A refreshing first day of deployment!

I felt good about today when it started and my feelings were correct! The highlights...

• I and my marketing officer setup the system in the morning of two computers with data dongles.

Testing the system before the class

• Upto this blog post I have had the pleasure of three nurses come into the course

• A student who had not used computers before was able to grasp the concept of the internet...

30 mins before only one had IT skills

30 min later both were into the lesson

• Although they had difficulties in English and technical hitches here and there they really interacted well with the lesson. The lesson had links to an English-sinhala dictionary and they were well used throughout the course from my observation. We merely played the role as facilitator!

Students in the lesson

Taking notes! Must have bee useful!

Engaged in a chat with a virtual 'ලෙඩා'

• Finally we explained about the questionnaire and the students filled them up privately and placed them in a ballot box to be opened on the 26th evening!

Student putting a form into the 'box'

Although I had beta tested the system with some technical people still there were a few errors in the hyperlinks. But all in all it was a very satisfying day and gave me insight how big the words 'quality assurance managers' are not to mention the technical difficulties of running a small course like this let alone a big one.

One small step...

LMS finished but deployment is pending!

Another opportunity to overcome an obstacle!

Finally I managed to setup the LMS and feel satisfied I followed all the principles I have mentioned in my mock methodology. The course is small but sweet and already Prof Jayantha feels it has some merit which is a boost for me! Unfortunately I have now hit a roadblock in the form of networking problem with the internet. I now have two options:

1. Reduce the course to two computers as I can use my data dongle and the hospital data dongle
2. Or work for the next day and put the LMS on a LAN as was planned in my alternative system

I still feel option 1 is better as I don't see each person taking more than 2 hours to go through this short lessons and keeping the course open from Today till Wednseday 9 - 9 means I should be able to get at least 20 students through.

Stuck with lesson development

Unfortunately nobody to help with the lesson development!

• Storyboard
• Content
• Building up the PBL to reveal TB

I have a bad feeling about this but I am sure this is a point to be talked about in the limitation!

A breakthrough in the appearance of Moodle

Much better than the drab colors of Moodle...

Although initially I though I will be consigned to bring out the attractiveness of the LMS by my own animations etc. I, with some technical guidance from Mr Roshan Dikkumbura, Technical Coordinator, Moodle, PGIM managed to make a much better theme! On Roshan's advice I have tried to make a quick link area as a demonstration of one of the rules of Shneiderman's "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design" which states

"2 Enable frequent users to use shortcuts.

As the frequency of use increases, so do the user's desires to reduce the number of interactions and to increase the pace of interaction. Abbreviations, function keys, hidden commands, and macro facilities are very helpful to an expert user."

The quick link list is just off the top of my head and I think it will get shorter and smaller. I also am planning to make profiles with clear pictures of everyone so they get that social network feel of things which might appeal to this youngish audience who may have heard 'මුහුණ පොත". Also the sinhala text will help give a clue!

I am very satisfied! My heartfelt thanks to Roshan for SKYPEing with me for nearly 3 hours on this one!

A rational rationale + moving some intro to method

Prof JW suggested I do a SWOT for the rationale:

S - We have solid nursing in SL
W - Their IT literacy and CPD levels are not great
O - The improved IT literacy should be exploited
T -  Their is a future threat for employment of some nurses so a LMS will address this

Also I think this business of my 'proposed' solution should really be in method as I cannot propose anything in an introduction! What was I thinking?

Nurse Training Centre

So now I require a nurse training center to deploy my LMS to our nurses. To this effect I have instructed Mr Nizam, Marketing Officer to use the available resources and make a 3 table area with 3 chairs in the Villa Room, Level 7 only until 31.1.11. I will also require:

• 3 Computers
• 1 will be my laptop
• 2 will be the Acer 14" laptop of Prof RS
  
• 3 will be the Compaq 14" of Mr WR
• Internet: Shall be provided by me
• Power Supply: Extension cords if not available in WI will be provided by me
• 3 Mouse: Shall be provided by me
  

The centre will be open daily from 9am to 9pm starting from Tuesday to 26.1.11. Mr Nizam will conduct orientation classes for the selected students during the period from 18.1 to 20.1 and anybody who needs introduction to basic computers. 21.1 to 26.1 will be only for students of the course which will include some orientation as well to be conducted by me. Up to today the following have agreed to follow the course.

1 Ms Kumari

2 Ms Shriya

3 Ms Nishanthi

4 Ms Vasana

5 Ms Sharika

6 Ms Erandie

7 Ms Udayangi

8 Ms Champika

9 Ms Chaturika

10 Ms Sanoja

11 Ms Lanka

12 Ms Nilushika

13 Ms Yamuna

14 Ms Nisansala

15 Ms Niranjala

16 Ms Dilrukshi

17 Ms Deepika

18 Ms Deepani

19 Ms Shanthi

20 Ms Indika

21 Sister Nilmini

...And any other nurses who could not be present for the interview conducted on 14.1.11 are still welcome up to the cutoff date of 18.1.11. If I could also interview Ms Pushpakanthi and Ms Naomi it would useful as well.

I shall collect only the data up to 26.1 evening and after that Mr Nizam will run the course for the benefit of the nurses till 31.1 when we can return all things back to normal.
I can well understand that everyone cannot be released at one time and neither do we have the PC's to do so. I shall work with Matron and Mr WR on this one. At the end of the day this is of benefit not only to me but also to the nurses who go through the course as such things as TB drug regimes and Mantoux testing will be covered.

Lets hope this works out InshaAllah!

Started testing embedding of flash!

A great start as I was easily able to to start embedding flash using Dreamweaver as the IDE and then copying the tags except the everything including and outside <body></body>. Worked like a charm! I am thinking since its a problem solving approach having it like a 'mystery' would be appropriate. Lets see. If I can write up the initial methodology it would be great!