with my eLeaders

Finally made time to catch up with my eLeaders by phone. Feeling guilty that it has been some time since I have been able to do that but glad that I have at last done it.

OELP - Sue was very happy to hear from me. She has pretty much put aside the wiki for the moment as she is snowed under with other things. However, she is still keen to get it happening and was able to tell me what she wanted to learn to do next.

• How to add audio to a wiki page
• How to take better photos that really depict what she wants them to say and how to do some basic editing
• Set up a members only page for tutors and staff on the same wiki

As I am leaving (again) for Alice Springs on Sunday, I will phone and make a time to visit her and get through that list after I get back. That will give her time to sort through some of her other tasks and get them off her plate. She explained that at yesterday's online session, she did not have a headset and found it difficult to hear what was being said as there was a lot of background noise. She will take the advice given to her by Christine and Karen at the session and get herself a headset and she came up with the suggestion herself that she would use her laptop instead of the work computer next time and take it into a quiet section of the library. She was very happy to hear that the funding has been extended and is so full of initiative that she will accomplish lots more with just a little input from me.

North Ringwood - Janine spoke with me and talked about how they had independently set up Moodle and were already doing classes in the Moodle environment. I congratulated her on this and asked how I might be able to help her with that or anything else - perhaps some other tools that might be useful in conjunction with Moodle. She said she didnt know what tools were available so didnt know what to ask. I suggested that maybe she watch some of the online recorded sessions as we had showcased a variety of useful tools already and that there were samples on the wiki. She appeared interested in having me come out and see her so I suggested that if she came across anything she thought looked interesting in the interim before I came out that she email me and let me know. I will go to her interview armed with samples of tools she might like to use. I might start by asking her if she has any systems or processes that are not working well at the centre or things that she wishes worked better and maybe I could show her some etools that might help her. If she doesnt like that idea then I can show her a couple of tools that might work well with Moodle (or something entirely different ) eg Google sites or google docs perhaps.

Janine also suggested that she would be happy to talk at one of our online sessions on how she had gone about setting up Moodle which might be interesting for others. That might work well and keep her interested so I might follow that up for a future session. I suggested that she have other staff either admin or preferably tutors for our session which is booked for 30th May. She complained that she couldnt come to our online sessions any more because they were always on a day she wasnt working. I did explain that we had to go with the majority and did try to change the days around and this time, on the days she could come there were only one or two people able to attend. She suggested that maybe we could repeat the session later in the week and I quickly glossed over that as I am sure we have more than enough to do rather than do the same thing twice and she can always replay the recording. She only works Wed, Thurs and Frid and doesnt seem prepared to make herself available at any other time so not much we can do about that.

Rowville - Phoned today and neither Lisa or Kerry were available to talk so will call again tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Final point - trying to get more organised and follow up on things more quickly so people dont lose impetus. Juggling lots of balls in the air at the moment so even more important that I get myself organised!