My Profiling Meets Hairdressing

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This is a 2011Tasmania E-learning Innovations project outcome developed by Skills Institute and eLearning Australia, with seed funding from the national training system's e-learning strategy, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.

Innovations Project 2011

My Profiling Meets Hairdressing

Case Study

The Project Team

Project Team:Graham Rodgers e Learning AustraliaJanet Fearns Project Manager Skills Institute Melody Rodgers e Learning AustraliaLeanne Colgrave Trainer/Assessor Skills Institute Ilke Drury Trainer/Assessor Skills Institute Temira Bunton Trainer/Assessor Skills Institute From the left

Industry Partners:Stephen Roney Stephen Roney HairdressingFiona Plummer Kameleon Hair and Beauty SalonLeanne Colgrave Duos Hair and Beauty Salon

My Profiling

This project will provide a programme that will enable apprentice hairdressers to record on-the-job tasks they perform in their routine employment in an innovative, auditable and fun way.

‘My Profiling’ is a customised, electronic, web based profiling system that manages an efficient and cost effective way of gathering workplace evidence to monitor and assess an apprentice’s competency development. It is visually based, easy to use and provides accountability and consistency in interpreting work place evidence.

An on-the-job profile is created reporting the apprentice’s work experience against industry determined competency standards. The information covers quality, breadth and range as well as supervision of the students workplace experiences.

Why not use a log book?

My Profiling is an alternative to poorer evidence gathering tools like paper-based logbooks or clipboard checklists. It is non-intrusive in the workplace and is relatively low on cost and time. It is an engaging tool that provides motivation to apprentices to record daily tasks.

My Profiling is not a stand-alone assessment tool in itself but is a powerful tool that aids in the assessment process. It is a transparent means of providing employers with good information about an apprentice’s overall performance and competency development.

This tool fosters the supply of good, auditable formal evidence for reporting against business quality assurance measures and other formal benchmarks or regulatory requirements. The data submitted is allocated to individual units of competency and the students progression through each unit is represented in a bar graph and pie charts capturing autonomy levels, responsibility levels and scope of work.

The Developers

Luke and Talia Carbis are the technical brains behind ‘My Profiling’. Luke features in the online training videos which are very useful. As soon as you login, all the help you need is only a click away.

Talia visited Tasmania to meet with the team earlier in the year. It was great to have personal involvement with the developers. Forming good relationships was a key factor in the success of this project. Everyone in the team were comfortable to communicate directly with the developers as needed, this resulted in changes and ideas being communicated accurately and the response time fast.

Review...feedback

Graham and Melody Rodgers are owner/operators of E Learning Australia an online education company, creating e Learning resources for the trades and corporations. Graham and Melody made several trips to Tasmania to meet with the project team at varying stages of the project.

In this short video Temira Bunton a trainer/assessor with Skills Institute, is providing feedback on the customisation of the ‘My Profiling’ prototype to suit the hairdressing trade.

Leanne Colgrave and Ilke Drury are also trainer/assessors with Skills Institute and are members of the project team. They are seen here assessing photographs for suitability in the programme.

Image Bank

The team’s trainer/assessors and their apprentices took dozens of photographs in the salons, representing various workplace tasks. They cover everything from specialised work tasks such as foils/highlights to daily tasks for first year apprentices including basin work, maintaining equipment and communicating with clients.These photographs will form a bank of images that will be available for use by anyone after the project has been finalised.

Trials

Trial 1Stephen Roney HairdressingThree apprentices were trialled from this salon. Training covered logging in, changing assigned passwords, recording workplace tasks, allocating levels of supervision, entering client name and time spent on the task. Also adding notes, uploading additional evidence and saving and submitting entries for approval from supervisor and trainer. Training in the use of the iPad was so easy...even though the apprentices had never used an iPad before. One comment was “Oh yeah....it’s just a big iPhone without the phone”. As more young people become expert users of smart phones, this type of mobile technology should present very few challenges for users.

Trials

Trial 2Duos Hair and Beauty SalonOne apprentice was trialled from this salon.

Trials

Trial 3Kameleon Hair and Beauty Salon

Two apprentices were trialled from this salon.

Feedback from apprentices

Survey Results

That Apprentices

can log more of

their completed

tasks as they are

completed, in the

day to day running

of the Salon

I like that we got to personalise the tool by using

our own photo's. I love the logical way you click on

the appropriate photo and it flows through to the

next criteria.

I like

the new te

chnology

Not everyone has access to the Internet at home or at work and it could take a while for supervisor to mark which means

the student wouldn't be able to do skills.

Activity books are accessible any where but I have heard a lot of people say the have done activities but lost the book so I believe that this will stop that.

Sharing this Case Study

Team members were encouraged to review and publish comments as feedback on this Case Study by viewing through Acrobat Reader accessed from MS PowerPoint 2007

Issues: ahead of our time

The original brief for this project was to use a tablet PC to trial My Profiling in salons. At the time the project application was submitted research on the Android 10” tablet provided convincing evidence of its suitability for what was required. This included 3G mobile network connection as some salons did not have an internet connection, a large screen for ease of use and a facility to directly upload files for workplace evidence.

Unfortunately when trials began the Android 3.0 Honeycomb which is an operating system developed specifically for larger screen tablets rather than phones, had not been released in Australia. To purchase the tablet overseas may have added the complication of access to the 3G network and weighing up the risks of delaying the trials because of this, resulted in a decision to perform the trials using the iPad.

Tech workshop

The technical workshop presented by Fiona Huskinson and Peter Shanks from the Skills Tasmania E-Learning Unit provide an invaluable opportunity to learn about preparing case studies, adding multimedia files to the Tas Innovations Wiki , seeing how they feed into the National Blog and packaging content deliverables using the VET Reload tool.

This was also a great time to discover in more depth what other project recipients were working on, sharing challenges faced and ideas.

Flow on for the Skills Institute

My Profiling relies on the partnership between the apprentice, the employer and the RTO’s trainer/assessor to report and validate everyday workplace activities.

The Skills Institute values employer relationships very highly. They are crucial to maintaining successful industry partnerships where effective training and assessment occurs.

My Profiling is fast becoming an integral part of that process in the organisation, further building relationships with our customers to assist them in achieving their business outcomes. To that end the Skills Institute is currently implementing My Profiling in industry skills groups such as Electro Technology, Bricklaying, Mining and Automotive.

How can I trial this programme?

M: 0413316373E: graham@elearningaustralia.net.auW: http://elearningaustralia.net.auW: http://grahamrodgers.com.au

For more information contact:Graham Rodgers

Acknowledgements

Stephen Roney Hairdressing Kameleon Hair & Beauty SalonDuo’s Hair & Beauty Salon

Powerpoint Template: Tom Kuhlmann