Prezi presentation from ALT-C

Below is the Prezi that Ellen and I presented during Nigel Ecclesfield's session 'A year of activity and innovation in the FE and Skills Sector: looking back to tomorrow' at the ALT-C conference.

Research in Further Education - Slides from our presentation at ALT C 2013

Research in Further Education - Presentation for ALT C 2013 from lessner

Student Produced Video

Students4WebES update, below is a student produced video about the key points on employability skills from the employers involved in our project.

Video produced by Ben Robb, a media student at Abingdon and Witney College in 2013. Although a bit rough, it shows that employers had similar ideas about what employers think are key employability skills.

Slides from Elesig 2013 webinar on Evolving Digital literacies: inductions to employment skills

Elesig 2013 webinar on Evolving Digital literacies: inductions to employment skills from lessner

ELESIG webinar: Evolving Digital Literacies – inductions to employment skills

We will be talking about the Students4webES Project on Thursday 20th June 2013 from 1-2 pm in an ELESIG webinar.

The webinar will be presented by Ellen Lessner and Emma Procter-Legg and will focus on our experiences of running 2 student centred projects in FE which aimed to have students shape the content and structure of the project. 

To find out more about ELESIG (Evaluation of Learners' Experiences of e-learning Special Interest Group) click here.

JISC Online Innovation Forum

Tomorrow (Friday 10th May) is the JISC Online Innovation Forum. We will be presenting during one of the sessions, talking about the role of web conferencing to boost employability.  Myself and three students involved in the project will be presenting. To find out more about the event and details on how to log into the forum click on the link below.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2013/05/rscinnovationforum.aspx

We will be in the Green Room presenting from 1:00pm, hope to see you there!

Post by:
Emma Procter-Legg
Project Manager

Students' Top Tips for Running a Webinar

Below is the student produced guide to webinars that was produced as part of the Students4webES project.

A pdf copy of the poster is available on our project website to download. Click here to visit the website, scroll down the resources page until you see the poster section, see image below, then click download on the final version called StudentguideFinal.pdf.

Leave us a comment and let us know what you think of the poster!

Prezi presentation

Dissemination events

Now that our webinar project is drawing to a close, we are moving into the dissemination phase. We will be reporting on and sharing our experiences at a number of JISC events during the next few weeks.

The first event is the JISC RSC South East event 'Employability Skills and Technology: Improving Outcomes for Learners' on Monday 22nd April at the Witney Campus of Abingdon & Witney College. We will be presenting during the morning session and running a workshop in the afternoon session.

This is a free event, if you wish to join us, please click here to find out more details and to book your place. Please note booking for this event closes on Wednesday 17th April 2013.

The second event is the following day, Tuesday 23rd April, when we will be heading to Birmingham to be involved in the Learning and Teaching Practice Experts Group Meeting. We will be running a 30 minute session as part of the Members Showcase.

The third event is the JISC RSC South East Online Innovation Forum on Friday 10th May for further details about the session please click here.

A post to say Thank You

As we begin the final evaluation of the Students4webES project, we would like to take a moment to thank the employers and institutions who supported the project by participating in a webinar. 

A big THANK YOU to...

• Abingdon and Witney College – Kelly Boast (Head of Staff Services)
• Active Nation, White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre – Dave Rolls (Manager)
• Morgan Cole Solicitors, Oxford – Andrew Leadbitter (Consultant Solicitor)
• National Union of Students – Jesse Scharf (Student Switch Off Project Officer)
• Puma Hotels – Lygon Arms Spa – Alice Walker (Head Therapist)
• Science and Technology Facilities Council, Harwell – Rosie Sherry (Head of People Development)
• Waitrose Abingdon – Linda Phillips (Section Manager Personnel)
• Wenn Townsend Chartered Accountants, Oxford – Lee Baker (Audit Manager, Training and Recruitment)

Without the support of the above employers and institutions we wouldn't have a project to evaluate!

Update on the Pizza Hut 140 second interview

A few posts back I wrote about Pizza Hut running 140 second interviews at a recruitment event to find a new social media director. My understanding was that they would then run a second round of interviews via Google Hangout to get to know the candidates a bit better, it turns out I was wrong.

They did run interviews via Google Hangout, but only for people who weren't able to make it to the face to face interviews held on the 10th March. These Google Hangout interviews took the same format as the original interviews - to sell yourself to the panel in 140 seconds! This really does require an additional level of skill, not only requiring a level of confidence that the technology is going to work, but the skills to set it up right. It is crucial that the audio levels are right so that your 140 second pitch can actually be heard!

During our webinar project, we found that although it might seem easier to run a webinar (or Skype, Google Hangout etc) without wearing a head set, using the built-in microphone and speakers, the audio does really suffer and often leads to people having to repeat themselves - if you only have 140 seconds your certainly don't have time to do that!

To read the article in full about the Google Hangout Interviews, click here.

Student centred guide to running a webinar

Having completed our first main output of the Students4webES project - the 8 recorded webinars with employers about employability skills - it is time to move onto working on the other key outputs.

With the conference date set and the event management team on board we have moved onto our final output - the student centred guide to running webinars.

The core group of students involved in the project decided that the guide would appeal to students if it was in the form of a poster. After a long design meeting, which involved deciding on the content and format of the poster, we celebrated by eating lots of pizza at Pizza Express.

Last week we held two photo shoots to capture some images to go on the poster. Luckily Ben, an A level media studies student in the core group, brought his camera along to the second session and we managed to take some nice photos.

Below are a few of the photos taken during the photo shoot...

... but you will have to wait until the April 22nd, the date of the conference, to find out which ones made it into the poster!

The Event Management Team

As part of the Students4webES project, Abingdon & Witney College will be hosting the JISC RSC South East event 'Employability Skills and Technology: Improving Outcomes for Learners' on April 22nd at the Witney Campus. In order to ensure the day is a great success, we have enlisted the help of a group of six 1st year Business Studies students, based on the Witney Campus, to help with the event management.

If you are attending, do look out for the students below who will be on hand to guide conference attendees to the right rooms and to generally ensure the smooth running of the event!

To find out further details about the event click here.

Conference date and details

Students4webES Project will be taking part in and hosting the JISC RSC South East event 'Employability Skills and Technology: Improving Outcomes for Learners' on April 22nd at the Witney Campus of Abingdon & Witney College. Below is a brief overview of the event, as described on the JISC Advance website:

"Learning providers are increasingly being challenged to ensure that learners are equipped with a range of skills to prepare them for the world of work. This event will provide an opportunity to share ideas, solutions and best practice in the way technology can provide some innovative ways to develop employability skills." 


This is a free event, if you wish to join us, please click here to find out more details and to book your place.

Pizza Hut's 140 second interview!

Today Pizza Hut are holding interviews that last only 140 seconds at a recruitment event in America, according to Forbes. They are interviewing for a new social media manager, thus the 140 second reference to Twitter's 140 character limit, but interestingly they intend to hold the next round of interviews via Google+.

I assume this will involve a Google Hangout and will require some of the skills our students have been learning about whilst participating in our project. This is another example of the rise in video conferencing and webinar technology in recruitment. Click here to read the article in full.

Science & Technology Facilities Council webinar

Just over a week ago we completed our eighth student run webinar, with Rosie Sherry, from the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) at Harwell Campus. Below is a recording of the webinar, which was recorded on the Abingdon Campus of Abingdon & Witney College.

This is the final webinar we are going to produce and is an important outcome of the Students4webES project. We have now turned our attention to the other outcomes of the project, a student produced guide to webinars and a conference. Watch this space for more news on both of these very soon!

Wenn Townsend Webinar

Last Monday we held our seventh student run webinar with Lee Baker from Wenn Townsend Chartered Accountants. He spoke to a group of AAT Accountancy students from Abingdon & Witney college, via BlackBoard Collaborate, giving very helpful advice on applying for a position as an accountant.

Below is a recording of the webinar.

Students4webES Project featured in the Oxford Times

Once a month the Oxford Times produce a business supplement, In Business, which was included in this week's Oxford Times. The February edition includes an article on our project, on the bottom of page 7.

Do check it out if you get a chance, here is a link to the online version of In Business.

Morgan Cole Webinar

Andrew Leadbitter, from Morgan Cole solicitors, very kindly joined us at the Abingdon Campus to take part in our sixth student run webinar on employability skills.

Below is a recording of it, you will see as you watch it that we had to move Andrew to a different location in the room because of a problem with the blind and too much light. The students running the webinar were able to use the moderator chat window to inform Andrew of the problem before repositioning the computer.

Active Nation webinar

Dave Rolls, Centre Manager at the Whitehorse Leisure and Tennis Centre which is run by Active Nation, took part in our fifth student-run webinar.
This webinar was produced using Webex, our previous webinars have so far been recorded using BlackBoard Collaborate. For technical reasons, at short notice, we had to switch to using Webex to run the webinar.

The two students that ran the webinar had previously only been trained in using Blackboard Collaborate so it was a great test of their general understanding of webinars to run it using Webex for the first time. I hope you will agree that they did a great job!

The Spa at the Lygon Arms Webinar

Alice Walker, Head Therapist at the Spa at the Lygon Arms, Broadway part of the Puma Hotel Group, participated in our second student run webinar. Alice took part in the webinar by logging onto a computer at the Witney campus of Abingdon & Witney College, whilst the students running it were at the Abingdon campus.  A group of beauty students and their lecturers from the college also participated in the webinar from another room, asking a number of questions via the chat window.

Alice Walker, Head Therapist at the Spa at the Lygon Arms

Abey took the role of speaker which involved introducing and thanking Alice for her participation in the webinar.

Whilst Armna took the role of moderator.

Although this was our second student run webinar it was the first time either student had been involved in running one with an employer.

Below is a recording of the webinar, which proved to be a great success not only for the core students running the webinar but also for the beauty students participating in it. The beauty students had so many questions to ask that we stopped the recording and allowed them to continue their conversation with Alice.

The BBC reports on the rise of the Skype interview

The BBC recently reported on the rise in use of Skype and other video conferencing software for job interviews. This rise fits with our own research that showed 16.4% of the 256 students we asked had had a job interview by phone or video conferencing. 

The article discusses the benefits and issues around online interviews and outlines a number of top tips on how to prepare for them. This included the advice of sitting in front of a plain background, which one of our recent webinar guest speakers did, see our NUS webinar post, as you can see this worked very well and helped the audience to focus on the presenter.

To read the BBC article 'Skype interviews: Is it more tricky to be grilled by video?' click here.

NUS webinar

Last week Jesse Scharf, from the National Union of Students (NUS), spoke to students at Abingdon and Witney College via Blackboard Collaborate.

Jesse Scharf, Student Switch Off Project Officer, NUS

This webinar had an extra layer of complexity for both Jesse and the students involved, as it was the first time we had run a webinar where the guest speaker wasn't supported 'in person'. This meant the student moderators had to explain clearly how everything way going to work. Having completed the Waitrose webinar earlier that morning, all the students felt well prepared for the additional level of complexity. To find out more about the running of this webinar do check out our other blog post, by clicking here.

Do watch the webinar, we hope you will agree with us that it was a very successful event, thanks for watching!

Waitrose webinar

Last week Linda Phillips, HR manager at Waitrose Abingdon, participated in a webinar with students from Abingdon and Witney College.

Linda Phillips, HR manager, Waitrose Abingdon

Linda and her colleague Gen Allen visited the Abingdon campus to take part in the webinar and to meet staff and students involved in the project.

Gen Allen

Linda was supported by Ben during the webinar, one of three students involved in running the webinar.

To see more about the 'behind the scenes' running of this webinar check out our other blog post by clicking here and do watch the recording of the webinar below!

The importance of consent forms

A while back we wrote a blog post on consent forms and photographs, where we mentioned the need for consent forms from all project participants.

One of the early tasks that we gave students involved in the Students4webES project was to research and produce a draft consent form. We then checked it over before asking them all to sign it as well as all of the employers involved in the webinars. We have found that it is best to send the consent form out at the same time as sending the employers further details about the format of the webinar and general information about the project.

Below is a video of one of the students talking about the importance of the consent form for our project.

Two more webinars completed!

Today we completed another two webinars, the first with Waitrose and the second with the NUS (National Union of Students). This was the first time we had run sessions back to back, which worked very well giving the students involved a chance to try out the different roles involved in running a webinar.

During the Waitrose webinar Abi took the role of Moderator, uploading the presentation, starting and stopping the recording, as well as assigning participant privileges. She listened in via an iPad and ran the moderator settings via the computer because of last minute audio issues (the iPad app doesn't include moderator settings).

 

Aaron took the role of Speaker, welcoming the first guest presenter - Linda Phillips, HR manager at Waitrose Abingdon. He explained how the webinar would run, took questions from the audience and thanked Linda for her participation.

Ben took the role of Speaker during second session with guest presenter Jesse Scharf, from the NUS, whilst Aaron and Abi moderated.

All three students gave up the first day of their half term holiday to come in and run the webinars and did so with true professionalism!

Recordings of both webinars will be made available soon and will be posted here on the blog when they are ready.


Post by Emma Procter-Legg
Project Manager

Guest post: Ellen Lessner Students4webES Project Leader

Since it’s over half way through our project, I thought I’d spend a little bit of time reflecting on how it’s going. One thing that stands out is the difference between writing a bid and running a project. For those of you who have run projects, this won’t be a surprise. I thought I had enough experience to write a realistic bid but I hadn’t appreciated how much time it takes to coordinate the timetables of several diverse groups; students, employers, rooms, project managers and leaders. A 6 month project like ours needs to get going very quickly and if I was going to do it again, I would have extended the project timetable to take that into account.

We have had interest and support from a number of employers and we will have some good webinar recordings on employability skills to show for it. I realise that many employers don’t know what a webinar is, not just the 94% of our student sample! Some of the people we approached don’t have the ability to run the software on their work network nor do they have guest wifi access so that we could bring our laptop to them to record the session. We can overcome this by offering to host them at the college. Of course, some employers are using webinars regularly and they will have something to say to students that will be particularly useful. It does appear that having the skill to set up and run a webinar is as valuable (and rare) an employability skill to have on a CV as we thought when we put the project together.

I am pleased that our Professional Futures programme is now offering the ’Introduction to webinar’ session as part of the Core Tutorial programme for first year students. It gives all the students an opportunity to get ahead with their understanding of how useful the technology can be in their future. We should be able to train those who are interested in learning how to moderate a webinar session as well. Our JISC RSC SE (many thanks to Owen Hanmer) has put together such good training for us, that the recording of the ‘Introduction’ and the ‘Advanced’ sessions make it easy for us (Core Student group and staff) to teach others – when we have completed our employer webinars.

If you want to know how we did, keep 22 April free and look for information on this blog about the JISC RSC SE Employment Conference which will be held on our Witney Campus. The planning has begun and there will be a session with students, staff and maybe an employer, who have worked on this project reporting in.

Ellen Lessner
Project Leader, Students4WebES

A Tweet about our Project

We had a tweet from Donna Christopher, an e-learning marketing executive @ Blackboard Collaborate, see screenshot below!

We couldn't agree more!

Coverage on JACKfm radio station today!

The Students4webES project is being featured today (Thursday 7th February) on JACK fm in the Oxfordshire business reports. The report is aired every hour and rolls around three different stories so listen out at 11 to see if we feature then or in the next slot at 12 on 106JACKfm today!

Update: Students4webES project was mentioned at 12:04, so we expected it will be featured again around  3pm and then again around 6pm and 9pm tonight. Do listen out for it if you get a chance!

Slides from BETT

JISC project AWC Students for Webinar Employability Skills - BETT 2013 V2 from lessner

Webinar booked in with Head Therapist at the Spa at Lygon Arms

We have just confirmed another employer for a webinar this week! On Thursday 7th February students will be running a webinar with Alice Walker, Head Therapist at the Spa at the Lygon Arms, Broadway (part of the Puma Hotel group), she will be talking to students about employability skills for beauty therapists.
We will keep you posted on how it goes!

Photo from BETT

Ellen Lessner Students4webES Project leader presented at BETT last Friday, in the session Who are digital practitioners?

This photo was very kindly taken by Robert Fekete

We will make the slides from the presentation available and post them on here soon! 

A mention in the Oxfordshire Guardian South newspaper

The Students4webES project is mentioned in this week's Oxfordshire Guardian South newspaper. A copy of the it arrived through my letter box this morning!

 

If you don't manage to get hold of a copy, you can read it online here http://www.trimediagroup.co.uk/digital-editions/ click through and scroll down to select Oxfordshire Guardian South and check out page 14.

Post by Emma Procter-Legg

Featured in the Oxford Mail newspaper

Students4webES project is featured in today's Oxford Mail newspaper on page 12!

If you don't mange to get hold of a copy of today's edition, check out the link below to read the article in full. 
Link to article on the Oxford Mail website

Two more webinars booked in!

We are very pleased to announce that we have two more employer webinars booked in for February 2013. Both webinars will take the same format as our first one and will be based around the theme of employability skills.
The first will be with Waitrose Abingdon, on the 11th February. In the second one, Dave Rolls, manager of The White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre, will be talking to students on February 18th.

As we book more employers in we will post details here on the blog, so watch this space!

Update: Please click on the following links to watch these webinars

Waitrose webinar

Active Nation webinar (The White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre)

Webinar clip for BETT presentation

PhotoPeach Storyboard

Students4webES project photos on PhotoPeach

Oxford Mail photo shoot

Earlier today the Oxford Mail visited the Abingdon campus of Abingdon & Witney College to take some photos after a Press Release was sent out about our JISC Advance funded Students4webES project.

Project leader, Ellen Lessner, was on hand to capture a photo of core members of the student group with Kelly Boast, Head of Staff Services, who starred in our first webinar.

Student posts - Why I joined the Students4webES Project

The reason why I got involved in the project Students4webES was because I wanted to find out more information about webinars. I found that using a webinar is cheaper and in some ways better to do meetings instead of travelling. I want to go into business in the future and this is very important for me, as it plays a critical role. The webinar project is really fun and once you get hold of the software that you will be using it becomes easy as well.

Post by Mamps Makuku
(Students4webES student)

I joined the project because I was intrigued with what a webinar was and how it could play apart in the world of work. Since I joined I have found out that as technology advances it is a lot cheaper to run webinars than it is to send people across the world for business meetings. Also it has helped me on a personal level because I now know how to make my CV and application forms stand out to an employer and how it can help me gain employability skills. These skills are now helping me in my application for apprenticeships. I would recommend the project to other students.

Post by Aaron Scott
(Students4webES student)

Background Information - The Professional Futures Programme

About the Professional Futures Programme at Abingdon and Witney College

The Professional Futures Programme is a unique and innovative ‘Vocational Baccalaureate’ spanning all levels of the full-time curriculum at Abingdon and Witney College.

The programme is designed to foster entrepreneurialism, enterprise and work-ready skills, knowledge and understanding in learners through ‘live’ assignments and cross-curricular collaboration which reflects real-world, employer-driven demands.

‘Futures’ graduates will have more highly developed team working skills, be better prepared for their chosen careers and more employable than those students who have just completed an off-the-shelf vocational qualification.

The ‘added value’ of the futures programme will create ‘graduate attributes’ that are in line with key Government agendas to widen access to HE and to support economic growth through skills and training across industry sectors.

Fiona Morey, Assistant Principal (Curriculum) says: "We know that in these competitive times young people need to stand out from the rest when applying for jobs or university, and our innovative Professional Futures Programme is designed to ensure that they do just that."

The Programme has been very successfully piloted on our Abingdon Campus this year, and is being rolled out to all students based on the Witney Campus for the 2012/13 academic year.

As part of the Programme students will have the opportunity to gain hands-on work experience, learn to run their own business, get involved in community initiatives and build impressive curriculum vitae.

Skills Minister, John Hayes says: "By equipping young people with practical skills and workplace knowledge, Abingdon & Witney College are helping them on the path to rewarding careers in their chosen field."

From: www.abingdon-witney.ac.uk

Presenting at BETT - hope to see you there!

We have been invited to present our Students4webES project, being run here at Abingdon & Witney College, at BETT 2013 by Nigel Ecclesfield, Programme Manager, JISC Advance. Ellen Lessner (Project Leader) will be presenting our project on Friday 1st February in the Learn Live Theatre E at 10:15 in the workshop session Who are digital practitioners? Ellen will be presenting along side three other JISC Advance projects being run at Kendal College, South Tyneside College and the Inclusion Consortium. Please do come along if you are at BETT on Friday!


Post by Emma Procter-Legg
(Students4WebES Project Manager)

Employability skills baseline data

When we conducted our baseline assessment on for this project, we asked the students to write down three employability skills - the sort of skills they would list on their CV. We are in the process of analysing this data, but have created a Wordle to represent the 256 student responses that we received. At the end of the project we plan to compare the student responses with the skills that the employers mention in the up and coming webinars.

With a Wordle, the larger the word is the more times it was mentioned in the text, in this case the baseline assessment responses, as you can see the most frequently mentioned skills were:

• Hard working
• Team work
• Communication
• Reliable
• Punctual
• Organised 

It will be interesting to see how these compare when we have the data from all the employer webinars!


Post by Emma Procter-Legg
Students4WebES Project Manager

Steering Group Meeting - On and Offline

On Monday we had our Steering Group meeting and with lots of snow still on the ground we went with a mixture of plan A and B. Those of us that were local and able to get to college easily met in the small meeting room at Abingdon and Witney College and those that weren't able to travel joined us online via Blackboard Collaborate.

Those that made it to the meeting in person got to enjoy a lovely selection of cakes made by Ellen Lessner (Project Leader) - they were delicious! 

The meeting room was set up with a computer, conference speaker phone, webcam, projector and an iPad plus a couple of phones just in case. You can never have too much technology available!

With the webcam set up Artie, Eddie and Nigel were able to see everyone in the meeting including three students from the core group who attended the first half of the meeting.

We made use of some of the features of Blackboard Collaborate including using it to show the project website and blog and used the tick feature to confirm that everyone could see it.


Post by Emma Procter-Legg
Students4WebES Project Manager

And the snow keeps falling!

Before the snow arrived on Friday morning we made a back up plan for our Project Steering Committee Meeting which is scheduled for tomorrow at Abingdon and Witney College. Our plan is that if people attending the meeting get snowed in, rather than letting our meeting be snowed off we will meet online instead in a webinar.

We have a Blackboard Collaborate session set up should we need to use it for some or all of the attendees - the agenda, project leader's report and project manager's report have all been sent out by email so we are fully ready for more snow! If we do have to go with plan B the only thing that will have to be put on ice is the cake - it might have to be a case of BYOC (Bring Your Own Cake) tomorrow!

View of my garden... and the snow keeps falling!


Post by Emma Procter-Legg
Students4WebES Project Manager

First webinar completed!

On Monday we successfully ran our first webinar with an employer. Head of Staff Services at Abingdon and Witney College, Kelly Boast, gave a short presentation and took questions from students via Blackboard Collaborate.

The session was introduced and moderated by students from the core group and Kelly was supported in her office by another student from the core group. This was the first time that the students had put into practice their knowledge gained from the advanced webinar training session.

Below is a recording of the webinar, this is a screen capture recording of it as we had an issue with the Blackboard Collaborate recording not capturing the slide transitions. We only had a couple of minor technical issues during the recording, one when students posed questions via a speaker phone which caused an echo, however this was quickly resolved. The second issue was again with the sound, but this time a voice was slightly muffled towards the end of the recording, this was due to the microphone on a headset slipping.

We think our first employability webinar was a great success, we learnt a number of important lessons and feel confident that the following ones will be equally successful too!


Post by Emma Procter-Legg
Students4WebES Project Manager

A few photos on PhotoPeach

Students4webES project photos on PhotoPeach



A few photos from the project meetings and advanced webinar training sessions. If your computer doesn't display the PhotoPeach please click here to see it.

Advanced webinar training

During the last two weeks of term, we ran two sessions on advanced training on Webinars for the core students involved in the Students4webES project. The first session was run live with the presenter, Owen Hanmer from the JISC RSC SE in Kent, presenting to the group using Blackboard Collaborate. The session covered how to run a webinar via Collaborate including moderator settings and the chance for students to moderate a practice webinar. The whole session was recorded and used during the second session to train the other half of the core group. 

Students participating in the advanced webinar training session

All the students who attended the three hour training session received a certificate of participation. We are now ready to put our new knowledge into action and get started with our first webinar with an employer.... watch this space!

Post by Emma Procter-Legg
Students4WebES Project Manager