Monday, August 31, 2009

Where am I now...?

Goodness me! I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted. This really isn't good enough, particularly as I've had so much to think about in my new role here at the University of Waikato.

New role: Have joined the Student Learning team, and my new title is e-learning coordinator. My duties, as with all the student learning tutors is to provide learning support to individuals who consult... and there's a lot to say about that... maybe later, but as well as that I am part of the "Independent Learning Team"; actually, I'm the one who mostly does the work for this team... and they provide me with guidance and opinions... it works very well.

So, this year I've been responsible for developing a graphic to represent student learning. We came up with a stair graphic in a plain (university) red, and this has been scattered liberally throughout the university's various webpages - we're quite happy about that. I also prepared the student learning photoboard; all university departments have photographs of the staff displayed in their buildings to help visitors identify people. I wanted the staff to be happy with their photos, that took a bit of work. But it looks great. I updated (and maintain) the student learning webpages, which includes maintaining the online enrolment forms, (for workshops and consultations) and keeping the "Hot Topic" up to date with new features or products. I help my colleague with maintaining her Moodle pages (although she doesn't need me at all... she's a superuser), I'm updating the online site for our language students... it has exercises and language related resources, but had become very old-fashioned. So, I'm currently freshening that up, ... and looking for a way that I can develop a suite of pronunciation products.

Pronunciation products: I want the students to be able to listen, try and compare with a sound file on the webpage. I've seen this done ... so far the most viable way appears to be using Shockwave, but I don't think I'll be able to get my hands on Adobe "Director" ... the interface for making shockwave files... other options, are Flash, or just program it myself with php, talking to a MS Access database? Can that be done? ... so, possibly I'll keep you posted as to my progress with this!

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