Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been going round visiting various projects in Welsh Higher Education that have some connection with learning technology. One thing I hope to be able to do with this blog is give readers a quick round up of what is going on and where. Of course if you need to know a lot of detail, or are actually participating in these projects, then you’ll be visiting their websites (and blogs and wikis). But for those who need a quick overview I hope this blog can fill a gap, let you know where you need to go to find out more, and let you know when you need to pester someone in a far corner of your organisation to keep you informed (not easy sometimes).

OK here goes…

On my way to Devon a couple of weeks ago, I did a quick detour up to Aberystwyth University for a meeting of (deep breath) the E-learning Subgroup of the Welsh Medium HE Sector Group. It’s all part of Mantais, the campaign to promote Welsh Medium Higher Education, which all Welsh universities are involved with. The E-learning subgroup brings together a range of projects to develop and share resources to meet demand for Welsh medium in many subject areas such as Law, Geography and Media Studies. These are being worked on by different institutions in partnership, and are at various stages of development. Some are being piloted soon and it will be interesting to see how they are received and how institutions resolve the various challenges of sharing resources across institutions. In the meeting we had a look at the lively new student-friendly Mantais website (English version here) and heard findings from recent research into why students choose (or don’t choose) Welsh medium – and it’s a lot more complicated that I thought.

Though only one representative per organisation normally attends the Elearning subgroup, the group works very openly. For anyone interested, papers from the Elearning Subgroup are available on the website of the Centre for Welsh Medium Higher Education based at Trinity College Carmarthen. There’s also a new JISCmail list for all who are interested in Welsh Medium higher education.

No visit to Aber would be complete without a stop for coffee, cake and a nose round the ceramics gallery at the Arts Centre (below, with thanks to Dogfael for the image).

More recently, I’ve been catching up with a cluster of JISC-funded projects involving Welsh universities and FE colleges. They include two led by Swansea Metropolitan University:

• ReCITE (looking at repurposing course materials across FE and HE)
• ETutor (exploring “the possibility of creating an effective on-line learning environment from currently available Web 2.0 services and social networking software”)

A third project – WALES led by University of Glamorgan is looking at the use of social networking and mobile technologies among learners studying on a foundation degree via FE colleges.

Good luck to all the partners with these projects.