Precis nicole tranter

Nicole Tranter, a lecturer in animal studies at Usk Campus, Coleg Gwent, used a Farmers Club Charitable Trust bursary to investigate the use of e-learning in agricultural and animal science further education courses in Victoria, Australia. Here is a précis of her report.

(Nicole Tranter, with one of the calves at ‘Rhadyr Farm’ Usk Campus, Coleg Gwent.)

‘E-learning’ is the latest buzz word on the agenda at the Landbased staff meetings on Usk Campus.

You may ask yourself, what exactly is e-learning?

Essentially e-learning is classed as learning using computers, interactive technology (such as SMART Boards & projectors), Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), and online communications and information systems (such as email).

I was prompted to apply for a Farmers Club study bursary to delve deeper into the world of elearning. I wanted to see if it could improve the learning experience we currently provide at Usk Campus, and what could be done to ensure the continued development of e-learning, through the features such as a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Although Coleg Gwent does have a VLE (called Moodle), it has yet to be developed from a Landbased perspective.

An initial survey of the members of Landbased staff at Usk revealed that the majority of lecturers use e-learning frequently to research and create teaching materials, and will use SMART Boards when available to teach their classes. However, 90 per cent stated they didn’t use the VLE, only 40 per cent communicated with students out of class using email, and 60 per cent communicated with fellow colleagues using email.

A successful application to The Farmers Club allowed to me visit the two leading Technical and Further Education (TAFE) providers in Victoria, Australia, who deliver Landbased curriculum (Box Hill TAFE and Goulburn Ovens TAFE), and investigate how they use e-learning in their teaching to promote a more flexible, interactive learning environment for their students.

While Goulburn Ovens (GO) comprises of several small campus located over rural Victoria, Box Hill has four central campuses located in the bustling capital city, Melbourne. At both TAFE’s there are animal studies programmes taught; how each TAFE actually delivers them is quite distinct. I visited Dookie Campus and Wangaratta Campus of GO TAFE, and the Elgar Road campus of Box Hill TAFE. The three main outcomes I hoped to achieve at the end of the study tour were: - To understand how e-learning is used to support teaching at each organisation - To see how lecturers use e-learning to support their students out of class time - To provide Usk Campus with a list of recommendations to ensure the continued development of e-learning on campus.

When I visited Victoria in November 2007, things were looking very grim indeed for the farming community. They were on the tail end of a six year drought that was showing no signs of letting up. In 1904, a well known Australian poet Dorothea Mackellar penned the lines “I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains”. Unfortunately, now the words ‘cracked and parched’ best describe the plains of Australia, as its mighty rivers have now shrivelled into sluggish brown streams, and paddocks reduced to dust bowls.

With no rain for much of the growing season from July to November, the glorious crops predicted after a flush of rain in April, were now stunted and the grains pinched. The rains failed to deliver on time to revive the crops in the grain filling stage. High levels of screenings were being reported at the grain silos, having farmers grain docked to feed grade, rather than the premium milling/malting grades.

Yet in spite of all this doom and gloom, the future for landbased curriculum remains optimistic, and this was reflected in the healthy student numbers at the TAFE’s I visited.

Students’ Feedback The general feedback from all the students I spoke to indicate that they are enjoying their time at TAFE or college, finding their education useful and fun. The respect given to them by tutors was cited frequently as something they liked, as well as the practical nature of the subjects, and relevance of subjects to their chosen careers.

A high proportion of students, across all campuses, had computers and internet access at home.

With the majority agreeing that they would not be able to pass their course without the use them, it creates an ideal learning opportunity to build on.

The majority of students across the board used e-learning to write reports nearly all the time, although at some campuses the result was higher than others.

In terms of researching topics, once again the majority used it nearly all the time: nearly threequarters of students access e-learning to research topics and prepare reports. As the majority also have computer and internet access at home, the next step is to incorporate a VLE to improve the communication and information sharing amongst the students and lecturers. A VLE can also help remind the students of when assignment are due, have copies of assignments readily accessible if they lose them, and provide another way to motivate them to work hard and do well.

Creating a Virtual Learning Environment Unfortunately, developing a VLE for a college doesn’t happen overnight: it is a long, intensive, thought out process that takes time and effort to develop it into a successful learning tool.

Melinda Howlett and Brendan White, from Wangaratta Campus of GOTAFE, both agree that if they were not given the time away from work to learn and develop their VLE, it wouldn’t be used as extensively as it is now.

They believe the key to a successful start for establishing a VLE is firstly to have the full support of your management. The demands made on lecturers’ time, and also money required to improve resources and training for the VLE to be successful, means that if management are not on board the VLE will not succeed.

The following points are general advice from Howlett and White to those wanting to start using the VLE at their college: 2

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Enthuse and train a small group of staff initially as it is far easier than trying to get everyone on board at once, and then gradually build on this.

As there is a lot of technology you can incorporate into your VLE, stay blinkered and don’t become overwhelmed. Keep the VLE simple to begin with, and as confidence grows, use more of the macromedia tools out there to make the VLE more exciting.

Integrate using the VLE into everyday teaching, rather than it being an optional extra for students to use out of class time. When they see you using it frequently, they will too.

In every classroom there should be a data projector and computer, but not necessarily a SMART Board, to make it easy, quick and convenient to use e-learning.

Lecturers’ Feedback Overall, responses from lecturers in Australia and on Usk Campus indicate a very positive outlook for e-learning and its potential for the future.

The majority of lecturers on each campus are using e-learning nearly all the time to research topics. Numbers are lower for those using it to produce written reports, and a minority of them believe it actually made them work less effectively: I have a feeling this is to do with the speed (or lack thereof) of their typing skills rather than anything else. In terms of enthusiasm for e-learning, once again the majority were positive. Over three-quarters of all the lecturers believed e-learning was a useful tool too.

The barriers that seem to be hindering the progress of e-learning amongst the campus had a common theme. It was not the lecturers’ willingness, nor enthusiasm about e-learning that was holding back progress, it was time and resources. Once lecturers are trained properly in using VLEs and other e-learning technologies, they will able to incorporate them into their teaching with ease. This has a knock on effect as to how the students access and use communication technologies within e-learning. With the majority of students already using the internet to research topics, it would take little persuasion for them to log onto a VLE to down load an assignment, or contribute to a chat room discussion on a difficult assignment.

The difficulty of obtaining and using e-learning resources, also inhibits the uptake of e-learning technology. With time being a very precious commodity to a lecturer, it needs to be easy to find a classroom to use on a regular basis that has a data projector and computer. This is also the case in terms of computer availability and access in the lecturers’ offices.

Once the time and resource issues have been resolved, I think progress within e-learning will evolve naturally. It will become the easy option to use, rather than the more difficult one as it is at the moment. Incorporating e-learning into every day teaching will benefit both lecturer and student in the long run.

Visiting the TAFE institutions in Australia has helped me see landbased education from a new perspective, through investigating how each uses e-learning in their teaching. I can now envisage the way we can improve the flexibility of our students study programs via a Virtual Learning Environment such as Moodle.

Benefits for Usk Campus The main benefits I see for the students, as a result of these recommendations for developing elearning on Usk Campus are: • A more flexible learning experience for the students if they choose to work and study, through the use of Moodle accessed from home or at college. A direct result from this is improved retention and attainment of students.

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More interesting and varied lesson formats, as their lecturer uses different teaching methods to captivate their interest and inspire them.

Quicker and easier methods for students to catch up on missed work, and also easier to get in touch with lecturers and their fellow students

Over all, I can see an exciting and innovative new Usk Campus, designed to stimulate students, with courses and e-learning opportunities offered that encourage and support them to achieve the best they possibly can.

Photos: Figure 1: Interactive teaching facility at Dookie Campus, Goulburn Ovens TAFE.,

Figure 2: The assortment of animals kept at the Elgar Road Campus, Box Hill TAFE.

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Figure 3: Bill Schwartz, from the Wangaratta Region, filling his semi-trailer with wheat to sell.

Figure 4: Farmer Ian Schwartz walking through a crop of barley barely worth harvesting in the Wangaratta Region.

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Figure 5: Angus cattle grazing on stubble paddocks at Dookie as there is no grass to graze on.

Figure 6: Merino sheep having to be hand fed every day due to lack of feed, near Wangaratta.

Figure 7: The exposed banks of the very low Murray River.

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Figure 8: A lesson being taught in one of the computer rooms at Elgar Road, Box Hill TAFE

Figure 9: Elgar Road Campus, Box Hill, student computer room

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