Web2.0erc - Examples of using the platform - No 7/8 - Supporting spreadsheet courses

Welcome Peter Rodler, and thank you for agreeing to speak about your experience with the course. Peter Rodler took part in the first test-course at the federal institute for adult education. I ran this course together with Karl Staudinger, and it took place in January and February of 2011. There were two classroom-based meetings in Strobl at the Wolfgangsee, around four or five online sessions, as well four synchronous online meetings using Adobe Connect, which is what we are using here. What really pleased me was that Peter Rodler was a very enthusiastic participant and furthermore he continued using the course platform which we developed for the EU-Project even after the course had ended. I am the head of the IT-Department at the community college in Korneuburg. Visiting this course at the beginning of the year made a significant impression on me and also our ongoing courses. The influence it has had is only in the early stages at the moment. As soon as I had completed the course in Strobl, I already attempted to implement the influence into my existing courses. I used two Excel courses, the level of which is comparable to the ECTL-Core module 4, syllabus 5, those familiar with these courses will know what is meant. All-in-all I had seven participants, all female, which isn't exactly much, nonetheless it was a good experience. The general framework of the course comprised of a compulsory textbook in which the content could be found, this was not available on the platform. The web platform provided access to a number of exercises which served to deepen knowledge through practical experience. Another thing we came up with for the course was Live-Support which we provided through Skype, since this is the most common VOIP-service and it's also free. Currently this is still in a test phase. Each trainer has their own account, if I go on Skype then my icon will show I am online, the participants can then click on that and call me. Obviously we would have to provide the participants with times of availability so they know when they can reach the trainers. It has been intended to provide an exercise at the end of each chapter of the textbook. For example here, for the diagrams, there is a corresponding exercise file which can be downloaded and saved to a computer. After which, a series of steps can be followed from the textbook, in this case it would be page 105. Once finished, the completed task can be uploaded again, allowing the trainer to check it. This allows for two possibilities for completing the tasks: either they can be done during the classroom-sessions, or they can just as well be completed during the e-learning phases in between. It definitely was, and is, a great form of support for the trainers. All resources are available to hand. This can allow us to have, for example, individual trainings with participants to find out what specific wishes they have. Often they say they would like something to the subject "windows", when in fact it is really digital photography they are interested in, or other widespread subjects. This platform allows me to have all resources to hand, so that I can create an individual program for each person. It is an essential tool that I can access from anywhere. Thank you for your time, for your commitment to implementing the tools provided by the project and for all the feedback.