intouch the termly newsletter produced by RSC East Midlands
Autumn 2010 Volume 9: Issue 1
Contents 1 10 years of the RSCs 2 Regional News 2 Progress of technology in learning over the last ten years 3 Future gazing 4 Celebrating e-learning in the region 4 Regional award winners 5 Best practice in the UK 5 Resource Corner
RSCs celebrate 10 years How has technology changed your life over the past ten years? The East Midlands RSC was set up in August 2000, so this year is our tenth Anniversary and we’ve been looking back – but also forward. The current priority for providers must be the economic environment. Initial arguments for technology in learning – and fears of the staff – often focused on its potential to reduce costs but more recently have concentrated on improving the learner experience. RSC services this year will focus on enabling you to take advantage of developments that do both. In the East Midlands our other local support priorities for 2010-11 both grow in significance in the recession: learner voice and learning partnerships. In addition to its Ofsted importance, learner voice tells you much about the impact of investment in technology; at a time of economic stringency there is much to be gained from working in partnership with other providers. All RSCs are prioritising support for safeguarding, inclusion and two areas with considerable economic impact: sustainability and shared services. Nationally we are also working hard on support for business processes; support for procurement will be developed over the year. It is as recently as 1997 that Further Education Colleges began to be connected to the internet through the JANET network – with a 2 mbps connection for a whole college, which is slower than many home connections
now (although not mine!). It soon became obvious that there is more to gaining the benefits of technology than simply providing the kit and so the RSC was born, as one service available in all 13 UK regions. Since then, the service has evolved - at first to curriculum, learning resources and staff development, then to strategic development and most recently to the whole business of learning providers.
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Hints & Tips Secondments at the RSC e-portfolio activity Focus On: Accessibility JISC news Forthcoming Events 2010 e-fair resources available 8 Kathryn Robinson
The initial concentration on FE and Sixth Form colleges spread to include specialist colleges, non-university Higher Education, Adult and Community Learning, Work Based Learning and Offender Learning. From August 1st, JISC has delegated managing RSCs to JISC Advance, a not-for profit company which also includes seven of the key JISC services. The company will enable RSCs to work more consistently and efficiently across regions and benefit providers through closer collaboration with these key support services. Technology – and life - is very different now to ten years ago. The ongoing RSC challenge is to provide the support you need in a continually changing environment. Chris Hill, Manager, RSC East Midlands
Stimulating and supporting innovation in learning
Regional News FE Colleges to merge The Boards of Castle College Nottingham and South Nottingham College have voted in principle to merge. The two colleges have embarked on further and more detailed discussions which will include working with local stakeholders, such as the local authorities, and seeking approval from the Skills Funding Agency.
Regional Case Studies Since the last edition of “intouch” several learning providers in the region have had case studies of good e-practice published on the Excellence Gateway website at www.excellencegateway.org.uk.
• West Nottinghamshire College: Supporting mature visually impaired learners • Moulton College: Single sign-on makes life easier for students • South Nottingham College: Using online assessment
The last 10 years... A handful of learning providers and RSC staff reflect on how the use of technology has changed in the sector. Andrew Bailey Moulton College
Phil Hardcastle RSC East Midlands
“At the beginning of the decade there was an emphasis on large-scale projects, based on significant funding programmes, which looked at things like network infrastructure and virtual learning environments. These were immensely valuable but in the last few years the emphasis has changed to ensuring that the funding develops sustainable routes of putting ILT into the curriculum, as value for money has been crucial. An example of this is the switch from subscription-based resources and software to open source.
“Adult and Community Education was just starting out down the ILT road in 2000. Most staff and managers regarded it as something difficult to deploy in services which were widely dispersed and which taught in a very traditional manner. Ten years down the line most services have integrated the use of ILT into their daily work, staff have been trained, Moodles set up, equipment bought.
“In the last ten years I’d say that the community of practice has strengthened. You never stop learning from colleagues around the region!” Martin Cooke RSC East Midlands
“Do you remember dial-up? Working as an online tutor in 2000 we were using Web Board for collaboration together with internet course materials and email. Working from home I was on dial-up, which was agonisingly slow. I would go online at off-peak times to avoid the premium rate telephone charges, and of course whilst the internet was connected you weren’t able to use the telephone! There was some synchronous chat but most of the work was asynchronous and not surprisingly retention on distance learning was generally poor.”
• Northampton College: Learner Voice and Technology
Lynne Kendall Linkage College
• Leicestershire Adult Learning Service: Making Informal Adult Learning work
“The College has seen technology move forward greatly in the last ten years. From the days where ILT meant a few computers in a couple of rooms to support staff and students, to current practices where they exist in every room as well as many other gadgets and gizmos that support the work of staff as well as providing fantastic resources to enable our students to develop and learn new skills with innovative technologies.
If you have any good e-practice that you wish to highlight then please get intouch with Kevin Spencer, Information Officer at the RSC, on 01509 618112 or kevin.spencer@rsc-em.ac.uk.
Appointments Dawn Green and Helen Bramley, both formerly of Portland College, are the new Principal and Deputy Principal respectively at Landmarks College in North Derbyshire.
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“Of course technology hasn’t just changed the way Linkage operates with student resources, the introduction of computerised systems for recording and tracking data has also taken a great step up within the last several years, with many of our systems now online, such as Databridge, our Management Information System.”
“There are still difficulties – internet in remote rural sites is almost as bad as it ever was, but on the other hand the change in staff attitudes is remarkable. Staff now expect (even demand) ILT equipment and support.” Toni Langridge Nottinghamshire Training Network Ltd
“Our general thoughts are that access to the internet has been a significant improvement to Work Based Learning. The internet has only really become accessible to a wider audience over the last ten years, and it’s now difficult for any of us to imagine working in an environment that doesn’t have this wealth of highly accessible information in place. “Additionally, the introduction of wireless technologies and e-learning systems available over the internet has also significantly improved efficiency and convenience – not only for training providers but also for learners. Learners are now able to access their training resources much more quickly and at a time more suitable for them.” Chris Hill RSC East Midlands
“In 2000 you didn’t trust the technology completely. When preparing for a teaching session, you had to have a plan B because you couldn’t be sure the kit would work. It would be a very brave soul who relied on using the internet live with learners without having screen shots in reserve on a disk – I certainly didn’t have a USB drive. “In the College where I worked, the new target of one computer per fulltime member of staff was nowhere near met – and the Principal commandeered the laptop I should have had as ILT Champion.”
...and the next 10?
10 years at the heart of the RSC For the ten years that the RSC has been in existence there’s been one person right at the heart of it! We took a few moments to catch up with our Events & Admin Co-ordinator, Gwen Callaghan.
During the next ten years technology will almost certainly continue to evolve at a rate that will involve most of us in a perpetual game of catch up; a game with no opt out and no end! For, if we wish to continue to provide the best learning experience for our learners, then we must continue to adopt, adapt and embrace new technologies. Over the next year or two, the use of mobile technologies, such as netbooks, smart phones, e-book readers and other portable, Internet-enabled devices will continue to increase. The challenge for learning providers will be to ensure that a learner’s personal device can easily connect to the organisation’s network and then to determine ways in which the devices can be used to best effect within learning and teaching. Also set to proliferate is the availability of open educational resources (OER), where learning materials are made available under open licences that allow free use and repurposing of resources. JISC and the HE Academy are currently supporting pilot projects in this area. More information is available at www.jisc.ac.uk/oer. Further into the future, augmented reality (AR) will become more mainstream, helped along by the inclusion of AR applications on smart phones. AR enables you to overlay information onto a real-life scene. Imagine for example, that you’re walking down a street full of restaurants and simply by looking through the camera lens of your mobile phone you can see ratings and customer reviews before you choose. Now apply that to education: use it to identify species of plants, trees, insects, or provide historical information about buildings as you walk down a street, or overlay maps with historical data. You are limited only by your imagination! Still some way off, but being explored by games companies, is gesture-based computing. Think of the Wii minus the
hand controller. This is about controlling the computer directly through body motion. The Wii has already been shown to increase dexterity and motor control across a range of people, from disabled children through to surgeons. Allowing the user to interface directly with the computer should create an even more realistic experience and could have the potential to improve these results further. And what of the Web? How will that evolve? We’re currently in what is often referred to as the ‘Web 2.0’ phase, which is all about web applications and social networking (think Facebook). However, over the next ten years, it is predicted that Web 3.0 will begin to emerge. Billed as the ‘intelligent’ or ‘semantic’ web, Web 3.0 will use search engines that can understand, or interpret your request so that, based on your browsing history, it will deliver a set of results that are unique to you. So, two people performing the same search would, in theory, end up with different results based on their individual profiles. A bit like having a virtual personal assistant who knows everything about you! And if that sounds a little bit scary and intrusive, watch out for Web 4.0... To find out more about future technologies and their impact in the education sector you might like to investigate OSS Watch and JISC CETIS, which both offer horizon scanning, whilst JISC infoNet has a Strategy InfoKit that will help you to think about your organisational responses.
“On my first day at the RSC back in July 2000 I was presented with my own PC, and told to go and explore the internet, but I’d never been on it before, so it was a bit daunting! “One of the first things we did was to hold a launch of the RSC. With only 3 members of the staff at the time it was quite a task. We ran it here at Loughborough College and we did experience some problems as it was the time of the fuel strike and we had people who couldn’t get here! “I spent more time out of the office in the first year as I was on visits to help explain who the RSC was and what we could do for our learning providers. “As we started to put on our events and forums I’ve spent more time based in the office. Over the ten years I’d estimate that I’ve helped co-ordinate over 400 events. “One of my highlights was putting on our very first e-fair back in 2005. It was a lot of hard work but really exciting, and despite a few hiccups before the day, it all ran fairly smoothly. “On a personal level another success for me was when I passed my AAT accounting qualification in 2004, which really helped me understand how the College finance department works!” With the ability to instantly reel off the names of all those who’ve worked at the RSC in the last 10 years, time has flown so fast for Gwen that it all merges into one short decade!
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Around the region
Recognising good e-practice
In the Summer edition of intouch we asked you to join with us in celebrating the different work being done in the region that uses technology to improve learning and teaching. Here are a few snippets: Jason Fowler, Strategic Training Solutions (Mansfield) Ltd
“I encouraged learners to reflect on their learning in the E2E department by using a web-based blog site, blogger.com. I also blog with my learners to encourage them to blog.” Lynne Brandt, Sue Roberts and Annick Fructoso from Derby College
“We developed and delivered ILT passport training and a certification scheme to College delivery staff. This improved ICT competence of the staff.” Patrick Lander, Loughborough College
“I’ve introduced Sports Staff to Articulate animation in order to bring interactivity to HE Sport.” Paul Joseph, Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth 1 College
“I used argument mapping software to help with the learning of arguments and essay planning. It helps students visually see the structure of reasoning.”
A dozen organisations took up the offer to run our Learning Technology Awards scheme in the 2009/10 academic year. Here we take a look at some of the individual winners and the benefits these learning providers have found through running the scheme. Phil Wilson at South Nottingham College summed up the experience of those providers who have taken part. “The scheme has been an excellent exercise for us - I’m delighted to say that we had a lot of entries, so we decided to give two internal awards in addition from our own funds and overall we generated several case studies.
“The presentations went down an absolute storm with the staff and created a lot of interest. We’ve also asked our winner to run some internal training sessions for other members of staff so that they can adopt his good practice too.”
Kayleigh Panton, ISIS Training
“We have put our E2E curriculum online - getting rid of most paperbased resources and linking to video, interactive and online resources. This can be accessed by all on the company intranet.” Danuta Jeeves, Leicestershire Adult Learning Service
“I used the BBC – My Story initiative in all literacy classes (Skills for Life) and all learners submitted a story and used ICT. This built confidence and self-esteem, as well as enhancing literacy skills.” Colin Kistruck, Grantham College
“I had students develop Xerte learning objects/templates in lessons. This develops greater learner involvement and engagement.” The full details are available on our Moodle site in the e-fair 2010 section at http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk.
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Brooksby Melton College – Tina Horsman and Angharad Harrop Tina set up a project that used Microsoft Outlook calendar as a platform for a student to complete their work experience assignment, as the learner is dyslexic and found it very difficult to put down in written form his ideas or knowledge. Angharad’s (top right) students learn performance material in dance class which is filmed and then placed into Moodle with feedback from tutors thereby allowing students to continue their learning. Castle College – Adrian Cronin Adrian has put together an interactive PDF document that has video tutorials embedded in it and contains all the materials, including formative and summative assessments, for a year-long, two-hour a week course. Charnwood Training Group – Tony Rose Tony has been using ICT as a learning and assessment tool, adapting to learners’ needs and requirements for differentiation. He has used a wide variety of learning technologies including video, Tablet PCs and Fizzbooks.
Northampton College – Lindsay Curson Lindsay (top centre) is an Advanced Practitioner in Beauty Therapies and has pioneered the effective use of Moodle within her department, particularly championing the use of online assignment hand-in and overseeing its rollout. Moulton College – Alison Thompson Alison (top left) developed Llama Blog, an online video diary demonstrating the pioneering training regime for Star, the College’s Llama. It was planned, produced and edited by Alison’s students, engaging them with latest e-technologies and enabling them not only to develop their communication skills, but to use their experiences as a visual learning resource for other students. Portland College – Natalie Trippett Over the past year, Natalie has championed mobile learning with her learners within the Additional Learning Support (ALS) cohort. The majority of ALS learners have memory difficulties as a result of acquired or traumatic brain injuries and Natalie has fully embraced the use of mobile technologies to meet their needs, including digital photo keyrings, pagers, mobile phones and iPods. South Nottingham College – Edward Whiteley Ed has successfully adopted the use of an online resource, Turnitin, which allows him to check at a glance which learners have submitted their work; who has met the deadline; and obtain a plagiarism percentage report for each submission. It also allows online marking and feedback. Find out more at www.excellencegateway.org.uk/snc. Full details of all the winners can be found in the Hall of Fame at www.rsc-em.ac.uk/awards.asp. The good news is that we will be running this scheme again in 2010/11.
Best practice in the UK
Resource Corner MoLeSHARE supports the Mobile Learning Network (MoLeNET) from the Learning & Skills Network (LSN), a unique collaborative approach to encouraging, supporting, expanding and promoting mobile learning.
In this edition of intouch our example of best practice showcases one of the workshops at the 2010 RSC East Midlands e-fair and looks at how Leicestershire Adult Learning Service (LALS) have made Informal Adult Learning work for them. The challenge The Service provides a range of formal learning opportunities to adult learners across the county but it wanted to expand its work in informal learning, as one of its core values is to encourage participation and engage hard-to-reach learners, a group that is often best approached on a more informal basis.
Many of the referrals for help that come to the e-Champions originate from the public libraries, a key partner in the success of the scheme. The e-Champion then arranges a suitable time to meet up with the learner in need, often at one of the libraries, but also at a range of other environments including cafes, workplaces, surgeries, community halls and care homes.
The activity LALS helped pull together a partnership bid for £100k of funding from the Learning Revolution in the autumn of 2009.
One of the e-Champions, Jane Coulson, commented: “In February this year, I started the training as an e-Champion; a thoroughly enjoyable experience with very pleasant people. We all had one very important aspect in common, the wish to help in the further education for adults. My computer knowledge may be basic, but by preparing a schedule of interesting activities relevant to my learner, this has increased my own computer skills.”
The two main focuses for LALS within the partnership were to: • Create a network of e-Champions working in communities across the region; • Create a community website with online learning resources. The plan was to recruit five co-ordinators to cover the five boroughs of the county, each with ten e-Champions. The co-ordinators were recruited from existing staff who worked on a fractional basis for the Service who were paid for their work as a co-ordinator. The e-Champions were recruited primarily through staff recommendations of learners who were on ICT classes run by LALS.
All the e-Champions had access to equipment including laptops with 3G dongles to access the Internet, cameras, and video cameras.
This includes several from some of the learning providers in our region.
Moulton College • Using Nintendo DSis and FIFA 10 in a Sports Studies Classroom • Using QR Codes
The second objective for LALS was to create a series of online learning resources. The original plan had been to develop a community learning portal for learners across the county. However they decided to use an existing website, Leicestershire Villages, instead.
A QR code for the web address of “intouch”
A series of videos were created for the website that covered topics that would be helpful for relatively inexperienced learners such as help in getting started with their own computers, the internet, e-safety, digital photography and a section on family history, a popular interest for many of the target learners.
• Using Web 2.0 file share technology Dropbox for improved resource/ evidence sharing
The outcomes After the conclusion of the original project LALS secured new funding, this time from the UK Online scheme in order to keep the e-Champion scheme running, although the number of co-ordinators was reduced from five to two.
In total 49 e-Champion volunteers were recruited across Leicestershire to provide local support to those wanting to learn to use a computer and access the Internet. Support was given via drop-in sessions, one-to-one guidance, as well as by phone and email.
A new series of case studies on using mobile technologies is now available at www.moleshare.org.uk/case_studies.asp.
In the future they hope to return to five co-ordinators as the project is currently one of the best performers in the country. So far the e-Champions have been able to help over 300 people to improve their IT skills. We hope that this will have given you some inspiration for your organisation. Our thanks go to the Excellence Gateway website for allowing the reproduction of this case study. To view the full version of this case study and find links to other resources on this topic, we recommend that you visit www.excellencegateway.org.uk/lals.
Chesterfield College • Using Pre-Installed Learning Resources ATT Automotive Training System with Netbooks
Castle College • Using wireless routers in the classroom • Pinball and Parties – netbooks as a learning resource • Qwizdom in the classroom • Nintendo Wii in community learning • Developing a sustainable IT/VLE Platform through MoLeNET • Health and Fitness for SEN students using Nintendo Wii
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Hints & Tips: The Wayback Machine Have you looked at the Wayback Machine? It is part of The Internet Archive, a nonprofit organisation, which is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artefacts in digital form. Like a paper library, they provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars and the general public. As well as the Wayback Machine the digital library contains a wealth of documents, films, audio recordings and a concerts archive. The Wayback Machine does exactly what it says on the tin. It gives you the ability to go back in time on the web. So why not take a look at your organisation’s website from years ago. Be warned that not all images and other functions will be available or replicated in their entirety. Here’s what the RSC web site looked like in 2003.
Sharing regional expertise Matt Harrison from Portland College and Eileen Kirk from Derbyshire County Council Adult Community Education Service (DACES) spent the first half of 2010 on secondment with the RSC on a part-time basis. Matt brought expertise and experience in the areas of Assistive Technology (AT) and accessibility. As well as leading an event on using key accessibility tools, providing training sessions direct with learning providers, and contributing to the updated RSC AT boxes, he also created a range of resources which are now freely availably (see page 7).
“The secondment was a great opportunity as it gave me the chance to share my specialist knowledge with a wider audience, for example by writing the guides - something which I had wanted to do at Portland yet had never had the time to do. Working with the RSC has also introduced me to new colleagues across the East Midlands, many of whom I will be keeping in touch with.”
In addition to making support visits to learning providers and being editor of the monthly ILT e-bulletin, Eileen organised the ILT Forum and the Moodle Users Group.
“Working for the RSC has sharpened my technology skills and helped me understand the strategic environment from a regional perspective. It has been very interesting to find that all providers face common issues and barriers but remain positive and supportive. The enthusiasm of technologists to share ideas and developments continues despite cuts and uncertainty.” The value of secondments to the individual, their employer and the RSC leads to favourable outcomes for all. In the future we hope to offer further opportunities to share expertise.
Running an e-portfolio One use of this website is that it offers a way to access blocked sites via its cached web pages. Clicking on the latest copy of what the Wayback Machine has should be somewhat similar to the real site. Teaching staff have used this time travel for showing their learners how the internet has rapidly developed since its inception. The Wayback Machine can be used to re-visit a certain time period to see what was on the web around a memorable date, particularly useful if the archives have been removed from any of the websites you want to view. The cached pages have been used in legal proceedings around the world, so discussions about the legal and ethical rights can be linked into the tool. Can you think of other ways it might be useful for you?
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Several colleges in the region were involved in the ePortfolios and Lifelong Learners project carried out by the Centre for International ePortfolio Development on behalf of the Lifelong Learning Network (LLN) for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The project ran time-limited trials of institution-free, learner-owned e-portfolio systems with more than 1,000 users across a range of course and learning contexts. Whilst work is on-going in the institutions who took part, the official project has finished and reports are now available on the findings at www.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio. The pilots demonstrated that there was value to learners across the whole range of functions available within the ePortfolio systems provided, including but exceeding assessment functions. In some cases pilots generated new functionality. The main strengths of the institution-free e-portfolios for LLN learners were that they could be personalised and were portable as learners moved across
providers. From the providers viewpoint they could be rapidly deployed and so were a good test-bed in deciding how to proceed in this area. The reported downsides were that the e-portfolios could be viewed as peripheral to an institution’s mainstream provision and employers involved in funding the e-portfolios may wish to exert ownership rights. If you want any support for your organisation in how, or whether, to implement e-portfolios please get intouch with Ben Williams on 01509 618116 or ben.williams@rsc-em.ac.uk.
Focus On: Accessibility
JISC news Impact of the RSCs To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the RSCs, JISC has commissioned a report detailing the impact the RSCs have had on the post-16 education and training sector across the UK over the last ten years. The Impact Report comes out at the end of September and will subsequently be distributed across the region.
Funding Opportunities Although we looked at the topic of accessibility and inclusion relatively recently, in the summer 2009 edition of “intouch”, so much has happened in relation to this topic since, and is about to happen with the arrival of the Single Equality Duty that we thought we should re-visit the topic. RSC Accessibility Project In the first half of 2010 we put extra emphasis on building our support for accessibility and inclusion. The project was designed to help embed inclusion within strategic support to learning providers and to extend RSC assistance to Learning Support staff. This was approached by means of a series of free events and staff development training sessions. Learning Support contacts were identified and visits were made to several Additional Learning Support (ALS) managers, resulting in some training sessions. Identifying the needs of learning support staff has been helped by the East Midlands Additional Learning Support Network (EMALS). A joined-up approach to inclusivity in providers is a continuing priority, especially given the lack of funding that will characterise the sector in the coming years. We hope to be able to be part of a development of the network for learning support managers/staff. This work will be ongoing and we hope to provide a Training Needs Analysis framework for ALS staff. We were also joined on secondment by Matt Harrison, Research and Development Manager at Portland College, who produced: • 17 ‘Guides to free tools’ (based on the AccessApps suite) – available for downloading via our Moodle platform at http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk; • An introduction to Switching – http://bit.ly/cGBHob; • Several accessible learning objects in Xerte – http://bit.ly/do61Fl Single Equality Duty The Single Equality Duty (SED) becomes operative in October of this year. Learning Providers have to be proactive in promoting equality.
Should technology be explicitly mentioned in your Single Equality Scheme? The answer is an overwhelming “Yes”; for the following reasons: • At the individual learner level, personalisation and reasonable adjustment will be better enabled by the use of free and mainstream assistive technologies;
JISC has recently updated the future calls section of its website at www.jisc.ac.uk and now shows planned Grant calls and Invitations To Tenders (ITTs) from August 2010 to July 2011.
Two new online tutorials for video and audio resources JISC Digital Media in conjunction with the Virtual Training Suite (VTS) has launched two new online tutorials: Internet for Audio Resources and Internet for Video and Moving Images.
• At the organisational level, technology can help identify strengths and weaknesses in inclusivity and encourage ownership by all staff. Support available To help you meet your legal requirements for the SED we are offering some new services. JISC TechDis and the UK-wide Regional Support Centres have developed an SED toolkit which is being made available in September. This will help you identify where a provider sits on the inclusivity spectrum and point you to tools to help address the needs of your learners and the approach to a partnership model of inclusivity. We also have a new Moodle course ‘Accessibility: an introduction’ which is available via http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk. The course can be downloaded into your own version of Moodle where it can be tailored to include any specific materials or instructions for your own organisation. Our Accessibility & Inclusion specialist, Martin Cooke, will also be updating via a new accessibility blog at http://rscemaccessibility.blogspot.com.
These are both free-to-use tutorials that have been designed to assist staff and students within the education sector to locate audio and video for use in both teaching and learning. They can be accessed at www.vts.intute.ac.uk/tutorial.
New Guidance on the Digital Economy Act 2010 JISC Legal has released its guidance on the Digital Economy Act 2010 that examines the Act in detail and explores its implications for colleges and universities. The guidance can be found at www.jisclegal.ac.uk/DEA.
In the coming year we will be looking at providing examples of Learning Support models; senior manager briefings; accessibility self-assessments; and the new ITQ in accessible IT. Useful resources not only for ALS teams, but the wider community too. 7
Forthcoming Events September 28th (online)
Single Equality Duty updates
October 6th (online) 13th (am) 28th (am)
Introduction to running online events ILT Forum Heads of IT Forum
November 2nd (am) 3rd (am) 3rd (pm)
5th (pm) 12th (am) 16th (full day) 17th (am) 19th (am) 23rd (am) 24th (full day)
Accessibility and Inclusion Forum Learning Resources Forum East Midlands Informational Skills (EMIS) meeting MIS Network Forum Where next for ACL and e-learning? Creating inclusive learning resources Moodle Users Group Joint ACL/WBL Forum SharePoint Forum Discovering and sharing freely available educational resources
2010 e-fair reaches new heights RSC East Midlands held its 6th annual e-fair at the Walkers Stadium in Leicester earlier in the year. With almost 200 delegates in attendance it was the largest one yet. It was a chance for learning providers throughout the region to get together to find out the latest developments in e-learning, share good practice and network. Feedback from delegates was extremely positive and we’re glad that the event has become a fixture in many peoples’ diaries. We’ve collected together a wide variety of the resources from the e-fair so that anyone can access the wealth of information created for the day. Just go to our Moodle site at http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk. This year’s keynote was on Learner Voice and featured a series of film clips from learners around the East Midlands giving their views on how technology is used in their studies, what could be improved and what it might be like in the future. All the clips are available to view.
December 1st (online) 8th (am)
TBC (online)
There are also presentations and audio summaries from the 12 workshops that we ran. There were too many to name all the topics covered but some of the most popular topics included animation; social networking; video conferencing and mobile learning.
e-Safety Resources Using technology to enrich the learner’s voice Changing roles of library/LR staff
For further details please visit www.rsc-em.ac.uk where you can also sign up to our Events RSS feed. All our events and forums can be counted for CPD hours.
Previous newsletters are available via our website at www.rsc-em.ac.uk
Kathryn Robinson Kathryn died peacefully at home in July this year after a long illness. She had worked for the RSC for three years, initially as Advisor for Higher Education and then as Advisor for Adult & Community Learning. In the last year, she also worked with EMCETT, promoting the Institute for Learning (IfL) in the region. should benefit from that opportunity. She was a steadfast colleague who brought both warmth and a sense of humour to her work.
Get intouch JISC RSC East Midlands Loughborough College Radmoor Road Loughborough Leicestershire LE11 3BT Tel: 01509 618110 Email: support@rsc-em.ac.uk Web: www.rsc-em.ac.uk VLE: http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk 8
The Learner Voice Hub gave ideas on how you might capture Learner Voice in your own organisation. It included advice and guidance on the use of audio and film, as well as Web 2.0 technologies such as blogging, Twitter and podcasting. We’ve also updated our ‘Capturing Learner Voice using ILT’ Moodle course with some of these materials and it is available for download to your own Moodle.
Kathryn freely gave energy, enthusiasm and an unfailingly positive attitude to learning and life. Her own career convinced her of the value of lifelong learning, and she was determined others
Kevin, her husband, would like to thank all those who sent the many messages of support. Sue Green, Manager of Nottinghamshire ACL Service, captured the thoughts of many. “We have always enjoyed excellent support; Kathryn’s genuine interest, support and enthusiasm were very much appreciated by our team and we will miss her greatly.” So will all who knew her.
This publication is printed on paper from sustainable sources. In the interests of the environment, please pass on to a colleague when you’ve finished with it or recycle it. It is also available online at www.rsc-em.ac.uk.