australian flexible learning framework news
National Monday Update Issue:
1. Timber training needs flexibility
2. New Framework paper: Verifying VET Learner Attainment Data
1. Timber training needs flexibility
The Australian Timber Trainers Association (ATTA) has called for the forestry industry to make a strategic shift to embed e-learning as part of an industry-wide workforce development strategy.
According to ATTA Secretary, David McElvenny, education is needed to address a commonly held misconception that e-learning is not suitable for a hands-on industry such as forestry.
With a growing acknowledgment that timber is one of the few renewable building materials available, the forest and forest products industry is evolving and expanding to become an important contributor to Australia’s environmental and economic well being.
Mr McElvenny said that maintaining a skilled workforce to meet growing demand was likely to emerge as a key challenge for the industry over the coming years and that e-learning would have a key role to play in improving training practices to help achieve this.
“The geographically dispersed nature of forestry has long impeded the delivery of quality training in this industry,” Mr McElvenny said.
“By using e-learning to deliver the theoretical components of forestry training, learners will already have the necessary background knowledge when trainers arrive on site, allowing them to get straight into the practical side of training.
“This will minimise both time away from the job for employees and travel time and resources expended by trainers. It will also enhance access to training for learners in remote locations where formal training programs are sometimes seen as economically unviable.”
He said e-learning also acted as a way to attract new apprentices, including recent school leavers, who are accustomed to and expect to use technology for learning.
Mr McElvenny said he was confident that the development of more e-learning resources for the forestry industry, coupled with the new generation of tech-savvy workers coming up through the ranks, would give industry trainers and employers the impetus needed to embrace e-learning and the opportunities it presents.
New South Wales-based registered training organisation, Workspace Training, has set the ball rolling with the creation of one of the first flexible learning resources designed specifically for the forestry industry.
Developed with funding and support from the national training system’s e-learning strategy, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework), the TimberFlexible Learning Toolbox (Toolbox) gives learners the opportunity to develop theoretical knowledge and practical skills in a safe virtual environment, before hands-on practice in the workplace.
It uses scenarios, images and activities, presented in a real life workplace context, to support six competencies from the Forest and Forest Products Training Package: sawmilling, merchandising, and manufactured products as well as generic communication and occupational health and safety skills.
According to Mr McElvenny, e-learning resources are intended to supplement and support face-to-face training, not replace it.
“The use of flexible learning does not compromise the quality of training – a critical consideration when it comes to high-risk jobs in industries such as forestry,” he said.
“The interactive activities contained in the Timber Toolbox are designed to allow the learner to apply new concepts to their own experience or workplace situation, so at the end of the day it actually enhances the learning experience.”
The Toolbox can be easily customised to meet individual learner requirements and suit the diversity of job types throughout the timber industry from forest workers in remote areas to retail staff in the suburbs.
An extension of the Timber Toolbox, Timber ‘Plus’ is currently being developed and is expected to be available from late 2010, either for purchase on CD-ROM through TVET Australia or as free, downloadable learning objects from the Toolbox Repository.
Timber ‘Plus’ will extend the Timber Toolbox, to cover an additional nine competencies, including more in-demand core units and sector-specific units relating to the timber manufactured products sector.
Visit the Toolbox website to preview the Framework’s full range of Toolboxes. Alternatively, you can access learning objects from past Toolboxes for free through the Toolbox Repository.
Toolbox Champions operate in all states and territories and provide free advice, mentoring and professional development for practitioners using Toolboxes.
For more information about the Framework, its products, resources and support networks, contact: (07) 3307 4700, enquiries [at] flexiblelearning [dot] net [dot] au (email) or visit: http://flexiblelearning.net.au
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Being able to electronically verify learner information, such as educational qualifications, has the potential to help streamline employment applications, course admissions and RPL (recognition of prior learning) processes.
Taking a lead role in gaining national agreement on the development of portable learner information, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework) has released the Verifying VET Learner Attainment Data paper.
This paper, based on widespread consultation with employer groups, industry groups, unions, recruitment agencies, tertiary admission centres and professional associations, found that electronic access to learner information would support learner transitions and produce significant efficiency gains for the vocational education and training (VET) sector.
It presents findings around:
- the benefits and limitations of existing learner information verification systems and their relevance to the Australian VET sector
- the verification needs of ‘information consumers’ (eg employers, recruiters and education and training admissions centres)
- key issues surrounding the introduction of electronic access of VET learner information.
The research found that existing learner verification services are limited in scope or immature in development, and so the paper makes recommendations regarding the continued development of learner record systems which allow learners to electronically access and share their VET learner records.
It stresses that any implementation of electronic learner record systems would need to proceed alongside an education program and address issues of privacy, governance and access protocols.
The paper highlights the need to cater for the diversity in information consumers’ verification requirements and to address a number of concerns, including:
- verified learner data being directly associated with an individual’s e-portfolio, which may lead to fraudulent assertions
- the need to have third party learner record systems to support aggregated lifelong, electronic learner records.
The paper builds on a previous Framework investigation into managing learner information and supports the verification goal from the Framework’s VET E-portfolio Roadmap, a national strategy designed to support the introduction and use of e-portfolios to support lifelong learning in the VET sector.
Continued work into electronically accessing VET learner information will continue in 2010 with an investigation of registered training organisations' willingness and ability to offer electronic learner data as well as the attitude of learners to such services.
The paper forms part of the E-portfolios Resource Bank – a comprehensive and central online resource including reports, articles, news, blogs and events dedicated to e-portfolios and their application in VET.
For more information, email allison [dot] miller [at] flexiblelearning [dot] net [dot] au (Allison Miller), or visit: http://flexiblelearning.net.au/e-portfolios