Sprout Lab Projects

Black Loyalists

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:11:00 +1100

Professor Cassandra Pybus from the University of Sydney had been researching the African American Loyalist refugees who left New York in 1783. This was part of her book Epic journeys of freedom: Runaway slaves of the American Revolution and their global quest for liberty. Cassandra was finding complex relationships and connections, that were multi layered and hard to explain in words. She felt a digital repository where the user could explore this relationship and connections for themselves was the solution. After the Virginia’s Black Methodists from the Book of Negroes visualisation prototype she could see the possibilities. Cassandra was successful in gaining one year of funding from the Australian Research Council to start working on a solution.

Robin has worked with Cassandra on a number of projects in the past including the founding of the Australian Humanities Review. This was a fantastic chance to work on another significant undertaking with Cassandra.

One year is not a lot of time to develop a complex repository that includes elaborate features such as maps, timelines, network visualisations and search systems. Often the first year of these types of projects is spent just developing the system and then the data entry can start. We had one year for all of this, and the associated research.

How we went about the project

Planning
The most important thing we did at this stage was develop profiles of who the target end users where. They were
1. Post Graduate Students
2. Researchers
Many times during the project we returned back to the questions “Who is the audience? What do they need from this?” We also examined the source documents such as the Book of Negroes and it became clear that the repository wasn’t just about that document. It was about assembling the narrative of the runaways’ lives from a number of sources. It wasn’t a dry archival database of names and documents; it was about micro stories of the runaways’ lives.
Starting to develop the database
The next stage was to research a system that could be used to bring the data from the different sources together. We had a feeling that in the long term more sources would need to be included and the system had to allow for this and be able to deal with the sometimes ambiguous fragmented nature of the data. We developed the system using Sapphire/Silverstripe using the ModelAdmin feature. ModelAdmin is an amazing system that by using just about 10 lines of code, the database fields are made and the basic administration forms to search, edit and delete the data are made. We focused on building the backend first. The hope was that the research assistant Kit Candlin could get working on the data entry early. To make the data entry faster we found we had to rework most of forms that ModelAdmin automatically made. This process of refining the forms took longer than we expected.
The next stage was creating basic pages to display the information about each person
These were extremely basic pages, without a lot of visual design. It was at this stage when Kit felt he could “see the data” that the data entry actually started.
Visual Design
Once the core functionality was complete we could get started on the visual design. This took a couple versions to get right. The key activity during this stage was a workshop to co-design the homepage, where everyone in the team sketched up what they felt the site should look like and presented that. We discussed the pro’s and con’s of each of those ideas and as a group came up with a solution that was a collaborative solution.
Refining and adding more functionality
The site was now at a “Beta” stage and we could start to add some of the more exciting functionality such as the search features, the timelines and the Google Maps and network visualisations. Where possible we use existing solutions to reduce the cost and development time. An example of this was working with Silverstripe which meant that with one line of code we could open the site up for REST API, which meant other people in the future could mash up and work with the raw data.
eResearch Presentation
Robin gave a joint presentation with Cassandra and Kit at eResearch 2009. There was a strong interest in the visualisations. It was great to be able to share the project with this audience.

As code and templates were developed the focus was on making sure the system was re-usable. We have called the system the Historical Data Engine (HDE) and we are still considering releasing it under an open source licence. The real key to this project has been the power of Silverstripe and the level of expertise we have developed with it.

This was one of the largest projects we worked on during 2009. It was an exciting project to work on with an amazing team and it’s going to be exciting to see how the user base for the site grows.

The site can be seen at http://www.blackloyalist.info/

ElectroFlex - The new electrical contractors’ course

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:00:00 +1100

Changes, Changes, Changes

In early 2009 there were a lot changes for the Electrotechnology area of the Tasmania Skills Institute.

The Tasmania Sills Institute had been formed as a new organisation with a new management structure and new agenda for state-wide co-ordination and some key staff who were looking after the contractors’ course were not working for the Tasmania Skills Institute.
There was a new training package and new competencies were required for the nominated managers.
The Tasmania Electrical Regulator had introduced new legalisation in the area.
Some of the old course had been offered online in the Northern part of Tasmania; all over the other parts of the state, students had come onto campus in the evening.

The solution

The Tasmania Skills Institute partnered with the Electrical Regulator and Workplace Standards, developed a business case and was successful in getting Flexible Learning Network Innovation grant.

The state-wide project team was:

Tony McKinlay who looked after the relationships with Workplace Standards and Aurora
Ralph Berry from the North
Ian Gough from the South
Michael Meldrum from the North-West
We helped with the project facilitation and design, development and testing of the course.

The course we developed is over 200 pages. It’s engaging, visually interesting and full of great tools and information for the contractors to build amazing businesses. The Electrical Regulator and the Aurora have had direct input into the project and are happy they know what is actually in the course.

Some of the ways we helped:

Developing the business case and project plan
We helped with developing the business case and the project plan. Working with the team was great. We brought our experience of working with eLearning and digital media projects and all the experience we gained while editing the 30 hours of innovation video to the business case and project plan. This also meant that from day one we were able help the team with the whole project, including the learning design.

Project Facilitation
As well as the design and development work we took on the role of project facilitation. In this project this meant organising and leading the workshops, getting the project moving and keeping it on target. A lot the focus in our meetings was on the learning design and review and giving feedback on the resources. We focused the learning design on the assessment tasks and then the rest of the learning experience flows from that.

Design and Development work
We are really proud of the work we did on this project. We brought together the old content, customised and changed the Toolbox content and developed a lot of new content into a comprehensive learning package that we think works well. Some of the new content we developed with input from the team included:

The overall visual look and feel
Video interviews with experts
Diagrams and graphical organisers
Stories that demonstrated the key learning points
Simple HTML content
Planning tools and business templates
Branching Stories - more on those below.

Branching Stories
One of the most exciting parts of this project for us was developing a series of branching stories/games with STEM. These included games where the learner had to deal with a series of business compliance projects and a series of games where the learner was asked be the mentor and coach for another business in an area such as marketing or finance.

What was great about these was that, yes, it could have just been a series of dot points or pages that the learners could read, but having to make the choices makes the experience deeper and more likely to be learnt.

Technical
As well as using STEM for the building of the branching stories, we used the content management system, Silverstrip, with our custom modules for exporting the content as standards compliant Learning Objects. All content and the technical stuff we used followed the VET eLearning content development guidelines and met the W3C standards and the Accessibility requirements.

Case Study
One the great things about the project was being able to develop the case study at the end of the project. This involved video interviews with some of the project members and a workshop on the case study with the team and then weaving those notes from the workshop into a case study. The reason it great was because the final workshop focused on the case study and it was great way to reflect on, celebrate and close the project.

The Result

The Tasmania Skills Institute now has a great new solution for their contracting students, that is engaging, flexible and relevant. We are proud to have been part of this project and we’d love to see some of the other states in Australia start to offer the course online.

eFurn - Engaging Standard Operation Procedures for the furniture industry.

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:40:00 +1100

Problem

We have all seen those notices next to machines in workshops about how to safety use the machine, but who actually reads and understands them? Not many people....

This is the problem the furniture and joinery area of the Tasmania Skills Institute faced in their workshops. The students are visual kinaesthetic people who work with their hands; they are not interested in reading an often out-of-date piece of paper stuck next to the machine.

The teachers in the area knew that eLearning often gave them a lot of potential for engaging their students, but they didn’t want to become interactive media experts. The team was successful in receiving an Australian Flexible Learning Network Innovation grant to help them make their learning resources more engaging. They used some of that funding to engage us.

What we did

We helped the furniture team design, develop and implement a series of accurate and engaging video-based Standard Operation Procedures that learners can access on a touch screen in the workshop.

How we went about it

Video Production
We find that TAFE teachers often love to talk and often that hate writing, which makes writing scripts for videos close to impossible. What we did was get one teacher behind the camera talking and demonstrating how to use the machines safety. The teacher worked from some existing Standards Operations Procedures and reworked them when needed. We shot the video on a High Definition camera and took photographs of the details. During the shoot the video was recorded directly onto a laptop which made it easy for all to review and rework of the demonstrations on the fly. Because we are not just another video production company, we were able to offer advice on the clarity of the information and the effectiveness of the video.
Video Editing and Visual Design
Back in our office, the video was edited. We added titles to highlight parts of the demonstration, added graphics such as a large cross and overlays that showed things like measurements. Then we reviewed the edit with the teachers to make sure it was all OK.
SOP Builder and Interface Design
The video then needed to be brought together into an easy-to-use touch screen interface. The Australian Flexible Learning Network also wanted the learning assets as Learning Objects that meet their content standards. Using simple HTML pages and a bit of Flash was our solution to this technical problem.
So the learning assets could be output for a touch screen and as Learning Objects. We developed a module for the content management system, Silverstrip, which allows us to create two different templates with the same content and to be able to download all files for use off-line. Because the solution was web based it had the side effect of making it really easy for the teachers to see what we were working on and made it simple for multiple people in our office (or our subcontractors) to work on the project all at the same time.
The interface was simple and bold and hopefully, clear and easy to use. Some of the Computer Control Machines in the workshop had touch screens and we tried to make the the interface similar to those.
Getting the interface right
Everyone wanted the touch screen to be as easy to use possible. The teachers didn’t want to have to explain yet another piece of software.
We achieved usability of the system by doing a number of trials with the students. This user testing was a mixture of us or some of the Tasmania Skill Institute team observing students using the system, discussion with the students and evaluation forms. We used this feedback to make changes like making sure all the graphics lead to more media.

The Bottom line

The final resource is a great learning experience that is visually attractive and detailed The learners found it engaging and they are actually using it!!!! This is leading to a safer workshop and a safer industry.

Skills in Nursing

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:47:00 +1100

The Health team at the Tasmania Polytechnic knew that video had great potential in their teaching area. They feel they could be making short videos about important skills and they could see how students could use video to record and reflect on their own skill practice as well. With services like YouTube it becomes easy to share these videos as well. The Health team knew the potential but they didn’t have the skills to achieve want they wanted to do; this is where we came in.

How we helped

Instead of doing the filming and editing for the team we trained the teachers in those skills, so they could also show their students to how to do this stuff. Then at the end we did complex work like noise correction, fancy titles and DVD menus for them.

Stage 1: Video production training
The first stage of the project was a one day workshop on video production skills with a group of teachers and one of the Polytechnic’s Resource Development Advisors. This was about things like framing and lighting.

Stage 2: The teachers worked with students
Then the teachers showed these new production skills to the students. The students then filmed each other performing skills. Afterwards, watching these videos become a great reflective tool for the students.

Stage 3: Video editing training
After the students’ filming it was time to look at some video editing skills. In an organisation like the Tasmania Polytechnic, teachers often have access to a limited amount of digital media software. In this case the teachers all had Windows Movie Maker. Even if this not a piece of software we would use for editing, this is what we trained them to use.

Stage 4: Bringing it all together
The last part of the project was bringing all the rough edit videos together onto a DVD. During this stage we did thing like:

Added titles with photography by Ian Wallace (who is part of the Health Team)
To develop the look and feel of these we designed 3 mood boards and the team chose which design/mood they liked the most.
Added simple graphics
Recorded and edited voiceovers
Post processing like noise correction and colour correction
DVD menus

This last stage all happened in November. The teachers were busy with marking and getting their program ready for the next year. It would have been impossible for them at this late stage of the year to have learnt those new skills and delivered the final product on time.

In the end

The teachers ended up with some great new skills and the DVD looked great. We were happy to be able to help out the Health team. We loved working in this way, where the project is a combination of skills development (so is sustainable into the future) and “doing the work”. In this case, our “doing the work” accelerated the progress of the project.

For more information from the team have a look at the case study site at http://www.polytechnic-nursingskills.com

Embedding e-portfolios in the teaching and learning process - Resource/Case Study

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:53:00 +1100

Time was running for the Embedding e-portfolios Innovation Project at the Tasmania Polytechnic when they came to us. The project team had spent the year exploring and experimenting with Mahara. Early in the project, the team had hired us to help them choose which hosting service to use and we had kept an eye on how the project was developing over the year.

They had started to developed the text for “Embedding e-portfolios in the teaching and learning process Resource” in Articulate as a way of documenting and sharing the project learning and acting as a map and guide for teachers thinking about using e-portfolios in the future.

They needed the following things to be done quickly:

The content had to be converted into a Learning Object that met the VET e-learning content development guidelines. The first version of the resource was developed in Articulate which outputs the content as Flash.
They wanted stories and video interviews with the project team included in the resource.

Once we saw the information we suggested that it would be great to use “Graphical Organiser” to bring together all the content and process in a single whole that could be understood by looking at one image.

All this needed to be done in a period of about 5 weeks while other major projects were coming to end as well!!!

The results from the interviews were amazing and the project came together smoothly.

The story of Graphical Organiser

The workshop to develop the graphical organiser was a lot of fun. It was one those times when it was so much fun it didn’t feel like work!!!

There were 16 different items and stages. We came to the workshop with these on pieces of paper. We then worked with some of the team on a whiteboard to arrange the items and draw the elements. In Nancy Duarte’s book, Slidology, she has a series of pages that are a great selection of the different types of diagrams. We used these as our reference point. When this was resolved we took a photo of the whiteboard and then the diagram was drawn based on that. When it was drawn up in Illustrator, the intent of the hand-drawn diagram was still there and the clients were happy.

The video interviews

There is something we love about sitting down with a video camera (often in small room) and talking to people about their teaching. The process we used is a pretty standard documentary process. We developed a set of standard questions with Graeme and Roger, organised the interviews and travelled all over the small state of Tasmania to do the interviews. When we found some of the great things the teachers were doing, we added new questions and went off-topic.... This is often when the best stuff happened.

Bringing it all together

The graphic, text and video interviews were all brought together using the content management system, Silverstrip, plus some of our custom scripts for exporting the content as Learning Objects. The interviews were edited and organised into the 16 different topics. As the editing of the interviews was completed, we uploaded ASAP so that Graeme and Roger could review and see the material. This was a classic iterative style of project management. This was great for the tight timeframe!!!! The content being online also meant the Graeme and Roger could edit the text right up the last moment of the deadline without having to involve us!!!!

Conclusion

In the end, the project team was really happy with the results and pleased with Sprout Labs’ ability to tackle it in such a relatively short timeline.

We think we have helped produce a great guide for using e-portfolios. We’re hoping the guide will help teachers embed e-portfolios into the core of their teaching and take their teaching to the next level.

Freelance training services for Fearless

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:32:00 +1000

Robin was the main Hobart casual trainer in the Web Design and Digital Media area for Fearless between 2007 and mid-2009. Robin took courses in areas such as HTML, Dreamweaver, CSS, Flash, ActionScript, and Premiere.

What was great about working with Fearless was how small the class were; often the sessions were just one-on-one coaching sessions. This meant the training was tailored to exactly what the clients needed. It was marvellous being able to ring a client beforehand to get a real sense of what they needed, and then we could integrate that into the course. Often during the sessions we worked the sites and projects the clients would actually be working with.

While working with Fearless, some of the clients we worked with were:

Educational developers from the University of Tasmania
Educational developers from the Australian Technical College
Learning technologies support people from TAFE Tasmania
Designers from place like Clemenger Tasmania, Inferno Advertising, Print Domain
IT support people from the Department of Defence
Administration staff from the Department of Economic Development
Administration staff from Page Seager Lawyers

Australian Flexible Learning Framework Innovation Videos

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:03:00 +1100

2008 was the first year of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework Innovation projects and Rose Grozdanic, the National Co-ordinator for the program, wanted a way of collecting, distilling and communicating some of the experiences and learning from the 2008 projects. She needed a form of knowledge management, and in this case we used video to help Rose achieve this.

We did 20 minute video interviews in Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales as part of the eLearning Innovation showcasing days and we helped organise video shoots in the other states. At the end of these interviews there were around 30 hours of video, and hundreds of great statements and a lot of learning from the teams.

With the editing we did a rough cut of each of the interviews to give Rose, so she got a sense of what being said without her having to watch all the videos. Working with Rose, we structured those interviews into two short videos. One of videos was advice to people preparing applications and the other a showcase of what the projects had achieved.

Top Ten Tips for your eLearning Innovations Project in 2009

One of the interesting things about this project for us was editing and sorting those 30 hours of video and we learnt a lot about what makes a successful eLearning project and we hope the Top Ten Tips distils this learning.

The only visual material we had for this video was the interviews, that were often shot in bland rooms. We used the images of threads as a visual element to string the fragments and statements together.

Snapshots and Stories: 2008 E-learning Innovations Projects

With this video there was more visual material that was supplied to us by the teams.

The video has been used by some of Innovation Program co-ordinators as part of their introduction to the program and the response has been positive. Even if the advice is from 2008 and 2009 there are still some excellent tips and hints about developing an eLearning business case and running eLearning projects.

A Journey Begins

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:18:00 +1100

The elearning team at Skills Tasmania want a novel approach to presenting elearning innovations projects at their end-of-the-year showcase. They also had a major problem in the schedule, in that they might only have 30 minutes for 12 presentations! We talked through a few ideas with them and came up with the idea of short videos about each of the innovations projects.

But time was running out. All 12 videos, from planning through shooting and editing, had to be completed in around five weeks. Since this was already a busy month, Sam Johnstone came on board full time during this time to help out.

Planning

With the fast turnaround, there wasn’t a lot of time to plan out each of the videos in detail. We worked with Skills Tasmania to develop a collaborative process aimed at reducing the risk of Skills Tasmania not getting what they wanted from the videos. We sat down with the team and talked through and documented what needed to be featured in each of the projects, and developed a set of standard questions that would be asked during each interview. With the short timeframe, we all needed to be clear about the process and the outcomes.

We used Basecamp extensively while working with Skills Tasmania on this project. This meant we could keep track of the approval, changes, and discussions easily and quickly. The team at Skills Tasmania used Basecamp during the project as well. It was great to have reference points for each video’s status.

The shoots

We travelled all over Tasmania doing the interviews. We met some amazing people! Someone from Skills Tasmania came along to all the interviews, to get a sense of what was happening. Often the team members were interested in talking about different aspects of their innovation projects from what Skills Tasmania were excited about. During these visits, we also got the cutaway shots and screen recordings. As Robin was off doing the interviews, Sam was back in the office starting to edit the video and working on the mood boards.

The mood boards

We were really worried about the video just being talking heads and images of people using a computer ... which is not very engaging for 20 minutes during a conference. To solve this, we gave each video a different mood through the visual design and motion graphics. To develop the look and feel, we designed mood boards for each of the videos. This was as a chance for us to talk through how we were going to approach the video. Once we were happy with a mood board, these were shared with Skills Tasmania using Basecamp, and they gave us their feedback and input. Getting this input and approval for the visual design at this stage saved us all a lot of time later.

The rough cuts

Back in the office, we got the first rough cut of the video completed and sent off to Skills Tasmania ASAP. These edits focused on the audio and weaving the stories about the projects throughout the interviews.

Developing the final versions

Each of the 12 videos was at a different stage of completion for most of the

project, which was stressful! By this stage we knew that Skills Tasmania were generally happy with what we were planning for the look and feel, and they were happy with the content. We then did all the motion graphics and animation and refined the edits. Last but not least, we did the colour correction and audio post-production.

The showcasing day

For the showcasing day, we played the high-definition video on a laptop. We got to the venue early, tested everything, and crossed our fingers. It was all going well until two-thirds of way through, when video started to miss frames and jump around. It righted itself, but we could have done without the hassle. Even with all the testing and planning in the world, things can still go wrong. On the day, the audience and the teams were excited about see the projects presented in such a visually concise way. The innovation teams were especially excited about not having to give talks!

GURU

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:06:00 +1100

The learning technologies area at TAFE Tasmania had been busy developing new web applications to accelerate the recognition process in their organisation. When they came to us they had major presentation to do in a month, and they want it to "resemble a finished web application".

The web application means a learner can login in to the system to see the requirements for recognition and then upload and collate their evidence. This system is integrated with their student record management system and other assessment systems they use such as the QTImPlayer. The development team had been busy working away on the functionality without much attention to the visual design and interface design.

This is a screen grab of the system before we started

This was a great project for us, we brought our knowledge of the Australian VET system, teaching and learning and web technologies all together.

The process we went through was

Name and Logo
The working title for the project was ‘Beyond Recognitio’n but the team wanted something that sounded more like a web application name. They settled on Guru which is short for "Get ur (your) Recognition Universe". Once the name was decided we developed a number of logo ideas for the team to choose from.
Visual Design and interface design
The logo became the basis for the visual design; the colour scheme for interface flowed from the logo. The learning technologies team had developed the system in Python and made sure that the html code was nicely named, they also worked with the Adobe Spry Ajax framework. This made it easy for us to develop the visual look for the system in CSS code without having to worry about the back-end. There were a number of user interface issues that we couldn’t do anything about in the timeframe available. We would have loved the interface to focus on what the learners had to do instead of focusing on the competencies.

For the presentation Guru resembled a polished web application and the audience was excited. What is fabulous about CSS style-sheets is that the Learning Technologies team have been able to keep on using them as the application has been further developed.

Your Hands

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:19:00 +1100

"Your Hands is the second stage of the "Room for Improvement" project that was seeking new ways to support students with learning disabilities, by using video and RFID Learning Tables. The hospitality area wanted a learning experience that could be used in multiple areas of their programs. Personal hygiene is the perfect skill that crosses all the areas.

Video based learning resources often mean that learners are left passively watching. We worked with the team to develop an interactive experience, that combined cards with RFID tags embedded in them, instructional videos and support from the teachers.

The way this works is:

The students have a “booklet” of cards they swipe the first card and then on the video an expert talks about the importance of an aspect of personal hygiene.
Then an example of someone doing the wrong thing is played and the learner has to choose the card/page that is the right feedback. The learner is asked to be coach.
Then the learner is given some feedback on their advice and is then shown an instructional video about the right way to go about the process.

How we helped

We developed the learning design
Video can be passive medium, by using the questions and giving the learner choices the experience became active.
Scripting and planning
We don’t often script our training videos but in this case it was important, because as well as the instructional elements there were sections of video that prompted the learner. These prompts had to be clear and well thought out. At times like this a script really helps.
Shooting and editing the video
The video was shot over a day and a half on high definition video. Back in the office we added the transitions, overlays and did the colour and audio corrections.
Designing, producing and programming the cards
An important part of this project was bringing together video and cards in a usable whole. We designed and made a few sets of the cards before we found the right usable solution.

The results

The learning experience was active, visual and engaging. The response from the students was positive. Also one of the great things about video is that it can be played back on many different devices eg iPods, DVD’s and on the web. This has meant that the instructional videos and videos from the experts could be used as part of Drysdale’s online course material as well.

Room for Improvement

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:15:00 +1000

The "Room for Improvement" team knew they wanted to use video in their project but they needed someone to make happen faster than they could do it themselves.

The "Room for Improvement" was exploring new and improved ways to support students with learning disabilities during work placements. These students often needed extra support during work-placement that businesses found that hard to meet. Also these students are often visual and kinaesthetic learners who needed a lot of reinforcement and repetition. We develop a video based learning experience.

The project was funded by the Innovation Program of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. The team included teachers from the Pathways and the Hospitality areas of the TAFE Tasmania.

The focus was on housekeeping skills. The idea was the learner would have a laptop with them while they were on a work placement, cleaning hotel rooms. When they were unsure of a task, eg how to do a hospital corner when making a bed.

The student would look at the collection of cards they had and choose the one with a photograph of a bed.
Then they would swipe that card past a RFID tag reader attached to the laptop.
That then triggers an instructional video on how to do hospital corners on a bed.

This means the students almost have a workplace coach with all the time.

What we did

The instructional video
To develop the video we worked with the housekeeping teachers and a highly competent housekeeper from The Old Woolstore Hotel. Instead of scripting the whole video (which could have taken months) we developed a rough outline and then shadowed one of The Old Woolstore housekeepers for two days while she cleaned rooms. She talked through all the details of what she was doing at the same time. This was an effective way of rapidly capturing knowledge and getting the exact procedures in an accessible, visual medium.
DVD and files for the RFID Learning Tables
Then after hours and hours of editing we produced a DVD and the files for the RFID Learning Tables.
Reworking the cards
During the first trial of the system it was discovered that the large pile of cards with photos where quite hard to handle and it was even harder to find which one you wanted. We reworked the cards, by colour coding them, grouping more of the media together and binding them together in a different way.

In the End

The students found the DVD really valuable. They loved being about to take it home and watch it repeatedly!!! They saw the fact that it was exactly what they would be doing during their work placements to be incredibly valuable. The RFID Learning Tables could have worked better if it was running on a mobile device instead of laptop, making it more portable.

There was huge amount of editing involved in this project, and it would have taken a teacher a significant amount of time to complete while they were juggling other commitments. We really accelerated the progress of the projects.

The second stage of the Room for Improvement project was the Your Hands project.

LifeLine Tasmania – e-portfolios for Recognition

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:18:00 +1000

LifeLine Tasmania had a recognition process in place that was making everyone’s life hard. Telephone counsellors would do their initial face to face training and then be assessed for some competencies by means of role plays. Then after a year of being a regular volunteer they could go through a recognition process for the gap between the competencies they got during the initial training and the full Certificate IV. This process used to be a complex paper-based system that required evidence such as recording of phone calls, and that is not possible with today’s privacy laws.

LifeLine Tasmania had started to use online discussion, and they were gradually converting paper-based handouts to electronic formats. They were using a basic commercial learning management system. We made the suggestion that an e-portfolio system could be the solution to streamlining the process for the telephone counsellors and the assessors.

The first stage was helping LifeLine to develop the business case for using e-portfolios. This business case successfully received funding from the Australia Flexible Learning Network Innovations Funding program.

The first round of problems LifeLine faced was the learning design and what technology to use.

The focus group that we facilitated

A focus group of telephone counsellors who were interested in getting full certification was formed. The aim of the group was to co-design the final solution. The group explored the problems with the old system, and how the new system could work to make everyone’s life easier. During this stage, we worked with the main trainer at LifeLine Tasmania on new evidence guidelines and presented those back to the group to get feedback and support. The result of this process was a flowchart that outlined the solution, and documents for how the new evidence guidelines map to the competencies.

Technology

LifeLine Hobart have been using a commercial learning management system that was costing around $5000 a year, and the e-portfolio module for this was going to cost another $4000 a year. $9000 a year is a lot of money for a not-for-profit organisation. We suggested they change over to using Moodle with the Exabis e-Portfolio plug-in as their learning management system. One of the positives of Moodle is that there are now a lot of users in Tasmania and a number of consultants who can help them with it.

It’s a real pleasure to have helped LifeLine save close to $9000 a year!

The actual development and implementation was completed by another consultant. Since this project, we have done other pro bono work for LifeLine, and we are looking forward to our next major project with LifeLine Tasmania.

Virginia’s Black Methodists from the Book of Negroes

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:11:00 +1000

"I needed to explain how the relationships and social networks of a group of slaves who escaped during the American Revolutionary War worked. Someone like Mary Perth was owned by John Willoughby. Mary was married to Caesar Perth yet her daughter’s name is Patience Freeman. Caesar Perth was actually owned by Hardy Wallers which meant he lived on a different property. Mary was a Methodist preacher and all these slaves that ran were Methodist and were all interconnected. When I've explained it to people, they don't seem to follow the linkages and I've tried to draw diagrams but that just ends up being a confused mess of lines going everywhere."

This was the problem that historian Professor Cassandra Pybus came to us with. It’s a problem where information and knowledge is beyond what words can explain.

Research

The first stage was to go away and research what the possible solutions could be. Cassandra felt that that maybe something similar to the visual thesaurus could be the key. We found a Flex based technology called "Springgraph”" that could be used to visualise networks.

Developing the database

The information for these connections Cassandra was talking was found in a document called the Book of Negroes and Cassandra had a transcript of this. Some of the information for the small group of people she was interested in at this stage had been organised in an Excel spreadsheet. This information needed to be in a format that could be read by Springgraph and the structure of relationships needed to be developed in detail.

A custom online database was developed PHP and MySQL.

The visualisation

We started to develop the first prototype of the visualisation. At this stage it was just a simple display of names and the relationship were represented as lines and the user explored the linkages and relationships by clicking on one person and then their linkages would appear and more linkages could be explored. More information was layered on visualisations such as colour coding the lines that designated the relationships and showed what religion the runaways and owners were, and icons to represent gender and race. This layering up of functionality is a classic iterative process that we often use in projects.

At this stage Dr Kit Candlin tidied up the information and did some more data entry.

The response

People were amazed by the visualisation, all of a sudden they could understand what Cassandra was talking about. Cassandra used the visualisation to illustrate talks at places such as Princeton University. Information and data visualisations have a lot to offer the humanities, it’s method of working that the Digital Humanities that could use more often.

Beyond a prototype

The project was always meant to be a prototype.

Cassandra was successful in gaining one year of funding from the Australian Research Council for a project titled "Interrogating the Book of Negroes: explorations of slavery and freedom in the Atlantic world in the era of the American Revolution" that further developed the prototype into the Black Loyalists site.

The site can be seen at http://methodists.blackloyalist.info/

Emania

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:18:00 +1100

Geoff - Skills Tasmania:

"We are taking over www.emania.org. It’s running on Joolma. Joolma is driving us insane. What content management system would you suggest? we think we really want to just use it for blogging."

Robin - Sprout Labs:

"Well, Workpress is used by a lot people and there are a lot plug-ins for it. I love SilverStripe because it’s easy to use and develop with, but there are not the many plug-ins."

The team at Skills Tasmania decided on Wordpress.

Skills Tasmania -

"We have got ourselves in a mess with all these plug-ins in Wordpress. Can you help us out?"

We took the team through the process of deciding what functionality they needed, and what sort of visual look and feel was right for their audience. Then we searches for Workpress plug-ins to meet those needs. This was all then combined, and somehow we got all the plug-ins working nicely together! The visual design went through a process of developing mock-ups and then we refined the layout and colours of the design.

The final step was training the Skills Tasmania team on how to update the site.

The Skills Tasmania team has found one of the most valuable features to be the form building plug-in that allows them to build registration forms for events.

After this project and the nightmare of plug-ins, we chose to focus on using Silverstripe as our preferred Content Management System.

The site can be seen at http://www.emania.org