Updates from LL fieldwork – bringing Learning Toolbox to users
My recent posts on the EU-funded Learning Layers (LL) project were ‘catching up’ reports just after I finished my holiday period. Now the rapid start has hit us and overwhelmed us with fieldwork events and successive conferences. With this post I will concentrate on the field visit in Bau-ABC on the 2nd of September and our field tests with the Learning Toolbox (LTB).
Already before the holiday break the LTB developers had promised to provide a Beta version of the LTB by the beginning of September. We were pleased to observe that this promise was kept and that Raymond Elferink was available for presentations and field tests in Bau-ABC on the 2nd of September. With Ray a group of LL partners from ITB and Pontydysgu visited the training sites of several trades to trigger users’ own field tests and to get feedback. After these visits we gave a short presentation to the organisation development group of Bau-ABC.
Our first station was the training site of carpenters (Zimmerer). After a general presentation we discussed the development of tiles and stacks (sets of tiles and pages) for the training activities of Bau-trainers (Lehrwerkmeister) Friedrich Bruns and Markus Pape. Together we developed a test stack that made use of the comprehensive set of instruction materials (pdf-files) that Pape had made available via his Zimmererblog. With the help of LTB we created a test stack that makes thematic pages accessible in due time. The instruction materials are now accessed via Slideshare. In this way the materials can be used in smaller portions and filed in a more transparent way by the apprentices. Also, we discussed the options for managing the reporting of tasks and results of apprentices via LTB. Already at this point we saw some solutions, how to develop the desired interactivity in the first field tests.
Our second station was the training site of well-builders (Brunnenbauer). Here again, after a short general presentation we started to explore, how to make best use of the functionality of LTB without duplicating the work of trainers. The Bau-ABC trainers Lothar Schoka and Thorsten Busch indicated as indicated as a major problem the multitude of bulky instructions and manuals that are not easily accessible. Here, we prepared jointly test stack “Bedienungsanleitungen” in which we provided access to instructions via Slideshare and showed, how they could be grouped in a transparent way. In the same way showed, how the existing instruction videos (mainly uploaded in YouTube and accessible via Facebook updates) can be accessed via LTB tiles and grouped via LTB pages. In this way it became clear that the LTB is not causing duplication of work but opens new user-friendly channels to existing resources.
Our third station was the training site of road-builders and pipeline builders (Strassenbauer, Rohrleitungsbauer). Here we discussed with the Bau-ABC trainer Stefan Wiedenstried the general usability of LTB and in particular the role of instructional videos. Parallel to this some of us continued to make a short presentation for the organisation development group of Bau-ABC at the end of their meeting. Here we were welcomed by the trainer Lothar Schoka who could report of his fresh impressions after our visit. Then, after the meeting we also had good talk with the system administrator Ludwig Heyenga with whom we shared experiences with the technical development of the software solutions of the LL project.
Altogether we were pleased to see that the progress with LTB development was well received and the Bau-ABC trainers saw the value of the emerging product as support for their work. At the same time we saw that there is a lot of work to bring the LTB to a stage of maturity. Therefore, we need to return soon to Bau-ABC to pave the way for the next steps of testing in real life situations.
I think this is enough for the moment. We are looking forward to further updates of LTB and to our next field visits.
More blogs to come …
