Plymouth, mentors, work based learning and Blogging

What a title but I think I should have covered it all! Mark and I went down to the Plymouth e-Learning conference, where Mark was the Key Note speaker. This had a lot of interesting things going on around work based learning, control and innovation (based on Marks talk), and "Web 2.0". Plymouth have a JISC project called Uspace, where they are looking at using iGoogle as a portal for their learners, and it will be interesting to see how they link that to university systems and authentication, at the moment most tools they are using appear to be those linked to Google, although they also link to their internal elgg installation. Another interesting point will be whether employers let learners access it at work (barriers on control/ what is learning and what is social). They have taken the approach that each partner college has their own tab within iGoogle - this is something that we will be looking at during the next meeting.

Other interesting issues linked to: Will learners really use devices they have for entertainment/social networking for learning? Previous studies have shown this to be unlikely so will we be able to encourage technology relating to learning as well as their other devices - or can we piggie back on devices they use for work? Are they happier using work/ personal devices as opposed to learning/ personal devices? No easy answers were there but still need to be considered and investigated.

The conference showed a move towards blogging in everyday learning, with learners now starting to complain that they have to reflect on too much. Where blogging has not joined the mainstream feedback shows the reason they like to do it is because it is new and different. I found it interesting one study appeared to have written their own blogging tool with a template for feedback in a certain way, the learners using this complained about the limited functionality and they had not been asked that if they had been given the template to go into their own blogging tool would they have been happier?

As we look at the Support Point and consider how the learner is being encouraged to blog their experiences will we have to think about linking learner blogs to different modules? And will the learner have to start thinking about different blogs for those modules? How will they be able to manage this experience?

Anyway enough of the questions!

Moving on up

Have had a busy few weeks, and a few more ahead with the pilot taking off, features being rated with the technical team, and attending a few conferences. Last week was particularly interesting as I met one of the employers involved in the pilot based in Shrewsbury, plus one of the tutors involved. I am not going to say much here, just read Shrewsburys blog which should be out today or tomorrow.

This week I have been looking again at tools on the web that could be used to assist in learning and could also be embedded into the Support Point as tools for the learner etc. This included investing Diigo (nice) Shelfari (OK) and Squidoo (very good, similar to Pageflakes, and have set up a WBL page - which is referenced now in Diigo and Facebook) It is nice to see how some of these tools now fit together, and it will be interesting to see how they work for dissemination of project work.

Thanks to the project team rating features for the project on the roles of Learner and Educational Support Staff/ Tutor we have been able to put a plan together for developing the features and releasing them into the support point. Some of the features overlap with Mentor and Managers so progress should be fairly quick once we get started. We can't rate employer type features until a few more get involved in the project and see what is available.

On the plus side it looks like calendars in the University and the linking to online tools and software within the University is now being investigated beyond the project which should help with getting the information into the Support Point in a usuable format.

Meetings and Issues

Had an interesting week that has involved a get together at Birmingham for those involved in JISC projects (see http://cetisllg.ning.com/) and a project meeting within two days of each other. Found that some of the same issues in our project are reflected in the community around work based learning including:

• Although Fds follow fdf models during validation by delivery they have changed, including the loss of the mentor role due to the nature of the learner and/or employer
• Learners can get conflicting information due to being part of a FE and a HE institution
• Learners & Tutors are confused about resources and support tools available to them from the validating institution
• Employers don't like other employers to know they are engaged with WBL
• Employers only want limited involvement in WBL
• Applications supporting learner administration are often not linked and involve duplication of work
• Good practice can only be replicated where all the conditions are the same, and therefore often needs modifying to fit the new purpose (audience, delivery method etc)
• Learners don't have access to similar technologies in the work place
• Course descriptors are often modified immediate need
• Course support documentation created to support validation and not the stakeholders involved in the award.
• Access and Authentication a big problem, not just across consortium's but with mentors, employers etc needing to access materials/ data

So its a list, a long one and most need some serious thought to being addressed. In most cases there needs to be a change in Business processes, and a change in policy (and to quote from Mark Stiles, there needs to be a change in perspective from restricting to enabling).

On a lighter note it is good to see the ning group grow and some of the inputs have been very interesting.

Calendars

I am thinking about ways of making life more easy and centralising information about university calendars and then how they will fit within the Support Point, the University website and its own portal. I am really pleased with the calendar spreadsheet I have started and shared with the Student Information team, who seem happy with it. I will have to look at a way of sharing it with the community.

Start Spreading the Word

As the project moves forward there is more need to spread the word, one opportunity made available to us was through the SURF Curriculum & Qualifications Group Meeting. This meeting had its focus on helping inform colleagues in SURF about efforts around employer engagement, with a great talk by the fdf; Clare Stoney. This was a very interesting meeting about how both the colleges and the university need to look at strategies on engaging employers. We were able to get everyone there to take a leaflet about the project, and it looks like Clare has given us extra points to think about - and given us some backing on items we have already raised (like customer relationship management across SURF for employers).

Our next main opportunity will be in June, where we will be involved in a University event "Technology Supported Learning in the 21st Century: Issues and Paradigms in Transformative Tertiary Education" (for more information follow the link). We are hoping to run a workshop demonstrating employer engagement with SURF through the use of the support point.