At present I am working through a fairly large project to map the contents of various units of competency from the National Health Training Package to written assessments.  There is a large amount of information that needs to be unpacked and contextualised in order to understand these Units (but that’s a whole other story); but in nearly every one you’ll find the following in the Critical Aspects of Evidence:

Consistency of performance should be demonstrated over the required range of workplace situations.

My problem is that in every case I have had to admit that there is no way in the assessment as presented that Consistency of performance can be demonstrated.

So, what’s the problem?

The problem is that written tasks are great for checking theoretical knowledge but that is about it.  They demonstrate no real world competency and they capture only the student’s retention of knowledge (or ability to read Wikipedia) at that specific point in time.  Sure, a well written open question or scenario can go a long way to assessing attitude as well as understanding but still not consistency of performance.

Of course, the assessments in question do include comprehensive workplace competency checklists and observations but these too have flaws.  Firstly, this is distance education we are talking about so the educator may never meet the student face-to-face and these checklists are completed by the workplace supervisor (or in one case recently, the student’s mate at the pub).  Secondly, these lists only contain one column – Did the student do X, Y, Z? Yes/No?  So again, a valid assessment tool, but only capturing the moment and not the consistency of performance.

So, what’s the solution?

In an ideal world, the RTO would fly an educator out to each student several times a month so they could spend time going through checklists over and over to prove this consistency.  Sadly, this is the real world and there are a million reasons why this is never going to happen.  Distance education has the word “Distance” in it for a reason and we need to find solutions – eLearning or otherwise – that are relevant to this delivery method.

This is where I feel the work journal plays a vital role in the delivery of accredited training.  The actual format, function and complexity of a work journal is something for another day but I always find myself thinking about how I completed my training in the UK:

As part of our course we were required to continuously record a journal of our working day.  This wasn’t just an aimless diary of “Today I did this…”, but a structured journal.  We recorded what we had done – in this case it was surgical procedures – and then in another column we identified which Units, elements and performance criteria we thought our actions covered.  These sheets were then checked, commented and signed by a supervisor and then filed.  As a second step we would then complete unit checklists identifying which of these “Evidence Sheets” (as we called them) covered that particular unit.  A qualified educator would then only sign-off on a unit once they were happy that the evidence sheets demonstrated competency over a suitable period of time.

Far too many training providers are resorting to “Tick and Flick” methods of assessment these days and I think it is a shame that industry may suffer because students are – unwittingly – not getting the most from their chosen qualification.

Following are my 5 top tips for anyone considering taking their life in their own hands and going it alone…

1. Know your clients

I started my working life in the healthcare industry as a Paramedical Officer.  When I moved to Australia I became more interested in training and assessment, got my training qualifications and worked for a couple of years for a small Registered Training Organisation (RTO).  When I decided to go freelance then I knew that my target audience should be the healthcare industry and those niche market RTOs just starting out in e-learning.

Knowing your clients also means knowing how much to charge them for your time.  When I started I was finding work through www.Elance.com.  This was a great place to find short projects but in order to be competitive I couldn’t even charge the minimum wage in Australia.

Serious clients will be looking in serious places to find freelance workers.  What are your strengths?  Which platforms are you an expert in – Moodle, Articulate, Captivate, Lectora?  Whatever your field, there will be a forum or community where clients will be lurking, looking or advertising for work.  The competition for work can be tough, but build relationships with those successful bids; most ongoing work will be repeat custom or word-of-mouth.

Of course, never underestimate the power of the web.  A good website or blog can be your best marketing tool.  100% of your customers are working on the web so it makes sense that one of the first places they are going to look for you is in your natural environment.  One of my largest and longest client relationships started because they had searched on Google for Moodle & WordPress and found a blog post I had written.

2. Don’t try to be something you are not

This is something that I struggle with continuously.  Should I promote RedTwenty as a company (“WE can do this, that, the other”) or as myself (“I can do this, that, the other”)?  For a long time I went with the former but it just felt wrong.  Not only did it feel wrong, but I was running the risk of clients awarding me work believing that they were getting a whole team of people.

My strength is that I am just me.  My market niche is that I can come into a clients’ project and assume a specialist role within it without taking it over.  Why then market myself as a complete team of people?  Sure, if I need help I can always sub-contract but I am proud of the fact that when a client pays for my time, it is my time they are getting.

Work out where your strengths lay and play to them.  Don’t try to be something you are not as it will catch up with you eventually.

3. Get your accounts straight from the start

Probably the biggest headache for any person going it alone is the finances.  My first year was painful, I was keeping records of things I didn’t need and completely losing track of the things I did.  The Australian Tax Office (www.ato.gov.au) is a good place to start looking for advice.

Get yourself a good accountant from the start and ask them what you should be doing.  They will help you to get started with how best to structure your finance.  A few basics to remember:

• If you earn an income under $75,000 you don’t have to charge GST.
• Put around 21% of your income aside to cover your income tax.
• Keep receipts for EVERYTHING, you’ll be surprised what you can claim as a business expense.

I toyed with the idea of contracting a bookkeeper to look after my books but I found it really wasn’t that hard.  There are plenty of good accounting software packages out there (Xero, MYOB) but I discovered the open source GnuCash (www.gnucash.org).   GnuCash is easy to use and works well for sole traders such as myself.

The best advice I can give here is make your decisions on invoicing, accounting software, bank accounts etc. early on and stick to it.  It is more painful to have go back retrospectively and enter all your data again.

4. Remember work/life balance

Most freelancers, like me, will be working from home.  This has a number of pros and cons as was captured perfectly by The Oatmeal in his comic “Why working from home is both awesome and horrible”.

I really love working from home.  My commute in the morning takes around 30 seconds from the bedroom to my home office via the coffee pot.  On the downside, I rarely get out of my PJ’s before 10am.

I’m a father of a beautiful 2 year old girl and 6 week old boy and I am getting to spend more time with them in these formative years than most working fathers I know.  On the downside, for at least 30 minutes of every day I have a 2 year old sat on my lap drawing pictures on my notes and watching Peppa Pig on my 2^nd monitor.

I am lucky in my house that I have a purpose built study that I can lock myself away in and a wife who gets that I do have work to do.  If you have a family around, working on the dining table day in, day out is not going to be easy.

The only rule I live by is my 4 O’clock rule:  At 4pm every day that email and Skype shuts down and I go and spend time with my kids before dinner and bed.  Once they are in bed I am happy to catch up on work or reading if I need to, but giving myself those few hours of family time every day is what keeps me balanced.

5. A full order-book is bad for business development

When you first start out on your own the worry is that the work might “dry up” and you’ll find yourself with nothing to do.  I was the same and accepted every offer of work that came my way.

It’s great!  You work 40 hours or more a week of chargeable hours, the money is rolling in and you feel (quite rightly) like you are “making it”.  Then, after 6 months or even longer, you realise that you haven’t tweeted for many weeks, your Facebook page hasn’t been updated for months and your blog still carries the default theme it was installed with and has little or no content.  This is nothing compared to the fact that you still haven’t read that white paper or watched that webinar on emerging m-learning technology, and you have no idea where your industry is heading.

Now you have to sit back and ask yourself “What happens if the work does dry up tomorrow”.  You’ve done no marketing, your online presence is negligible and your skills are no longer up-to-date.

Allow yourself some time each week, even if it is only one or two evenings, to do some business development.  You don’t need to start cold-calling potential clients, just get your name out there and see what others are up to.  You might be surprised where it leads…

Conclusion

So, that’s how it was for me.  A bit different from the usual “5 awesome apps” lists that keep appearing, but hopefully useful to some of you who are considering making the most terrifying and rewarding career decision of your life.

Please feel free to use the comments below to share your own experiences and tips for successful freelancing.

Sometimes you look at a quiz that has been prepared on paper and there is a block of True/False questions all together.  The client really wants them all to be included in your new online module and you are left thinking “but it’s going to take so many slides to get these all in”.

The screen recording below shows how you can manipulate the Multiple Response question type to put many short True/False questions on one slide in a survey style layout.  There are a couple of important points to remember here but watch the video for the technique.

• Make sure you use Multiple Response and not Multiple Choice question type!
• Shuffle answers MUST be set to “None” or it will all go horribly wrong.
• You must re-size the elements as shown.  If one of the elements is left at full-width it will mask the other element and the student won’t be able to click it.

The only downsides to this technique are the student is able to tick both True and False boxes, and you can’t award points for partly right answers.  Neither of these worry me unduly as I would hope most students understand it is True OR False and as these type of questions are often of lower value in an assessment I would only really be offering a few points for getting all of them correct.

Sharing is always fun, so here is the demo file that I used in the screen recording for you to play with > Demo_File_TF1

Enjoy and let me know how you get on with any suggestions or feedback…

We have recently had the pleasure of working on a number of case studies for the CLIMATE LMS of our client, RANZCOG.

Built in Articulate Storyline and deployed on Moodle these interactive modules feature a linear scenario with multiple opportunities for reflective learning practice.

We made the most of Storyline’s amazing authoring tools to create custom triggers and text variables.  We even used grouped elements to make the standard characters look pregnant!

Optimised for both Flash and HTML5 delivery, these modules look as good on the iPad as they do on the desktop.

To assist with the launch of the My Child Care College LMS we created this interactive site guide in Articulate Storyline.

Making full use of Storyline’s cutting edge features such as stepped screen recordings and triggered animations we were able to work efficiently and quickly to produce the desired effects.

You can view the full module by clicking the image below…

One of RedTwenty’s oldest clients, the Royal Australia & New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), asked us to help with a quick -design of their COLP moodle powered LMS.

This simple skin was built up from an existing core theme to ensure compliance and function whilst keeping the cost down.  Styled to match the other RANZCOG moodles and existing CQuIP joomla site we were able to create a simple and eye-catching skin.

As part of this project we also create a new logo for the COLP LMS for use both on the web and for print media.

ConvertworX is able to transfer large numbers of client accounts to Xero using advanced, hassle free techniques that their clients appreciate.  They looked to RedTwenty to design and host their new website so that it too was hassle free.

Using WordPress and the My Product theme from Elegant Themes as a base, we created a bold and stylish design that provides an excellent platform for future development.  As part of this project we also designed their logo and print media.

You can learn more about ConvertworX and the services they provide here…

When all the best aspects of the web come together you end up with a great looking website.  Andrew decided to move his website to RedTwenty a few months ago and asked us to create something simple, elegant and easy to maintain.

We used the Modest theme to give a stylish and clean layout and then altered it slightly to suit Andrew’s requirements.  As part of this project we were also able to help Andrew get up and running with his Twitter account and first blog posts.

You can visit the site here…

Personal Breakthrough Coaching

ICCC have asked RedTwenty to help resurrect their ailing online learning platform.  With very little help, ICCC have managed to setup and run a Moodle 1.9 platform that has huge potential but no direction.

The first phase of the project was to analyse their existing site and make plans for the future.  The first step was to organise new hosting with HostPapa through ICCC IT guru, Dougall and then install a new Moodle 2.2+ platform.

We then wanted to do a quick branding exercise on the site, which of course turned into a complete redesign.  Not to say it won’t change in the future but it’s looking nice so far…

Taking some design elements from their existing marketing material, we transferred large blocks of colour to the major page elements; header, sidebar, footer.

As this was a WordPress.com installation, we were limited as to what we could do as you are not able to upload your own themes.  Our only option was to use their customised CSS option and drive the entire design from there.

You can visit the finished site at http://moorabbinareatoylibrary.com/