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The First Aid course is intended as general guidance not designed to be a substitute for formal first aid training.
It’s purpose is to assist in building first aid knowledge and skills.

I expect that this course will be able to assist my frist aid skill development with correct and reliable information that will not breach my rights under the good samaritan act if i should choose to use information that I have obtained from this course.

I believe that the learning experience will be flexible and tailored to my needs as I am able to end and continue a course until it’s finished. In addition to this, the course will provide relevant information and assist in the development and refreshment of my first aid skills.

I would expect that there were additional excercises that could be used for specific topics as well as information through other reliable sources for extra reading and development.

What topic?
What format?
What constitutes a course?
…these questions must be asked before the search for an e-learning course begins. My answer to these questions were that it be a topic, which is of interest and use to me and the format be an online questionnaire that raised curiosity. My definition of an E-learning course is that it can be assessed through a technological framework and is based on a traditional learning setting.
The tack of searching for a course became much easier once these questions were answered. Simply a course could be found by:
1. Searching about the topic

2. Searching amongst other courses in a website

3. Researching reputable sources to see if courses were provided on their websites.

Lessons from Cyberspace reading
http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/file/17282/013966_palloffworking.pdf The articles expressed that E-learners must be kept interested and exposed to a variety of interactive learning strategies to obtain optimal gain in knowledge. The creation of a course will not necessarily result in a change in culture towards online learning, the article suggests that there must be an instigation for the use of technological mediums for education if the online courses are to be successful and utilized. They also suggest that there are many different learning styles, predominantly through the sensors and for an optimal result these needs can be filled through the use of visual and audio imagery. Learning Circuitshttp://www.learningcircuits.org/2005/sep2005/watkins.htmThis article suggests that E-learning platforms create a new learning environment for students as they are able to interact differently with peers and educators in addition to the formation of new motivations and goals. It also states that administrators or educators should initiate lessons with icebreakers and familiarization exercises to assist in the learning process. Technical and study skills are mentioned as two of the most important factors in the success of e-learners.

My Preferred Learning Style
- Through Discussion
- Visual
- Comparison
I believe that these learning stratgies affect my attitude towards particular e-learning courses in addition to my performance in an e-learning course. If the course failed to satisfy my stratgic needs then my learning would suffer detrimentally as a result of it and boredom would be largely present.
THE RESULTS FROM VARK
showed that my preferences were rated as follows:

• Visual: 12
• Aural: 6
• Read/Write: 12
• Kinesthetic: 12

This makes me a multimodal learner. This is similar to the method of learning,which I predicted myself as having.
Multimodal learning is practice by 60% of the population and is considered as a major way that people learn.
However, even multimodal learners need to be familiar with the learning strategies that combine to create their multimodal strategy. I believe that aspects of these stratgies are incoporated into daily work and will prove this through the analysis of my blog entries.
Visual learning is learning through diagrams and media in addition to colours and other stimuli. An example is the use of pictures in my blog entries that I have incorporated to assist in the conveying of ideas.

Read/Write study strategies refer to the use of literature to develop bonds between words and a preference for lists in learning. A small example of this are the headings which I have used to seperate the topics in my blog. This is an example of a read/write preference in learning stratgies.

The final stratgies is kinesthetic learning. This refers to observative learning or model learning. Kinesthetic learning is optimised through the use of action and is often learning through consequence.

The chosen area of interest for our case studies is that of ROI (Return on Investments).
ROI of E-learning refers to the ability of the new E-learning system to ‘pay itself off’ or generate enough worth to cover the cost of implementation. ROI often requires that the implementation pays off the initial costs through direct and indirect ways as well as generating additional revenue.

 Appropriate information sources should be up to date and from an academically acknowledgable source. An obvious start is from the journal databases accessible through UTS Library.

Key Words such as ROI, Case Studies and E-learning should assist in narrowing down the search.

UTS databases such as INFORMIT or Proquest would be helpful in the search.

Facts should be well referenced and have an academic source supporting it. Whereas views are statments made by the writer with no academic basis behind it.

The sources I used were credible as they were sourced from news articles and journals.

In the case of a biased source, the material would reflect on either the positives and negatives of E-learning without providing any other insight into the topic.

I believe that businesses should consider the list of things below before implementing an E-learning system.  

What is the current status of e-Learning?
- Businesses still determining whether E-learnind will be an ROI

-Implemented to improve the training, development and efficiency of employees

- Effectiveness of E-Learning yet to be proven

-Trial stages, with some companies embracing it.

Relate the general findings and comments to your industry:

-Initial stages of E-learning integration

-The need for efficient communication through vast distances

-Cost Reduction

- Training necessary for employees

- Change agents required to reduce forces against change

How does your industry rate against the overall results?

- Government organisation with a reasonably rigid structure and required analysis of changes to determine results

-Costs reduced; ROI achieved

-Technology provided faster training and communication methods between sites

- Leveling of skills due to standardized training,=

Advantages of E-learning include a reduction in the overall cost due to reduced training time and resources. Learning times are reduced and the retention of information is increased. The material that is delivered is consistent as all learners are viewing the same expert information and is on demand as required by learners. Portability is the strongest force for E-learning.Disadvantages include a large upfront investment and the development of a new technological framework as well as the costs involved with changing the culture of the organization. Social interaction is a large factor for the movement against e-learning. It may take the team mentality from a workforce if it is not applied properly.

This is my weblog, which has been set up for the publication of my assignments and blog entries. Blogging allows self-expression through an electronic platform, which can be accessed by a chosen list of people or universally. It is an efficient way of transferring thoughts from the mind to a medium and is the modern ‘diary’.
* An interesting fact is that blogs are often used to determine the state of mind for victims of homicide other crimes and criminals.

Social bookmarking is the online ‘library’ of tagged websites, which can be shared amongst users.
In E-learning social bookmarking can be used to share relevant websites between the lecturer and class. A great example of this is http://del.icio.us, which is a social bookmarking tool that will be used for E-learning purposes.Aggregation is the combination of web-feed updates into a ‘newsletter’ to reduce the time necessary to sift through and identify new information.
RSS is the abbreviation for Rich Site Summary and it is the technology that allows users to receive ongoing information about websites in the form of feeds, which the user subscribes to.RSS feeds are used in Elearning via the program Netvibes, which is an example of an aggregator. Netvibes receives the updates from all the feeds and as a result builds a page of feeds, which the owner has subscribed to. This can be used in E-learning as information can be quickly obtained through the constant updates, reflecting the flexibility of e-based learning.