Support, collaboration and discussion in the Post-16 community

A large part of the current project is putting together a blended learning course on Moodle which will provide post-16 institutions in the UK with a means to deliver an' Introduction to Webinar Skills'.  Building a course which can be delivered by unknown people in different institutions is a challenge.  Are we being overly ambitious? 

However, as the course is nearly complete, we knew that we needed some help from potential users to make it as 'usable' as possible within the time and financial constraints of this small project so we asked for reviewers from the post-16 community via e-mail lists; ILT Champions and the Association of Learning Technologists.  We were overwhelmed by offers from both groups and so grateful that people were willing to freely give their time to review our course and offer us helpful feedback.

This is a public thank you to those who replied and given us the opportunity to make the course as good as it can be.  We are realistic and of course, anyone downloading the course (eventually) can customise it to suit their institution and group.  The lesson for us is that the community of interested practitioners is a strong one and supportive with it.   The reviewers, and the participants at the ALT-C 2014 conference mentioned in a previous post,who have discussed the options and issues with us on course design and content have been very valuable.

Thank you.

Post by: Ellen Lessner, Project Lead

ALTC 2014 Learning to Ride: Putting the pieces together

Below is the Prezi from our session earlier today. Thank you so much for all the feedback and helpful comments on our Moodle course.

Abstract accepted for the 2014 ALT Conference

Back in March, we submitted an abstract to present at this year's ALT Conference. We are really pleased to say that our abstract has been accepted and we will be presenting at this year's conference.

The 21st annual conference held by ALT (the Association for Learning Technology) will run from Monday 1st to Wednesday 3rd September 2014 in Warwick. The conference theme is "Riding Giants: How to innovate and educate ahead of the wave".

Cakes from last year's 20th ALT Conference

Below is a brief overview of our proposed session:

As we ride through (another) period of educational change, participants will have an opportunity to discuss and reflect on individual, sector and institutional positions of useful employment skills delivered within an educational setting.

Activities:

• Introduction to the project ('Students for Webinar Employability Skills: Students4Webes) background

• Demonstration of our pilot Moodle course 'Webinar skills for the 21st Century

• Key lessons learned about designing a blended course as an OER and supporting the staff who deliver it

• Discussion: How do we support staff who deliver a blended course they haven't designed? How to best assess a blended Level 3 course?

• Conclusion with Q and A

We are looking forward to presenting and hope to see you there!

The early bird conference rate is available until the 14th July, click here to find out more.

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

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