LSIS Accounts Extended To More Providers

The Learning and Skills Improvement Service, (LSIS) are now opening up their LSIS Accounts scheme to even more providers. All training providers in the learning and skills sector delivering education and training funded by the Skills Funding Agency or the Young Peoples Learning Agency are now eligible for an LSIS Account.

This account provides you with virtual credit to spend on LSIS improvement services. These range from one-off seminars and masterclasses to full organisational development programmes, such as Skills for Employer Responsiveness.

If you haven't already done so you can apply for your LSIS Account today by emailing LSISAccounts@lsis.org.uk, completing the online registration form or by calling 024 7662 7953.

You will need to provide:

* the name and address of your organisation;
* the type of education and training funded by the Skills Funding Agency or YPLA;
* your UKPRN (if you have one); and
* the name of the lead contractor.




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Tweets with Everything

The NIACE Chips with Everything team has started tweeting...!

As well as continuing to produce their popular newsletter, the Chips with Everything team will now be sharing news (including announcements of opportunities), comments and interesting links on Twitter. Follow them on twitter here (or search for Chips_tweet). We will certainly be adding them to the list of those we already follow, as we use Twitter to share our own snippets of information. (Hope you’ve added us if you’re a tweeter!)

The Chips with Everything newsletter and twitter page is produced by the Digital Learning team at NIACE as part of the communications plan to ensure that adult learning practitioners are aware of the benefits of e-learning. The newsletter is currently distributed free to over 10,000 readers in work based learning, personal and community development learning, adult and community learning and offender learning and skills. You can register for your own free copies on the Excellence Gateway here where you can also access archive copies online.

New to Twitter – want to start tweeting?

If you’re new to Twitter, and don’t have an account for your organisation, it’s certainly worth looking at what this free tool can offer you in terms of your own communications. In this article for the Telegraph, Shane Richmond offers you a step-by-step guide to getting started.

This latest JISC Legal newsletter highlights a number of useful apps for Twitter.

Alternatively, feel free to contact us for more information on how you might use it – we will be happy to assist any of our supported learning providers in getting up and running.

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Related Wobble links:

Get Chips Online?
Using Twitter for business? Why you would and how you would Twitter 101

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Moodle Tool Guide for Teachers

I’ve just been reading RSC South West’s newsletter which highlighted a Moodle help sheet which would be useful for any learning providers using Moodle. This poster entitled a “Moodle Tool Guide for Teachers” helps you and your teaching staff to compare the functionality and pedagogical advantages of some standard Moodle tools, with further advice on how easy or difficult each tool is to set up.

Using effective colour coding it first asks what you want to achieve. E.g. I want to assess learning. You then refer to that column on the guide to see which Moodle tools are highlighted in green, and might therefore be appropriate for your aim.

Its second approach allows you to first decide on a tool you want to use, and then look at the possible pedagogical uses of that tool.

Modelled here by the lovely Jason, (our Learning Technologist) you can see that it prints very nicely onto an A3 sheet making a nice poster which can be used as a quick reference guide. You can access the link to a pdf copy of the guide here.

Hope our regional Moodlers find it useful. Thanks to RSC South West for the link.

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Related Wobble links:

Moodle and e-Portfolios – Try Before you Buy



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The new iPad

I’ve had a new iPad and despite us being commercially independant, I must admit that so far I'm very impressed.

Many of our team are iPhone users, have iPods and have used the iTouch and we can see how building on the successes of those, the new iPad opens up so many mobile learning possibilities for learning providers. I won’t list all of the pros and cons here, that’s for a future post, but for now I’ll leave you free to explore just a couple of things that have been said about its educational use:
In this post, David Muir based up in Scotland outlines what’s impressed him about the ipad and what educational application he thinks it might have. He also outlines a couple of niggles and several readers have also added their own comment to his post, which now offers a good perspective.

Here, Tony Vincent of the popular “Learning in Hand” site, has put together a great video highlighting some of the available educational apps for the iPad. (I watched this on the iPad after downloading the podcast which was very simple to do). Tony’s video outlines the iPads potential for use as a teaching tool. He’s also put a load of useful links on that page beneath the video and has also bookmarked over 30 lists of educational apps on his delicious page of links.

We’re planning to run some events in the not too distance future that will allow our supported learning providers to learn more firsthand about what iPads and other mobile devices like this can do to support e-learning. (As always, watch our events page for details).

In the meantime, should you wish to know more about the iPad, you can get a handful of guided video tours on the apple site. It’s marketing, but it highlights the main features and gives you a flavour of some of the plusses. If you are keen to know more, or get our opinion on how iPads can be used specifically for teaching and learning, feel free to forward your individual enquiries to us by email.




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New e-Learning Managers Community of Practice

Allen Crawford Thomas has recently established a West Midlands e-Learning Managers Community of Practice that is open to all of our supported learning providers .

You may be aware, that we already run an e-learning forum for Managers in WBL / ACL, but the idea of this community of practice is not quite the same. In this, the agenda is set by the members and the nice thing is that Allen has built up a small network of like minded people, who are willing to share knowledge, experience and, where they can, paper resources to help others overcome common challenges in the management and integration of e-learning. Subjects they have so far wanted to talk about are developing e-learning strategy, Electronic ILP’s, Safeguarding and staff development. You can also see an overview of what was included in their last meeting here.

Just a quick reminder that Allen is also on hand to advise on such things as e-learning progress reviews, use of the online Generator tool for assessing the impact of e-learning, Moodle development (especially for teaching and learning) and E-learning Strategy development.

Should you wish to join this new Community of Practice or require further information on any of these additional services please contact Allen Crawford Thomas by email at a.crawford-thomas@rsc-wm.ac.uk or telephone 01902 518930.

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Related Wobble links:

Joint E-Learning Forum – Summary of the day...
Help with your E-Learning Strategy Development



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RSC Publications and Communication

Over the summer, Kirsty Hill, our regional Information Officer has been busy surveying the sector, to determine your needs, and producing various printed publications to support our communications.

Focus on Senior Management

Our Senior Management Briefings, called SMT Focus, are printed publications addressing some of the issues and challenges currently facing Senior Management within post 16 education and training. The latest issue entitled ‘Value for Money’ was posted out to Managers within our supported learning providers a fortnight ago, and featured a piece on making e-savings (i.e. reducing travel costs, paper, hardware costs etc), open source, and cost effective services from the RSC. If you want to know more about these briefings or request your own copy, please contact Kirsty as per the details below.

For more information on the support available to senior managers and their teams, remember we also have a dedicated area of our website that outlines our work in this area.

E-Learning Case Studies

Kirsty has continued publishing a number of really useful case studies on the Excellence Gateway which offer excellent examples of ways that training providers are using technology and e-learning. What’s more, the Information Officers have now developed a very useful set of Delicious bookmarks which now help facilitate an easier search by case study topic. I’m so glad to see that in action, and I’m sure you’ll agree that as the number of case studies continue to grow this should be increasingly useful.

RSC Newsletter

The last issue of our newsletter was posted out in early summer and Kirsty is currently in the process of modifying the newsletter distribution and working on a new online format. If you have news you’d like to share about your experiences of e-learning within your organisation, we would love to hear from you.

To register your details to receive our publications or enquire about any of the above, please contact Kirsty Hill, Information Officer on 01902 518749 or by e-mail kirsty.hill@rsc-wm.ac.uk

We look forward to keeping you posted!

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Related Wobble links:

Examples of E-Learning in Work Based Learning
More E-Learning Case Studies



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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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Creating E-Resources with Xerte

Free face to face and online training in how to use Xerte to create electronic resources.

There are lots of tools available that can be used for creating e-learning content but these days the one I seem to be increasingly asked about is Xerte. This is a free toolkit that can be used for creating e-resources that are accessible AND interactive. Xerte seems to be a popular choice for providers wanting to create electronic resources that can sit within other platforms (such as Moodle), or can be delivered as standalone learning activities.

If you haven’t yet seen Xerte but are keen to know more about how it can be used for easily creating electronic learning resources, take a look at the ‘Learning Object Demo’ that’s available on the main Xerte website (There is a link half way down the right hand side of the page). This second example also shows a number of the of all the standard page types you can have in a Xerte object.

This month and next we will be running two free staff training sessions at Wolverhampton Science Park, showing learning providers how to use the tool.

In addition, as part of their support for the rollout of Xerte, JISC TechDis are now running a series of free online training sessions on the last Friday lunchtime of every month. These webinars are also a great opportunity, as each bite sized session supports just one aspect of using the tool, they’re free to attend and there’s no need to leave your desk. The full programme for their online tutorials can be found online.

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Flexibility and Innovation Fund - Round 2

More funding for Work Based Learning providers to support their e-learning development.

LSIS have recently opened the second of three bidding rounds for its Flexibility and Innovation Fund. In this, Learning and skills providers can bid for funding of up to £90,000 for projects which are ‘innovative and which have the potential significantly to enhance the performance of the sector’. Bids can be submitted by providers individually or in groups.

For ideas of what has been successful previously, see this complete list of the 31 projects that were successful in a previous round. You can also read brief outlines of their projects there too. The deadline for this second round of bidding is 19 February 2010. You can get full details plus application forms, guidance notes etc on the Excellence Gateway.

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Moodle and e-Portfolios – Try Before you Buy

RSC West Midlands can now offer you your own externally hosted, learning platform for free, for a six month trail period. What better way than to try before you buy?

An increasing number of learning providers are now using e-learning platforms and e-portfolio systems, with this number growing as providers realise the many benefits that they offer. (This includes the ability to share resources online, access documents 24/7, offer learners the chance to present evidence electronically, and more).

To support this growing area of e-learning, Kevin Brace has set up a West Midlands based initiative which now offers work based learning providers (amongst others) the chance to use one or more of five open source e-learning platforms/e-portfolio systems completely for free. In simple terms, this is a chance to ‘try before you buy’; it offers a great opportunity to try out some of this very popular software before you commit to either securing a hosting arrangement of your own, or to buying commercial systems for your e-learning.

As part of the project, the following hosted e-learning platforms are now available for you to trial (with complete functionality). Applicants can choose to pilot one, two, or all of these platforms simultaneously.

• Moodle (including specialist ILP blocks)
• Wordpress
• Mahara
• Mahoodle
• ELGG

Providers will be able to access the hosted e-learning platform for a period of six months during which time they will also receive the help of selected members of the RSC team for getting the system up and running. In return, Kevin would appreciate a short evaluation highlighting the benefits/shortfalls of each platform piloted.

Interested applicants should get in touch with Kevin Brace who can be contacted by email.

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Related wobble links:

E-Portfolios for Starters
E-Assessment Online Toolkit
Use Of E-Portfolios In Assessment
New Midlands E-Portfolio Group

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