Progress Update

http://flickr.com/photos/blumpy/325853852/

This is an update of the progress we are making on the development of the Diploma in Applied Travel and Tourism.

Tour Guiding – completion of new integrated assessment for pre-moderation with ATTTO. Small amount of work on local course – Natural Flora and Fauna. Reworking of lesson flow. Ready for delivery next semester.

Adventure Tourism – design of assessment for pre-moderation by ATTTO. Development of teaching resources (build on from Tour Guiding already well planned). Plan for 10 day taster in Wanaka. Ready for delivery next semester.

These two specialties are top priority with the return of the tour guiding specialist this week. It is expected all work will be completed by end of August.

Travel Operations – After reflection on this specialty updating and refinement of teaching delivery and assessment will be carried out next semester.


Research Work Based Specialty - liaising with BAM/CEP project coordinator to work a combined approach and development of teaching resources under way and assessment design and pre-moderation. Ready for delivery next semester.

Reception Services
Ninety percent developed – needs reflection and minor changes – being delivered now.

Tourism Enterprises
This specialty is being delivered now – it will however be redeveloped to cater for market requirements. Teaching resources are being gathered to facilitate full blended learning.

All of the above will be completed by the end of the year


Future Plans
Tourism Sustainability
Funds for development of this in early 2009 are being sought from the September Innovation Fund Grant. Gathering of teaching resources already started. Design of course outline will be ready to go to Academic Board before end of year.

One further specialty is planned for development in 2009.
(This is will facilitate the offering of different specialties and student choice year to year).

Update

Progress is continuing on development of teaching resources for the Reception services and Tourism Enterprises specialties. This is proving to be time-consuming for the selling component as resources are not obviously available in the travel and tourism areas and need to be hunted out.Blogging for both these specialties is proving to be a bonus for students as they are able to pick up activities and resources from the blog especially if they miss class. However the ongoing problems we have been encountering with internet access - internet provider problems, is proving to be annoying - however have conteracted this by having a backup plan. Again this is a problem often encountered in the workplace no matter what industry you are in. It also highlights our reliability on internet access. Try looking at one of our blogs reception services blog .

Our blogging classes have temporarily been put on hold just until teaching has settled down. We will then go back to once weekly time slots. Teachers are however writing posts on the course blogs which is working really well.

I have also started working on the paper to be presented at the 5th Pan Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning in London in July. Susan Ellis from EDC is helping with the process which is proving to be complex but really interesting - hope those at the conference think so to.

Happy New Year - Update

This year has started as a busy one and looks as though it will continue that way. We will be delivering the first year of the second year of the programme - which is exciting. There are four new lecturers involved and I am sure the students will benefit from the greater input.

Along with EDC we have been hosting some blogging classes. Good opportunity to offer some training and help continue to build on our skill base. Those of us involved have started our own personal blogs in an effort to practise all of the things we would like to replicate on the course blogs. So let me update you:

Each our our six specialties on the programme will run with a blog - this is a way for us to keep students relevant with the latest happenings in tourism, communicate with students and link activities from the course blogs to wiki educator. Students will also be given the opportunity to post comments on the blog - we will be trialing this with second year students.

Take a look at Rachel's blog . We have also been looking at bloglines.

The best news however has been the acceptance of my proposal to present a paper to the Fifth Pan Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning in London, July 13-17. Working on getting the funds together for this??? The paper will be on "Open Education and Training in the Travel and Tourism Industry" have a look at the wiki if you want to read the full proposal.