WORKING with talented people from around the world and the flexibility of fitting in study across time zones are some of the reasons students enjoy online courses. All that’s needed is a computer, digital camera and scanner.
At Southern Cross University, a new graduate certificate of recruitment, placement and career development is a distance-education course for people in the employment services and recruitment industry.
Course co-ordinator and lecturer Ros Cameron says Blackboard and Illuminate software are provided by the university. Most communication is done in the Blackboard forum, which includes videos, and assignments are submitted online. Students need to spend five to 10 hours a week studying.
The University of NSW’s College of Fine Arts has been running a fully online master of cross-disciplinary art and design coursework degree for the past 18 months.
Postgraduate course co-ordinator and lecturer Simon McIntyre says the students, aged from 23 to 65, are in locations such as Singapore, Hong Kong, China, the US, Philippines and the United Arab Emirates.
“We have students in outback Australia who only have access to a shared dial-up internet account.”
Lectures are delivered as text and images, videos or podcasts. After lectures, students come together in an online message board to discuss ideas.
Interactive media and design teacher Andy Polaine is in Germany and has been teaching online since 1999. “Face-to-face classes usually suffer from a few dominant personalities, time pressure and being too full. Online class interaction is much more active and engaged,” he says.
“Online students and teachers can take time to think about what they want to say, disagree and debate with more confidence because they don’t have the face-to-face confrontation.”
He says online teaching usually emphasises a collaborative process. “Conversations are automatically archived, so when someone says something brilliant in a particular thread, everyone can go back and refer to it.”
Polaine says a downside is that the life on campus dies out but the weakening of the students’ union through the abolition of compulsory fees has helped that process anyway.
“Universities need to rethink what the physical campus is about and I believe it’s about creating flexible, social and collaborative spaces to meet and work. Otherwise there’s not much point in leaving the comfort of your computer and home.”
Student Lianna Wittenberg, who lives in Singapore, started studying in March. “The interaction can be fast paced or slow. It is interesting in the way the written word can be taken. There have been instances where I have read something, taken offence to it and later realised it may have been written in a different tone,” she says.
“I have found the experience quite a roller-coaster ride. I am often rushing back to the message board to see if anyone responded to my comments. My friends joke that the online course is the new Facebook as I am always on it and checking who said what.”
She describes the convenience as “excellent”. “With time differences, job and social commitments, I can still manage to work online and achieve some great results.”
Category: Writing
Drastic shortfall of building apprentices
| Construction apprentices are in critically short supply, Cotton Ward writes. A looming shortage of 40,000 building tradespeople means a bright future for current apprentices. Master Builders’ Association executive director Brian Seidler says that in the construction industry "all areas are in high demand". "During the next seven years we’ll have 80,000 tradespeople retiring. We only have 40,000 building apprentices. That’s a shortfall of 40,000.” New home construction is down but Seidler says that "when NSW picks up in a few years, it will be a delight for builders – they’ll be able to charge whatever they like". The shortage of apprentices is caused by two main issues affecting small and medium businesses: workers’ compensation and occupational health and safety laws. "These smaller businesses would rather hire [skilled] people than train them," he says. "We’re lobbying [the NSW Government[ to change the laws to be less onerous on employers, so they can get an exemption for apprentices." Trades identified by the Department of Education, Science and Training’s National Skills Needs List as being in short supply include bricklayers, carpenters and joiners, electricians, fibrous plasterers, painters and decorators, plumbers, roof slaters and tilers, stonemasons, and wall and floor tilers. Builders do a four-year apprenticeship, which includes spending one day a week studying at TAFE. The final year usually involves working full-time. But finding an employer can be difficult. "We have 450 people seeking apprenticeships through the Master Builders’ Association’s group apprenticeship training scheme every year," Seidler says. "About 250 of them are suitable, but we can only place 70. Employers need more incentives to take on young people." With the MBA Apprenticeship Scheme, apprentices are in a full-time employment-based training program and are outsourced to builders and subcontractors in different environments. They gain a nationally recognised qualification that has been developed by industry. Its apprenticeships are open to anyone aged 16 or older. It’s preferable to have completed year 12, vocational studies at school or have work experience in the industry, and to be competent in maths and English at year 10 level. Applicants should be fit and agile, able to work at heights, have an aptitude for working with their hands, enjoy working as a team and be willing to travel to different sites. To apply for an apprenticeship, send a resume to the recruitment officer at apprenticeship@mbansw.asn.au JOIN UP TO EARN A GOOD LIVING |
Share this:
Keep your fingers to yourself
| Too many fingers can have an effect on your typing and your appetite, as a young temp discovered in Perth. In 1985 I got a temping job as a secretary at police headquarters in Perth. About 12 of us were sent to the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) to process the state’s criminal records onto the computer system. Getting in and out of the building was like the opening sequence of Get Smart. The bureau had its own lock-down section within the HQ and it was difficult to use the kitchen and toilets because the doors locked behind you and we didn’t all have the right passes, so we’d have to get an officer to accompany us. Everyone was completely straight-laced and several of the temps were fired and no reason had to be given, due to the nature of the work. Usually, it was because they’d made a joke about friends who’d smoked dope. It was an exciting section – one day they brought bomb debris into the office for examination and another time I got to hold a hatchet that had been used in a murder. There was one phone in our area and it was permanently guarded by a uniformed police officer. We had to ask permission to make a call and then every word was monitored to make sure we didn’t pass on any records information. The detectives had a black sense of humour and were very sociable. They held events at each other’s houses and once I went for a ride with the police sirens blaring. The detectives also had a billiards room. All the cues were lined up on the wall and padlocked as they’d had problems with someone stealing them. Hardly anyone in the bureau used to go to the canteen, as it was too difficult to get out of the lock-down section and the only exit to the canteen was lined with stomach-churning murder photographs. After a couple of weeks in the lock-down area, I was whingeing about there being no chocolate or soft drinks and the detectives told me they had half-price Kit Kats in their fridge, which was padlocked. I handed over the money, they unlocked the fridge and said “OK, get one.” I reached in and there were severed fingers in plastic bags next to the Kit Kats. “What are those fingers doing in the fridge?” I asked, and they said it was something to do with checking fingerprints: “We only keep them for three days.” That was it – they were men of few words. I went back out to the records area and didn’t say anything, but I never ate that Kit Kat and never again did I buy one from them. |
Share this:
Hostess with the mostest
| Next time you hold a party, surf the Net first for tips on making it memorable, writes Cotton Ward.
Birthday Express.com www.celebrateexpress.com/bexpress Print out free colouring-in posters of dragons, unicorns and fire trucks and connect-the-dots pictures for children’s parties, courtesy of Birthday Express.com. Here you’ll find a party planning wizard, customisable checklists and recipes. It suggests keeping children’s parties to no longer than 2.5 hours as “young guests will be excited” and “mishaps may occur”. Best to put those cherished Franklin Mint pieces out of reach then. How to throw a party www.connect.net/ron/howtothrowaparty.html “Don’t use a sheet,” warns Ron Turner, of Texas, who loves throwing toga parties. Follow his step-by-step guide on how to tie a toga correctly, and then accessorise (such as with plastic swords) and G-rate it (“wear gym shorts underneath”). Take note of his rough guide for calculating beverage consumption: simply determine whether your guests are mainly “normal” (allow 2.5 drinks per person for the evening) or “alcoholics” (2.5 drinks per hour). Go straight to the Party Animals section to find the top games, as judged by this UK-based hospitality company. Highlights include “the Psychiatrist” (where you ask each other a lot of raunchy, rude and tactless questions), toilet games (“Mummy wrap” – the site advises that you have the video camera handy for this one), various drinking games and “games to annoy the neighbours” that involve a lot of shouting and rapid jumping up and down. Party 411 Outwit, outlast, outplay, outparty. Yes, Survivor is one of dozens of themes outlined at Party411.com, where every detail is included. For example, Survivor party guests should only be allowed to bring along two “luxury items”. Then they can play immunity challenges where they have to eat gummy bugs. The site advises that if you ever want to see your friends again you’d better make sure they don’t have to vote each other off, or else you could be left standing alone with the winner at 9pm. eHow to Be the Life of the Party http://206.67.52.250/eHow/eHow/0,1053,4126,00.html Make a grand entrance by carrying a kazoo and announcing your arrival, advises Elvis Terrier, who has written this guide for the eHow site. He suggests you should flirt a lot, but “don’t end up alone in a room with someone” because then you’ll miss “your chance to shine”. Also, avoid anyone lurking by the food or doors because they’re not “likely to be interested in conversation”. Hmm, sounds like the ideal spot so you won’t be approached by anyone following these guidelines. Bucksweekend.com You’re organising a buck’s night, so you have to get the groom legless, strip him and handcuff him to a lamp post, right? Not so, say the folks at Bucks Weekend.com, who fancy themselves as “Australia’s premier buck’s night organisers”. A choice of packages combines paintball, fishing, golf, scuba diving and outings to the races. Take the Super Saver option (provide your own transport) and save $45 per head. The site wears like a badge of honour a review it attributes to this paper – “every bit as crass as you might expect” – and one glance at the home page justifies the comments. What’s Going On.com Nothing good on this weekend? Then visit What’s Going On.com, which lists the best parties and events worldwide. Each event features ratings such as: “do it before you die”, “down and dirty” and “potential to see blood”. Recommended events when we visited included the “Love Parade” in Berlin and the running of the bulls in Spain. Or pop over to Finland for the “Wife Carrying World Championship”, in which you can win your wife’s weight in beer. Housewarming parties www.hgtv.com/HGTV/project/0,1158,FOLI_project_14894,FF.html Hand out name tags that look like welcome mats, suggests entertaining expert Dana Christine, then encourage guests to wander throughout your new abode by placing appetisers in the hallway, the main course in the next room and coffee in the kitchen. For dessert, treat your guests to a frosted cake that features a picture of your new home created out of icing. Easy. Martha Stewart.com For dinner party ideas, visit the American doyenne of domesticity, Martha Stewart, who has built a $1.2 billion media and mail-order empire on home hints. The “entertaining 101” section has food and drink menus for every occasion, and graphics to show you how to fold table napkins correctly and make table decorations. There’s a right way and wrong way to do everything, and Martha knows best. Tupperware Wear as many different types of clothing, shoes and jewellery as possible, stuff your handbag with bizarre items and be prepared to lie a lot whenever you attend a Tupperware party. Why? Because they always play those games where you score 20 points for wearing gold, 40 for athletics shoes, 75 if your name is Pat, and so on. And for what? One of those plastic mats that open every jar and bottle. Tip: you can buy the mats for about $2 at Woollies. Making a date Plagued by fickle friends who can’t agree on a time and place? Ask them to take part in an online poll from evite.com (http://evite.citysearch.com) where they can vote and agree on details. Then send an electronic invite from the same site. |
Share this:
In your wildest
| Cotton Ward travels to the land of Nod to unravel the meaning of your dreams.
Ask the Dream Doctor Do you know the meaning of elevators in dreams? If you do, you could win a free analysis with the Dream Doctor, Charles McPhee, the former director of the Sleep Apnoea Program at the Sleep Disorders Centre in California. He runs an interactive site where you can submit dreams for interpretation. Head for the Teen Zone area – they have the most vivid dreams with subjects such as “Time bomb”, “Blind driver”, “Still angry” and “Kill a jaguar”. Dream Tree www.dreamtree.com The history of dreaming is fascinating. Aristotle thought dreams could indicate illnesses. The Chinese built dream temples that judges would visit to gain wisdom. Ancient Egyptians believed the gods infiltrated the dreams of their royal leaders. This article by Gail Bixler-Thomas explains the importance of dreams since ancient times, and the debate over whether they have meaning or are useless memories being dumped by the brain. Sigmund Freud – The Interpretation of Dreamswww.psywww.com/books/interp/toc.htm This third edition of Freud’s book was first written in 1899 and is pretty heavy stuff. If you can’t get through it, just try relating everything you’ve ever dreamt of to sex. Freud says that when he worked on the “problems of the neuroses” he had “often gone astray”, but his work on dream interpretation restored his self-confidence. The Lucidity Institute “Many people have said their first lucid dream was the most wonderful experience of their lives,” says Dr Stephen LaBerge, the founder of this site. Lucid dreaming is when you’re aware that you’re having a dream. While some people worry they’ll become so addicted to pleasurable dreams that they’ll “sleep their lives away”, Dr LaBerge reassures us this is unlikely because we have a limited amount of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. The Quantitative Study of Dreams By analysing the dreams of people from several industrialised nations it was discovered that Americans have the highest occurrence of physical aggression. Overall, though, aggression, misfortune and other negative emotions were more frequent in the dreams of people living in poorer or preliterate countries. The papers posted at this site are the results of studies run by researchers at the University of California. The studies Association for the Study of Dreams Like a scene straight out of Ghostbusters, the Association for the Study of Dreams, Working with colour in dreams Prominent colours in your dreams have positive and negative connotations says author Bob Hoss, who has written a book on the subject. He outlines a method for selecting the most relevant colours and matching these against a chart that lists statements associated with each colour. There are a few surprises: yellow seems like a cheerful colour but according to Hoss it can mean “unfulfilled hopes have led to uncertainty and apprehension”. The Nightmare Project Serial killers, spiders, bogeymen under the bed … they’re all here in more than 200 nightmares, thanks to collator Walter Marconette. “Nightmares tell us that our happy, serene lives can be ripped away at any moment,” says Marconette. “They taunt us with the suggestion that … evil just might triumph in the end.” Hellish scenarios include “Subterranean god”, “Satan’s child”, “Killing spree” and “Date with death”. Dream Gatherers www.dreamthread.com/gather.html Ever had a dream that prophesied an event and it came true? The team at DreamThread would like to hear from you. Site creator Ariadne Green is a counsellor who specialises in dreamwork and shamanism. “We call for dreams answering a variety of global questions,” says the site. “Prophetic dreams can have an incredible impact on the global community.” Green is particularly interested in anything you’ve dreamt about the influence of the Hale-Bopp comet or political and social events. Crop Circles – Their Meaning and Connections to Dreams www.greatdreams.com/crpcirc.htm Crop circles are “symbolic messages” made by an “unknown higher intelligence”, say Joseph Mason and Dee Finney, who’ve spent 10 years researching the phenomenon. They believe crop circles are related to dreams and human consciousness. The most impressive section features crop circle photos next to drawings of symbols from dreams and visions. “Messages from ‘spirit’ and/or ‘alien/ET’ influences are coming to us in various ways … and we NEED to know what they mean,” they implore. Drug nightmare Want more refreshing Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep? Don’t try marijuana and alcohol as these usually cause a “REM rebound” where you experience long REM nightmares when the drug has worn off. LSD-type drugs can induce longer REM periods, but they’re also illegal. |
Cotton Ward 