New 2012 Website for The Humanatarian Crisis Hub
"Users feedback on the Reality Learning website redesign was incredibly positive.
- Communicated our services effectively to people from a wide range of cultures and people were able to navigate the site easily
- Feedback emphasised how innovative and professional it made HCH brand
Victoria Transcultural Psychiatric Unit at St Vincents Hospital is in production of Reality Learning scenarios and modules. The VTPU is a statewide unit which supports area mental health and psychiatric disability support services in working with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) consumers and carers throughout Victoria.
Congratulations The Humanatarian Crisis Hub: Winner of Sir Ron Wilson Human Rights Award. The Australian Council for International development (ACFID) presentation can be viewed here.
View Reality Learning Latest Newsletter July 2011
"Thank you so much Merrolee and Judith for your exceptional creation to support the training of OT educators in China. On the other hand, your resource is assisting millions of people with disabilities in China to access quality OT care in the future, and to make impacts on their quality of life. Thank you! Fengyi"
Fengyi Kuo, DHS, OTR, CPRP. Clinical Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy. Indiana University USA.
See Newsletter for more on Train the Trainer, China.
Archive News Items
New Team Member - Client Services Hong Kong
Social Media - Getting Started- Squiz Event
The Reader.The future of the book. April 28 2011CBR Training for Chinese Villages April 2011
Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) 2011
Preparing for Discharge: Spinal Injury Training, China 2011
ICT Trade Mission to Shanghai 2010
Click here for Drum Beat's Issue on Edutainment
New World Vision International Strategy Training
New Service! Video Documentation
eLearning to Accelerate Chinese Earthquake Recovery
HongKong International ICT EXPO, 2010
Sexual Harrasment, Online Self Help Tool
Corporate Social Responsibility
New Team member - Client Services Hong Kong
We welcome Peter Leung to our Hong Kong projects...taking care of the local requirements.
You can contact Peter E: peter@realitylearning.org
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Social Media - Getting started
The Reader: Symposium on the future of the book.April 28 2011
Reality Learning was introduced by Judith Hewitson in the panel Beyond the Printed Page. Diverse presenters brought together significant thought on digital and hardcopy publishing, accessibility and much more. http://www.futureofthebook.org.au/
Jeremy LeBard, Co-founder of ReadCloud.
CBR Training for Chinese Villages
Discussing Reality Learning to meet the needs for village CBR training. Dr ZhangYixi, Dr Guohui Lin, Sheila Purves in Guangzhou.
Much progress being made. More later. Welcome Peter Leung to our Hong Kong projects...taking care of the local eLearning requirements. Contact: peter@realitylearning.org
..
.Enjoy the new brochure with the Rehabilitation Therapists in China
The International Hong Kong ICT Expo
Cicada takes Reality Learning back to the International Hong Kong ICT Expo. Hope to see you there at the Australian Pavilion at 3G-E01. April 12-16th
- Download Victorian ICT Trade Mission Booklet (PDF)
Judith Hewitson meets Bamboo, a Guangzhou company who develops Chinese mobile applications
Train the Trainer
Developing "Train the Trainer" for Chinese Lecturers in Occupational Therapy, Dr Kit Sinclair and Sheila Purves join others at the International Medical & Clinical Educational Training Conference.
Community based Rehabilitation
Scenario Training Workshops held in Shenzhen, March 2011. Developing more online training modules for China's health professionals and managers. We came together, committed to transforming the treatment of medical issues to a social and rights-based approach, so as to reduce disability and increase quality in life.
Spinal Injury and 3 other Rehabilitation Training, China
Judith Hewitson returned to work with The Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation to develop the spinal injury interactive Scenario Training for Chinese medical and allied health students and professionals. Already workshops have been undertaken to formulate the coursework and production. Since commencing with Cicada, the organisation now has Sai-kit Choi as web administrator. He is trained to manager the Reality Learning LMS. Meanwhile, the Hospital based Rehabilitation training program, is again being delivered to more students throughout China.
Cicada joined Multimedia Victoria mission to Shanghai World Expo 2010. Within this we visited the very impressive Huawei Technologies R&D center and were also introduced to their philanthropic work. Meeting other eLearning providers in health training was also very beneficial for all parties. We hope to continue these relationships.
World Vision Scenario Training, June 2010
Scenario Planning Launched. Every organisation faces the unknown future withan aim to be resilient in the face of changing trends and challenges.This interactive training module provedes a space for high-levelreflection and development of strategies to overcome the emerging risks and engage in the possibilities.
New Service! Video Documentation, May 2010
WorldVision International had the FedNET workshop documented toprovide aglobal report via a virtual meeting (webex). This 4 minute video alsosits on the website and builds a sustainable corporate history. TheFedNET video is also a marketing tool for the organises of the event,demonstrating thier unique approach to convening workshops.
Please contact us directly for this service.
Australian eLearning Accelerates earthquake recovery, April 2010
Survivors of last months’ QinghaiYushu Earthquake will now benefit from rehabilitative treatment as healthcareprofessionals receive training in rehabilitation from Melbourne based eLearningcompany, Cicada. The training program was funded in 2008, in response topatient outcomes of the Wenchuan Earthquake.
Requiring more than bricks andmortar, thousands continue to struggle with debilitating physical impairmentstwo years on. The CDPF recently reported that a staggering 82.9million peoplelive with disability in China. Helping to improve patient functionality andtheir quality of life in the community, Cicada has been working in partnershipwith The Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation towards the national goal ofrehabilitation for all by 2015.
The eLearning program, HospitalRehab in Practice and Research, is currently being delivered to healthprofessionals throughout 16 hospitals. The unique edutainment program simulateslocal patient scenarios through fusing docu-drama film with web2.0 interactivefunctionality. As participants treat virtual characters they develop socialawareness of local patient concerns, inter-disciplinary teamwork, appreciationof rehabilitation, and practical capacity to problem solve and transfer skillseffectively into their professional work.
Accessible and emotively engaging,Hospital Rehab in Practice and Research, is assisting the spread ofrestorative treatment, enhancing patient’s quality of life. The uniqueMelbourne developed eLearning training platform is an innovative solution toadvancing healthcare practices amongst doctors, nurses and therapists.
View Training Program. Media Release
Hong Kong International ICT Expo, April 2010
Cicada Exibit. returns to Hong Kong to exhibit its services with 580 other exhibitors from over 20 countries in 2010
Launch of Sexual Harrasment Self Help Tool, The Queensland Government
View introduction to Harassment Online Information Tooldelivered to government to disseminate workplace health and safetyinformation. Please note this is demonstration version only. The WHSQsite links are not enabled.
Availablealso is a Self Help Tool inwhich viewers choose actions and see likely outcomes of these. Thisassists viewers to understand the consequences of their actions whenthey respond to being harassed, or as the perpetrator.
Boththesetools can be designed for Stress, Sexual Harrassment or otherareas of risk existing within your organisation or industry.
Please contact us for more information.
Saving Costs with eLearning, April 2009
Making the business case for e-learning
The new economic realities mean that every manager up and down your organisation is going to have to fight to spendmoney on anything. You can expect e-learning to come under as much scrutiny as the next line item. It pays to be prepared. If you’re responsible for commissioning e-learning or running an internal team, be ready to fight the good fight. For this insight, let’s concentrate on the cost savings from e-learning, compared to instructor led alternatives. Here are a few bullets to have ready when someone comes asking why we should spend on e-learning.
1. Travel costs = zero
May as well start with the no-brainer. Many organisations are currently putting a lockdown on all travel for employees, while still expecting training deliver to persist. This plays very well to e-learning, as it has no travel cost. I f you want to argue the benefits for e-learning, start there. With increasing numbers of home workers, bear in mind that their travel costs can also be reduced as they don’t need to get into an office for training events. It helps to have a few stats to support this:
Dow Chemical reduced average spending of $95 per learner / per course on classroom training, to only $11 per learner / per course with electronic delivery, giving rise to an annual saving of $34 million (Shepherd, 2002).
2. Marginal cost of delivery = zero
The cost of e-learning is all in the production. There’s no marginal cost of delivery – rolling our e-learning to 100 or 10,000 learners costs the same, assuming you’re not producing thousands of CD ROMS (and if you are – we assume you are also still listening to tapes in your ghettoblaster to score double retro points). No classrooms, no additional trainer costs, no lunches – and binders. Nice for your CFO – and the environment, lest we forget.
3. Learner time is better spent
E-learning is generally shorter than classroom training on the same subject by up to 25-60% (according to Brandon Hall, 2001 and Rosenberg 2001). Time is compressed in e-learning, as you don’t have all the logistics that come with the classroom: welcomes, introductions, setting up and winding up sessions, breaks and the like. Since the biggest cost of any training is learner time spend in training, this makes a big difference to the bottom line.
Need an example? Ernst & Young cut training costs 35 percent while improving consistency and scalability. They condensed about 2,900 hours of classroom training into 700 hours of web-based learning, 200 hours of distance learning and 500 hours of classroom instruction, a cut of 52 percent. (Brandon Hall, 2000).
4. It works for specialist content too
Don’t think you have to be at the 1,000+ learners level before e-learning makes sense. The cost per hour of e-learning can be dramatically reduced by taking a rapid approach, using low-cost or open source tools, and taking on some tasks in-house. This means that even quite specialised areas which may have small audiences can still use e-learning and from a cost perspective come out better than they would with a classroom alternative.If in doubt, do the maths
It’s not difficult to construct a side-by-side analysis of the cost of delivering one hour of e-learning vs an instructor led session (if you need help, ask us at Kineo). Prepare a simple spreadsheet showing what it costs for an hour of trainer time, learner time, travel costs, opportunity costs, material production, room rental and then scale it up to the size of your target audience. Compare it to e-learning’s upfront development costs. Even allowing for a small maintenance cost for e-learning, the business case for e-learning is nearly always going to win out – especially in a downturn.
Philanthropic Support, March 2009
The international non-for-profit, "Reality Learning" is to empower those at-risk through culturally-specific, reality-driven online communication and training both in Australia and worldwide.
This is an opportunity for sponsors to fulfill their corporate social responsibility in assisting us to build stronger organisations and communities through ICT4 Development.
If you can identify with this commitment to the Millennium Goals, and are interested in working together to form a meaningful relationship please contact us
Corporate Social Responsibility, March 2009
Australia has a long history in this area especially with community projects such as "clean up Australia day". Many agencies including the UN and representatives at the recent G8 Summit are hoping that the 21century will be a century characterised by the collaboration between government, non government and the corporate sector in seeking sustainable solutions.
The next step for the Australian corporate community is to engage in the development and application of sustainable solutions to the end of poverty. The great advantage the corporate sector has in this new area, is its access to resources and diversity of skills and experience that it has at its disposal.
This is an exciting time for innovative research and developmet; collaboration across sectors.
