Jisc Innovation Through Technology Funding call

These last few weeks several of us in the RSC team have been dealing with your enquiries about the latest round of Jisc FE and Skills funding. This one million pound funding programme aims to improve the learner experience and increase the capability and capacity of the workforce, and covers all of FE and Skills. If you haven’t already applied for this, there is still time but the deadline is 6^th December which is approaching very soon!

For those considering submitting bids the following links might be useful:

• Our colleagues at RSC Eastern ran a workshop recently that looked more closely at what this funding can be used for and ways to apply. All the resources from that event are available to view online, along with the presentations from the day.  What might be of particular interest is the two ‘Padlet’ pages where providers expressed some of their ideas for projects as that gives a rough idea of what people are typically considering doing with the funds.

•  As part of that same event there were also two bid writing workshops hosted by Angus Carpenter, and the recording of these workshops is also available. This first session looked at the project development process and considerations for collaborative bids. Available as a recording here. The second session examined the funding call documents, with Angus explaining how bidders can align the project documents with their ideas. Available here.

Should you need any more information about this current funding call please get in touch. Good luck to all that apply!

 
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Free Publication for Embedding Mobile Technologies

There’s a lot of talk about enabling more mobile work based learning these days so I thought it might be worth highlighting a useful publication that JISC compiled a while ago, which focuses on embedding mobile and wireless technologies into everyday practice. 'Innovative Practice with e-Learning' is a good practice guide which explores ways in which mobile and wireless technologies have become established in post-16 learning.

Like many JISC publications, this has a lot of examples from colleges and universities etc but also still contains useful information for work based learning, including advice on getting stated with mobile learning, plus a number of really useful templates to help you plan for this. 10 case studies are included with the booklet to illustrate the use and the impact of mobile technologies from three perspectives: those of the learner, the practitioner and the institution.

The publication contains a supplementary CD-ROM which contains extended versions of all 10 case studies, video clips for 5 of the case studies, an e-learning audit tool, and planning tools for use of mobile and wireless technologies.

I have a handful of glossy printed copies of this publication which I’m happy to post out to any of our supported providers who may want one (with the accompanying CD). Alternatively, ‘being green’, you can access the supporting website here, or get electronic copies of the publication and its very useful planning tools from the links below.

• Innovative Practice with e-Learning guide (pdf) File
• A manager’s planning tool for use of mobile and wireless technologies - Microsoft Word Document
• A practitioner’s planning tool for use of mobile and wireless technologies - Microsoft Word Document
• An e-learning manager’s planning tool for use of mobile and wireless technologies - Microsoft Word Document
• An institutional audit tool for mobile and wireless and other forms of e-learning - Microsoft Word Document

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Free Hairdressing Resources

Last week our Information Officer posted an article on our website about a new batch of hairdressing resources that are now freely available online. These are high quality videos that demonstrate popular hairdressing techniques, such as cutting, straightening, and also cover areas such as client consultation and health and safety. They have been developed by Worcester College and have now been shared on the web for others to use.

This is great if you deliver hairdressing training and have a virtual learning environment such a Moodle as they can be very easily linked to from within that. They can also simply be accessed and viewed directly from the webpage, there is no log in or registration required.

These videos were developed with staff from salons in the West Midlands region and it’s great to see such high quality resources for e-learning emerging locally. Having just watched one or two, I’ve learnt a few handy tips from the professionals myself!

For other web based resources (that also include hairdressing) see related wobble posts below.

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Related links:

Intute - web resources for education
NLN learning resources, whats on the horizon?

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Image "_MG_7162" from Flickr (Kindly shared by by NYCArthur)

JISC Legal Advice for Learning Providers

As a work based learning provider, does your organisation have an email/internet policy? Does your website have a privacy statement?

The use of IT in learning raises many legal issues and work based learning providers need to have awareness of these and of any associated legal risk. That’s where JISC Legal now comes in. A Joint Information System Committee (JISC) funded service, JISC Legal now offers high quality legal information free to the work based learning sector. The service explains the implications of IT law by making current legal information available to staff working with IT in the sector.

JISC Legal is an information service, they are not a firm of solicitors and can’t give professional legal advice – any material provided is for informative purposes only. However, the use of JISC legal services can save providers time and money, if only in ensuring their staff are fully briefed in legal issues relating to the use of IT.

They maintain the JISC Legal website, which offers a wealth of useful information as well as a form for online queries. They have also compiled a very useful Software Management Checklist which is designed to help learning providers manage the licensed software on their machines. A list of Frequently Asked Questions outlines a number of key topics based on queries the service has received to date. They also have a number of publications that cover topics such as monitoring internet use, issues relating to copyright, inappropriate use of computers and data retention.

JISC Legal is just one of the advisory services currently available to the work based learning sector (I’ve mentioned another on wobble previously). A full listing of JISC services can also be found on Innovate. For more information on how any of the JISC services can be used by your organisation please get in touch.

JISC e-books Now Online

e-Books are now available from this years JISC Online Conference which looked at the impact of e-learning from an internal institutional perspective and from the view of the lifelong learner. The two e-books capture some of the feedback of this four day event and contain session presentations and papers, links to recommended resources and summaries of the discussions.

The conference mainly attracted delegates from further and higher education but touched on issues of relevance to WBL too. In the second e-book, Supporting lifelong learning (pdf format) “…Several papers addressed issues around the use of technology to support work-place learning and the transitions between institutions, as well as the use of technology to support the discovery of progression routes.”

“…Another strand focused on work-based learning and identified the issues around employer engagement and the relationships between employers and colleges. Technologies to support work-based learning and lifelong learning were discussed at length, with a consensus that the biggest challenges lay around issues of control and ownership of technologies. Student expectations and their own use of technologies were identified as significant drivers in this area.”

Both e-books can be accessed from the JISC conference site online.