Best practice in distance education and e-learning

The lack of qualified aged care workers has been identified as a current and future skills shortage as the number of Australians requiring aged care increases. This creates a significant and immediate need for accessible, flexible and high quality training options to increase the number of qualified aged care workers within Australia. The availability of high quality and accessible information communication options, combined with the implementation of the [NBN] National Broadband Network, creates an environment ripe for the development of quality distance and e-learning aged care...  [+] Show more

The lack of qualified aged care workers has been identified as a current and future skills shortage as the number of Australians requiring aged care increases. This creates a significant and immediate need for accessible, flexible and high quality training options to increase the number of qualified aged care workers within Australia. The availability of high quality and accessible information communication options, combined with the implementation of the [NBN] National Broadband Network, creates an environment ripe for the development of quality distance and e-learning aged care training courses across Australia. The overseas component of the Overseas Applied Research Fellowship Program, in New Zealand and Canada, assisted in identifying best practice examples of distance education and allowed for research into answers regarding how training providers successfully achieve key outcomes. This report outlines strategies that form the scaffolding necessary for successful delivery of distance education courses.

Excerpts from publication.