More pics from Griffith's Gold Coast campus

Thought I'd give the pic upload another try this morning. It's a little quicker, but not that much.

Entrance to Gold Coast campus library (signature Griffith red):

Crane count. Campus under construction:

Building the new teaching hospital:

A wine bar:

The recently constructed School of Engineering building:

Another elevation of the same building. I quite like the architecture, materials used and colour of this building:

Back to the library. Different coloured/patterned carpets indicate each work zone:

Outside the group work pods in the library:

Another library student work zone:

One of the many learning centres scattered across the vast Gold Coast campus:

And another. Making use of the space along the windows. Note the absence of blinds. Natural bush and trees outside provide the shade from the sun:

Griffith University visit - 17/09/2010

I visited Griffith University today. I didn’t leave disappointed. First stop was Logan Campus to run a Technology, Feedback, Action! workshop. 17 or 18 people participated including academic, blending learning officers, curriculum consultants and students. It was well received, with comments like ‘it’s refreshing’, ‘it’s great that the students’ voice is heard’, and a sneak peak at the session evaluation forms looked favourable. I then spent some time talking with blended learning officers and curriculum consultants. Their support model includes centralised support within Griffith Institute for Higher Education and blended learning officers and curriculum consultants in each group (faculty) to provide just-in-time support. Despite being group-based, the blended learning officers report centrally via the Deans of Learning and Teaching and PVC for Learning and Teaching, and regularly to the Learning Environment Committee (I suppose the equivalent will be a group of FD staff) so that the blended learning officers are aware of broader university goals and the Learning Environment Committee understand what a blended learning officer do on a daily basis and the challenges they face, or hear from academic staff. I thought that was a useful channel of communication. They also have an equivalent of our Bb Ops Team meetings but they only take place every 6-8 weeks.

Griffith hold an annual 'Excellence in Teaching Week' in October/November during which a black-tie Teaching Citation Awards dinner is held. Part of this is a blended-learning symposium showcasing examples of Blackboard innovations from each of the groups (faculties). All sessions are professionally recorded (the three-camera stuff). (Stupot thinks - ideas for the next round of show'n'shares!).

I was then taken on a tour of the Logan Campus. It is a fairly new campus in Griffith’s portfolio and feels quite rural. It is a very small campus with little outside infrastructure (shops and services etc), and until only recently they had cows and calves in the fields nearby.

Following this I was taken for a 30 min car journey down the Pacific Highway and Gold Coast Highway to my next stop: the Gold Coast Campus. Griffith are investing heavily in this campus, including the building of a new teaching hospital. I was shown the library with its innovative learning spaces and fairly laid back feel – students sprawled on sofas and beanbags with laptops or watching DVDs, or completing group tasks together in pods. There is an immense feeling of space, light and colour, even on the first floor where books are housed. I was shown other parts of the campus, including the numerous learning spaces where there are dedicated desktop PC areas, lecture theatres where they appear designed with personal space and legroom in mind and aesthetically pleasing buildings. They are certainly making the use of their envious location of a university situated on the Gold Coast. It left me in awe.

This posting only scratches the surface of my day at Griffith. Anything you want to know, shout up. And there’s plenty more photos, just that blogger picture upload is running frustratingly slow.

Just one of many Gold Coast Campus learning centres:

Library shelving at Gold Coast Campus:

A study pod in the Gold Coast campus library:

Ground floor at Gold Coast campus library:

On entering Gold Coast campus library:

A personal spacious lecture theatre at Logan Campus:

Shopping parade at Logan Campus:

Brisbane

My first stop after Cairns on my roadtrip south along the east coast sees me here in Brisbane. It's a good 10 degrees colder than Cairns, and the hotel is a bit of a comedown from the Sebel Cairns. I'm off to Griffith University's Logan Campus tomorrow to run a TFA! workshop and meet with a few colleagues to discuss their assessment and feedback innovations, and anything else e-learning they're willing to share.

The view from my window is all a bit high-rise, though peering between the concrete you can see the Brisbane River.

Quick reflection on BbSummit Australasia

Well-organised, some great presentations and interesting things learned about mobile phone content, support structures and new and emerging technologies, though quite a bit of preaching to the converted. Thoroughly enjoyed the time, and the first conference where I've experienced refreshments, lunch and parties by the pool, and where hawaiian shirts and flipflops are customary, and crocodile and kangaroo steaks are staple conference food (didn't try those btw). It was interesting how many schools as well as universities were represented. Griffith University, University of the Sunshine Coast and Queensland University of Technology are doing some great things around e-learning and support for these initiatives. It's in Melbourne next year. Hay ho. Never mind at least I'll be there next week.

And my presentation was well received. All my quarantine- and custom-cleared TFA! guides were snapped up.

Working together, learning together: an integrated approach to support

Bergita Shannon, Blackboard Service Manager and Natasha Giardina, Learning Designer, Queensland University of Technology

This session looked at how a central professional support team (including graphic design, programmers, TV, learning design and Blackboard support) can enhance academic staff use of technologies across a large university by working with and maximising the support provided at faculty-level. A large university has:

• A wide divergence in academic staff attitudes to technology
• Variety of technical and pedagogical competences of academic staff
• Limited support resources
• The challenge of achieving lasting, measurable and ongoing improvement

They argue universities need to:

• Foster dept support structure with emphasis on sharing and communication
• Leverage faculty leadership and support networks
• Implement faculty-based and university-wide showcases and professional development
• Use adopter profiles to your advantage (we undertook an interesting activity looking at the profile, support needs, strength and weaknesses of different types of staff):

Adopter:	Profile:	Support needs:	Key strength:	Key weakness:
Innovators	Coding-savvy rule-breakers	Hard to support! Often need advanced programming support	Stretch the limits of the possible	They can break Blackboard!
Early adopters	Enthusiastic, results-focussed, willing to take calculated risks	People-orientated support relationships	Long-term development possible; can inspire others	Risk-taking needs faculty/school support
Majority	Cautious, not very tech-savvy	Good resources and training; prompt support	Use technology in solid ways	Negative experiences with technology can create resistance
Die-hard	Resistant to change and technology; motivated by fear and issues of power	Difficult to support due to resistance	Can highlight basic needs issues	Can foment negative attitudes; often difficult to work with

They outlined their support structure. The call centre/help desks answer all support calls. If query can’t be resolved, it’s then escalated to Blackboard Support, then to the learning designer, onto Sys. Admin/Programmers etc

QUT have a flexible learning initiatives project – showcasing best practice in faculties to promote uptake. And Learning Design Live – a 13-week programme of staff development via Elluminate. These are general sessions, some with a faculty focus. Staff can view sessions again or directed to these to remove and save time on loads of one to one sessions.

Some dynamic site interfaces were demonstrated. Including ‘Assessment at a Glance’ – a way of displaying course/module assessment information. I need to follow this up.

Talking about 20%...

I’m not really sure that I got anything from this session. Essentially Manuka Institute of Technology (16,000 students, 4,000 full-time equivalent; 800 teaching staff, 80% using Blackboard) have a top-down mandate that there must be 20% of blended delivery in every programme across the institute.

They use a ‘blended learning plan for a programme template’ and e-learning support staff work with academic teams asking where they are going to put the 20%, and specify the hours to be spent on task. The template is a bit like the typology, but nowhere near as good. Much content is developed using Wimba Create, and they said it’s quite popular with staff – I make no wonder all development is done centrally and not by individual academic staff. It may explain its popularity. They also use Wimba Classroom and voicetools, and a variety of other tools including Toolbox, Hot Potatoes, Quandary, and Who Wants To Be A Top Chef (apparently it’s available online but I couldn’t find it).

Staff professional development for e-learning at MIT include: Bb beginners, Bb advanced, Basic Wimba toolsets (sessions 1-3pm daily, and Tuesday nights), advanced Wimba toolsets, and 600 hours Graduate Certificate in Applied eLearning (Level 7) which anyone can undertake.

A university-wide approach to leveraging Blackboard Technology for Fundamental Improvements in Teaching and Learning

Charles Darwin University is the only university in Northern Territory, multi-campus, offer mobile learning labs in trucks, HE >7,000 students and VET >14,000. This presentation focussed on the journey the university took towards ‘fleximode’ delivery. A feature of NT is the lack of broadband infrastructure.

Martin Carroll, PVC Learning, Teaching & Community Engagement, claimed the approach to ‘fleximode’ focuses on engagement rather than delivery models. Students are able to engage with learning resources and assessment activities using the means that best suit them, therefore learning resources and assessment activities must be designed in multiple modes. It does not mean anything goes – it must be pedagogically driven and that’s where Bb comes in. He talked a bit about their approach to Blackboard uptake, and the staff development which was funded by a AUD$ 3m government grant, match-funded by CDU and extra funding by Blackboard. However uptake stagnated and in fact the number of courses supported dropped when they moved to Bb9 due to a number of problems, but apparently they are winning staff back during the user testing in advance to the move to 9.1 in November.

He then really went on to preach to the converted about the benefits of online provision and at-elbow support models. However, what was interesting is that they are using the Bb Outcomes system as a means for managing the entire internal unit and course accreditation workflow, in particular for the common standards and graduate attributes being rolled out across Australia. CDU are looking for benchmarking partners, esp. training and support processes and use of Outcomes to assess graduate attribute uptake.