Category Archives: gloucestershire college

gloucestershire college

Next Generation Learning Awards 2010: Special Innovation Award: Gloucestershire College

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Next Generation Learning Awards 2010: Special Innovation Award: Gloucestershire College

The judges praised the enthusiasm and commitment of all members of the college team, starting with the vision and commitment of the principal and senior leadership team. They found a high level of technological innovation that is in effect led by learners and their needs.

The judges also liked the way the use of technology has brought about a rapid cultural change in the willingness of tutors to share good practice and resources both internally in the college and nationally. This is done traditionally via presentations given by staff members at events and conferences, but the college has also pioneered the use of online communities and social networking sites to share good practice.

It also enjoys more formal working partnerships. For example, it is working with the Royal Forest of Dean and Stroud Colleges to implement mobile learning there, and has a successful collaborative working arrangement with local schools to deliver diplomas.

The college recognises that a strong infrastructure needs to be in place to support technological innovation.

Trained advanced practitioners are used to disseminate good practice in using ICT across the college and more widely. These practitioners are well resourced and given the right equipment to develop, for example, mobile learning and assessment. One example the judges noted was the use of specialist software to mark and annotate students’ multimedia portfolios that were then presented to external validators.

The judges felt that for the future, all-round embedding of the vision and strategy for ICT and ILT will see the college move from strength to strength in the coming year.

From Becta.

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A work in progress

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A few years ago I made a video for managers in my college showing how the world was changing in the time it takes to travel from our campus in Gloucester to the one in Cheltenham.

I recently decided that it needed updating, as the old one was out of date and we had moved into the docks in Gloucester.

This is the video I shot and edited on iMovie.

At this point the video is just the video. What I would do next is add text over the video, this would say things like how much video is uploaded to YouTube, how many blog posts were written, how many Tweets were sent on Twitter, etc…

I think I will reshoot the video though as it was raining when I took it and I think that detracts slightly from the way that the speeded up video works.

In case you were wondering I shot the video using my iPhone using a TomTom iPhone mount on the windscreen. This was then imported into iMovie 09. I enhanced the quality of the video (turning up the brightness), cartoonified it and then made it much much faster… The last time I did this in iMovie 06 it was a bit of a pig, in 09 it was a piece of cake.

I removed the audio from my video and replaced it with some royalty free video from iMovie.

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Gloucestershire College TEN Open Day

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It’s not every day that over fifty visitors from across the South West and beyond visit your college to not only see how as a college you are using learning technologies but also to discuss and share experience in using Web 2.0 tools and social networking sites.

Gloucestershire College is one of Becta’s Exemplary Providers in their Technology Exemplar Network (TEN). One of the things that Exemplary Providers do as part of their contribution to the TEN is to run two open days. Our first Open Day took place on the 10th March and was according to feedback from delegates a great success.

With the wealth of learning technologies and web 2.0 tools and services available to Further Education, the open day, was an opportunity to see how Gloucestershire College have been using learning technologies to enhance and enrich learning. The open day also gave delegates an opportunity to discuss and debate with others how Web 2.0 and social networking can be used in Further Education.

Unlike many other events, the day followed an unconference format, or barcamp structure. We had a formal introduction followed by semi-structured unconference sessions in which delegates were invited to discuss, show and tell, collaborate, share and learn. These covered issues such as Facebook, Web 2.0, student monitoring, mobile learning, MoLeNET

Delegates were also able to tour the campus, due to the size of the campus, tours were given a particular focus depending on what delegates wanted to see. Tours were given of the workshops, hair and beauty as well as general classrooms and the Library.

Feedback from delegates was very positive:

“Thanks for putting so much energy into the TEN Open Day today. It was a very inspiring and thought-provoking event and you must take most of the credit for that!”

“I thought the day was very worthwhile and I am sure everyone went away with lots of practical ideas and lots to think about.”

“Good day lots to think about. Going to talk staff inductions tomorrow. Thanks James et al”

“Excellent day at Gloucestershire College for #bectaten. Got lots of new things to implement. Thanks James & GC staff”

“Dual boot macs in LRC so students have a choice of OS at Gloucestershire College. I like that”

“The power of a decent lunch should never be underestimated and this was a good lunch!”

“Most enjoyable day at GC”

So did you miss it, not to worry we’re running another Open Day on the 6th July 2010.

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TEN Open Day

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Today was our Open Day as part of Gloucestershire College’s role in Becta’s Technology Exemplar Network.

The focus was not just about how Gloucestershire College use technology to enhance, enrich and support learning, but was also an opportunity for delegates to discuss, debate and have a conversation about Web 2.0 and Social Networking.

The day followed an “unconference” style format with the emphasis on discussion and debate, and less on presentations and “sit and listen”.

We advertised the day with the following:

With the wealth of learning technologies and web 2.0 tools and services available to Further Education, this open day, will provide an opportunity to see how Gloucestershire College are using learning technologies to enhance and enrich learning. The open day will also give you an opportunity to discuss and debate with others how Web 2.0 and social networking can be used in Further Education.

The day will focus on the use of Web 2.0 and Social Networking and how they can be used to enhance teaching and learning.

The day will also give you an opportunity to tour the college to see how we use ILT and how we have embedded learning technologies across the curriculum.

The day will consist of a formal introduction followed by semi-structured unconference format in which delegates will be invited to discuss, show and tell, collaborate, share and learn. The day starts at 10.00am and will finish at 4.00pm

As well as learning from us, we want to learn from you.

I was very pleased with the way the day went. The delegates really enjoyed the day, the tours, the discussions and lunch!

Plenty of time for coffee too.

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Cheese

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Do you remember ever playing Trivial Pursuit?

You recall the general knowledge quiz game, where you had to fill in your six pieces of cheese (or cake) covering six different subject areas.

One of the traits of playing the game was that you favoured certain subject areas and avoided others. You liked History and Geography, but avoided Arts & Literature. As a result you answered many questions on the subjects you liked and virtually ignored the subject you didn’t.

When it comes to embedding of learning technologies (ILT) into a curriculum area, managers of those areas do something similar.

They may be excellent at pushing the use of interactive whiteboards with their staff and teams; but as they don’t like the VLE that much, it gets ignored or only paid lip service.

Likewise when using learning technologies to solve issues in the area; you may use it to solve some areas, whilst ignoring other areas.

The same happens when it comes to writing ILT action plans for curriculum areas. These plans will favour particular technologies and some problem areas. Other technologies and other problem areas will get ignored.

In order to avoid this happening, we have decided to make use of the cheese concept for Trivial Pursuit in order to ensure that curriculum teams make best use of the range of technologies available, ensuring none are left out; likewise ensuring that learning technologies are used to solve issues in a range of areas, rather than one specific area or a few areas.

The areas we have chosen for our cheeses are based on the needs of our corporate college ILT Strategy.

We have two sets of cheese, one with a technology focus and one with a learner focus.

Technology Focus

Learner Focus

In later blog posts I will go into more detail about the different cheeses and exemplar action plans for those cheeses.

The key though for managers is that they MUST plan and COMPLETE action plans for each of the twelve cheeses. They can’t just ignore a cheese because they “feel like it”.

This should have the result that across the college there is a more holisitic approach to embedding of ILT into the curriculum. That weaker areas are not ignored in favour of stronger areas. Eventually the whole college will be moving forward in the use of ILT to enhance and enrich the learner experience; something that is essential as the world of technology is moving too.

We’ll see how this goes…

Photo source.

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Facebook ‘cuts student drop-outs’

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Gloucestershire College makes the news on its use of social networking websites to support teaching and learning.

Social networking websites such as Facebook are helping to reduce college drop-out rates, it is claimed.

Gloucestershire College says social networking is used to keep students informed and in touch with staff.

“There has been a significant improvement in retention,” says media curriculum manager, Perry Perrott.

This is not about encouraging use of Facebook, but taking advantage of the fact that our learners are using Facebook. There are issues that need to be thought about and we hope to cover that in a session as part of the Becta Technology Exemplar Network.

altc2009, gloucestershire college, twitter, vle

ALT-C 2009 Day #1

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It’s Tuesday and day one of the Association of Learning Technologies Conference (ALT-C) 2009.

It’s a busy day with loads on and as a result there is going to be some good stuff which I will miss as either I am presenting or somewhere else in the conference.

I am not going to miss the first keynote from Michael Wesch, creator of some excellent Web 2.0 videos which you may have seen (and I have used in various presentations and workshops across the country).

His keynote at ALT-C will cover the following:

It took tens of thousands of years for writing to emerge after humans spoke their first words. It took thousands more before the printing press and a few hundred again before the telegraph. Today a new medium of communication emerges every time somebody creates a new web application. A Flickr here, a Twitter there, and a new way of relating to others emerges. New types of conversation, argumentation, and collaboration are realized. Using examples from anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, YouTube, classrooms, and “the future,” this presentation will demonstrate the profound yet often unnoticed ways in which media “mediate” our conversations, classrooms, and institutions. We will then apply these insights to an exploration of the implications for how we may need to rethink how we teach, what we teach, and who we think we are teaching.

My expectations are high.

I am then (after coffee) going to attend sessions on staff skills. Short paper 20 Where does the university end and learning begin? Facilitating personal learning environments to enhance ownership of knowledge is one what particularly interests me, as does the proceedings paper 291 Next Generation User Skills – possibilities for the digital literacies required in everyday living, learning and working in the United Kingdom in 2013 (Proceedings Paper).

After lunch at 1.40pm the VLE will die! This should be a really interesting debate and I will be streaming it live over Ustream. Check my Twitter stream for more information later today.

I am after the symposium hoping to attend another short paper, 292 The technology dream versus teacher reality: Understanding technology practices in relation to beliefs, pedagogical context and affordance theories however I expect that packing up and post symposium questions will delay me!

At 4.0opm I am torn between attending Steve Wheeler’s Twitter workshop or the OER Matters Symposium. Steve’s workshop will be fun, but the OER debate could be really good. Pity I can’t be at both… I guess the key will be which will be the most useful and which one will support my role…

Going to wait and see on that one.

At the end of the day is the new ALT Members Reception, and as Gloucestershire College joined ALT this year I will be attending.

It’s going to be a long and busy day.

altc2009, gloucestershire college

Glossy Poster at ALT-C 2009

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I shall be “presenting” a poster on Glossy at ALT-C 2009.

Here’s a sneak preview…

glossyposter450

Abstract

The Glossy project undertook a large-scale development and implementation of mobile learning across Gloucestershire College utilising the mobile devices that learners already own.The project put in place an infrastructure at Gloucestershire College that allows learners using devices that they already own and college devices to access learning activities and content. The project created a student wireless network that can be accessed by learners’ own devices to access a range of content and learning activities through the college VLE.The aim of the project was to enable learners to access learning at a time and place to suit them in order to improve retention and achievement. The project provided mobile devices to learners in selected groups; including excluded learners and learners with learning difficulties and disabilities.

The project allowed the college to provide suitable hardware and software based in the college libraries that allows both staff and learners to develop, create and convert content for use on a range of mobile devices.The poster will show the key issues, challenges and opportunities that mobile learning offers institutions. It will show the key stages that are required to allow institutions to utilise the mobile devices that learners already own. The difficulties of working with diverse learner devices will be outlined on the poster because understanding them is vital to any discussion of sustainability.

The poster, through a range of examples, will show how important it is to address the differing attitudes of staff, IT support needs and staff development.

The Glossy Project did much more than start Gloucestershire College down the road of mobile learning, it had an impact on the whole culture of the organisation in the use of not just mobile technologies, but also other learning technologies, audio, video, podcasting, wireless and use of the VLE to enhance and enrich the learning experience.

The project had an impact on 14,000 learners during the lifetime of the project, ran from November 2007 to July 2008. It continues to have a benefit even though the project has finished, as the infrastructure enables mobile learning to continue.