In this issue:

• Collaboration - what does it all mean? Some reflections by Bronwyn Hegarty
• Effective Practices for Early Childhood Teacher Education Online - Selena Fox and Chip Donohue.
• Interact 2.1 is out with SCORM compliance, Blogs and more
• The eLearning XML editor Project (eXe) update
• Communities - online and otherwise Etienne's visit, CPE and icommunities.org
• High Schools Some e- and flexible learning is going on in high schools
• Web 2.0: Blogs A local conference
• Informing the Development of a Digital Strategy for the Tertiary Sector in New Zealand David Ripley, University of Canterbury

And coming up next year: DEANZ conference 3-5 July 2006 - Auckland University of Technology (AUT) - Auckland, New Zealand

Any dud links, typos etc, please let me know - Derek

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Collaboration - what does it all mean?
Reflections by Bronwyn Hegarty
In 2003, the Tertiary Education Commission stimulated a flurry of activity in the sector by inviting funding for a range of research and development projects in eLearning. These projects came under the auspices of the e-Learning Collaborative Development Fund (eCDF) and the Innovation and Development Fund (IDF). The word was out! Collaborate and success could be yours. At the same time the Ministry of Education invited applications for eLearning research projects through offering Tertiary eLearning Research Fund (TeLRF).

Each year since the first applications for projects were invited, a number of projects have been completed. These can be viewed at the following websites:

ECDF and IDF
http://www.tec.govt.nz/funding/strategic/ecdf/updates.htm

TeLRF

So is collaboration all its cracked up to be?
I believe the projects have brought some diverse groups together in to working teams. Not only at the project team level but also as part of the outcomes of some of the projects. For example, the Flexible learning Leader project was not set up by a group of institutions, but its intention was to create an environment of collaboration and networking. This has been in keeping with the government’s intention for their funding. The outcomes of all the projects have been to produce some sort of resource which can be shared widely across the tertiary sector. This can only be good, and has certainly promoted an environment of entrepreneurial activity and sharing of toys. Now instead of us all being busy in our own caves reinventing the elements of eLearning, we have started to roam more widely, foraging and setting down roots. Networking appears to be on the increase, in fact a pandemic is looming….this collaborative lark is certainly infectious.

Interesting that the entertainment industry has been working in teams for years..look at what the creators of Friends used to do…sit in a room around a big table and create the scripts with the actors…horrors.

Education has been slower to grasp the concept of sharing…yes we may have brainstormed in meetings or in class rooms but when it came to sharing resources and teaching techniques, we were all pretty cagey and worried about intellectual property and copyright. Publications take ages to get to print, thanks to collaboration and online resources, the word is getting round faster.

Certainly many of us had networks before eLearning, but from my experience they were nowhere as global as they have become in the eLearning environment. The government funded projects have forced us to share. This can only be good! I wish the same principles were more pervasive in the everyday business of institutions….but hey…evolution takes time and revolution is chaotic, but the bonds you share can be everlasting. Which one do you choose?

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