RSC East Midlands newsletter "intouch" - Summer 2004

intouch

Forthcoming

the termly newsletter produced by RSC East Midlands

COLLEGE

EVENTS

FOCUS

June

NLN Transformation Project: Successful regional bid led by Northampton College

9th

ILT Forum

10th

Using ILT in Key Skills

15th

LRC Forum

18th

Q Project Dissemination

In March 2004, bids for up to £150,000 closed for projects relating to transforming learning using ILT. The LSDA announced 9 successful bids from 100 entrants; approximately one per region in England. Northampton College led a successful bid for one of the two biggest projects and was the successful bid in the East Midlands region.

22nd

NLN Workshop: Re-crafting the Content

23rd

Using ILT in Music and Performing Arts

23rd

Creating an MLE

30th

Technical Forum

For further details see our website

www.rsc-east-midlands.ac.uk

The project is county-wide, involving Tresham Institute, Daventry College, Moulton College, and five school sixth forms in Northamptonshire.

The project is funded by the National Learning Network and is scheduled to run from March 2004 until March 2005. Darren Tysoe, Assistant Director for Curriculum ILT at Northampton College has overall responsibility for the project.

The purpose of the project is to transform teaching and learning using Information and Learning Technology (ILT). Subject teachers who share a common subject specialism will be paired from partner colleges and schools. Phil Leeson, a physics lecturer and ILT Champion from Northampton College has been seconded to assist teachers and lecturers to carry out action research to determine the optimum blend and composition of ILT in specified programmes of learning. Using standardised recording systems, teams will carry out parallel experiments to compare the results of alternative approaches to integrating ILT into their practice and refine their practice after its review. Phil is supported by a Steering Group, which consists of managers from the colleges and schools. Sue Lovell has been appointed as a consultant and e-learning guide by the LSDA to help ensure the project meets its declared aims.

Learners’ opinions and achievements will be integral to the experiments. These experiments will provide teaching staff from the wider FE community with guidance in the form of lesson plans, adapted learning material and support to help them with proven and accessible solutions for embedding ILT into their teaching practice.

Northampton College

• Provide teachers with the framework to test different approaches of face to face learning, while embedding ILT. • Gather opinion from learners and teachers, together with statistical, quantitative analysis to demonstrate effective practice.

• Raise the skill levels of teachers involved with the project.

• Provide the community with guidance in the form of viewed lesson plans and adapted learning materials.

It is vital that outcomes of the project are measurable. These have been identified as: • Refined lesson plans and adapted materials giving flexible solutions for blended learning results of workshops and experimentation by subject specialists.

• Staff development resources for creating interactive learning material using everyday software (builds on FPP unit, Adapting and Creating Content).

• Report on key factors to successfully blend ILT and traditional methods - collective results of teams of subject specialists who have experimented with alternative approaches to the use of ILT in teaching, learning and assessment. This will include feedback from learners - analysis of quantitative and qualitative findings from workshops, lessons, and assessment experiments giving feedback on their flexibility, accessibility, usefulness, effectiveness, and quality.

• Teachers demonstrate transformational change from their starting points.

There will be at least one event in Spring 2005 to disseminate the findings of all of the transformation projects. For general information, see the NLN website: www.nln.ac.uk

The objectives of the project are to:

For information on the Northampton Consortium, contact Darren Tysoe on 01604 734093.

• Experiment with a wide range of ILT resources across the consortium.

Darren Tysoe, Assistant Director for Curriculum ILT, Northampton College

JANET Web Filtering Service for Specialist Colleges With the JANET community expanding to include institutions from the specialist colleges sector, there is an increasing need for the protection of vulnerable users from inappropriate web content. In response to this requirement, the United Kingdom Education and Research Networking Association (UKERNA) has agreed a contract with Research Machines plc (RM) for the provision of a centralised web filtering service based on RM SafetyNet Plus.

The service provides the facility for each college to manage its own list of blocked or permitted websites by filtering in accordance with the organisation’s acceptable use policy and customising these filters to its exact needs. As such, administrative rights to the filter settings

are held by nominated individuals within the college.

The major benefits of the web filtering service are: • The ability to manage filter lists through a web-based administrative interface.

• The option to quickly permit or deny access to a specific page on the Internet.

• The choice of determining whether or not certain words or search terms are appropriate for certain individuals.

• The opportunity to prevent users from downloading particular file extensions such as .mp3 or .exe, that can waste Internet bandwidth or pose security/copyright threats.

• The convenience of being able to use preexisting filtering lists. This allows the administrator to take advantage of the prebuilt categories of filtering the specialist service supplier has developed over years of experience, for example, a pre-built list of pages containing sexual content.

To apply for the service, an e-mail should be sent on behalf of an organisation by a recognised JANET contact to JANET Customer Service (JCS) at: service@janet.ac.uk with the Subject ‘JANET Web Filtering Service application for (name of organisation)’, using the template ‘Application form’ which can be found at www.ja.net/Templates/Application_Form.doc

Welcomefrom the Editor Did you know that, in addition to the regional training events that the RSC organises, we can also help plan and support your in-house ILT staff development programme? We can do this by suggesting possible workshop topics, tailoring training to meet your particular needs and putting you in touch with other training providers within the NLN partnership. To find out more about this and the other types of support for staff development that we can offer, take a look at the article by Chris Hill, entitled ‘Supporting Staff Development’.

INSIDE This issue Welcome Teacher Training Courses: models of e-learning practice

The RSC is pleased to welcome two new Advisors to the team, Sharon Hutchings who will be supporting Adult and Community Learning and Rachael Stacey who is our HE advisor. You can meet them both inside this issue.

RSC Mailing Lists

Finally, as yet another academic year draws to a close, may I wish you all a happy and carefree holiday period and I look forward to seeing many of you, revived and newly invigorated, at the various events we will be running next year - look out for our programme to be published shortly.

More JANET Bandwidth for FE Colleges

Judi Millage, ILT Advisor

Supporting staff development: how the RSC can help

Teacher Training Courses: models of e-learning practice

Forthcoming Events

Meet our new Advisors

College Focus: Northampton College JANET Web Filtering Service for Specialist Colleges

If you ever had time to stop and think, it might be quite scary being a member of or managing a teacher training course team. The learning experience of every student who walks into your college over the next ten years could depend on the quality of the training you offer. You have the responsibility of preparing teachers for a role that might extend thirty years into the future when no-one knows what technology will be available. And on top of that you have to model effective practice in the use of e-learning. Can we help?

A new service from the team at the East Midlands RSC is to work with teacher training teams. We can help you: -

• recognise in a teaching observation when ILT is used well - and when an opportunity to use it has been missed

• incorporate e-learning into your course programme

Between us, the RSC team members not only have expertise in e-

• model effective practice in the use of e-learning

learning and staff development, but long experience of delivering

• make e-learning integral, not just one or two sessions out of the

teacher training courses from introductory to post-graduate level and

whole course

working as an external verifier for City and Guilds.

• develop the skills of your course team

If you think we can help, contact support@rsc-east-midlands.ac.uk

• find appropriate resources

or telephone 01509 618110.

• use ILT to differentiate between learners

Chris Hill, RSC Manager

Chris Bell, Specialist College Advisor

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Volume 2 • Issue 3

Summer 2004

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intouch

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Meet our new Advisors:

Supporting staff development: how the RSC can help

Sharon Hutchings, ILT Advisor, Adult and Community Learning Before taking up this post I was working for Derbyshire Adult and Community Education Service and Nottingham Trent University. My work at both these places involved teaching on many courses ranging from web design to women’s studies. Over the last few years however, I have also been involved in staff development for e-Learning and more recently as an E-Guide trainer on the E-Guides programme developed by NIACE: www.niace.org.uk

enrolled on a couple of courses at Community House in Long Eaton.

This was a significant time in my life as I saw and felt the life changing impact adult and community education can have.

My first experience of ACL was as a learner. I’d recently moved house, didn’t know anyone and had two, very lively babies under the age of two. Not being quite sure when days began or ended and having lost all ability to communicate with sense, I

My role here at the East Midlands Regional Support Centre is still being shaped, but initially it will be to come and meet those of you in the ACL sector and look at how we can support you in the development and implementation of your ILT/e-learning strategy. There’s a part of me that will really miss the teaching but I’m looking forward to meeting you and becoming involved in your e-Learning plans.

Later on I went back to Community House as a tutor. As my knowledge for learning and teaching developed, so did my awareness and enthusiasm of how technology can enhance the learning experience. This has now led me to my new role as an ILT Advisor for the ACL sector!

Sharon Hutchings, ILT Advisor, Adult and Community Learning

Rachael Stacey, e-Learning Advisor, Higher Education I have been in post as the Higher Education Advisor at RSC East Midlands since March 8th. The remit of the RSC’s has recently expanded to include small HE Institutions and HE in FE. My role is to support e-Learning within these areas and I am currently in the process of visiting colleges in the region with HE provision, to determine the type of support required.

I moved into education from a science background, having completed a PhD at the University of Nottingham School of Pharmacy. Throughout my time as a research student, I worked as a teaching assistant in undergraduate classes. I then went on to teach at the University of Nottingham Graduate School. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching, and decided to pursue a career in the education sector. I completed the C&G 7407 (Stage 1) Certificate in Adult Education to facilitate this change in direction.

In 2003 I began work as the JISC Resource Guide Adviser for Health and Life Sciences - a role I will continue with for 2 days a week until the end of the project in July.

This role has given me an insight into the JISC resources and services available for Higher Education, and I’m hoping that this, combined with the extensive experience of my RSC colleagues will prove to be a successful combination.

Rachael Stacey, e-Learning Advisor, Higher Education

More JANET Bandwidth for FE Colleges Nearly four years ago, all Further Education Colleges were given primary 2Mbps connections to the JANET network. With many institutions making ever increasing use of their JANET connections, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) has made the decision to provide funded bandwidth upgrades to either 4Mbps or 10Mbps. These upgrades only apply to the FE Colleges. The specialist colleges, HE colleges and adult and community learning institutions supported by the RSC, will not be entitled to a funded bandwidth upgrade at this point in time.

Just from their names, educational organisations ought to be learning organisations, but is it sometimes difficult to achieve that in practice? Improving the organisation depends on developing staff skills, understanding and attitudes. The Regional Support Centre has a menu of services that can help your ILT staff development. With the exception of some regional training events, our services are free.

In-house training events

Your teacher training team

RSC advisers can support your in-house staff development programme, for example by running a workshop on a staff development day. The workshop would be tailored to your particular needs. Would you like a workshop on Interactive whiteboards or On-line assessment or Interactive worksheets or Differentiation or ... ...?

Teacher training teams are crucial in raising staff skills and hence the quality of teaching and learning. We can work with your teacher training team so they can model effective practice in the use of e-learning. See the piece elsewhere in this newsletter.

Inspection

Regional training events A regional programme of training events runs throughout the year - see the back page of this Newsletter for our current offer. Our events draw on the expertise of the National Learning Network and aim to include something for everyone. We are in the process of drawing up our events programme for next year. Please tell us if there are particular events you would like to see included.

OfSTED and ALI inspectors can not only recognise when ILT is used well, they are also adept at picking out where opportunities to use it have been missed. We can help you prepare for inspection, for example by working through questions about ILT and the Common Inspection Framework with groups of managers. After the inspection we can help you plan for action and implement those plans.

FERL Practitioners’ Programme

Building collaborative networks: forums

Getting the best out of the FPP requires careful planning. We can work with you and the FPP Development Officer to help you plan the implementation and delivery of the programme. FPP deals with issues all institutions face. How do you enable your teaching and learning support staff to incorporate e-learning in their programmes? How do you encourage technical and curriculum staff to understand the contribution each can make?

Staff often comment that the best part of an out-of-college training event is the learning that results from talking to colleagues from other institutions.

The RSC holds termly Forums to bring together people in similar roles from different sectors across the region. We currently have forums in the following areas:

Planning and organising your Staff Development programme We can support you in drawing up, delivering and evaluating a staff development strategy which is consistent with your institution’s other strategies, such as the ILT strategy and the learning strategy. We can suggest audits of staff skills and put you in touch with NLN services for you to draw on. Include the RSC in your staff development plan for next year.

ILT, MIS/CIS, technical, specialist colleges, Library/Learning Resources, Ferl Practitioners’ Programme

Building collaborative networks: e-mail lists E-mail lists are excellent for learning what is going on in the region - and for seeing if anyone else has met a problem you currently face. Among our current lists are: technical, staff development, ILT, LRC, MIS, HE in FE, specialist college

The mindmap gives an overview of what we offer. Would you like us to run a session on how to use mindmaps? The software is available on a free licence through CHEST. So, when you are planning your staff development, remember that the RSC is here to support you, and - apart from some events - it’s all for free. To find out more about any of these activities, contact support@rsc-east-midlands.ac.uk or telephone 01509 618110.

Chris Hill, RSC Manager In house training

The decision about whether the upgrade will be to 4Mbps or 10Mbps is being made by the LSC, based on a college’s aggregated overall traffic flow during the period July 2002 to July 2003. For those institutions where the cumulative traffic levels on the existing link are higher than 15% of the current 2Mbps funded bandwidth, the connection will be upgraded to 10Mbps. For those where the cumulative traffic levels are less than 15%, the connection will be upgraded to 4Mbps.

Many colleges effectively manage and control their bandwidth, (possibly resulting in them not meeting the criteria for the higher level of upgrade) and every effort has been made to ensure that these colleges aren’t penalised as a result. UKERNA has made extensive use of the local knowledge of the RSC, prior to making recommendations to the LSC regarding appropriate upgrades. Information about the upgrade that your college is due to receive can be obtained from the RSC. If you have a good case for asking for more bandwidth than has been

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allocated, then contact either the RSC or UKERNA: support@rsc-east-midlands.ac.uk service@ukerna.ac.uk Although many of the preparations and plans for the upgrades are in place, the project cannot start until UKERNA has received confirmation from the LSC that they will fund the project. When confirmation of funding has been received, the plan is for the upgrades to take place as a blanket connection process, rather than the staggered “tranche” system used when the JANET connections were originally installed.

The actual process for upgrading the connections will vary considerably across the region. In some cases the provision of the upgraded bandwidth will involve the procurement of a new physical circuit. If a new circuit has to be installed, the intention is wherever possible, for a physical 10Mbps circuit to be procured, even if the circuit is then to be traffic shaped to 4Mbps. This will obviously reduce the work involved in

implementing any further future upgrades.

What

Where a physical 10Mbps circuit is already installed at the college, the bandwidth upgrade can be implemented relatively easily with configuration changes on the routers at the college and the EMMAN. It is likely that those colleges which require no circuit re-procurement will be upgraded first, as they can be upgraded more quickly.

Some colleges are already paying UKERNA for additional bandwidth. In these cases, UKERNA will take over the recurrent funding of the relevant additional bandwidth from August 2004, although there will be no refund of the capital costs incurred by the colleges in providing the additional bandwidth.

If you have any questions concerning the JANET bandwidth upgrades, contact the RSC by telephone on 01509 618110 or by email support@rsc-east-midlands.ac.uk

ILT staff development

Regional events

Plan Implement Evaluate

Ferl Practitioners' Programme

Helpdesk RSC team visits E-mail lists

How

ILT and inspection

Forums Events Web site

Your staff development plan

Workshops

Advice and guidance

Teachers Managers

Collaborative networks

Support Staff

Who Teacher training team

Technical staff Teacher training team Learning Resource Centre staff

Access to national services

CIS / MIS

James Higham, Network Specialist

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