Digital Learning Resource

Useful Information about Open Software

What is Copyright?

Before you can legally reuse learning resources from the internet (or any other source) it is important to know about copyright. Every published work is protected whether it has the © or not. This means it may not be copied or changed without the owner’s permission.

Open Software
In recent years sites on the internet have provided a place where owners can publish their work and allow people to use it under terms they set.
Useful sites are:-
http://creativecommons.org/
Australian Flexible Learning Framework Community
http://del.icio.us/leighblackall/OpenCourseWare
http://sourceforge.net/
http://opencontent.org/ocwfinder/

You can use the above sites or search for using a search engine of your choice & fill in the topic you require0 + open software (eg. Accounting + open software).
These are excellent sites for finding resources to use in Flexible Learning but it is important to know the terms of the license if you are going to use a certain resource, as licenses vary. If you are not aware of what the license symbols mean then you may inadvertently use the resource illegally. We will look at Creative Commons Licenses.

There are 6 different licenses in CreativeCommons which allow the world to copy, distribute and sometimes change the original work under the owner’s conditions. Symbols are used for each type of license & these are inserted by the name of all works available from CreativeCommons (see chart below).If permission is obtained from the owner of the license the conditions are over-ruled.
Other sites do not use symbols so it is very important to read the License agreement before clicking “I Agree” because if a person does not know the content of the license agreement they could us the software illegally.

This is a mindmap which I created in Gliffy. It is for a teaching session I need to do for another the Foundation Skills course but thought I would post it here. I find Gliffy easy to use once you work out page sizes etc.

I have been recording videos in http://Camstudio.org just playing around at the moment but will add audio when I have it sorted out the way I want it.
I think I will try to incorporate an exercise in the MYOB course which involves exploring the free software in http://CreativeCommons.org so people know that MYOB is not the only choice, there are lots more out there.

Flow Chart Notes
The Learners are predicted to be of different skill levels & ages. MYOB is a comprehensive accounting program so I think it is necessary for the learner to have a basic knowledge of Excel. We will have to have a ftf with each learner & ensure they are competent at using excel to Level 2 US. If our students are not competent in Excel we will have to help them learn that first.

I would like to make a video using Camstudio of the MYOB program setup, & give students an introduction to it. I have had a look at Camstudio but still have a few things to sort out. I think camstudio will be very useful for our present students. I could make short videos of how to do various things which our beginners always struggle with so am looking forward to getting it up & running.
The assesment part of the course will comply with nzqa requirements & will consist of the student completing & submitting several documents such as Trial Balances, Balance sheets, Inventories etc. Also there will be some theory questions which the student will have to answer when they reach certain stages of the course. There will be an extra exercise at the end which will encompass all the sections where the student has to set the system up, enter the data & produce a balance sheet. Not sure what % of the total mark this exercise will contribute yet, will have to design the exercise first.
I would like to set up a Discussion board in Blackboard for the students to communicate with other students & the facilitators, as I have found the Discussion Board in this course great, it has really got me thinking. Our students will not all be enrolling at the same time so this may have an effect on how students participate, but I'm hoping it will work for them, will definitely give it a go.

Jean, my Manager, & I have talked about the course we want to design. We decided a Flexible Learning Course for MYOB would meet the needs of our community. We have many small businesses & lots of people who own them have inherited MYOB as an accounting program. Many don't know how to use it so it does the job efficiently, but don't have time to attend full-time MYOB courses at our Cromwell Campus.We have 2 potential target Learner types who require different resources & tools:-1.People who own a small business & already have the program. They want to learn to use it more efficiently, so it answers the questions & generates reports they can send to the Accountant. These people don't really want a qualification.2.People who want to learn how to use an Accounting program for employment purposes. These people want a qualification as proof they can use an Accounting program effectively.We decided, because of time constraints, we would target the 1st group. There are more people in this group also. Although a qualification is not necessary we will probably design this course around the Unit Standards elements, as this is a good basis for a complete course.This is a specialised program so the student should be competent in the use of Excel (or similar) to US Level 2.I would also like to follow up on group 2 to make it a course where students can access free software & use it with a set of data we have created. That plan will have to wait. I did look at some free software & it looked promising.I will send Jean all the postings on my blog to keep her informed. Leigh, Jean says you will understand if she doesn't want to blog.