E-learning products to enhance your teaching and training

Flexible Learning Toolboxes are designed to support the delivery of vocational education and training (VET) qualifications from Certificate I to Diploma level.

There are nearly 90 Toolboxes available offering a range of educational and industry areas including Certificate IV in training and assessment, horticulture, information technology, tourism, frontline management and more.

For around AUD$400, Toolboxes are delivered ready to use, or you can customise them to suit your own education and training needs.

To order a Toolbox contact Australian Training Products Limited (ATP) on tel : (03) 9655 0600 or follow the 'Purchase a Toolbox' link (opposite) to order online.

For assistance in successfully installing, using and customising Flexible Learning Toolboxes, contact the Toolbox Champion in your State or Territory.

Toolbox Repository

Download high-quality, web-based resources and learning objects for FREE and assemble your own e-learning resources from the Toolbox Repository.

"Using Toolboxes as a teaching resource is actually fun...I can teach from home, the workplace or even while I am travelling." Sue Hickton, Challenger TAFE, Western Australia

The Designing e-learning online resource offers teachers, multimedia developers and trainers in the vocational education and training (VET) system, fast-track access to the latest tips on developing and delivering e-learning programs.

The resource offers simple guidelines to develop e-learning courses. It includes stories of successful e-learning programs and provides a detailed guide to online assessment.

The online resource is set out in four easy-to-use sections to show how e-learning can be used to engage learners, provide flexibility and improve the quality of learning within the VET system:

1. Gallery of Strategies: an A-Z showcase and guide to the full range of e-learning activities.
2. Learning Design: 'show and tell' stories of successful e-learning, plus guidelines.
3. Assessing Online: a comprehensive 'step-by-step' guide for VET professionals.
4. Further Information: useful links and resources.

The Assessing Online section provides a detailed practical guide with useful tips, tools and resources to develop effective assessment strategies that meet Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF) standards. The assessment section can also be downloaded as a 'take-away' for easy printing.

By constructing a virtual timber house, learners are able to incorporate real data into their drawings, and input timber sizing and spacing to the correct timber framing standards required under the Australian Timber Framing Codes.

Using Building Blocks to Reality, learners can clearly visualise their structure taking place in 3D as they draw components in two dimensions. The instructional frameworks also allow learners to identify and correct their mistakes to produce a structurally sound virtual building.

The Building Blocks to Reality frameworks on this CD-ROM are available as Microsoft Word and PDF files. To apply the framework files, users will need ArchiCAD software which is available through Graphisoft on 1300 308 001. It is recommended that ArchiCAD Version 7 is used as items may display differently in an alternative version.

"Learners who have trialled these frameworks have been impressed." Brian Gepp, Douglas Mawson Institute of Technology, South Australia

NurseryLive!2 is an interactive 2D and 3D computer-based simulation of a horticultural nursery.

This product is especially useful for learning environments which lack physical resources. It allows learners and trainers in different locations to exist in the same virtual horticultural environment. Trainers are also able to deliver problem-based scenarios within the virtual environment.

NurseryLive!2 builds on the production nursery of the original NurseryLive!, which allows learners to actively engage in all aspects of managing a nursery; from raising plants to filling orders.

To get the most out of NurseryLive! and NurseryLive!2, use the Teachers and Learners Guides available in the support material opposite.

"Nursery Live is a great concept. It provides students with a fun way of learning about different plant problems and how to deal with them." Dave Hennessy, Horticulture Teacher, Bremer Institute of TAFE

Skills Assessment for Computer Based Learning is designed for learners to self-assess, check and confirm the skills and knowledge they have to assist them in successfully participating in computer based learning, or e-learning.

This product provides 25 interactive activities covering 11 skill areas including: using email and the Internet, identifying basic components of a computer, saving files and file management, software applications and 'netiquette'.

Skills Assessment for Computer Based Learning also provides education and training providers with a tool to assess a learner's computer based learning skill levels.

"This tool works well to direct students that don't have the skills they need to some basic training before they begin to use our resources." Claire Sinclair, Tutor Wide Bay Institute of TAFE, QLD

Your Online Learning Assistant (YOLA) can be used in a number of ways. Firstly, it can be used as a stand-alone learning resource to teach a range of different mathematical concepts including angles, conversions, percentages, ratios and scale.

YOLA also provides immediate interactive on-screen help for mathematical concepts while learners are using online or web-based learning resources.

With technical support, YOLA can be installed and embedded into online learning resources, like Flexible Learning Toolboxes, or it can be simply downloaded and switched on to function when needed.

YOLA is flexible and if you have the right technical expertise, it can be pulled apart and reinvented to provide 'just-in-time' support for other online resources or skill areas such as literacy or computing.

The ability of teachers and trainers to rapidly copy and move documents and images is unprecedented. Therefore, in an effort to avoid potential litigation, they must also develop an understanding of copyright law and legal obligations.

Copyright Kitchen offers a user-friendly and individually tailored guide to the legal loopholes and pitfalls of copyright law.

The Copyright Kitchen website asks users to enter their role and organisation. The website categorises users' details as if they were ingredients in a recipe. Legal outcomes can be determined by whether the user works in a private or public registered training organisation.

Users can peruse a number of common copyright and intellectual property issues including the length of time copyright lasts and the costs involved for using copyright material. Copyright Kitchen offers answers and advice and users can start their own personalised 'cookbook' of copyright issues which can be downloaded onto a personal computer.

A lack of Indigenous cultural awareness can lead to simple misunderstandings and act as a catalyst for strained relationships. An increasing number of organisations are recognising the benefits of introducing cultural awareness training.

The Interactive Ochre resource uses songs, vibrant graphics and interactive learning tools to deliver an Indigenous perspective on cultural awareness training.

It uses contemporary music and visually attractive imagery which are entertaining and stimulating. It provides an engaging format for staff accessing information through flowing animation and subtle but powerful symbolism.

Interactive Ochre is versatile and can be used by individuals at their workstation or as a workshop presentation. Interactive Ochre can be locally contextualised by working with Indigenous people to tell their stories, creating a platform modelling inter-cultural partnerships and improving workplace relations.

The vocational education and training (VET) Learning Object Repository Network (VLORN) is a network of organisations that cooperate via agreed standards to enable the discovery and use of learning objects.

The network of VET organisations comprising VLORN use consistent standards for content packaging, metadata and repository functions. The use of these interoperability standards supports the operation of the federated search and the transfer of learning objects to practitioners' local learning platforms.

VLORN provides an expanding collection of learning objects for VET practitioners, and a set of specifications and guides for organisations seeking involvement in the repository network.

The following national training initiatives are also associated with the Framework. They provide technology-related products and resources.

AEShareNet - www.aesharenet.com.au
AEShareNet's core business is licensing materials to give users the legal right to adapt and reproduce training materials. Access their online database of training materials owned by organisations around Australia.

EdNA Online - www.edna.edu.au
A directory and database of more than 15,000 quality assured Australian education and training related resources.