Goodstart Early Learning · MyPortal

A national learning platform for 640 centres.

Developing the MyPortal learning management system and producing nationally accredited Certificate III and Diploma programs in early childhood education and care, for educators spread across the country.

Client: Goodstart Early Learning
Sector: Early childhood education
Scale: 640 centres nationally
Role: Online Learning Coordinator
Period: 2014–2015

The MyPortal course page for CHC50113 Diploma of Early Childhood Education and Care: a course banner, an open-all and close-all control, a highlighted Start here section with three activity icons labelled Welcome, Image of Child and Useful forms, and side panels for administration, people, messages and a calendar. — Everything collapsed except Start here. A months-long accredited qualification presented as a full index reads as a workload; the same qualification with one section open reads as a first step. The collapse state is the design decision, not the theme.

In 60 seconds

The problem: Accredited professional learning for educators spread across a large national network of centres, with no single environment to deliver it in.
My role: Online Learning Coordinator. Editorial placeholder: Confirm role boundaries: platform development, course production, or both
Scope: MyPortal learning platform development and production of nationally accredited Certificate III and Diploma programs in early childhood education and care.
Where it got to: One learning environment carrying accredited qualifications across 640 centres. Editorial placeholder: Add measurable outcome
Built with: Moodle

The situation

Goodstart needed one digital environment capable of supporting accredited professional learning across a large, geographically distributed network of centres, and the accredited learning to run inside it.

Both halves were built together: the platform, and the nationally accredited Certificate III and Diploma programs it delivered. It is the earliest example in this portfolio of the pattern that runs through all of it.

What was actually wrong

An accredited qualification delivered online has a structural problem that a short course does not. It runs for months, it has assessment evidence requirements, and its learners are working full time in centres while they do it.

That makes orientation the first design problem rather than a nicety. The recovered course page opens with a highlighted Start here section carrying three things: a welcome, the conceptual anchor of the qualification, and the forms people will need. Everything else is collapsed.

What it looked like, and why

A drag-and-drop learning activity on a wooden chopping-board background, instructing the learner to drop each food onto the correct chopping board, with fish, pizza, chicken, cheese, meat and vegetables above six coloured boards. — Food-safety colour coding taught as the task it actually is. The learner sorts food onto boards rather than reading which colour means what, which is the difference between recalling a table and performing a routine.

03Platforms

Image to supplyMyPortal platform home

The recovered home-page image is a 486-pixel-wide screenshot inside a desktop mockup. It is too small to publish and cannot be enlarged without blurring the interface text.

The platform landing view, which would show how 640 centres' worth of learners were routed to their own qualifications. Confirm whether a higher-resolution capture exists

Where it got to

The MyPortal learning environment, serving a national network of 640 centres
Nationally accredited Certificate III and Diploma programs in early childhood education and care
Interactive practice activities built around workplace routines rather than recall
Editorial placeholder: Confirm number of courses/users

This is 2014 to 2015 work. No adoption, completion or satisfaction data is claimed.

Recognise any of this?

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Or write directly: glenn@glennhammond.com