People, Place and Pastimes: horses are in the paddocks

The first centre has launched their program and successfully conducted their induction event. The centre coordinator is now most proudly spruiking about the enthusiasm of the participants in joining the program - and performing the best form of promotion there is. This is the most successful point of the project so far - to hear the pride and ownership and the confidence about the potential successes for their participants.

Another first has been the Train the Trainer programs being built in on the fly to cater for the learning needs of the tutors in the program and the mentors involved. Both community leaders are striving towards a supportive model of 'lead, follow and get out of the way'.

More successes in the acceptance of the printed materials being produced for instructional purposes in the program workshops. Some reservations are being reported about the level of competence required and the need for teaching notes to be provided for the basic computer training components. A timely reminder that this program was always meant to be a 'pathway' to learning Cert I in IT, not the delivery of this program in its entirety. Although the first centre is in fact enrolling participants in that course as part of their SCH.

Evaluation tools are now in place and all project team members are asked to fill out as a form of reflective practice. The Measuring Impact tool from ACFE is being used along side some specific evaluation strategies of our process.

Budgeting issues have crept in as an issue but are being handled by the project managers as effectively as possible.

Social networking tools are now being embraced by the teams as the major form of communication during the program.

Informal reporting of progress is be attended to via the Elearn EdNA site and good ideas and support are sourced from these discussions.

Some 'storming' processes are still being felt by the partners but a shared focus is now drawing them in to a closer tightknit group. Natural leaders in some quarters are now emerging and the group is responding positively.

Harnessing Rural Skills - horses still in the stables

What a flurry of activity there has been just getting up to the launch of the program for the participating centres (partners) in the NE Victoria Elearning precinct. We have five partners located at:

Beechworth, Corryong, Mt Beauty, Tallangatta and Yackandandah.

During May - July we focussed on marketing, building community relationships and learning materials

There were some really big hurdles during that time and I've learned once again the value of creative collaboration. When immersed in a project it is so easy to ignore the real needs of the communities themselves - when really they should always be right up front. For instance you cannot contemplate the centres delivering online if they themselves have not a) experienced being online or b) feel confident in using online techniques.

Sure that's not rocket science, and it is foolish to assume certain skills - I've learned to make sure by asking and looking for clues to that confidence required.

Standard, generic materials won't do either, they need to be specific to the 'project based' approach. So we needed to come up with a context for the learning materials and the environment itself.

Lot's of extra time spent in 'building community' early in a project would be beneficial. Hey, that's not rocket science either, but sure is easy to forget. Tend to apply it to other course delivery why not the same for any project like this one.

Now have a collection of great photos and materials for sharing in Study Zone.

Oh some steep learning curves experienced by all participants, partners, steering committee and project leaders.