Selena

A hardcopy of Professor Stephen Billett ’s new book ‘ Vocational education: purposes, traditions and prospects’ arrived in the library just as I got back to work a month ago.  Usual preview also available on Google books. As much of the content is relevant to my research, I have put time  into working through the book. In this book, Billett argues for better recognition/respect of the role of vocational education. To support the assertion he begins by undertaking a review of the positioning... Read Full Story

There are now many ebooks in the CPIT library. During my summer trawl through the University of Canterbury library, I noticed many of the journals now only available as digital (as from 2008) and there are more books listed as ebooks on the library catalogue. At CPIT, many of our ebooks are available via the eblib ( EBL ) subscription. You can either browse the books (5 minutes – arrghh) or make a request for a loan. Loan requests are for 7 days and there can be gap of a few days (for some... Read Full Story

Through browsing through another new book in the CPIT library, I started to work through the first few chapters in greater detail. The book is ‘the Sage handbook of workplace learning’ edited by Margaret Malloch, Len Cairns, Karen Evans and Bridget N. O’Connor. Chapter 2 by Professor Paul Hager on ‘theories of workplace learning’ provides a good overview of the three approaches , the theories influenced by psychological theories, socio-cultural theories and post-modern theories. So, time to... Read Full Story

Endgadget s has a brief summary of the latest Apple launch. An educational focus with details of ibooks 2 for purchase of textbooks, free Mac app - ibooks author - for those who want to compile their own textbooks and put them up on itunes and an ipad app for itunes U . A more educationally focused summary from the Guardian  provides some balance. Unfortunately, ibook has always been a dud in New Zealand as we are only able to access a small range of 'free' classics . Similar thing now with... Read Full Story

I am putting the time in this week to catch up on reading of books recently purchased by the CPIT library. Firstly, a hard copy book edited by Liv Mjelde and Richard Daly as part of the series published by Paul Lang on studies in vocation and continuing education called ‘ working knowledge in the globalizing world '. The articles in this book originated from papers presented at a conference in oslo in 2004 on vocational education and training. The chapters in the book have been divided into... Read Full Story

After last year’s interruptions, I am looking forward to a quieter and more productive year. However, the year ended with a good shake up on 23rd December with another aftershock and we have had several reminders the earth is still settling in with aftershocks in the first week of January. I am hoping that plans for this year will eventuate as CPIT braces for another year. I have applied for two Ako Aotearoa Southern Hub funded projects. One with hospitality front office receptions tutors... Read Full Story

This year is clearly one to remember. The earthquakes of September 2010 , followed by the damaging February 2011 and large June 2011 aftershock , created a great deal of disruption for many and huge lose and sadness for large numbers of Christchurch residents. At work, we also had disruptions caused by two large snow storms (in July and August) and strikes from one of our teacher unions (September, October). So it has been a hard and trying year for students and staff. A year of having to... Read Full Story

Last week, I was away from the office for almost a week. I took along my ipad and resisted using any other computer. While away from the office, using the ipad to complete simple tasks like checking and replying to email is sufficient. For blogging, I type up notes on notepad and then copy across to the ipad blogger app.  The blogger app also allows for insertion of photos, either from the photo gallery or directly from the camera and tagging with labels. However, both notepad and the blogger... Read Full Story

After lunch, three more round table discussions: Working with small groups with Sam Honey Students with disabilities with Tracy Riley Accommodating baby boomer to gen x with Judy Magee most academy members are baby boomers but students tend too span the generations. 'Generational gap' between students seems to be narrowing and each brings challenges and rewards. In some programmes, 'mature' students are 'valued' as resource centres. utilising students as resources requires some planning and... Read Full Story

Day begins with a discussion of academy future with John Hoskins. Each regional group summarized their plans on how they will respond to Ako aotearoa's call for academy members to contribute. Then two sessions to choose from I attended Mike walker's session on Growing undergraduate success with Maori and pacific island students. Began by defining the Maori phrases in his title. Te whenua, the tangata, the aronui, the maramagata. Nzs young people are predominantly non-pakeha but concentrated... Read Full Story