Job Title: Production Officer
Location: Darwin
Dear Selection Panel Chair,
PRODUCTION OFFICER (AO7)
Please consider my application for the above-mentioned NTPS vacancy.
- Knowledge and experience of progressive skills mastery in a range of educational contexts.
In my current role as Manager of eLearning Development I am incumbent to the above advertised role and in this capacity have managed the conceptualisation for the Skill Mastery project from key areas explored to final product visualisation aligned with the requirements of indigenous student cohort as well as expectations of local industry as future employers. In order to develop a framework model for production, key characteristics drawn from proven behaviour and skill acquisition theories are matched to three levels of mastery. The resulting matrix is used to form interview questions with clear progression of key areas consisting of expertise or trade based skills, workplace expectation or standards and career progression across mastery levels. In order to build consensus around possible progression of three mastery levels within an industry, pathways of career progression are mapped through research of formal qualification pathways and in consultation with industry advisors and local business decided upon.
The framework for finished product, the video format and interview questions adhere to Instructional Design principles around student cohort with purpose for learning always explained, motivational questions asked and key industry terms repeated as well as ‘translated’ into simple language with the main focus of providing a positive learning experience.
Besides this process, my responsibilities in this role so far have included advising unit managers around project framework, networking with industry advisors and NT companies including outlining project perimeters and negotiating production aspects, conducting the filming process and postproduction.
- Proven high level production development skills incorporating educational design principles and experience of resource development for indigenous, EAL/D, remote secondary students.
My qualifications and work experience are heavily focused on eLearning production skills ranging from Certificate to academic level Graduate Certificate qualification and experience from Multimedia/Graphic Design to eLearning Development Management of large scale, non-uniform projects.
The ability to produce high level eLearning materials, tailored to EAL requirements of remote indigenous students, is evidenced in my role across several projects as eLearning Development Manager. From 2014 – September 2015, I both oversaw and was involved in the production of the Creative Arts Course, a senior student course with a focus on literacy catering mainly to indigenous secondary students. Part of my role encompassed the Instructional Design with heavy focus on literacy needs hence maximising learning experiences through simple steps, repetition, visual stimulation and storytelling. This included overseeing the development of characters the students can identify with and scripting case scenarios featuring these characters in animated videos. Overall the Instructional Design called for structuring content into smaller easier to understand segments broken up with the Teacher character recapping what has been learned. The student character conveyed learning material in a fun and engaging way using scenarios, conversations with other characters and props students would also find in a school setting. Once all elements were delivered and compiled into the software storyline, I quality ensured and developed further content where required. The course can be viewed on.
In the recent PreVET project (2011 – 2013), targeted at remote indigenous students, my responsibilities included the Media production with focus on visual realisation of literacy and numeracy aspects of filmed job roles. An example of the high level advice I provided to other Project Managers focused on technical encoding standards for our media development which enabled the media to be accessed across platforms and hardware devices in equal visual and streaming quality. Other aspects of this role involved modelling and testing a suitable maximum focus time on an eLearning media element for the remote indigenous student cohort, a key element of our instructional design model and critical in the success of the PreVET project. I have formerly studied film and video production, firstly as a cinematographer and camerawoman with TAFE for three years then at university from a producer’s role as well as editor’s role in the Bachelor of Media. I work hard to understand my subject matter completing my Certificate IV in Training and Assessment in order to better understand VET for developing eLearning in this field. My experience working for NT DET as an Instructional designer with considerable amount of instructional material, ranging from learning objects, videos, animations etc. and as the Manager of eLearning development has honed my eLearning skills. Combine this with my Graduate Certificate in eLearning study and I can confidently say I am well equipped to combine technical skills and storytelling with instructional design. PreVET as an example is effective, in a significant part due to its highly contextualised nature. This approach utilises situated cognition theory as a guiding rule helping me walk a fine line between a good story and an effective educational experience. In the PreVET and Nodes projects, I advised senior management on technological solutions for cross platform learning object development particularly with a focus on engagement, contextualisation and motivation.
In my previous role as an Instructional Designer I have led the more straightforward eDevelopment of team projects for Cyber Safety and Copyright online professional learning and the eDevelopment of Geography and Mathematics courseware.
- Experience in project management involving multiple stakeholders including applying methodologies and tools, reporting and monitoring to facilitate quality outcomes.
Liquid Planner for Project Management, cloud based collaborative tools like Google Drive and Office 365, File storage and exchange with drop box
Creative Arts – Project Management
Experience with writing reports – Creative Arts Completion Report.
Experience with writing briefs, project plans, project outlines tailored to variety of stakeholders.
Examples of Liquid Planner PM can be given
Project managing the production of the Creative Arts course meant liaising with numerous contract developers off site to produce a product throughout several production cycles that usually were heavily time constrained requiring well planned and carried out coordination to ensure timely readiness of interdependent production elements in sequential order. In order to achieve this careful orchestration of deliverables, strategic plans addressing naming and location of files and a Look and Feel template with design guidelines as well as examples for other production elements were developed to ensure easy workflow, aesthetic consistency and consensus on expectations of product quality.
The project and task management was conducted in the online project management software ‘Liquid Planner’ which uses a hierarchy and interdependency task system. This was also the place for direct instructional communication and feedback. The ….number of modules were drafted in online google docs storyboards outlining visual and audio elements of each page as well as the interactive and media components.
Besides progression reports through Liquid Planner, a formal project completion was delivered.
(The work I do can best be described as matrix style management, where people own responsibilities that weave across projects and have interconnected dependencies. I would have achieved nothing without the highly professional and expert work of many colleagues. Being a member of this kind of team is not easy, it requires trust and respect for each other, often seeking consensus on very complex issues. I am effective in these teams as I take a technical media lead, quietly researching and confirming propositions and solutions. With such a wide ranging online and dispersed team, effective teamwork requires a complex written and multimodal communication)
- Demonstrated high standard of organisational and problem solving skills with a demonstrated ability to work independently and within a team and work under pressure to complete tasks within timeframes.
I have 15 years of experience in the eLearning and development profession having worked my way up through all the roles in the development process from Graphic Designer to Instructional Designer and most recently Manager eLearning Development for the Department of Education NT. I understand all of the roles that team members (and contractors) perform because I have performed nearly all of them in my career. Unless you are working on a very small job, eLearning is a very complex production environment with intricate production dependencies. For both PreVET and Creative Arts, it was impertinent that my work stayed ahead of schedule so team members could contribute their aspect of the production on time. Small blowouts in my schedule would have compounded into months down the line. I am extremely proud of the editing I did for PreVET on the road in portable Dongas or in the back of the campervan to meet our rigorous deadlines. This required multiple forms of expert communication with stakeholders and other development staff regularly through our online project management tool Liquid Planner. Similarly, this knowledge is required when managing contractors who have different needs in regards to level of instruction and management which can only be accommodated by having the same understanding of production processes, their interdependencies, risks and solutions. A certain amount of respect, trust and gentle negotiation is the basis of forming and maintaining healthy and productive work relationships. This was also evident in the PreVET project where I was required to communicate sensitively and effectively in a culturally and socially diverse environment in order to acquire the desired outcomes (Indigenous role model interviews) within a time pressured situation.
In another capacity as eLearning Development Manager I was tasked with the redevelopment of the Nodes website, aimed at indigenous students wishing to undertake hospitality courses, which had been developed by a different team and was deemed too confusing to use. The parameters were not to change the look of the website and implement an easy programmable but effective solution for intuitive, clear use of the website. This involved finding a web developer team willing to take on modifying a complex designed website for a fairly low salary.
- Demonstrated ability to interact effectively with people from different cultures, build and maintain effective networks with a range of internal and external stakeholders and communicate with influence.
During my current and past employment with DET, I have travelled across the Northern Territory to many remote and very remote communities where I have successfully interacted with many people in a culturally respectful manner. This has included liaising to establish and conduct filming close to sixty interviews with Indigenous professionals for the PreVET project. I have built up a large network of contacts for the Indigenous workplace interviews aspect of the PreVET project. This has involved many schools, communities’ government departments and private businesses. Convincing people to represent themselves and their employees as role models for our vocational students takes tact and measured respect. We have made some exceptional contacts hence resulting in very rich footage. My previous position also involved travelling to remote communities in order to develop professional learning and promotional material with the school. My experience prior to working in the public sector involved linking with artists, contractors, client stakeholders and other designers and software developers.
Current working with children’s clearance notice:
Notice Number: 15022 Expiry Date: 02/03/2017
- Degree qualification in Education, Design, ICT, eLearning or similar.
Graduate Certificate in eLearning
Bachelor of Media, majoring in Screen Production
