At last, a positive report on a real success story of how distance learning can really make a difference to education. Lead by the UK's most experienced distance learning organisation. Take note all - distance learning actually works if well designed (using synchronous + asynchronous modes) and very well supported.
"...The quality and consistency of support provided on distance-learning programmes is crucial to minimise dropout rates. On the OU nursing course, students are assigned a tutor for each module they take, while another supports individual students throughout their four-year period of study. OU-trained personal mentors, typically a registered nurse, support and assess students in the workplace.
"The workbooks direct your learning, but you got a tutorial every month by video link. We also met our tutor face-to-face once a month with the rest of the group," says O'May. "There were also phone tutorials, emails and online forums. It worked fantastically well."
From 2012, the OU will offer nursing degrees as part of the government's policy to make nursing training degree-standard. But entry criteria will remain the same so that healthcare workers seconded by their employers are still able to study for the degree."
I recently attended a webinar run by the elearning network + ALT entitled "Why eLearning Projects Go Wrong". The recording of the ALT/ELN Why eLearning Projects Go Wrong webinar which took place on the 17th February is now available via the ALT Open Access Repository at: http://repository.alt.ac.uk/view/divisions/projectsgowrong/2010.html
The above screencast was recorded by myself just to illustrate how Prezi can be used effectivly as a presentation tool during an online webinar. In this instance we were using Elluminate. Anyhoo back to the meat of the webinar.
Robs many years of experiences in designing and executing bespoke elearning solutions for large compaines was spot on the mark in terms of promoting a plethora of pragmatic tips to guide us through the maze of designing an e-learning "product" that satisfies a clients spec'. Rob ran through a set of pitfalls to avoid whilst running his prezi "slides";
Work closely with stakeholders, as their time to review is critical - ensure they understand the entire process,
ensure that stakeholders understand the time needed to review the project steps at critical sign-off stages. Book these review stages in their calendars, be explicit about scope and range of "agreed changes",
ensure ALL stakeholders are identified and have indepth knowledge of their required input/review at each stage of the design. Document ALL comm's with them in a central place accessible to all – Robs uses basecamp for this (web based) project management of key stages, decisions, and all project doc's,
unstuff! - use a method like Kathy More's - action mapping - identifying what needs to be acheived – which ends up at content - keeps it (planning meetings) focussed,
has the "thing"/tool/ training package/ changed behaviours - made money / increase in sales, etc? Measure the business metrics. And does it fit with marketing and other promotionals?
test on target market – it is fundamental to adopt true user centred design process – do not be tempted to shortcut this stage of the inital design process – do so at your peril!
Identify learner needs - active, real world based, skills ,etc.. put yourself in your learners shoes - identify tangible outputs - that could be measured!
Implment a multi stage (sign off) process of protoyping and final output - identify a gatekeeper at the client end, to keep everyone in the loop. Test, test, test, on a sample of target users - to feedback users comment into the final design.
Adopt a "Plain "English" approach to writing copy + screen design (rememeber less is more for the web), ie. writing for screen and for elearning efficiency & learning efficacy.
David also has many years experience of managing large scale e-learning projects. Davids tips complimented Robs;
Issues emanate mainly around execution - design and delivery - but also around the output - i.e. what's in it for me.
4 main points of going wrong Alignment, outcomes, adoption, and execution. See also the Towards Maturity research which backs this up. Alignment is key - if this is wrong, everything else is skewed and will not work (backed up by Towards Maturity research).
Most elearning is built for compliance (bigger companies) - so elearning is looked at as "boring", as most peoples experiences are primairy concerend with consuming legalities/rules, etc - not interesting!! i.e. most elearning is paper behind glass / click through pages of text + the occaisional self assessment. Dull dull dull.......
Drivers and barriers for acceptance and utilisation - need to be identified and designed in - often they are just ignored. Is e-learning the answer at all, and indeed is it a learning problem in the first instance? Is it just a communication issue?
Initiative overload - end users being bombarded by new stuff - need to decide how and if to implement.
test test test on target platforms and people!! Especially when using other vendors to built the end product.
Adoption: support from line managers to actually learn whats been created! Marketing and; relevance and; currency.
Outcomes: measuring success ,how to anaylse ROI? Evalaution evaluation evaluation is key. How has the knowledge being retained and used down stream, most elearning companies shy away from this and factor ROI around design and delivery of the project - not measuring improved business performance. n.b. again the Towards Maturity report backs this up.
Finally I pushed for any advice on the touchy subject of useful evaluation of such projects. I suggested that we could use the Kirkpatrick Model ??: But I was somewhat rebuffed as to it's usefulness. The answer I received was "it kind of works" - but at a higher level - not useful for business metrics - ie. performance improvements. So I did not really get a satisfactory answer for this, but I guess that this two companies needed to keep somethings back, to retain a competitive edge? Unless - this is such a grey area, (read expensive) - no one really knows/can afford to correctly evaluate multimedia type projects???? Answers on a postcard please :OD
Above all a really useful webinar for those who are designing, and implementing any for of elearning into a large organsiation. It struck me how the whole process was simialr to managing any multimedia projects, including websites. From a project management perspective, effective (client) communication is key, as is robust user centred design.
From an end user perspective, desinging rich engaging material is the key. In fact we discussed adopting a much more social, collaborative, reflective, real world, type of expereince. Much like Rob Hubbards own RED course, or by adopting the http://www.connectivism.ca/ approach.
This is my second posting covering last weeks Learning Technologies conference. The biggest UK conf' for e-learning types to sell their wares, and prospective customers to zoom around obtaining intial ideas of what's hot or interesting, in the middle of the deepest recession in our time!
http://etherpad.com/ - real time collaborative text editing - like a wiki - but in real time. This is now Open Source. I was given an alternative by Andy Black from BECTa - i'll chase that up.
http://wetoku.com/ - record short vids for your blog - or use it to meet up online using a web cam - like OovoO or ??
Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro - when you join Macromedia with Adobe only good things can happen - and this Learning management system/authoring/live presenting doodah - has it all (for a price!)
www.xyleme.com/LT - collaborative authoring platform using open standards. A neat approach.
http://www.thinkingworlds.com/ - 3D engine to create immersive worlds - good for games based learnign and mor realistic scenarios/simulations
http://www.myknowledgemap.com/ - a capable assessment based eportfolio platform, that's being reworked into a PLE - expect more from me on this in the near future -as it's in alpha at present.
http://prezi.com/ - create engaging zoomy type flash presentations (with videos), A steep learning curve. Alternatively use Buzan's imindmap - much easier.
Adobe Acrobat Acrobat 9 Pro(extend) - a bit of a mouthful! But.. this version allows you to create PDF documents with ease, including embedded videos and assessments. If you get this version, you automatically get the PowerPoint plug-in, that gives the same functionality as Adobe Presenter. - like Articulate or Lecturnity
http://www.e-learningwmb.co.uk/ - green screen video production technology, creates high quality video training vignettes. Quality product at an affordable price.
http://wwww.videoarts.com - high quality video training clips/course from an industy giant - now they can be streamed into your VLE
http://www.trax-uk.co.uk/ - they scan paper based hig hstakes assignments into digital format for further analysis, storage, etc. A neat solution.
www.bitesizeltd.com - as it suggests - excellent nuggets of self paced , self contained tutorials on how to use most Microsoft products. Quality stuff.
Don't forget I have a wiki page entirely dedicated to the use of video in education. Case studies and technical aspects are all covered in some depth. Please take a look
The hands-on guide to post-16 funding, written by Nick Linford, Edexcel's Special advisor on Funding and Performance. The guide explains in simple terms what is funded and how this is delivered. It looks at the funding changes for 09/10 and the current plans for funding in 10/11. Get it here : http://www.fundingguide.co.uk/
I've just been into the first day of the conference. Very interesting keynotes, and discussions taking place. Plus there's a "have a go" area full of useful resources and demonstrations. Thought I'd share some of those with you;
The EVOLUTION project - reusable materials
The JISC funded EVOLUTION project is an Open Educational Resources project that is disaggregating existing materials so they may be re-used and re-purposedfor different contexts or pedagogies. Click here to listen to a talk about the project and the materials available. If you would like to download the materials for review than please register to use the materials on our repository at www.employability.org.uk. Open to UK HE only!
LexDis - student participation, issues and strategies
This project, with the help of students, explored successful 'e-skills' and supporting strategies, including the use of assistive technologies introduced by e-learning and Web 2.0 type services such as blogs, wikis, social networks and mobile technologies. The outcome has been the development of an online database with student strategies, explanations about the technologies used and a series of one page guides with print versions. The latter have been provided to encourage staff to develop accessible teaching and learning materials. Some link to the work of JISC TechDis Accessibility essentials and all have links to further resources.
The Design Studio: a curriculum design and delivery toolkit
The newly launched Design Studio is a developing dynamic web-based toolkit hosted by JISC infoNet which draws together a range of existing and developing resources around curriculum design and delivery and the role technology plays in supporting these processes and practices. The Studio will provide access to project outcomes and outputs from the JISC Curriculum Design and Delivery programmes as they are developed and will continue to be sustained as a community resource after the programmes end. A curriculum lifecycle concept provides a structure for this wiki-based resource and the primary portal to materials whilst tagging provides flexible entry levels to information based on e.g. themes, technologies and subject areas. This is a recorded (not live!) tour in Elluminate. Click https://sas.elluminate.com/mrtbl?suid=M.257864C26A4F22C5EE6DB9B8A536AD to view the recording. Access the curriculum change document that accompanies this resource.
This is a practical tool for learning how to use the Internet to find copyright cleared images to support learning and teaching. The link below takes you to an online tutorial about the tool. http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/tutorial/imagesearching/
The Phoebe Pedagogy Planner tool
Phoebe is a pedagogy planner tool, designed to help teachers create learning experiences that are motivating and productive for both their students and themselves. It comprises a simple authoring environment and extensive guidance on teaching and learning with digital technologies. Phoebe was developed from 2006-2008 by a team from the University of Oxford, with funding from the JISC Design for Learning programme.
Here are the latest case studies from the rest of the RSCs that have gone live during the past month: http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=case-studies-all
Gateshead College's Hair and Beauty department uses IT for both effective course management and teaching and learning. Technologies such as interactive whiteboards, video, electronic individual learning plans (e-ILPs) and online course files have improved teaching and learning, as well as simplified course administration.
Blackpool and The Fylde College: Feeling secure with an award-winning campus-wide wireless network. Blackpool and The Fylde College has implemented a campus-wide wireless network that allows secure connectivity to College systems and services for learners and staff using their own laptops. The development has won a Cisco 'Secure Campus' award. Via a future development, the College hopes to provide learners with access to the College systems and services when out and about in Blackpool town centre.
Northampton College has introduced a commercial system (ClickView) for recording and then digitally distributing TV programmes within the classroom. This has allowed greater integration of video into traditional teaching methods than was previously happening via DVD-based resources.
The Adult Education Services from six local authorities in the North East joined forces to set-up a shared virtual learning environment (VLE) called TeesLearn. It provides their learners with new and inspiring learning opportunities, and supports them across a rural and wide geographical area.
The staff responsible for the employability programme at Hillcroft have developed the College's use of blended learning in response to the needs and requirements of learners and their specialist tutors, some of whom live some distance away.
Bromley College offers a diverse range of learning opportunities from A-levels, BTECs and NVQs through to work-based learning and Train to Gain programmes. This diversity presents a major challenge in how to monitor the performance of its learners to ensure they achieve their potential. eTracker is an electronic individual learning plan (eILP) solution that enables lecturers to take a highly personalised approach to the individual needs of their learners. It enables them to identify issues early and intervene quickly – not just academic issues but also pastoral and behavioural. eTracker has been a motivating force for the learners at Bromley College and it facilitates good communication across the College.
Southport College has been improving audibility in classrooms by installing a ceiling-mounted microphone at the front of the room above the interactive whiteboard. Linked to an amplifier and ceiling-mounted speakers, this distributes sound clearly and evenly across the classroom.
Southport College has installed 24 centrally-controlled digital information display screens across the College to display a wide range of information. A user-friendly touch-screen facility has been developed and implemented on two of these screens, enabling students, visitors and staff to select college information they would like to view such as course details, news, events and videos. This information is presented to users in a virtual panel that automatically appears at a height suited to their needs.
Calderdale College is creating a radically different learning culture and environment, based on using the most appropriate space for each "learning event".
This case study examines how one EFL (English as a foriegn language) lecturer at Southampton City College decided to ‘raise his ILT game' by making full use of the Moodle virtual learning environment (VLE) to create blog-style resources and interactive forums to increase the levels of engagement, motivation and collaboration for four of his student classes. As a result, his courses have received a Gold Award under the College's Gold, Silver and Bronze Moodle benchmarking initiative.
Southampton City College: Southampton City College strives for Gold with Moodle benchmarking scheme. How do you answer the question: “How well is your VLE being used?” Southampton City College rose to the challenge with the creation, development and implementation of a highly motivational ‘Gold, Silver and Bronze' benchmarking system to evaluate and recognise quality of content and activity on its College Moodle system. The results are impressive.
South East Derbyshire College: Media server – one college's approach to providing video resources. Getting video resources to staff and learners at South East Derbyshire College was a relatively costly and time-consuming process until the College adopted a new piece of cheap software and created their own media server. This has allowed far greater use of video resources and improved the quality of the picture.
RNIB College Loughborough: Visually-impaired learners benefit from audio and synchronised text on their mobile phones. Using DAISY Player software on a mobile has allowed visually-impaired learners at RNIB College Loughborough to copy e-books to their mobile phones and to listen at their convenience.
The EduTubePlus project aims to develop a European hybrid, multilingual video-based service for schools, integrating thousands of curriculum-related video clips. The EduTubePlus service will enable users to develop, translate and share video-based learning scenarios and lessons, to search resources using terms related to their national curriculum and to use video pedagogically in the classrooms.
AlsoYouTube EDU, the Web site for video channels from universities, has recently added content from institutions in Europe and Israel. Forty-five colleges and universities from those areas, including the University of Cambridge and distance-learning institutions like the Open University of Catalonia, now have channels on the site.
Teachers TV hosts a wide rnage of informative streaming videos to watch via the web.
I stumbled across a few blog postings today that referred to different "models". The first exclaimed proudly that we should all go and build an ePortfolio culture in our schools now! . Good idea, I'm with you on that one. Any ideas please !O)
Whilst on the topic of eportfolios I have just wandered over to the eportoflio page at Queen Margaret Universitywhich is choc full of case studies and a wealth of supporting resources to help staff and students use eportfolios effectively. This page really exemplifies best practice in terms of support for all users.
And finally I thought you'd like to peruse the presentations for our speakers last week. We ran a webinar covering local eportfolio pilot projects, attempting to glean effective practice. Access the resources here, and don't foget our wiki page here covering everything you need to know about eportfolios.
The e-Revolution and Post-Compulsory Education: Using e-business models to deliver quality education. The full e-book is downloadable from the main JISC site:
We are running the final day of our online conference today and have a ful day of presentations focussing on gaming technologies applied to educational contexts. We have been handed a few videos that discuss the use of the Sony PSP. I thought I'd share them with you. Very interesting stuff - especially the Second sight video.
We also had a live session run on the DimDim webinar platform by Karl Royle who talked about the use of gaming technolgoies generally in education. A very intersting session. Watch it online here:
RSC-MP3 A monthly summary of HE focused e-learning news and events
Each month we will interview a guest speaker and also record a conversation between us discussing current issues contained in our blogs (see links below). This month we interviewed Professor Terry Mayes emeritus professor at Glasgow Caledonian University. Professor Mayes discusses the current shape of higher education and the challenges of 21st century learning as well as some of his current work with the Higher Education Academy. Click here for the interview with Terry Mayes in full. Listen to our chat using the player on the right of your screen.
Delivering streaming video media safely and securly via your College or Uni learning environment has just got easier. Read on. The Learning and Skills Network has introduced MoLeTV which will be targeted primarily to colleges in England, under the auspices of the Learning and Skills Council. Find other Molenet resources including the new mobile technologies resources on the molenet site.
Use of this new digital media site enables registered users to upload media in most of the common formats. 'Uploaders' are able to edit and delete their content at any time.
What are the benefits of using this service?
• Promotion of curriculum content and sharing good practice
• media automatically 'streams'
• often a smaller file size
• video is converted to a variety of formats and is accessible to VLE's such as Moodle, websites, mobile devices and PDAs using the embed code and/or download links as appropriate.
• is curriculum relevant
• is primarily UK based resources
• is divided into Learning and Skills Council (LSC) categories
• saves uploading media to your college servers
• saves on back-up time for large files
• embeds as flash media and saves trouble with plug-ins for other formats cross-platform (Windows, Linux and Macintosh)
• helps stop staff uploading large AVI files to your server! (although only AVIs with specific codecs will convert)
• has RSS feeds
• will link to iTunes
• can upload podcasts and vodcasts
The website is now available at http://www.moletv.org.uk. Users can create an account on the site (login area) which will allow them to upload media.
I prefer to use the free service vimeo to host and stream my vodcasts. It's excellent quality, and does not compress the video as much as Youtube does. Resulting in a higher quality video clip. Can't always be sure of the quality of delivery tho?
STOP PRESS >>>>>>> RSCtv <<<<<<<<<<<<<
Not strictly TV, but nearly! There are a number of brilliant, free, online events for teaching and learning with technology being hosted by RSC Scotland South West over the next few weeks. I have been given permission to promote the events below to the West Midlands learning providers. All you need is a web browser to get involved - it's all ONLINE.
17th February 2009 - RSCtv: Using Blogs for teaching and learning
3rd March 2009 - RSCtv: Using Voting Systems for teaching and learning It will focus how creating stand-alone tests, adding interaction to presentations, and how they can be used to analyse student understanding. http://www.rsc-sw-scotland.ac.uk/events.htm#Mar03
31st March 2009 - RSCtv: Mobile Technologies for teaching and learning This RSCtv session will outline advantages to be gained, the possibilities for the application of mobile technologies for Learning & Teaching and will also highlight some of the issues that need consideration by learning institutions. http://www.rsc-sw-scotland.ac.uk/events.htm#Mar31
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