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I'm here in RMIT's new Swanston academic building, a building designed from the ground up to
cater to the future needs of tertiary students. Bristling with the latest technology it takes
advantage of the seemingly unstoppable trend towards mobile-based online education. But
as educators increasingly take advantage of online delivery and continue to change and
adapt their teaching methods two things have become obvious. One is that proper planning,
good educational content and skilful user-friendly delivery can enhance any course, and make
the process of learning a richer, more fulfilling experience. What is also clear is that simply
throwing content online and expecting students to sift through the material without any guidance
or structure only makes the learning process more difficult
To maintain quality in its online delivery of courseware RMIT has for many years has
a service for academics called EduTAG or the Educational Technology Advancement Group.
Designed to provide many of the skills necessary for the creating of quality online education
EduTAG has been working successfully with academics for many years now, creating a variety
of media tools, websites and videos that help academics and professionals to improve the
content of their course and make the student experience richer and more student-centred.
Our support takes many forms. As well as assisting lecturers to develop quality
online courseware that is specific to their own needs. We also support research by developing
useful and original educational tools that can be used across a variety of disciplines.
So if you are an academic and you have a good idea for a new way to deliver your course
content or to create a new media tool that will enhance the learning process what's the
first step you should take? First go to the EduTAG website. There you will make your initial
contact through a project request form.
Simply enter your contact details, a short description of your idea and press send. Our
production supervisor will then contact you.
Well the first thing I did was contacted EduTAG and had a chat with them to see whether it
was a project that was actually within their scope and that they could help me with.
Obviously projects come in all shapes and sizes so it's important for both yourself
and EduTAG to have a shared understanding of the scope of the project. This is one of
the first things EduTAG will initiate. And it allows you to talk freely about your idea
and how you imagined it.
That's where EduTAG were really helpful because I didn't know the answers to those questions
but through their experience they were able to provide me with much more information and
work with me to develop something that we knew would be a viable product in the end.
EduTAG offers a variety of skills to help you realise your vision. Depending on the
type of project it is you may find yourself dealing primarily with the design team, web
development, photography or video. In some cases it may involve all of them. There's
a saying in education that content is king and nowhere is this truer than in the creation
of online courseware for without content the design and architecture of a learning resource
such as a website has no value.
So a large part of the collaboration between EduTAG and yourself is about shaping your
content so that it's suitable for online delivery. This is where EduTAG can draw on its experience
and knowledge having successful helped to launch a wide variety of resources online.
I don't have the expertise to develop a website like that so I provided the content and then
the website's been developed and with some beautiful additions like the use of videos
to give a real sense of the student's experience.
Before a resource is officially launched it's important to find out if it actually works,
not just technically but educationally. So to ensure it engages with the audience in
the way it was expected to EduTAG will also submit the project to user testing and will
act on the feedback to improve the final product.
That's why I've loved working with the team so much because at every turn I felt even
though they didn't know, how they were willing to try. And when I said go play, they played
beyond my wildest expectations so I think the playfulness really came out in them too.
So what I wanted was a group who could help me manage my time on the project and EduTAG
took that over.
It felt very collaborative and ...
As a central resource for the whole university we have our own criteria for project engagement.
So it's important to us that online resources are designed to maximise the numbers of students
using them.
Many academics find their resources can be used across multiple disciplines.
So if you have a great idea for an online resource you'd like to develop for your students
why don't you contact us? And we'll take it from there. You'll be surprised what you can
do with a good idea.