…no, not the humped variety, but the ‘Collaborative Approach to the Management of E-learning’ model put forward by JISC Infonet in 2006 (in conjunction with JISC, ALT, HEFCE, HEA). The Celtic RSCs have recently been using this model to help organise some exchange visits between providers in their regions, and we feel that there is much to gain from seeing ILT applied in new ways and new places.

A recent visit of Learning Resource Centre Managers from two Welsh FE colleges to a college in Northern Ireland was certainly deemed to be beneficial. The rationale of the visit was based on the Transformation Agenda in FE in Wales: the two colleges involved – Swansea and Gorseinon - are embarking on merger, and it was hoped that lessons could be learnt from the experience of Belfast Metropolitan College (BMC), a very large and successful college formed from two successive merger processes.
The organisational aspects of BMC’s Learning Resources Service (LRS) proved interesting. It is located within the Directorate of Student and Learning Services, which gives a clear learner focus. This is further enhanced by the use of ‘e-mentors’ who facilitate independent learning and advise on the use of associated technologies. The LRS also works in synergy with The Technology Enhanced Learning unit and IT Services, which aids a  flexible and creative approach to the use of new technologies. The teamwork shown by these groups was of critical importance in the success of the LRS on the different BMC sites.
Some good examples of effective ILT practice were seen at BMC during the visit. The student VLE – called ‘Mybelfastmet’ – was very popular with students, partly because of its highly graphical content with an icon-based page for LRS resources and datasets. E-books were prominent in the LRS provision, and there were also interesting initiatives such as the use of Skype and Google Earth for international students.

Overall, the Learning Resource Centre Managers of Swansea and Gorseinon Colleges found their visit to be enjoyable and stimulating, and came away with definite ideas to help them move forward in a seamless way in their own merger situation. They also have advice for those who might be contemplating their own CAMEL trail: have a clear plan of action, and prepare well beforehand, having set up key contacts in advance who know the information you need.
If you are working within the FE, ACL or WBL sectors and are interested in learning more about the use of technology from learning providers in Scotland or Northern Ireland, please get in touch with us. More information is available on the RSC Wales web-site.

We (at RSC Wales) have just completed the first four of our series of roadshows and, now that I have recovered from all of the planning, travelling and delivering that was involved, I am taking a moment to reflect briefly on ‘Barrier Busters – Accessibility and Inclusion’.

In my opinion (and many others I’m sure) accessibility and inclusion is something that should be of interest to anyone involved with learners and our partner JISC service, JISC TechDis, believe (having complete a number of accessibility self evaluation surveys with a range of education organisations last year) that ‘there should be a shift from specific support for disabled people (to help them over institutional barriers) to a focus on reducing the institutional barriers in the first place’. Following JISC TechDis’ advice there are many small (and free) things you can do in order to make the whole learning experience more inclusive for learners. There isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution but by making small changes to the things you already do, you can probably make that ’size’ fit more learners than it currently does. Things like the way you present your Word documents/PowerPoints/pdfs, the variety of formats you make your resources available in and the open source and free tools you make available to your learners will all help to ‘bust’ those barriers to learning that many face. Raising awareness of these potential solutions has been the focus of the series of 4 ‘BarrierBusters – Accessibility & Inclusion’ roadshows that we have been running for the last 4 weeks.

Those of you who didn’t make it but who would like to share the resources from the event can do so by visiting our online information and resources area at: http://moodle.rsc-wales.ac.uk/aandi2010

Those who did make it to the event (over 110 people from FE, HE, WBL, ACL and schools) have given us very positive and constructive feedback, some of which I’ll share here:

Feedback via the text wall on the day:

• Discussion of barriers very interesting. Plenty of food for thought.
• Accessible word a whole new way of thinking! Lot of training now has to be provided but hopefully won’t take long to become second nature
• Access apps will be a really useful tool. Good to practice this afternoon
• Barriers exercise has got me thinking that one of the biggest barriers to my learners might be me!

Feedback via the evaluation form after the event. The most useful part of the day was …

• Exploring the idea that accessibility issues are not just linked to disability
• Excellent awareness raising of the materials that are available
• Learning how to make document such as Word and Acrobat Reader more accessible to learners
• Learning about AccessApps
• Making a video in Windows MovieMaker
• The practical activities – the workshop approach
• The opportunity to discuss issues raised with colleagues from different sectors of education

Following on from this last comment … this was the first cross sector event we have run and I will admit that whilst we were planning these roadshows we did have a tiny question in our minds as to whether the different sectors would work together … but of course they did! We are all focussed on improving the learning experience for all learners, after all, aren’t we?

We generally assume that technology enhances education, and often have anecdotal evidence in support of this. But how much concrete evidence do we have? Given the costs associated with acquiring and using educational technologies,  I think this is a question worth asking.

There are quite a few case studies that highlight the benefits of specific technologies in specific contexts – for example, in HE, ‘Exploring Tangible benefits of e-Learning’ (JISC Infonet, 2008), and in HE/FE, ‘Effective Practice in a Digital Age’ (JISC, 2009). However, there are very few studies that attempt to measure effectiveness – one of the few examples I’ve found is the ImpaCT2 project in schools (Becta, 2002) which compared time spent using technology (mainly PC use) with ‘value-added’ scores in a range of subjects.  (Becta also discuss the impact of technology in the FE and Skills sector in England in their recent review publication, and note that there is a positive correlation between ‘e-mature’ colleges and Ofsted inspection results). Some literature on this subject can be found in a RSC Wales Moodle area, and I’d be very interested to learn about any other relevant studies that you may have come across.

Perhaps it is no surprise that there have been relatively few quantitative studies in the field of e-learning. For a start, it is difficult enough to study ‘discrete’ aspects of technology in this way – for example, a particular  application or an online course – but it’s a real challenge to apply a numerical approach to the more realistic blend of online, mobile and classroom technologies that many learners now encounter. And what exactly should be measured? Cost-savings might be a priority for some, but  indices of achievement or retention are usually preferred. However, it is almost impossible to separate the effects of e-learning from the many other factors that have an influence on learning.  Learner surveys can generate quantitative data on learners’ preferences and experiences of technology, but interpretation depends on the proportion responding and their profiles.  Similarly, teaching staff could be surveyed to look at technology in the context of delivery of learning. 

This last approach is currently of particular interest to me, and I am keen to get feedback from educators about their experiences of specific educational technologies. To this end, an evaluation form has been devised which asks respondents to comment on and grade a technology of their choice. This is not a particularly scientific approach, but it may give an indication of relative usefulness from the point of view of teachers/trainers/tutors. If we receive sufficient responses we hope to compile a ‘TechAdvisor’ Moodle area – so please do visit the ‘Evidence of Efectiveness’ area on the RSC Wales Moodle and download and complete in the ‘Evaluating your Technology’ form in section 7 ( and return it  to us!)

BETT 2010 … should I go, shouldn’t I go? It was a debate I had with myself and with colleagues before I went to BETT (on Saturday, the last day of the show ) and now in this blog post I am going to share and reflect on what I saw and whether I think it was worth it in the end.

What I expected to see was a lot of companies selling their educationally relevant technological wares, with some teachers sharing their experiences of using technology to support their learners … and that is more or less what I saw! On my way to London I also picked up the Guardian’s tweet about their BETT Show article ‘Its not just about computing‘  … having been myself now I can certainly see what they meant about this years show.

So now to a summary of what I saw:

• A very wide range of software, hardware and service providers all keen to share their wares … lots aimed at schools but many relevant to most learning provider.
• A teacher talking about glogging as part of the ‘Teachmeet takeover‘ … glogging being something I will be exploring in more detail and the Teachmeet being a great part of this years event, from what I have read in several blogs today (Learn4Life and  The Whiteboard Blog to name but two).
• Lots about Green ICT/being environmentally aware, including £65 pcs that use 1Watt (i.e. virtual desktops) … Jon (our technical expert) has talked about these a lot but now I have seen them in action and read a couple of case studies, I really ‘get it’ and think lots of organisations should too!
• Interactive WhiteBoard (with or without the short throw projectors) after IWB after IWB … but the Ver-table-interactive from RM (a moveable IWB with a short throw projector attached that can be flipped into a touch screen surface)  really caught my eye.
• Free web resources from E2BN (East of England Broadband Network), which although largely for schools did include some for all ages … ones to explore further include E-ngagelive, for interactive roleplay with online experts and Discovery Box, a tool that enables you to make up virtual boxes with images, video, sound about any topic.
• Lots of laptops/netbooks … including the Intel Classmate PC (not new I know but the first time I had seen it to touch), with its swivel screen that turns it into a tablet and whose handle makes it easy to carry.
• Becta’s new publications, ‘Raising Standards’ & ‘Inspiring Learners’  … which I had downloaded and put in the ‘To read’ folder on my desktop but which I now can read away from my desk!
• A very attractive looking Sharepoint being demonstrated for use by a school.
• Flexible furniture from a whole range of suppliers … secure desks, movable mounts for monitors, portable banks of workstations, now its a desk, now its a PC table. Great for learning spaces that need to be flexible.
• Digital signage for public areas … landscape, widescreen,  portrait (my favourite), very large and even signage projected onto the floor that reacted as you walked through it (although this last seemd to be an Olympia thing rather than a BETT exhibitor thing).

… and a Dell robot chatting to 8 year old boy who was completely engaged.

There was obvioulsy a lot more to see but being late getting to the last day of the show because of closures on the underground and in the interest of a digestible blog post, these are really my edited highlights or things that have stuck in my mind. My final thought is about whether I think it was worth going to BETT 2010 this year … and my conclusion is that it was, because I saw things I wouldn’t otherwise have done (ver-table and flexible furniture), learnt first hand how effective something I had heard about but not seen can be (virtual desktops) and have come away wanting to find out more about at least one thing (glogging) … but I won’t be going again next year … or not on a Saturday, at least

The wonders of modern technology (a netbook with a respectable battery life and a mobile dongle whilst on the move, Dropbox, an iMac and a blog in the cloud) enable me to share and reflect (out loud) on the things I have heard today at the ‘Moodle Wonderland’ organised by ULCC and hosted at Westminster Kingsway College’s brand new Kings Cross Centre … so here goes:

A refreshing start

Andrew Williams from Kingston College started the day largely focusing on learning, with a bit of technology integrated appropriately … which was great to hear! Andrew began his presentation by considering learning and spirituality, defining both and drawing thought provoking parallels between the two. He introduced the concept of personalisation and then ended with a number of questions asking how technology can enhance different aspects of learning. The key things I took from his refreshing presentation were:

• The verb ‘educe’ (the origin of the word education) means ‘to draw from within’ … but this is not what the education system in general does for our learners today, is it? The focus is much more on pumping knowledge into them and then testing what they can remember, rather than drawing it from them.
• If we want to move back towards the original definition of learning then we need to appreciate what it is we need in order to be able to learn and Andrew suggested three things we need to do: open ourselves to wanting to learn new things; accept that we will change; acknowledge that we don’t learn alone, we need other people too.
• Personalising learning is a step in the right direction if we want to make learning more about the person rather than the information they know.
• Technology may well be able to help to personalise a learners experience but some of the questions to consider are:

? How can technology create space for learners to thrive?
? How can technology enrich the process as well as the product of learning?
? How can we mobilise e learning to enlarge the creativity and imaginative ability of learners?

A gallop through assessment

ULCC’s eagerly awaited Assessment Manager was introduced by James Ballard (ULCC) and then demonstrated and discussed by Scott Hallman (CONEL, one of the pilot colleges) in the first breakout I attended. A summary of what I heard and saw about the Assessment Manager follows:

• It is a Moodle plugin that has 2 parts: (1) Assessment Manager (for the learners, tutors and assessors) enables you to map user evidence to course outcomes, track progress and give assessors and verifiers an overview. (2) Qualification Manager (for the organisation) enables you to select and customise the qualifications.
• It started as an NVQ eportfolio but has developed to be able to encompass almost all criteria based qualifications … CONEL use it for BTECs, Diplomas, NVQs, Access, ESOL, SLDD, IFL staff.
• Moodle courses, gradebook, activities, calendar, outcomes and scales integrate (to a greater or lesser degree) with the Assessment Manager. They are now working towards fuller integration on some of these, including the gradebook and also Mahara.
• It is being used in 3 ways by CONEL: (1) confident tutors are using it fully with their learners (2) the e learning team take the paper portfolios and digitise them for the not so confident staff (3) it is used purely for tracking, rather than as a tracking and digital evidence store.
• It has been tested with Moodle 2.0 and will upgrade.
• It has been piloted with a number of colleges and has changed extensively over these pilots … but there is still work to do before full release in July 2010.
• Information about Assessment Manager on the ULCC website is limited but you can sign up for a demo account at http://amdemo.moodle.ulcc.ac.uk

A whistle stop tour of 21st century learning

ULCC’s James Ballard introduced the afternoon session by considering 21st Century learning and suggesting how we move forward with the aim of meeting the needs of the 21st century learner. The key things for me were:

• Learners are most definitely at the centre of 21st century learning.
• Knowing what to learn next and how to learn it is as important as what we have already learnt.
• Personalised learning is one solution that aims to meet the needs of the 21st century learner.
• Learners need to learn about the subject, about learning and about themselves as learners. The ’system’ (whatever it may be) should be there to support this.
• The future is interoperable, i.e  a collection of tools that all add to the learning process or experience and work together (for the end user) seamlessly.

A flying visit to view some Moodle practice

The second and final breakout I attended was a showcase of 2 provider’s Moodle practice.

Newcastle City Learning (ACL provider) have just embarked on their 3rd year with Moodle and the positives that have come out of it for them are: that it provides a place for shared resources that can be accessed by their geographically spread learners; online submission of work has made things easier for learners, tutors and assessors; information sharing and collaborative working of staff is much easier. Two other things that were of particular interest interest to me were that one tutor uploads learners work (with their permission) to her course for all to see, share and learn from and another tutor has one course with all of the support materials, tutorials etc and another that all of the learners are ‘teachers’ on so they can upload their work for all to share … and for the tutor/assesors to easily access too.

Hackney Community College have implemented ULC’Cs Personal Learning Plan Moodle plugin and are using it as an electronic ILP, which integrates with their MIS system and electronic registers, links to the Moodle gradebook, allows regular progress reports from the tutors to be added and enables the learner, parent or other nominated person to easily check on their progress.

The last stretch

And so ended my brisk but informative walk through a Moodle Wonderland. Presentations and videos from the day will be made available and I will post the link here once I have it. Thanks to ULCC, Westminster Kingsway College, all of the presenters … and not forgetting our sister RSC in London too

First, apologies to those of you reading this who don’t like to see ‘text speak’ used in this context. I admit that I am actually one of  those who generally prefer to write and punctuate text messages as I would any piece of writing but in the interests of the content of this blog post I wanted the title to be relevant and mildly engaging at the very least!

Today I wanted to share my thoughts about text messaging in an educational context … but what has prompted me to do this? Mobile phones are everywhere and although some of us use them (not just for making calls) much more than others, the fact that it is a technology that the majority of learners have and are familiar and comfortable with makes it seem like a ‘tool’ to be seriously considered to support learning, teaching and the general learner experience. My colleague Christine’s post in February about mobile phones being a blessing or a curse and my musings on the Horizon Report 2009 have already considered this topic but in response to several requests for more information about using SMS text messaging in an educational context and Christine’s most recent post where she mentioned our ‘text wall’ I wanted to say a bit more.

We (at RSC Wales) have been taking advantage of the fact that most people have mobile phones with them wherever they go by using a ‘text wall’ as a communication tool at events, workshops and staff development sessions to collect feedback and comments and to gather and then respond to questions. The main function (imo) of the xLearn text wall we are using (originally heard about through JISC TechDis) is as a tool to gather, in one easily accessible online place, text message communications. These ‘communications’ could be comments, thoughts, questions, responses to specific queries or even tasks … all things that we want to happen in a teaching and learning environment. This particular text wall can also be used to send texts to individuals or groups but this is not something we have felt the need to do to any great extent as of yet. Here is an example of the kinds of text wall communications we had with the delegates at our July 2009 event ‘Integration Learning Together’, where we used it as one way of collecting general responses to the day as well as gathering questions for Martin Dougiamas who was presenting to us (and receiving the questions directly through the text wall) live from Australia.

However, this is only one way that text messaging is being used/can be used in an educational context. A number of organisations are now using text messaging services like Edu txt or Janet txt to stay in touch with their learners … texting notices, timetables changes, etc … and interest seems to be increasing in this kind of service. In response to this interest I have gathered together some basic notes on the range of SMS/text message services that are now available for those in an education context. Here are my notes on the types of text messaging services that are currently being used within education.

I know that we all choose to use our mobile phones in different ways today and that many see mobile phones as a distraction to learning rather than as a handy tool … but I think that much as any tool generally has a primary purpose, we also eventually find other good uses for it (a ruler is to measure accurately but also to draw straight lines, track text as you read, mark the place in a book …) as we become more familiar with it. But then thinking about what I have just said, isn’t the primary purpose of a mobile phone to be able to communicate and stay in touch … and isn’t that what we want to do with our learners anyway?

At last weeks FOTE09 event I heard about Oxford University’s experiences of using iTunes U during Peter Robinson’s presentation ‘A Pocket University: Open Content and Mobile Technology’. “But what is iTunes U?” I hear (some of) you cry … as I did the first time I heard the word/term/phrase. Very simply, in Apple’s own words, ‘iTunes U is a digital campus that never sleeps and can be reached from anywhere’ and ‘it gives any university or college a single home for all the audio and video course materials that faculty create or curate’ plus ‘it also makes it simple for students to find and download just what they’re looking for.’

iPod/iPhone/iTunes/Apple fans might be cheering at this point but I can also hear the sceptics crying ‘what about those who don’t have/like/use iPods/iPhones/iTunes?’ and ‘why would you hand all of your content to a third party?’ … which I must admit I also thought too when I first heard about iTunes U a few months ago. However, as with many of the presentations at FOTE09, Peter Robinson’s explanation of why and how iTunes U works for the Oxford University students and staff has made me think again … hence this blog.

What I heard about iTunes U was:

• Universities have lots of good stuff to support teaching and learning but they aren’t all great at (a) telling people it’s good (b) making it easy for those who know about the good stuff to find it  … iTunes U can help.
• The content can be stored on your own servers … you don’t have to hand it all over to Apple
• You can also have a web portal … which allows access to all of the resources without having to go through iTunes
• It’s free
• The audio can be MP3 and the video can be MPEG4 … not proprietary Apple formats
• With structured and guided support staff can create content to share relatively easily and quickly … and students can too
• Cross departmental sharing and working on a project like this can break down some of the barriers that may exist
• The legal side of who owns what and can share what with whom can be tricky but it can be overcome
• Marketing is a key to getting the students and staff on board … and Apple even have promotional advice for you on this

From Oxford University’s point of view (according to Peter Robinson) it has all been worth it. Here are few stats to support its success:

• 1 000 000 downloads and a number 1 hit in less than a year
• 2 500 downloads per week for popular feeds
• 956 items in 186 podcast feeds
• 90% of the downloads via iTunes, 10% via the parallel web portal

… more stats and information are available via the FOTE09 presentation or from the iTunes U at Oxford web portal, http://www.ox.ac.uk/itunes_u.

In my subsequent quest to find out more about the use of iTunes U, I came across this briefing paper from The University of Edinburgh about their new and developing presence on iTunes U … if you want to know a bit more, then this is worth looking at (imo).

So now I am going to spend a bit of time looking at the content on the Oxford University iTunes U and the iTunes U’s of the other Universities … The Open University, Coventry, Warwick, Brimingham City, UCL, Trinity College Dublin to name but a few of those from the British Isles. I could look at the content on my laptop but for a true test of how mobile my learning could be I shall download a selection to an iPod and see what I learn

Last week I attended (along with Justin from the RSC) the Future of Technology in Education 2009 event in London. It was one of those events where there were so many speakers and so much was said that there is far too much to record in one blog post … so all I am going to do here is to note down a few of the key points (imo) that were made and to display some of the photos that Justin took throughout the day for you to browse through.

The title of the event explains what it was all about but the event mainly focussed on cloud computing and social media. The speakers were from industry (Microsoft, Amazon, Huddle …) and education (numerous universities, one college, the School of Everthing …). The event was broadcast in Second Life, tweeted about and videos and presentations are available via the FOTE09 website.

For me, however, these were the key things that I heard:

• Embrace the cloud because it solves a problem you actually have, not just because it is cool (Dr Paul Miller, Cloud of Data)
• We used to be navigators finding our way along planned routes through the wealth of information available to us … now we are explorers finding our own way (Ray Fleming, Microsoft)
• Teachers and learners expect to be able to ‘plug and teach’ or ‘plug and learn’ i.e. they don’t want to have to know how all of the behind the scenes stuff works, they just want it to happen (Dr Bill Ashraf, University of Sussex)
• Leeds Metropolitain University love Google Apps and have learnt that you need to get in there and just do it because if you don’t the students will and the universities (organisations) will just be following. (Robert Moores)
• The world feels like it is spinning faster and faster  … technology has made the world more connected than ever before … the internet is changing everything … we need to change too (Will McInnes, Nixon McInnes)
• Students and teachers need to understand the potential of technology to get the most out of it (James Clay, Gloucester College)
• Things to do with regard to living (and educating) in a networked world: think globally not institutionally; the default for information needs to be ‘open’ not ‘closed’ so that people can always find what they are looking for; anything can be copied so don’t worry about it… and our role in all of this is as a ‘trusted guide’ (Nick Skelton, University of Bristol)
• Universities have lots of good ’stuff’ that students (and others) don’t know is there … Oxford University have used iTunes U to help them with this (Peter Robinson, Oxford University).
• Digital identity is not just about what you put on the web about yourself, its about what others put on there about you too (Shirley Williams, University of Reading)
• We have to all accept that learning does not just happen in institutions … that degree certificates are probably not the best way of representing a person and their abilities to an employer … that if universities don’t give people what they want, how they want it then learning will still happen outside universities… it did before they existed, after all (Dougald Hine, School of Everything)

That’s it for now but I will be blogging again soon in more detail about a few of the things I heard … until then, click the image below to be taken to the  photos I promised earlier:

I’ve just returned from the RSC UK 2009 conference and one of the main things that I learnt was a bit more about one of the RSCs ‘relatives’ in terms of the JISC family of services, JISC Digital Media (formerly TASI). I haven’t blogged (although I’ve continued to microblog via Twitter, passing the 500 marker earlier this week) for a few weeks but the rediscovery of this service has inspired me today… so here goes with a quick reminder of the services JISC Digital Media can offer:

• Advice on still images, moving images and audio via documents, case studies, a helpdesk …
• Training on a wide range of digital media topics. Most training costs but there is a follow up service to check how the training has helped you … and JISC Digital Media are now offering FREE online surgeries on a range of topics, the first of which was yesterday covering audio podcasts. The surgeries are recorded and archived and can be viewed by scrolling down the online surgeries page. The archived ‘Recording Audio Podcasts’ is worth watching and will hopefully encourage you to login to the others that are coming up – camera skills, using screencasting, using Flickr …
• Blog posts about all things Digital Media, including new and very useful resources, such as Aviary Software’s new browser based audio editor/mixer/recorder called Myna. I’ve had a quick look at this and managed to create a basic audio recording, which I embedded into our Moodle, all in a matter of minutes (thanks also to @SHSSTELLS for bringing this one to my attention).
• Newsletter – a new service that can be accessed as a pdf and which this edition covers mobile learning, podcasting, using Flickr and pinhole photography.
• Video Assist – another new service whereby you can apply to JISC Digital Media for specific project support for projects which involve the creation of new moving image resources. 2 projects are already underway for the first term of the 2009-2010 academic year but support for 4 more projects is still up for grabs. Visit the Video Assist pages of the JISC Digital Media website for more information, application guidance and deadlines.

A great range of services and support – hopefully you will be inspired too!

Over the past year there have been a series of meetings and consultations to develop a guide to aid teachers in the Lifelong learning Sector in their use of technology. The aim was to update the existing Fento ‘ILT Standards’ (2003) whilst building in more functionality and an awareness of the educational scene in Wales. LLUK (Lifelong Learning UK) led the developments which were funded by the Welsh Assembly Government, and input was obtained from several key organisations in Wales including NGfL Cymru, NIACE DC, NTfW, JISC RSC Wales, Fforwm. The Steering Group for the guide’s development also comprised representatives from all the key Post-16 sectors including FE, ACL, WBL, HE.
Following the example of the previous Fento publication, the guide was developed in three parts:
• A section for Teachers, Tutors and Trainers: this follows the format of the ‘New overarching professional standards for teachers, tutors and trainers in the lifelong sector in Wales’
• A guide for Leaders and Managers: this follows the format of the National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Management and Leadership 2008
• A series of case-studies

The first two of these sections are now available bilingually both as hard copy and online on the LLUK web-site (yng Nghymraeg, and in English). The Managers’ Guide should be of great value in highlighting the importance of educational technology at an institutional level, and outlines the responsibilities of senior staff. The Teachers’ Guide should prove really useful both for ILT Managers and Teacher-Training Co-ordinators when preparing courses/cpd, but the Guide was also designed to be of direct use to teaching staff. Each part of the guide (eg. Planning, Assessment, Specialist teaching) contains specific advice and examples that should be helpful both to beginners and those who are already well-versed in technology. The online version of the guide also provides hyperlinks to an extensive glossary as well as to key external web-sites. In due course, the case studies will give concrete examples of the uses of technology in teaching and learning that should be useful for all sectors and levels.
Any feedback about the guide is welcomed, especially with respect to ways in which it can be used in the professional development of existing and trainee teaching staff. In due course, I hope to use this blog to disseminate further ideas about the ways in which the guide could be used.