Nerida and I have been running a number of workshops over the past year, and we eagerly read the evaluation forms we collect at the end of each of these events. In the lead up to two more workshops, I revisited the evaluation forms from the recent Melbourne and Sunshine Coast Council events. These quotes are from the qualitative parts of our evaluation forms:
“Thank you, communicating verbally in groups is not my strong point, but these techniques seem easy and less threatening – very valuable” (Melbourne)
“A great workshop with real application. I look forward to using some of these tools as we engage the Sunshine Coast community in implementing our Waterway Strategy” (Sunshine Coast)
Generally we leave it at that, just read through the comments and get a general impression of what attendees felt. Today, however, I put the results into a column format and I found it easier to get a picture of what people felt about our work. This diagrammatic representation of responses gave me a very good understanding about our strenghts, areas for improvement and how to continuously adapt to meet the needs of our clients.
Overall, this exercise confirmed my view that the evaluations with greatest insights are those that use both qualitative and quantitative assessment approaches.
Our Melbourne (graph 1) and Sunshine Coast Council (graph 2) results are shown below, with the categories from left to right recording how attendees felt about a range of workshop factors – meet expectations / presenters subject knowledge / maintain attendees interest / teaching methods used / relevance to attendees work / stimulating content / well organised / supporting workshop materials. The rankings are Excellent, Good , Satisfactory - just the one satisfactory out of 30 people, and I am pleased to say that there are no Poor rankings which is brilliant! Siwan
Following on from our wonderful trip to Longreach at the end of last year, we want to let you know about a new resource that is available to help people to learn more about the Lake Eyre Basin. This colourful poster map is surrounded by more than 40 photos and diagrams, with detailed captions and loads of information about rivers and wetlands, plants and animals, climate, terrain, towns, homestead names, Aboriginal lands, parks and reserves, land uses, and the management of natural resources in the Lake Eyre Basin. The retail price $40.00 inc GST ($25.00 for Basin residents) plus postage and packaging. Contact Desert Channels Queensland on (07) 4658 0600 for your copy. Siwan
Yes, it has been a while coming but we now have available all the powerpoint presentations, with audio so you can listen to the ‘pearls of wisdom’ that were shared at the Knowledge for Managing Australian Landscapes: The Legacy of LWA conference. Melissa Gabelle, one of the team here at the ARRC, has been working to ensure that this important record of most memorable event is not lost – thank you Melissa for all your efforts! Please pass this link on to anyone you think might be interested in the Knowledge for Managing Australian Landscapes: The Legacy of LWA conference proceedings.
Siwan
Over the past two weeks I have been inspired by people sharing their stories at both the International Riversymposium in Perth, and then at TEDx Canberra where we heard from an incredible array of speakers covering the ‘twittersphere’, to space travel, slavery and providing ‘abundant water‘ to communities in developing countries. The extent to which I was inspired resulted in two new pages on our website for you to explore, both focus on inspiration with the first being a place to put our most recent ‘inspirational experiences’ and the second providing information about why inspiration is so important in our personal and professional lives.
Siwan
A story with heart and soil.
I finally ordered this great documentary/movie from the USA and it is just fantastic. It is an insightful and timely film that tells the story of the glorious and unappreciated material beneath our feet.
The movie is inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt : the ecstatic skin of the Earth. The movie takes a humourous and substantial look into the history and current state of the living organic matter that we come from and will later return to.
Unfortunately for Australians it is only available in Region 1 format – but it plays on my Mac without any problems.
If you want to see some of the shorts and a preview, go to the web site of Dirt the Movie. I also ordered the canvas bag and Tee shirt.
This is a wonderful example of how to use story to get your message across. In the environmental science area we could be doing so much more of this to get the message across about topics such as climate change and water management.
Nerida
Information and knowledge management | Siwan Lovett | 
28 March 2011 12:15 pm | 
Comments Off 
