Having enjoyed the calm of a post-event lull and an Easter break I felt it was time to “get back on the horse” and revisit Spring Bytes. For those of you who didn’t attend, Spring Bytes was a 2-day online event deliverd in March. The event looked at the potential for mobile technologies, what impact they might have on learning and teaching practice, and how we support our learners in a wider context.

8 sessions were delivered by speakers drawn from all aspects of the Post 16 Education and Skills sectors. And, in my opinion, they did a fantastic job of introducing ideas, concepts and sharing their experiences – so a very big thank you to all who participated. However, you don’t have to accept my opinion – here’s what people who attended said:

“The use of mobile technology could be more of an asset now I know a bit more”

“I found the links being put up quickly really useful, plus the session on Accessibility and Inclusion (Access on the Hoof?) very useful, particularly looking at mobile apps that engage students.”

“Interesting that designers now have to think of mobile first.”

“We have just invested in some i-pads for community delivery so I was very interested in why apps?”

“It was great to hear first hand from people who had already used the technology/approaches.”

If you were unable to attend and want to know more, or did attend and would like to revisit Spring bytes, as I have, recordings of all sessions with accompanying resources can be found at http://moodle.rsc-wales.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=274

For further information please email support@rsc-wales.ac.uk

At the end of 2011 JISC RSC Wales awarded 10 providers throughout Wales with up to £2 500 each as part of the Technology For Learning Small Grant Programme. The programme, the first of its kind for RSC Wales, was aimed at supporting the provision of technology to enhance quality of business whilst also generating overall cost savings for the provider.

Recipients of the grants include Higher Education Institutions, Colleges of Further Education,  Adult & Community Learning and Work Based Learning providers. The approved applications have also proven to be quite diverse in nature.

Summaries of each of these projects can be found on our Information and Resources Moodle at http://moodle.rsc-wales.ac.uk/tfl

The 10 Grantees are:

• Cardiff University
• Gyndwr University
• Aberystwyth University
• Coleg Llandrillo
• Gower College Swansea
• St David’s Catholic College
• Swansea ITeC
• ITEC Training Solutions
• Neath Port Talbot Adult Community Learning
• Merthyr Tydfil CBC

Outputs from the Programme will be formally disseminated at the JISC RSC Wales Technology Working for Wales Conference, on June 26th at the Hilton Hotel Cardiff. Further information about the Conference and online booking will be available on our web site shortly (http://www.jiscrsc.ac.uk/events.aspx )

JISC RSC Wales hosted 3 online events in January and February of this year, open to providers from all over the UK. The events drew on expertise from across  JISC Advance and attracted an audience from all supported sectors. Recordings of the events and accompanying resources can be found at http://moodle.rsc-wales.ac.uk/ccnc
JISC Legal presented their Cloud Computing and the Law Toolkit and discussed associated issues. The Toolkit consists of a series of specialist guidance documents that tackle the legal risk decisions that institutions have now to re-evaluate in the context of cloud computing service. JISC Legal are also holding a Mobile Technologies and the Law Webcast (14 March 2012) and will address legal issues in relation to  mobile technology including:

• Privacy and security – do learners have a right to opt-out?  How can location data be used lawfully?  What level of privacy must be ensured?  What are the consequences of losing personal data?
• Identity management and authenticity – how can these work legally?
• Accessibility – what are the legal obligations?
• e-Safety and young learners – what are the institutions duties?
• Loss of information – a real issue for learner or research work?
• Liability – how can acceptable use be defined?  How must the institution deal with unacceptable behaviour?
• Copyright – what are the consequences of allowing off-site access to e-resources?

In the second of the series John Burke, of JISC infoNet ( http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/ ) introduced Project Management resources for Education. If you want to know more about this resource, John is leading 2 full days workshops in the coming weeks that you may wish to consider booking onto. The first takes place on 22nd February at ISA Training in Bridgend and the second is on 4th April at Cambrian Training in Welshpool. Further information and booking details can be found at http://www.jiscrsc.ac.uk/wales/events.aspx

The third in the series was a double header with John West,of JISC Procureweb, introducing GeM – the Generic eMarketplace http://www.procureweb.com/products-and-services/emarketplace.aspx and Pete Scott, JISC RSC Wales, www.jiscrsc.ac.uk/wales  giving an example of how Google Apps can improve Business Efficiency. GeM, the new eMarketplace for Higher and Further Education  institutions is free to use and enables users to view and buy products and services from authorised suppliers in a controlled environment. However, since this event JISC Advance has received funding to help set up improved procurement arrangements for the Work Based Learning Sector. Leading the project is Steve Durham. If you work in the WBL sector and require further information on GeM, please mail steve.durham@sunderland.ac.uk If you are thinking of using Google Apps or considering ways in which you can work more collaboratively, then RSC Wales can assist. Either contact your RSC Wales advisor or email support@rsc-wales.ac.uk for more information.

The presentations from the conference “Innovating e-Learning 2011″ are now available openly online at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/elpconference11, These presentations include both the Powerpoints and the recordings of each session on Elluminate.  This event, which took place in November last year,  was the sixth in the popular series of JISC online conferences. Like its predecessors, it brought together delegates from the FE and HE sectors for presentations and discussions of the key issues facing educators in a shifting technological landscape.

There were traditional keynotes from Lord Puttnam, Bill Rammell and Mike Sharples, and an original, thought-provoking and highly participative closing keynote by Ewan MIntosh. More than ever before, the conference opened its doors to the wider educational sectors in the UK, especially those who teach in workplaces and communities, as well as FE colleges and universities. We saw presentations from the wider sectors which had ‘Innovation’ running through them like a stick of rock. I am thinking particularly of the sessions on ‘Students as Agents of Change’ by Elisabeth Dunne and colleagues at Exeter, and ‘Workforce and Employer Needs – a Collaborative Solution’ by Andrew Comrie and colleagues from Scotland. This latter presentation showed how collaboration across organisations from a range of sectors can work in practice, providing that common aims are agreed, and also how learners can benefit from a blended learning experience, even when they have limited prior experience of using ICTs in an educational context. For me, another highlight was Bex Ferriday’s (Cornwall College) presentation, in which she debunked many of the myths about the dangers of using social networking (Facebook) in Further Education.

Take a look around – I hope that you will enjoy what you see.

‘Teachmeets’ are a radical concept in staff development: instead of presentations given by experts, participants can hear raw stories told by other teachers from the chalk face. It’s a chance to learn from and share with real practitioners about their successes and experiences. In other words, it is about teachers teaching each other.

This idea has been spreading amongst school teachers for several years now, but has not yet made a significant impact in Further Education. A new collaboration between NGfL Cymru and RSC Wales aims to change this, by bringing a ‘Teachmeet’ into an FE college, and give teachers in FE the chance to experience this type of event for themselves, and perhaps to participate by giving a presentation. Presentations can be ‘Micro-presentations’ – lasting 7 minutes, or ‘Nano-presentations’ – lasting 2 minutes. The event will be streamed via the web to anyone who would like to connect and watch the proceedings.

‘Teachmeet: Bridging the Gap’  will take place at Coleg Llandrillo Cymru (Rhos on Sea campus) on Wednesday February 8th from 17:30.  If you would like to give a presentation, or you would just like to come along and find out how this works, please visit the Wiki here: http://teachmeet.pbworks.com/w/page/48452275/Bridging%20the%20Gap

….and sign up. It’s going to be “turbo-charged CPD”.

My thoughts on how apps are changing the way we use our mobile devices to access information on the move.

View a recording of our Lunchtime Byte – Google Goggles – apps for searching the internet without typing text!

Readers of this blog will know that it is crucially important to make learning opportunities and resources accessible to all learners. The reasons for improving accessibility are all around us: legal reasons, business reasons, moral reasons and pedagogic reasons.  However, dealing with the issues which emerge is far from being a trivial task, and many educators and managers find this area challenging.

Technologies bring new complexities to this area. On the one hand they can be hugely enabling, allowing learners to interact with people and resources in ways which were unthinkable hitherto. However, the introduction of new technology without due attention to the needs of disabled people can occasionally lead to the opposite effect, and teachers who fear disempowering some learners may also fail to adopt new technology which could otherwise prove very helpful to all their learners.

There is no magic solution – no ‘fairy dust’ as Jane Seale so delightfully puts it (Seale, 2006). We cannot sprinkle a little accessibility here, a little accessibility there, and expect to make improvements. There are plenty of ‘tools’ (software and hardware)  which claim to enhance accessibility, but it is often very hard to know how effective these might be under any specific circumstances. Recognising appropriate contexts and modes of use are real skills, requiring both practical experience and a robust conceptual framework which takes into account the interests of all the stakeholders.

Acquiring these skills is not entirely straightforward. Fortunately, some really good opportunities for staff development in this area are emerging. One place to go is the JISC TechDis website. This service is now includes (amongst much else) ‘TechDis Tuesdays: Dialogues for Difference’, a fortnightly series of online workshops, starting on January 10th 2012.  There is no registration charge, and these sessions are a great opportunity to learn from peers and experts alike, to develop your capability to help learners. More information can be found here:

http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/techdis/news/detail/2011/TechDis_Tuesdays_news

Meanwhile, the Open University offers ‘Accessible online learning: supporting disabled students’, an online masters level module, which as an alumnus I can recommend thoroughly. You can find more information here:

http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/course/h810.htm

If you don’t want to commit to the time and expense of a masters module, but still want access to the OU’s resources,there is an alternative. The ‘Accessibility of eLearning’  module is freely available online. You don’t get the support and the assessment, of course, but the quality of the materials is excellent. You can access the course here:

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=397765&direct=1

Reference: Seale, J (2006) E-learning and disability in higher education: accessibility theory and practice. Routledge.

There are ‘workshops’ and ‘workshops’, aren’t there? Some involve just listening, sometimes there is some token group discussion,  sometimes feedback on flipcharts. Occasionally, participants get to actually do things, and these are usually the best workshops. A few weeks ago, for example, I found myself as part of a group which was collectively balancing a thin plastic rod on its fingers; harder than it sounds, and surprisingly instructive.

I have sometimes found it difficult to translate intense and creative workshop activity into the online environment, and to judge by how rarely people try this, I suspect that others may feel the same way. A workshop at  JISC’s online conference (#jiscel11) given by Simon Bates and Judy Hardy of Edinburgh University, really broke this particular mould. Simon and Judy introduced us to the Peerwise system – developed and hosted at the University of Auckland – which enables students to write multiple choice questions, and to answer, comment and rate the questions posed by their peers. I think this is a brilliantly innovative idea, which I plan to write about elsewhere. However, the other aspect which interested me was the genuine interaction between participants which arose from the hands on nature of the activity. The whole experience was every bit as good as having the presenters in the same room. Completely from scratch, I acquired all the experience I needed to start using the system; including writing questions and answering, commenting and rating the questions of other partipants. Following that, we were able to come back and discuss how the experience had been, and how we could apply this to our own contexts. In other words, it was a complete workshop experience, except that it was entirely online. It has certainly cured me of the illusion that ‘interactivity’ in webcasting systems is limited to polling tools.

You can find out more about the Peerwise here: http://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz/. It is free and easy to use: everyone managed it online without too much guidance.

I have been enjoying the opening couple of days of the JISC online conference activity week (#jiscel11). Two of the presentations which really impressed me from the first couple of days were by Bex Ferriday (Cornwall College) and Richard Speight (Cartrefi Cymru). These two people have very different styles, but what they share is the courage to try new stuff, and the sensitivity to adjust their methods according to the needs of the learners. Bex started from the premise of a lovely inversion of the ‘Field of Dreams’ strapline: “If you build it, they won’t come”.  (Having built one or two things that people haven’t come to over the years, I can really appreciate that thought.)  Bex’s alternative to this ‘build it’ approach is to go into the space in which the learners are already operating, in this case Facebook. This means that they are already comfortable knowing what to do, and no training is needed. There are some familiar counter-arguments, of course. Don’t the learners resent the intrusion of a teachers into ‘their’ space? What happens to learners who are excluded by lack of skills or resources? And so on… However, what I learned from this discussion was these barriers can be show-stoppers if you let them, but they don’t need to be. However, to make this work you need to listen to the learners, and to understand the technology. For example, it is necessary to understand the uses of (and differences between) pages and groups on Facebook. It is also possible (and tolerated or even encouraged by Facebook) to set up separate identities for your teaching and your social life. Appropriate actions at these levels can take the sting out of the whole question of whether or not to ‘friend’ with learners. To find out more, you can download and view a recording of Bex’s presentation online here: http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/653673-facebook-in-teaching-and-learning

Richard Speight’s approach is a little different, but equally user- centred. He recognises the power of social media, and uses a whole range of tools for engagement, and this enables him to be entirely flexible regarding what suits any specific learner, or group. He stresses the idea of ‘playing’ with the ideas and the technology, and paying attention to the ‘rolling feedback’ of participants. These can be people who are already enrolled on courses, potential learners, or fellow professionals. For example he sees Prezi as not simply presentational software, but as a social tool. Prezi is not only visually engaging, but also has the potential to embed a host of other media. Still more powerfully, Prezi Meeting allows groups to work on presentations online. Richard’s agile and broad –based approach enables him to respond to the needs of diverse groups, including those for whom Facebook may be a closed book.  Richard’s original presentation is available on Prezi here:   http://bit.ly/you2point0.  It is silent, I am afraid, but it’s still a great example of visually compelling use of the software, and contains some really useful links. Wouldn’t Prezi with audio be fantastic development,  by the way?….

Richard and Bex are great examples of people who are working with all kinds of learners, including informal learners out there in the community.They are both constantly learning from their experience, and are willing to share what they are learning. I am looking forward to seeing where their voyages of discovery will be taking them next…

I will be a new face to those of you familiar with the current team (though friends and family have commented that I’m looking a bit haggard lately – possibly as a result of all the reading I’ve been doing to get myself up to speed with what’s going on in the sector).

I’m adding to the varied backgrounds of the RSC Wales team as I’ve been working in advice and guidance in the HE sector for the past eleven years but, as I often told my students, there’s no such thing as a fixed career path nowadays; portfolio careers are the way ahead.  So here I am: bringing a range of skills, a very keen interest in the use of technology for learning, and an eagerness to get involved in the FE sector, to support providers in encouraging learners to realise their potential.

I’m excited to be working with such a diverse group of people, both within the team and the wider FE sector.  In my first ten days I’ve met representative from FE colleges in Wales through the Learn Tech Wales group and a visit to a UK Curriculum group meeting in Liverpool helped me to make contacts with RSC FE advisors from across the UK regions.

I hope to make many more connections within the next few months.  You can contact me at c.m.allemano@swansea.ac.uk or on 01792 513313.