Safeguarding: Guidance for Learning Providers

This four-page leaflet addresses the main considerations regarding e-safety guidance for learning providers. This content will support your duty of care for the safe use of technology and contains a checklist for developing effective strategies and policies.

It’s one of a series of four publications currently focusing on the area of ‘Safeguarding in a Digital World’. Other publications in the series (all free to download) include:

• Safeguarding in a digital world: Guidance for technical staff


• Safeguarding in a digital world: Guidance for curriculum managers, teachers and training staff


• Safeguarding in a digital world: Guidance for learners

This series of factsheets is available on the Becta website along with a number of other useful publications for learning providers. However, the website will be closing on 31 January 2011 so to get your own pdf copies to save locally you will need to download them very soon!

See other Becta publications on the publications area of their website.

__________________

Related Wobble links:

Safeguarding Learners – Tips for E-Safety
Getting WebWise and Staying Safe Online
New eSafety JISC Mail List

To read more of Wobble click here.

Autumn Winter RSC Newsletter now Available Online

The Autumn Winter edition of the regional RSC West Midlands newsletter is now available. Packed with hints and tips for helping you to get more out of e-learning this free newsletter is a great way to keep informed about issues that affect all sectors.

Kirsty Hill, our Information Officer has now done a great job in sharing this edition and several back copies for you to view in a readable format online and share with colleagues at your leisure. She has also put a link to our newsletters and Senior Management Breifings on our website.

Open publication - Free publishing - More west midlands

Of particular interest in this edition there’s:

1. Latest e-Learning Good Practice From Our Region
2. My StudyBar Saves Organisations £500,000
3. A Guide to Screencasting
4. LSIS Introduce Regional Development Managers
5. Save Yourself Time Online: RSS Feeds
6. Getting the Most From Moodle
7. RSC Launches Network-in-a-Box
8. Apple iPad is a Hit with the RSC
9. Green Tips From the Team
10. Regional Survey Results


If you’re a West Midlands based learning provider you should receive your own printed versions of our newsletters in the post, if for any reason you don’t please do get in touch.

If there is anything you would like to see covered in future editions of the newsletter please do let us know, we are always happy to receive feedback.

Happy reading!

To read more of Wobble click here.

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

To read more of Wobble click here.

The Impact of Mobile Technologies

I spotted an interesting publication on a colleague’s desk recently – 'The Impact of Mobile Technologies, Examining what it means for teaching and learning'. This is the report that summarises Phase one of MoLeNET projects.

Molenet 1 involved approximately 10,000 learners and 2,000 staff, spread across 32 mobile learning projects. This resulted in lots of examples of good practice and lessons learnt, all of which have fed into the report.

Projects were led by colleges but “...More than half of MoLeNET 2007/08 projects (18 projects or 56%) addressed the national priority of work-based learning. In many cases they used mobile devices for gathering and presenting evidence through e-portfolios....Vocational subject areas in which mobile learning was deployed include hairdressing, motor vehicle, engineering, electrical engineering, industrial services, care, construction and plumbing.”

“Handheld technologies used included personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, smartphones, MP3 and MP4 players (eg iPODs), other portable multimedia players, handheld gaming devices (eg Sony PSP, Nintendo DS), ultramobile PCs (UMPCs), mini notebooks or netbooks (eg Asus EEE), handheld GPS devices, handheld voting
devices” .

The report offers useful examples throughout and key pointers from providers from their project evaluations. There is a dedicated section on Work Based Learning and also a section on Employer engagement highlighting some of the difficulties in using mobile devices in practice.

The complete publication can be downloaded without registering (for free) from the LSN website or you can request a hard copy by emailing molenet@lsnlearning.org.uk

To read more of Wobble click here.

Emerging Technologies for Learning

A recent report from BECTA, Emerging Technologies for Learning “…aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education … It should open readers up to some of the possibilities that are developing and the potential for technology to transform our ways of working, learning and interacting over the next three to five years.”

It has various articles which will be of interest to learning providers but a couple which caught my attention include:

Growing up with Google: what it means to education This explores the ‘net generation’ …whose behaviours, preferences and expectations may be very different from those of their teachers (trainers). It examines the characteristics of these learners … and the skills that an education system needs to provide for the 21st century.

Mobile, wireless, connected: information clouds and learning In this, Mark van’t Hooft looks at the implications of using mobile devices, pervasive wireless connectivity, and internet applications and services. .. describing some examples of how these technologies are being used to transform learning and discusses the barriers and issues to their effective use.

Get Chips Online?

Yes, you can now get ‘Chips with Everything’ online.

Chips with Everything is a newsletter produced by the National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education (NIACE) with support from the LSC. Its aim is to ensure that staff working within learning providers are aware of the benefits of e-learning and it includes case studies, articles and useful tips that support this, which is great. What's even better is the fact that you can now access copies of the complete publication and its supplements online, making it even easier to discover ways that e-learning is being used.

Currently hard copies of the publication are also distributed free to over 11,000 readers in work based learning organisations and other adult learning providers. If you would like to receive your own print copies of Chips with Everything, simply complete this form. NIACE will then mail you the next and all future editions of the newsletter ensuring you are notified of developments in this area.

Photograph courtesy of John Muir

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.

Work Based Learning - Made to Measure

The latest issue of Reflect includes a special report on why workplace learning needs to be specially tailored. In the article ‘Made to measure rather than one size fits all’ Sue Southwood argues that learning providers must heed the wishes of employers and their workforce if the Leitch targets are to be met.

You can access the article online in Issue 9 (pdf format).

Reflect is the magazine of the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy. It features articles and reviews on research, policy and strategy in the areas of adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL. The magazine is available online or you can also register for a free subscription.