Karen's Leader Catch Up

I have been sadly lacking in the follow up department with my e-leaders but have been in contact with two of them. The third, I am hoping to ring today.

Orana Neighbourhood House

I arranged an early meeting with Leeann, Karin & Lisa so as not to impact too much on their day. Their ongoing use of their private label wiki has been encouraging. There have been issues over time on how to do certain things and not because Lisa, their admin person, doesn't have the skill. Wiki keeps changing! A method learned has to be relearned by me and then retaught to our eleaders. Good thing Lisa is a quick learner.

At the meeting we spoke about continuing with the project and there was the same concern that most orgs have."There is only the 3 of us...time is a huge factor". I am sure others have said to them that the role could be passed onto a tutor or other suitable person. This time it clicked. We discussed ways of utilising technology such as another wiki. They then informed me that they have gmail set up for their garden group and that they wanted some sort of calendar. Bing! Google calendar and docs to link in. The group had wanted to keep a record of their plantings and jobs to do so again, we could use the google doc system for them to share information. They suggested a computer teacher who may benefit from the use of technology and I also see her as being the internal 'go to' person in the long term.

Leeann felt inspired to apply for a grant for a laptop for the group to take outside with them to take notes etc. She was even so grateful for our chat, that while ringing Coonara for another reason, asked to speak to me to purely thank me. Very, very excited about her response :)

Waverley Adult Literacy Program (WALP)

Trish & I had been playing telephone ping pong for a few days and I finally got to speak to her.

She had been working with her photography students using a wiki. Their course work was there with instructions for an activity/assessment. The students had to send in a photo they had edited to a certain size. Trish gathered the photos and put them into a video using Windows DVD maker provided with the Windows 7 package.

Trish expressed how excited she was about uploading her movie. I viewed it and it's wonderful!!!

Trish is a quiet achiever and has been plugging away with the wiki. She would now like to learn how to make individual student pages for the students to upload their images. I will visit and teach her this.

Trish has been attending the online sessions regularly but without a microphone to speak. I will look at her set up when I get there.

Some great outcomes within a relatively short space of time considering Trish is very much a jack of all trades in a very busy centre.

Wavlink

Sadly Judy has gone home sick so I will catch her some other time. She is booked to attend the E-mentor showcase tomorrow so I am hoping she is well enough to attend.