e-Learning for Hydro Generation Technician Trainees

Hydro Tasmania is a major hydro power generator within Tasmania. Hydro Tasmania has power stations located in remote areas of the state, requiring employees to travel over difficult roads in inclement weather. One of Hydro's challenges is attracting and retaining key skills in regional and remote locations in Tasmania. A key to being attractive to and retaining employees is the training and development program that Hydro Tasmania offers in collaboration with The Skills Institute.

One of the problems with this project is that power plant operators need to travel from remote locations causing disruption to productivity in their workplaces while they are away. The costs involved in this were becoming unsustainable. eLearning is the perfect solution in a case such as this. The Skills Institute was successful in getting Australian Flexible Learning Network Innovation funding to implement eLearning in this area.

Sprout Labs worked with The Skills Institute to put two of the core competencies from the Certificate IV in ESI Generation (Operations) online. This was a bit of a different project for us. We supported The Skills Institute to do the bulk of the development work, instead of us doing all the work.

Our involvement included:

• Facilitating meetings between The Skills Institute and Hydro Tasmania
• Developing the learning design.
• We worked with Cathy Moore's eLearning blueprint. A key reason for this was to help Hydro Tasmania understand how eLearning works
• Ad hoc professional development for the team
• Small bits of development work like a media-rich evacuation simulation
• Making sure all of the content met the Frameworks e-Standards

During the project, Hydro Tasmania team members became more aware of the processes required to design, commission, and implement eLearning projects. Thus, they have become more educated consumers of eLearning products.