• english

Trainings

Pilot training

The pilot training was conducted in the years 2008-2009 as an integral element of the Leonardo da Vinci II project E-learning as a tool of knowledge transfer in the field of protection and management of archaeological heritage.
The distance e-learning course operated under the name Archaeological Heritage in Contemporary Europe. It was launched in five countries (Poland, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Sweden ) and in three national languages (Polish, German and Latvian). Considering the good knowledge of English in the target group in Sweden and the Netherlands, training materials have been made  available in English. The activities realized by trainees during the course were defined in such a way that the duration of the course might have been different. Accordingly, the pilot course lasted from three months (Sweden) to six months (Poland). A need of flexibility in terms of the course duration originated from different modes of training in participating countries and the character of the target groups. 
The entire course was divided into five parts. It was composed of the following resources and activities:
- 15 multimedia e-learning courses
- 3 discussion forums
- 2 essays (one collective, one individual)
All activities during the course were available in each part of the course in the following manner:

Each activity operated under the following standardized terms:
- Asynchronous distance lecture – individual work of the trainee with multimedia and an interactive e-learning course,
- Asynchronous distance conversation – collective work of trainees at the discussion forums,
- Asynchronous collective homework – collective work of a group of trainees on a given subject aimed at writing an essay.
- Asynchronous individual homework – individual work of the trainee on a given subject aimed at writing an essay.
Trainees had also the possibility to use individual consultations with the teacher through e-mail contact.

Trainees accessing to the given part of the course obtained automatically access to all resources and activities assigned to this part. However, not all resources were available at the same time. For example, each course in any given part was available in a precisely defined time. The same applied to  access to the forum. The forum discussion used to begin some time after the adequate modules were made available so the trainees could have enough time to get acquainted with their content. Rules regarding availability of the resources in the course were different in participating countries depending on the overall duration of the course. The trainee was allocated between 7 and 10 days for the work with each multimedia e-learning course.

Availability of training materials after completion of each part of the training proved to be a controversial issue. Some partners decided that access to it should be blocked immediately after it had been finished while the others wanted to make it available long after such part was completed. The former solution aimed at activating trainees and forcing them to complete each part of the training according to its schedule. This is particularly relevant in the situation in which the duration of the course is relatively long, which makes mobilizing the trainees essential. In individual justified cases, the access to the course is made available but should not exceed a period of two weeks. Availability of training materials after the course completion seems to be justified when the training is relatively short and some trainees are inevitably always behind the schedule. However, such solution usually results in loosing some trainees who are not in position to catch up with ever larger outstanding material. In both cases, however, it is important that the teacher has a sole responsibility for making decision as regards accessing the course material.