FELS (Flexible and eLearning Support) Team monthly report:
The team continue to work with staff within Colleges. October’s highlights are
detailed below, along with future plans.
Teaching and Learning:

The Stream Experience continues to run each month with numbers still
relatively high. The last one is scheduled for November. We will look at how
this might be run again for 2010.

Scott’s intensive two week development session with Linguistics didn’t turn
out to be that intense. However there is some great work by some staff in that
college that could be showcased at the College and University levels.

A.J attended a meeting with the geography department in relation to their
intended move to Stream. Given the time of year there is some uncertainty
around how much can be done with the papers to ensure an effective output.
A.J has also had a number of discussions with the early years programme in
Education. A lot aspirational discussion around what would be good

Margaret has had conversations with some staff around their potential use of
quizzes in Stream. Issues include the design of questions and how the
technology-centred approach may determine the assessment i.e. recall, rather
than deep thinking. Margaret has also been involved in running workshop
sessions in Wellington and Palmerston North with the Department of
Communication and Journalism and Economics and Finance.

Jennie continues to work with staff across all three campuses. There seems to
be a lot of activity around the use of quizzes in Stream. Jennie has been doing
a lot of work with online quizzes and is fast becoming a bit of an expert in the
quiz activity, especially the

Duncan has spent a lot of time with CUPELS in the development of their
Certificate programme. Looks as if there will be opportunities for e-Learning
objects that could be used in other papers.

Andrew is supporting Duncan in the CUPELS work as well as looking into
technology initiatives that may reduce the amount of paper delivered to
students, whilst not impacting (too much) on the quality of material or amount
of material that students could print off.
Developing relationships:

A.J is working closely with AVC Maori and Pasifika group assisting with their
Stream aspirations. A.J has also met with some staff in the College of
Education to establish a presence with a view to support a handful of
programmes with their move to Stream for 2010.

Andrew continues to have a close relationship with the IVABS group. This
relationship we intend to maintain and encourage.

Scott has been active in contacting staff in CoCA to see what issues they have
in their move to Stream and has been actively involved with staff in linguistics
and the Masters of Resource and Environmental planning programme.

Margaret continues to attend her regular CoB technical support group
meetings. This is a good opportunity for sharing of ideas between those staff
all involved in the technical support of Stream and related technologies.

Jennie continues to develop relationships across a variety of programmes in
Sciences located on all three campuses.

Duncan, Jennie, Scott and A.J attended a library panel session. Librarians
from all the campuses attended and were interested in the work we were doing
with staff in moving to Stream. There is another scheduled meeting with some
P.N library staff and the FELS team in early November. We hope to continue
to have a strong relationship with this group.

Duncan met with Sam Rullan (SLDC) regarding the possibility of regular
sessions with her team and FELS. We are looking at pencilling in a monthly
get-together for 2010.
Professional development (Scholarship):

The majority of the team attended a presentation by Associate Professor
Hamish Anderson on the use of assessment in WebCT. It was great to see
what can be done with regard to formative and summative assessments using
online quizzes. A lot to learnt about how these types of quizzes can enhance
the chances for those student’s that may otherwise struggled to pass.

Some of the team attended the opening the curriculum colloquium. Some
good speakers that challenged some of the academic notions of material
ownership.

Dr Ben Kehrwald held two workshop sessions with the FELS group around
topics such as learning design, instructional design, technology-determinism,
creating online communities etc. Some very useful discussion arose from
these workshops and helped the team to think about what we do in our jobs.

Margaret attended a workshop in Auckland on the use of TurnitIn. Some
useful discussion around the use of copy detection software and how it has
transformed academic writing, as well as cross-institutional issues with the
various LMS-TurnitIn plugins.

The Team continue to plan for the Blended Learning event to take place on
each campus starting with Auckland on the 10th December and concluding in
Wellington on the 14th.

Scott, A.J and Margaret attended a presentation by Ute Walker and Rosemary
Haddon on the use of online environments to facilitate language learning for
distance students.