New Excellence Gateway

Back in October I noted how the Excellence Gateway was undergoing significant development which would further improve access to its e-learning content and services. This work has now been completed and on February 1 2012 you’ll see the Excellence Gateway transform.

As a result of conversations with a whole range of people working across the FE and skills sector, the new Excellence Gateway will be faster, simpler, more effective with redesigned navigation and improved search technology. These innovations, together with a sleeker look and feel, have enabled the team at LSIS to develop a site that is truly fit for the future.

If you are already registered, your membership to the new Excellence Gateway will be automatically transferred, although you may wish to take note of any bookmarks you have made. Membership of the new Excellence Gateway will mean that you can join in the conversations on the new forums and set up your own workrooms to support projects and discussions that you’re involved with. The forums and workrooms will continue on the existing Excellence Gateway for a while before you are asked to transfer your conversations.

The team at LSIS are really excited by the new Excellence Gateway and they are very much looking forward to hearing what you think too.

The new Excellence Gateway – discover what’s in it for you.

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Creating Learning Resources with Xerte Online Toolkits

Xerte is an international award winning, free, teaching and learning tool and it's Online Toolkits (which are also free) offer a convenient set of tools for easily creating e-learning content. The toolkits are also browser-based so you don't need to know any html or other coding language in order to quickly create learning objects that can contain a mixture of text, images, audio, video, quizzes and other interactive learning content.

As part of our support for the development of e-learning content we periodically offer training in Xerte as it has proved a popular tool for getting to grips with writing e-learning materials with little fuss. As a highly accessible and free tool, I also think it’s worth knowing about, even if it’s something that you don’t currently use yourself. So, if you haven’t seen Xerte before you can:

• ….browse this learning object that was created by Ron Mitchell of Mitchellmedia as a way of demonstrating some of the features of the tool and, furthermore, explaining just why he believes “…Xerte is the best thing since Lobster!...” Hmm, curious!

• …or directly proceed to this embedded youtube video in which some of those involved in its development, talk about its potential and current use.

Next steps:

If you’re familiar with Xerte and would like to know more about how it can support your organisation please note that we will be offering training in this popular tool at Wolverhampton Science Park, on 26th January 2012 at a cost of £75.00. This one day beginner’s workshop will allow attendees to become familiar with the Xerte Online Toolkit and is available to anybody who wishes to create e-Learning Objects. To book your place, visit: RSC-WM Events

We hope you can join us!



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Little Guides for Digital Media Topics

JISC Digital Media have created a series of 'Little Guides' to address some of the queries and questions that they are often asked. See below for the list of current titles (all in pdf format):

The Little Guide to Finding Digital Media Resources
The Little Guide to Copyright
The Little Guide to Cloud Computing
The Little Guide to Podcasting
The Little Guide to Screencasting

If you would like to suggest a 'Little Guide' subject area yourself you can do so, just comment using their helpdesk form.



I look forward to seeing more of these little guides emerge as they are useful for signposting and nicely summarising some of todays popular topics.


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Discovering Mentoring and using it to Enhance Student Experience

Wherever you work in the FE and skills sectors, the forthcoming changes in our education system increases the pressure to stay competitive. This makes it important to meet or exceed student expectations and find new ways of enhancing the student experience.

Providing mentoring opportunities, from peers and partners, offers opportunities to fulfil this need effectively, helping to improve retention and student success. What's more, mentors and mentees can gain confidence and skills that will be of substantial benefit to them personally.

A free webinar will take place online next Wednesday (14^th Dec) between 12:30 and 13:45 and will offer an overview of Mentoring – outlining what it is & how it may be useful, followed by actual examples of schemes that are running for current students in the region. It will also talk about encouraging new learners and bringing employers and students together. The session will define the concept of mentoring and its benefits examine processes and technology for putting mentoring schemes in to place and illustrate these with practical working examples aimed at first or final year students.

The event is suitable for all staff concerned with employability and learner experience including senior managers, e-learning and quality managers, course leaders, particularly those involved in HE teaching provision, and support staff concerned with student welfare, careers, retention and employability. HR staff may also be interested with regard to staff CPD.

Find out more or register for your free place on our Event booking page.

Same great service – one new website

JISC Regional Support Centres (RSCs) are pleased to announce the launch of their new website - www.jiscrsc.ac.uk.

The 12 RSCs - operating as a UK wide support network - have a proven track record across the sector for providing expert advice and guidance in the effective use of technology. The website provides a common route to news, events and resources, increasing user access to a richer seam of information from all RSCs, whilst maintaining regional connections.

Key features of the new website include:

• Seamless access to information from both a UK and regional perspective


• Up-to-date news and event listings


• Advice and guidance on how RSCs support you and your organisation - from maximising efficiencies to enhancing the student experience.

***The West Midlands Regional Support Centre's website can now be found at www.jiscrsc.ac.uk/westmidlands Please note that although our old website address has a redirect in place (which will take users straight to the new website), you may need to update any existing bookmarks***

E-Learning for Beginners

Each year we run a free one day event that is aimed tutors and trainers working in the Further Education and Skills Sector, who are completely new to e-learning and ILT. The aim of this event is to offer them a taste of e-learning and a chance to see what technology can do to support education. It's also a chance to be inspired and see what technologies or topics might be emerging that could help you with your teaching practice.

This year the full day event will include sessions on:

• Sharing and finding electronic resources


• Using the IFL REFLECT e-portfolio to record CPD Practice


• Assistive Technology Workshop


• Tech On A Budget


• Emerging Technologies (or 7 Things You Should Know About)


• Using a Wiki to Support your Teaching


• The Wonderful World of Word Clouds


• Teaching and Learning safely online

The event has proved very popular in previous years and has therefore been limited to three people per learning provider with places being allocated on a first come, first served basis.

This event is free to attend, with lunch and refreshments provided. To book visit the page on our website.

We look forward to seeing some of you there!

Preparing Learners for a Digital Future

I’ve previously noted the importance of digital literacy for education, which essentially involves learners (and staff) having access to a broad range of skills and resources that they are able to apply to using digital tools.

It’s an area of growing concern and much is being done to help learning providers discover ways that they can support digital literacy for their own teaching staff and learners. This has obvious benefits, not just in terms of engagement with technology for teaching and learning, but also to support work in an increasingly digital age.

To support this area the RSC West Midlands is working jointly with the East Midlands to host an event in Birmingham on 9th December, which introduces the concept of digital literacy and how you can develop it among your learners.

This includes:

· An outline of the JISC Digital Literacy programme and support available
· Definition of Digital Literacy and what attributes a digitally literate learner has.
· How can you move forward as an organisation in developing Digital Literacy?
· Exploration of the 7 Pillars model of Information Literacy and its relevance to the wider Digital Literacy topic
· Local case study of good practice in promoting and teaching Digital Literacy
· Review of national Digital Literacy good practice examples

Click here for further information, or to book. (Spaces for this are limited so book early to avoid disappointment!)

For more on digital literacy in terms of helping teachers to integrate the development of students’ skills into everyday teaching and learning, this previous post highlights some staff development resources which might also be useful.

This post also shows how students are already engaging with technology which demonstrates how by their own volition they are embedding some digital literacy into their everyday practice. Even more of an argument for getting teaching staff on board!






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LSIS Funding for Excellence Gateway Projects

The Excellence Gateway is undergoing significant development at the moment. To support this work the Excellence Gateway team at LSIS has recently announced funding opportunities for six provider-led projects which will help them to further improve access to the Gateway's content and services.

They are planning to fund the following areas of work:

• Review and improvement of a nominated area of content, including retagging of items. Total funding of up to £75,000 (inc VAT) is available for this strand of work, which will consist of three projects, each funded up to a maximum of£25,000 (inc VAT).
  


• Creation of resources to support users of the Excellence Gateway, including user guides. Funding of up to £25,000 (inc VAT).



• Sustainable development of key National Learning Network (NLN) materials, which are currently hosted by LSIS. Total funding of up to £20,000 (inc VAT) is available for this strand of work, which will consist of two projects, each funded up to a maximum of £10,000 (inc VAT).

The deadline for completion of each of the projects is March 31st 2012. Further details, and the closing date for applications, can be found on the LSIS website.


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Discounted Mahara E-Portfolio Training

In this previous post I shared a video which outlined the benefits of using an e-portfolio. Incredibly that was over two years ago, and certainly e-portfolios have come a long way since then! It will come as no surprise then that various types of e-portfolios have now been adopted by learning providers who have been quick to realise their benefits for helping their learners to:

Review and plan their learning,

Provide evidence for an award or an employer;

Reflecting on activities and plan future directions;

Give appropriate views of achievement to appropriate people, for example, teachers, mentors, careers advisers, potential employers

Linking achievement and work with the skills required by employers.

In support of this growing area we have run a number of e-portfolio events in these past two years, the most recent of which introduced the open source Mahara E-Portfolio system. This offered teaching staff the chance to get to grips with Mahara and receive accreditation for the training that they had received. We were also fortunate enough to be able to offer that course at significantly reduced rates for our supported providers.

That last event was oversubscribed and the feedback was also very positive which has led us to repeat this course, again with significant reductions in price, exclusively for our supported providers in this region.

Usually this course is offered at a cost is £510 but we are able to offer it at £225 (inclusive of VAT) offering you a huge saving of £285! What’s more, to enable you to make the most of the training, we offer all attendees a Mahara e-portfolio, hosted by us until the end of the academic year.

To find out more or your book your place visit our website.

Delegates comments from the last event:

“… the course provided a good range of examples and different experiences from the other course members as well as detailed training on the use of Mahara.”


“…Now I have a better understanding of the capabilities of Mahara I can recommend a number of possible applications”.


“…the training allowed me to ask questions that were specific to my college. Without these answers, I may not have been able to go ahead with Mahara so confidently.”

“…I learned how to export an ePortfolio into a standalone web page format, which was really helpful, as it can allow students to use Mahara in different ways outside of the college.”


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Developing e-Learning Skills and Course Design

Are you looking to understand how to create e-Learning that is instructionally sound? If yes, then read on for details of a course designed to introduce you to approaches to e-Learning and creating informative e-Learning courses.

“Approaches to e-Learning and Developing a Pedagogically Sound e-Learning” is an eight week online course that has been developed by e-Learning Studios. Its aim is to educate vocational trainers and educators in a range of e-Learning methods, innovations and technologies to better connect them with a new generation of learners. The course consists of a series of webinars, e-Learning modules and a learning network where learners can share ideas and engage in peer to peer learning.

The course aims to:

Provide an introduction to a range of different approaches to e-Learning

Provide guidance, resources and opportunities to vocational teachers and trainers for practice in creating and delivering a range of different types of e-Learning

Help you to understand and apply pedagogically sound principles to e-Learning design, gain basic instructional design skills and apply the principles of good practice to e-Learning.

This course also includes an accreditation certificate in the subject of e-Learning.

Typical areas covered include:

· WebQuests and podcasts
· Creating videos for your e-Learning course
· Delivering training sessions through a virtual classroom
· Instructional Design
· Visual design and storyboarding
· Developing an e-Learning course using a rapid authoring tool

It also considers quality and good practice in e-Learning and the effects of culture and diversity.

The next course starts on 17th November 2011 and costs £495 plus VAT. Places are limited but there is still some limited availability. To apply please contact Parul Thakrar for an application pack at: parul@e-learningstudios.com




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