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sept 20, 2000 Critters at the Auckland Zoo... (more)

sept 18, 2000 Visit to Auckland University of Technology... (more)

sept 17, 2000 Orewa and northland beaches (more)

sept 15, 2000 On stage at UNITEC.. (more)

sept 11, 2000 Rangitoto excursion... (more)

sept 10, 2000 Waitakere Range and Tiritiri Matangi.. (more)

sept 08, 2000 One week a Kiwi... (more)

sept 06, 2000 Workshops at UNITEC.. (more)

september 21, 2000
Today marks the first of many transitions in the .nz part of this trip, it is the last day of my three week visit here to UNITEC, so tonight I am packing my big duffel for the road trip tomorrow to Coromandel. But that is getting ahead of myself.

In the morning I provided an invited presentation to faculty in the Arts and Social Sciences area; these are instructors currently providing or interested in creating online courses at UNITEC. For today, I was reviewing some of the resources and tutorials we provide from MCLI, in what I titled "Online the MCLI Way". A good portion was from a presentation from 3 years ago with Paradise Valley Community College instructor Donna Rebadow (hi Donna!), what we called "Technology for Learning: Mirage, Reality, or Magic". The ideas still hold up well (I think), although we laugh because the first feedback we got from the Miami-Dade Community College audience was, "that was entertaining..."

Despite our evangelizing, there are still administrators and faculty that think there is some sort of magical recipe or black box for cranking out web courses by the bushel.

today's photos

- all photos   o o o o

o o UNTEC starting photo #65

After the presentation, I had some time to meet with Claire, the Instructional Designer for Learning Technologies and Jennifer from the Learning Support Center, which has a prettier Maori name of "Te Tari Awhina" (pronounced "Tee Ta-ri a-Fee-na"). Since they are looking at materials to support Study Skills, I showed them an old project we did at MCLI (1993?) called "The Study Skills Wheel". I had not even seen it in a while, but it is still pretty good multimedia, even if the project was not completed. I also showed them LEE (Learning English Electronically the grammar program we created as a CD-ROM (that one was finished!) and "Research Methods in Social and Natural Sciences" first done in HyperCard and then later as a web site.

Then it was off for a field trip with the staff of Learning technologies! We piled into a UNITEC van and Mark drove us to "Chevalier Point", a cafe in the area of Point Chevalier (did you follow that?). The cafe is an old bakery redone in light tones with bright paintings. When we walked up, we saw some "strange bloke" just "wombling" out the door... oh, it is just Richard! (the head of the department ;-) Don't worry, he only looks dangerous.

For lunch we enjoyed some fantastic varieties of salads, pasta, and assorted stuffed things. And good coffee! The group atmosphere reminds me much of the one with the group back at MCLI.

As a parting gift (besides the lunch treat), I was given a fancy UNITEC wooden pen in a fancy wooden box (!) and also a special "partner" for my Arizona Diamondbacks hat... a UNITEC hat.

After lunch we walked the half of a block down to the lovely park at Point Chevalier, which just out into the bay with view west to the Waitakeres and east to Downtown Auckland, the Harbor Bridge and of course, Rangitoto. I managed to persuade them to pose for a group shot. I am so appreciative of how they all made me welcome here for my stay, and they things we were able to mutually share. Thanks Richard, Tania, Mark N, Mark B, Vern, Claire, Dave, Hemant, and Luis!

After the end of the day, I walked back to the Mt Albert shops, returning to the Affordable Book Exchange to grab a paperback novel for the long bus ride times ahead of me. This time it is The day of the Gecko by Oz author Robert G. Barrett, featuring hard boiled action hero, "Les Norton" stirring up trouble in Bondi Beach. I grabbed some great Chinese food at the BBQ Noodle House, where I got to practice my chop sticks skills (they don't provide forks!)

Now it is on to the next phase... the Coromandel!