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!

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.

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!