flexible learning in ACE

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Online OH & S program for staff & students @ Longbeach Place

This scenario illustrates how a centre, and one program co-ordinator, found an innovative online solution to delivering occupational health and safety basics to staff and students at their centre.

Who we are

Longbeach Place
Southern Western Port

E: Anne Blight:anne@longbeachplace.org.au

We are an ACE provider in the heart of the Melbourne bayside suburb of Chelsea. We have a brand new facility occupied by a 27 year old organisation that began as a small Neighbourhood House. We have evolved over the years to become a well respected RTO. Whether delivering IT in partnership with Chisholm Institute or providing Occasional Child Care to local families our mission remains the same – to provide opportunities for people in our community. Word such as “community development”, “lifelong learning”, “empowerment” are fixed in our vocabulary.

As Program Co-ordinator, I really wanted to develop my own skills and gain an understanding of what e-learning was all about. That way, I figured, I would know what I was talking about when I got onto the tutors backs to include on-line “things” in their curriculum. I always need to do something practical, so I chose to adapt a unit in OH&S, I found under the Hospitality training Package, to fit our IT training - Certificate I and Certificate II in Information Technology.

I thought it would be a good idea to deliver one of the units online. That way students could develop their internet and email skills, whilst completing one of the more boring unitsin a new way. What more can I say – I mean OH&S, really, not a gripping subject at the best of times. But I thought, IT students, they like to do things using their computers, so all will be well. I also wanted an on-line course that could be used by staff and volunteers as part of their development.

Adapting the unit from Hospitality wasn’t all that difficult. I tended to leave in bits that weren’t strictly needed for IT but would still be useful information for anyone in the workplace. As mentioned before OH&S, a bit boring, so I decided I needed to do 2 projects simultaneously. I also developed a different course for our language and literacy students. I put in lots of funny animations, jokes and light hearted items. This way I had lots of fun on my learning curve of developing a course from the ground up as well as modifying the OH&S unit. Not being a tutor, I just had to use my own judgement with the assessment tasks of the OH&S unit.

Once the course was finished, all I needed to do was get the students to use it. Simple, I thought, just put them in and away they go. Not that easy as is often the case. Being a Co-ordinator, not a tutor, the time involved with being the instructor for the course was just not factored into my job description of hours of work. After several months of students drifting in and out of the course and nothing much happening, the course was just sitting there waiting for more student involvement. When students did begin to use the OH&S unit, we found it best to integrate it with other units in the class room and give them the option of also accessing the unit in their own time. This way we were adding value to the IT skills they were learning as part of their full course.

Our IT Co-ordinator and tutor, has a group of students who are ready to do their unit in OH&S. This tutor will take a copy of the course and change any bits that she needs as well as adding her own assessment tasks. Here’s looking forward to my unit in OH&S being given new life.