A New Blogger on The Block!
Jun 30th, 2006 by admin
MARIE JASINSKI
” Introducing myself as the new blogger on the block “.
Design Planet - find out what I’m up to!
LearnScope! It’s been an integral part of my life since 1998. In fact, I was there when LearnScope got its name at the first Reference Group meeting at the Hyde Park Plaza in Sydney. It emerged from a brainstorming session and was originally ‘LearnScape’ until we discovered that name was already registered. What a difference a vowel can make, as I think the O turned out for the best - more scope!
It’s worth taking a moment to reflect on where LearnScope has come from and how far it has traveled in those 8 years. Here is short potted history of the LearnScope Virtual Community as that was my particular area of responsibility as a member of the initial project management team.
In 1998, we had never heard of blogs, wikis, digital stories, digital video streaming, moodle, podcasts, elgg, virtual classrooms, Skype and some of the other contemporary technologies your teams are learning about in this round of LearnScope.
BTW, congratulations on your very interesting projects - amazing potential.
It was chat rooms that made us froth at the mouth with excitement! Real time connection … how out there was that!! I remember when the rage was national LearnScope chat parties. We’d all get dressed up, pop the corks, get out the nibbles and really have a good time connecting with our colleagues all around Australia. With a large dose of imagination and creativity, one week we’d be on a yacht in Monte Carlo, the next on top of a mountain in Greece. Interestingly, chat rooms seem to have disappeared or have morphed into Skype!
I’ve been a manager, facilitator, participant, mentor and content expert for many LearnScope projects and was an active participant in the Australian Flexible Learning Community for many years. I particularly enjoyed writing the EduChaos series. My areas of interest were role play simulations, learners as designers, and game based learning. They still are!
At the moment, I am a mentor for one of my colleagues in South Australia who has an individual LearnScope project. We are exploring the theme of ‘Engagement’ - how do we re-engage ourselves to engage our learners as we are becoming older and they are becoming younger? We are designing 10 week professional development program around that theme. It’s almost finished and will be implemented in Semester 2. I’ll keep you updated on our progress. The program is informed by recent research on capability development by TAFENSW ICVET on Life based learning: a strength based approach to capability development in vocational and technical education.
This was truly an exciting research project to be part of. It is worth a read as it could inform how you go about making an impact with your projects.
In this series of blogs, I’ll be exploring a couple of key themes:
INNOVATION: What is it, are you doing it and what impact will it have?
STRENGTH BASED APPROACHES TO CHANGE: How do we tap into our strengths and assets so we maximize our potential and make an impact?
As blogging is also about going with the flow, and as there will be a several bloggers to tantalize your dendrites, it will be interesting to see what emerges!
Many thanks to Robyn for her invitation to participate. I look forward to some robust conversations with you over the coming months!
Marie