Feedback on Cultivate
We had been hearing some good things from our customers about Cultivate’s impact. Curious, we decided to dig deeper with the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and the University of Pretoria (UP).

The University of Johannesburg
The University of Johannesburg is our first, and largest Cultivate adopter. Their response was enthusiastic beyond our expectations. We are preparing a case study for release in August; in advance of that here are a few tasters from the staff of CenTal.

Arno Louw – Instructional Designer
“Cultivate resources help the lecturers make new discoveries. Something seems to click and it stimulates more creative use of the tool [under discussion].”

“Cultivate sparks ideas which they then bring to us; we then, as facilitators, discuss how they could use the tools more deeply.”

Hermien Geldenhuys - Coordinator: Lecturer Development and Course Design
“Cultivate helps me save time and expend less effort. With the use of Cultivate, it takes a lot less effort to introduce academics to Vista.”

Erica Pretorius – Instructional Designer
“Cultivate is a winner. I have been using the PowerPoints and manuals extensively during my lecturer development sessions with great success.”

University of Pretoria:
The University of Pretoria is also an early adopter of Cultivate. We asked Dolf Jordaan, elearning Project Manager for his thoughts.

“Cultivate works! I have personally used it to effectively communicate the value and benefits of having a Learning Management System integrated in a Flexible Learning model. [I have done this] not only to our executive management, but also to various heads of department and lecturers on campus, as well as to international colleagues during consultation.”

Resources (top)
  Expanding product range
  List of updates
  Web 2.0 update
  Objects Resource Library “Student Tracking” Islands Scenario
  Objects Resource Library “LMS architecture and Orientation” slide set
  Cultivate version 1.5 September 07 Update
  Cultivate Buttons

Expanding product Range
The product range within Cultivate is growing.
Here is a quick recap:
LMS Module (New Student Module), Object Resource Library (Expanded), Pedagogy (New 09/07), Portfolio, Cultivate Implementation Guide (Expanded), Third Party Tools (Expanded), Professional Services (Certification and Consulting), Community Portal (New 07/07) and the Web 2.0 Module (New 09/07).

List of updates from v1.3 to v1.4
Development of Cultivate is always ongoing. The following improvements and additions can be downloaded in the Cultivate Interim update:

• Add your photo and personnel details to the guides, in a customisable biography template for MS word and PowerPoint.
• Create more scenarios with an additional Character pack containing 10 new characters.
• Backgrounds of Cultivate scenarios. The University of Johannesburg has requested this for a special project; we liked the idea and thought it was worth completing.
• Access to the Cultivate portal for interim updates.
• Arno Louw inspired us to create a larger story out of the management and tracking slide. The images have been converted from a stand-alone resource to a fully customisable PowerPoint presentation that builds piece by piece.
• LMS architecture overview slide series describes the basic hardware and software structure of the LMS. It’s the basics but the subject is covered again and again!

Web 2.0 update (Resources)
Web 2.0 seems to be everywhere at the Moment; Jimmy Wales, founder of online user-generated encyclopaedia Wikipedia, was even featured on Carte Blanche, a national television news magazine show here in South Africa this month.

Whilst Wikipedia may be one of the first and foremost Web 2.0 applications (1 in 200 Internet page views are to the site) the deluge of technology tools continues. How on earth do you help lecturers cope with it, or how do you cope with lecturers who want help with it?

We’ve been extremely busy putting together a Cultivate resource to help deliver an understanding of the most common categories of web 2.0 tools. This includes blogs, wikis, podcasting, and Videosharing among others.

A further update and sneak peek at the resource is available at www.cultivatepeople.com, so come and have a look.

Objects Resource Library: Student tracking, Islands Scenario
The ‘Islands’ diagram in the LMS guide, which helps to explain the value of tracking to management, has proven popular.
One of our customers suggested that it would be really useful for us to release it as a set of images in a story format (thanks Arno Louw from UJ!).
We recreated it as an editable PowerPoint; each slide focuses on a different aspect of the graphic. It’s available for viewing and download at www.cultivatepeople.com.

LMS architecture overview slide (Resources)
We recently provided LMS tools training for one of our clients. We needed to communicate the basic architecture of the LMS, but only had some old ‘non-Cultivated’ materials. So, we decided to go ahead and create something we all could use. The slide set is available for download in the Cultivate community portal.

Cultivate Version 1.5 September 26th 2007 (Resources)
Updates include:

• Web 2.0 Module (New addition to Cultivate)
• Pedagogy Module, with 20 online activities to promote with lectures
• LMS module updated incorporating feedback and innovative ideas from UJ

Buttons to help you recognise Cultivate (Resources)
Cultivate is increasingly making its way into overseas presentations, and onto posters. That’s great!

However the Cultivate templates are designed so our branding can be removed, and replaced with your institution or department’s, personalising it for your benefit.

Some of our clients have asked us to provide a way for the ‘Cultivate’ to stand out more at these overseas presentations.

We’ve created these badges for you to paste into your presentations where it’s appropriate. Consider adding it where you would put a biography page. Please download the button set in the Cultivate Community Portal.

There’s a rumour that we are actually going to have real badges made just like these.
We’ll keep you posted.

Community (top)
Welcome to new customers
Launching the portal
How to access Portal
Portal for downloads DVD for larger

Welcome to new customers
We’re excited; three new customers have joined Cultivate. Welcome to Durban University of Technology (DUT), the University of the Witswatersrand (WITS) and Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). We look forward to working with you, and hearing and seeing how the Cultivate resources help you to grow the capabilities of your faculty.

Launching the Cultivate Portal
We wanted to create a space online where Educational Technologists could chew over the issues of technology adoption, where a wider community could form and build momentum for everyone.

So, for the past year we have been building it. You can visit the homepage at www.cultivatepeople.com. However, we take small steps to big goals so first things first. Initially we will use it as a home for interim updates. There’ll also be development versions of new resources for you to comment on and discuss before release. Your input is crucial to us.

With a little bit of time, we’ll add polling and other cool features. So jump on in! Each Cultivate user will be mailed a special access code to log in and browse!

How to access Portal
The Cultivate community through the portal at www.cultivatepeople.com is available to all Cultivate customers. We have gone through a lengthy process of identifying who is using the product currently, and would benefit from access. You should have received an email explaining how to register and join. If you are part of an institution using Cultivate, have not been given access to the portal and would like it then please contact us at: sandy@eiffel-corp.co.za. See you there.

Portal for smaller downloads, CD for larger
The portal will be our new home for you to download Cultivate updates.

The update to Cultivate v.1.4 currently waiting for you is quite large (a breath under 1GB). We’ve sent it on DVD to the nominated contact person for Cultivate. The update can then be made available for local downloads.

Interim updates will be posted to the Cultivate Portal. You’ll receive email notification as soon as they are available. The interim updates are like stocking fillers, where the major releases are like birthdays!

Professional Development opportunity (top)

Source: http://www.montfleur.co.za

Cultivate Certification
Cultivate is more than just the materials; they are the tangible expression of an approach, the first step.

Cultivate resources are designed to help you communicate the value and benefits of educational technologies. However, the increasing centrality of technology to the Institution, static budgets and the burgeoning number of technologies is putting pressure on the educational technology community to deliver a meaningful service to faculty.

We are developing a professional development programme in partnership with the University of Johannesburg to explore new and fulfilling ways of framing the educational technology service to absorb and prosper in this changing reality.

By the way, the photo above is the Mont Fleur conference venue, and home of the Mont Fleur scenarios. They were envisioning exercises crucial to the peaceful transition of South African society in 1994. It’s in the hills above the Stellenbosch winelands and we’ve lined it up as the venue for the residential portion of the programme. We’ll keep you posted.