The Australian Maritime College (AMC), an institute of the University of Tasmania (UTAS), is a Vocational Education and Training provider with a diverse range of students and a pressing need to deliver distance and blended learning to students who will typically be located anywhere in Australia or globally. AMC VET undertakes its operations under national standards and a unique combination of VET, higher education and international and national maritime industry regulatory and compliance requirements (ASQA, AUQA and AMSA enforcing STCW). AMC VET is the third oldest tertiary institution in Australia undertaking delivery of technical and vocational education courses by distance study.
“I was speaking to a group about why they needed to stop thinking in terms of content or technology and stated:
"Educators can get easily distracted, but if you remain focused on the student and the learning process and outcomes, technology and pedagogy follows." “
Dr Marcus Bowles, Assc. Professor UTAS / AMC
While UTAS has maintained the focus on distance and flexible learning, AMC VET has students with needs that are often distinct to those associated with the typical university student. The design of learning and teaching has to always consider the typical profile of AMC VET students:
While most BYOD policies tend to focus on on-campus student access to networks and content, AMC VET has tried to remove the need for a BYOD policy. Instead the focus has been on any device access and learning content design. This approach is further explained in the University of Tasmania’s Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching White Paper 2014-2018. For on-campus and distance students, this means securing access to digital learning resources that have been deliberately designed to assure anytime, anywhere, any device user requirements.
For on-campus students, any device access means using their own devices to access existing UTAS infrastructure and services.
ITS provides a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service to allow the campus community to access resources normally restricted to the campus network from off campus, providing encrypted access for all network-computing needs. Windows and Mac OS X are supported and provide access for laptop and desktop computers, whether University or personally-owned. Software and information are also provided for Linux, iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, but is unsupported. The VPN appears to be unavailable to Android phones and tablets.
UTAS has a secure WiFi network that all students and staff with a 802.11b or 802.11g network capable device can access. This network is available on the three main campuses (Hobart, Launceston, Burnie) and other remote centres. Once the device is configured to use UConnect, students have the ability to log on and use the secure network. Access to the UTAS wireless networks is authenticated and all wireless traffic - including login names and passwords - is encrypted to prevent unauthorised use of the network and eavesdropping.
UTAS Information and Technology Service (ITS) has the ability to set up network access for non-students and non-staff members. Through this means and Desktop virtualisation ITS can promote remote computing and thin client access from any Internet-connected device.
A range of cloud-based tools and platforms (e.g. Wikis, Blogs, M-Google/Google Docs) are used by Faculties and lecturers to promote open access and collaboration by students. Any device with an Internet connection can access the learning environment, content or data stored in the cloud.
Off campus study has and will remain a critical element in AMC’s teaching and learning. This is not just a preference or option, it is an essential component of lifelong learning journey seafarer students undertake. Students have to not only maintain currency of competence; they do this against international and national competencies that require applied work-based learning and assessment.
Given the focus on distance learning, the issue of BYOD was directly addressed as part of the overall approach to the design of learning. In effect the aim was to ‘design-in’ anywhere, any device access to AMC online VET content. This designed-out the need for a BYOD policy for distance education.
Teachers were empowered to use software with which they were familiar and then use standard templates and tools to convert their master content into a range of formats that assured ubiquitous, open access.
Device connectivity and access collided to limit practice in the assessment of VET students in the field. A number of restrictions meant remote and ‘at sea’ students had to return to campus to be assessed because:
To overcome this problem the overall design of assessment was revisited. As a result a technology requirement was introduced. This required assessment be conducted in situt hrough a number of solutions. The first solution was to develop an application for smartphones and tablets (initially for Android and iOS) that would permit the assessor to complete a competency assessment in the field. This result was signed off by the authorised assessor and the student, plus any evidence attached to the file (e.g. video evidence, phonograph, etc), was sent back to AMC’s RTO via the Internet. As AMC has numerous systems to report into, the data was held in the cloud and supplied to each system on demand: in effect entering data once rather than the multiple times currently required.
This first solution also considered the issue if no internet connection was present. On return to base lecturers/assessors could load and store evidence and original digital assessment forms. Alternatively the data was stored and when an internet connection (WiFi or cellular) became available it was synched back to the cloud database. The form was not sent, just the data and evidence.
The second solution that emerged from the success of the teacher m-assessment was to consider how to embed student assessments in a manner that equally could be completed by distance but synched back to the student results or LMS. The solution being explored has been to have assessments typically placed on the LMS being embedded into a multi-media eBook (e.g. Kitaboo). When the student returns to a location with internet connection not only their results for the formative tests or final quizzes are loaded, the data can include all the data typically collected from the LMS (e.g. student access to items, time spent on an item, progress, results, etc.).
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