Old dogs/new tricks : development of distance education learning tool

With increased qualification requirements for teachers in Australia's Labour Market Programs (LMP) has come the need to provide in-house training for current staff in many service organisations. Traditional styles of delivery like classrooms and set teaching dates and times, have proved to be inappropriate for this group of students who face multiple responsibilities, heavy workloads and are widely dispersed geographically. For one organisation distance education, through a digital medium, was used to provide an effective flexible learning environment while ensuring quality teaching and high outcomes. The student CDROM used for this teaching program underwent several stages of development. Changes were made based on student feedback. The resultant product was much more complex than originally expected but within this complexity students were able to access the specific information required with greater ease and student computer confidence improved. This report discusses the first three stages of development of the structure of the course for CDROM.