UserPage:StephenD

A brief introduction

Educational Background:

Contributing to and using this page

My work:

I am currently working for the Australian Tax Office as a learning consultant. I am part of the learning and professional development arm of the organisation. We tend to cover the 'corporate' learning of the office - leadership development, corporate induction, graduate program and team building. We are also a RTO so I'm involved in assessment of course such as CertIV in governement and CertIV in Training and assessment.

In essence we work in 2 areas:

• professional development
• vocational competency

My professional interests:

• adult education
• learning design for flexible contexts
• use of web 2 technologies to enable the above
• innovation in learning design
• leadership development
• mentoring and coaching

Other interests

My most distracting 'other interest' is hockey coaching. I coach and 'A' Grade women's team (Valley) in the Brisbane competition...... as i write this, we are preparing for our first semi final this weekend!

I'm also a bit of a film junkie - I try to get to see a movie every week or at least every fortnight.

Wiki's I am going to contribute:

Exploring the educational value of Web 2.0 applications:
http://www.baker-evans.com/knowledgegarden/Exploring+the+educational+value+of+Web+2+applications

Online Pedagogy: Creating a Presence
http://www.baker-evans.com/knowledgegarden/Online%20Pedagogy:%20Creating%20a%20Presence?

Breaking isolation for digital learners
http://www.baker-evans.com/knowledgegarden/Breaking+isolation+for+digital+learners

Friend or Foe? Taming Facebook for Education
http://www.baker-evans.com/knowledgegarden/tiki-index.php?page_id=1376?

Pedagogical aspects of technologically distributed environments
http://www.baker-evans.com/knowledgegarden/Pedagogical+aspects+of+technologically+distributed+environments

My facilitated page

Using blogs and wiki's to engage digital immigrants in professional development

http://www.baker-evans.com/knowledgegarden/tiki-index.php?page_id=1398

Facilitation strategies

My strategy will be to place a concept and/or quote on a subject and then pose questions around the issues or ideas that are discussed in the section. I will be asking people to relate to the concept by discussing their own experience. This will lead to making comment about how this issue has played out in learners they have encountered.

Once this phase has occurred, I will respond to each contribution. I see this page a way to solve a problem - that of engaing people in wikis and blogs as a way to enahnce professional development. As I have limited experience in the field - and my organisation has even less - I am using my facilitated page to draw on others experience in the field. This will both clarify my thikning on the topic but will also allow a forum for others to see 'how its done' in other organisations.

I think it will be critical to come to conclusions as discussion progress. Each time a contribution is made, I (or someone else) will take on the role of 'moderator' - to pull in the discussion and thoughts and make some conclusion about what people have contributed. This can then be view by all participants as a sort of wrap-up of each section. We all need closure!

Problems I forsee

One problem that I can forsee is my ability to keep up with and respond to other comments and question in the page. I have just got my head around the 'language' of the wiki so need to ekkp on top of responding to and engaging learners. I have just read and article from Shieh Ruey talking about constructivist strategies for online learning. She (he?) suggested that a lack of technical knowledge will impede learners in these types of envrionments. I am personally feeling that - both with my own page and those that I am contributing too.

It's also about the issue I raised earlier in the course - so many shiny things! I need to ensure that I move through the environment with structure and purpose and not just jump from on section to the next. As such, I have allocated a set amount of time for each key activity to complete this week: the pages I am going to contibute to and how I am going to continue working on my own page.

References

Hi, This is the user page for Stephen Deering

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