Transcript
Page 1: intouch - Autumn 2010 - JISC RSC East Midlands newsletter

intouchthe termly newsletter produced by RSC East Midlands Autumn 2010 Volume 9: Issue 1

Stimulating and supportinginnovation in learning

Contents1 10 years of the RSCs2 Regional News2 Progress of technology

in learning over the lastten years

3 Future gazing4 Celebrating e-learning

in the region4 Regional award winners5 Best practice in the UK5 Resource Corner

6 Hints & Tips6 Secondments at the RSC6 e-portfolio activity7 Focus On: Accessibility7 JISC news8 Forthcoming Events8 2010 e-fair resources

available8 Kathryn Robinson

The current priority for providers must bethe economic environment. Initialarguments for technology in learning –and fears of the staff – often focused onits potential to reduce costs but morerecently have concentrated on improvingthe learner experience. RSC services thisyear will focus on enabling you to takeadvantage of developments that do both.

In the East Midlands our other localsupport priorities for 2010-11 both growin significance in the recession: learnervoice and learning partnerships. Inaddition to its Ofsted importance,learner voice tells you much about theimpact of investment in technology; at atime of economic stringency there ismuch to be gained from working inpartnership with other providers.

All RSCs are prioritising support forsafeguarding, inclusion and two areaswith considerable economic impact:sustainability and shared services.Nationally we are also working hard onsupport for business processes; supportfor procurement will be developed overthe year.

It is as recently as 1997 that FurtherEducation Colleges began to beconnected to the internet through theJANET network – with a 2 mbpsconnection for a whole college, which isslower than many home connections

now (although not mine!). It soonbecame obvious that there is more togaining the benefits of technology thansimply providing the kit and so the RSCwas born, as one service available in all13 UK regions.

Since then, the service has evolved - atfirst to curriculum, learning resourcesand staff development, then to strategicdevelopment and most recently to thewhole business of learning providers.

The initial concentration on FE and SixthForm colleges spread to includespecialist colleges, non-university HigherEducation, Adult and CommunityLearning, Work Based Learning andOffender Learning.

From August 1st, JISC has delegatedmanaging RSCs to JISC Advance, a not-forprofit company which also includes sevenof the key JISC services. The company willenable RSCs to work more consistentlyand efficiently across regions and benefitproviders through closer collaboration withthese key support services.

Technology – and life - is very differentnow to ten years ago. The ongoingRSC challenge is to provide thesupport you need in a continuallychanging environment.

Chris Hill, Manager, RSC East Midlands

RSCs celebrate 10 yearsHow has technology changed your life over the past ten years?The East Midlands RSC was set up in August 2000, so this yearis our tenth Anniversary and we’ve been looking back – butalso forward.

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Regional NewsFE Colleges to mergeThe Boards of Castle CollegeNottingham and South NottinghamCollege have voted in principle tomerge. The two colleges haveembarked on further and more detaileddiscussions which will include workingwith local stakeholders, such as thelocal authorities, and seeking approvalfrom the Skills Funding Agency.

Regional Case StudiesSince the last edition of “intouch”several learning providers in theregion have had case studies of goode-practice published on the ExcellenceGateway website atwww.excellencegateway.org.uk.

• West Nottinghamshire College:Supporting mature visually impairedlearners

• Moulton College: Single sign-onmakes life easier for students

• South Nottingham College: Usingonline assessment

• Northampton College: LearnerVoice and Technology

• Leicestershire Adult LearningService: Making Informal AdultLearning work

If you have any good e-practice thatyou wish to highlight then please getintouch with Kevin Spencer,Information Officer at the RSC, on01509 618112 or [email protected].

AppointmentsDawn Green and Helen Bramley, bothformerly of Portland College, are thenew Principal and Deputy Principalrespectively at Landmarks College inNorth Derbyshire.

The last 10 years...

Andrew Bailey Moulton College

“At the beginning of the decade therewas an emphasis on large-scaleprojects, based on significant fundingprogrammes, which looked at thingslike network infrastructure and virtuallearning environments. These wereimmensely valuable but in the last fewyears the emphasis has changed toensuring that the funding developssustainable routes of putting ILT intothe curriculum, as value for money hasbeen crucial. An example of this is theswitch from subscription-basedresources and software to open source.

“In the last ten years I’d say that thecommunity of practice hasstrengthened. You never stop learningfrom colleagues around the region!”

Martin CookeRSC East Midlands

“Do you remember dial-up? Working asan online tutor in 2000 we were usingWeb Board for collaboration togetherwith internet course materials andemail. Working from home I was ondial-up, which was agonisingly slow. Iwould go online at off-peak times toavoid the premium rate telephonecharges, and of course whilst theinternet was connected you weren’table to use the telephone! There wassome synchronous chat but most of thework was asynchronous and notsurprisingly retention on distancelearning was generally poor.”

Lynne KendallLinkage College

“The College has seen technologymove forward greatly in the last tenyears. From the days where ILT meant afew computers in a couple of rooms tosupport staff and students, to currentpractices where they exist in everyroom as well as many other gadgetsand gizmos that support the work ofstaff as well as providing fantasticresources to enable our students todevelop and learn new skills withinnovative technologies.

“Of course technology hasn’t justchanged the way Linkage operates withstudent resources, the introduction ofcomputerised systems for recordingand tracking data has also taken a greatstep up within the last several years,with many of our systems now online,such as Databridge, our ManagementInformation System.”

Phil HardcastleRSC East Midlands

“Adult and Community Education wasjust starting out down the ILT road in2000. Most staff and managersregarded it as something difficult todeploy in services which were widelydispersed and which taught in a verytraditional manner. Ten years down theline most services have integrated theuse of ILT into their daily work, staffhave been trained, Moodles set up,equipment bought.

“There are still difficulties – internet inremote rural sites is almost as bad as itever was, but on the other hand thechange in staff attitudes is remarkable.Staff now expect (even demand) ILTequipment and support.”

Toni LangridgeNottinghamshire Training Network Ltd

“Our general thoughts are that accessto the internet has been a significantimprovement to Work Based Learning.The internet has only really becomeaccessible to a wider audience over thelast ten years, and it’s now difficult forany of us to imagine working in anenvironment that doesn’t have thiswealth of highly accessible informationin place.

“Additionally, the introduction ofwireless technologies and e-learningsystems available over the internet hasalso significantly improved efficiencyand convenience – not only for trainingproviders but also for learners. Learnersare now able to access their trainingresources much more quickly and at atime more suitable for them.”

Chris HillRSC East Midlands

“In 2000 you didn’t trust the technologycompletely. When preparing for ateaching session, you had to have a planB because you couldn’t be sure the kitwould work. It would be a very bravesoul who relied on using the internetlive with learners without having screenshots in reserve on a disk – I certainlydidn’t have a USB drive.

“In the College where I worked, thenew target of one computer per full-time member of staff was nowhere nearmet – and the Principal commandeeredthe laptop I should have had as ILTChampion.”

A handful of learning providers and RSC staff reflect on howthe use of technology has changed in the sector.

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10 years at theheart of the RSCFor the ten years that the RSC hasbeen in existence there’s been oneperson right at the heart of it! Wetook a few moments to catch up withour Events & Admin Co-ordinator,Gwen Callaghan.

“On my first day at the RSC back inJuly 2000 I was presented with myown PC, and told to go and explorethe internet, but I’d never been on itbefore, so it was a bit daunting!

“One of the first things we did was tohold a launch of the RSC. With only 3members of the staff at the time itwas quite a task. We ran it here atLoughborough College and we didexperience some problems as it wasthe time of the fuel strike and we hadpeople who couldn’t get here!

“I spent more time out of the office inthe first year as I was on visits to helpexplain who the RSC was and what wecould do for our learning providers.

“As we started to put on our eventsand forums I’ve spent more timebased in the office. Over the ten yearsI’d estimate that I’ve helped co-ordinate over 400 events.

“One of my highlights was putting onour very first e-fair back in 2005. It wasa lot of hard work but really exciting,and despite a few hiccups before theday, it all ran fairly smoothly.

“On a personal level another successfor me was when I passed my AATaccounting qualification in 2004, whichreally helped me understand how theCollege finance department works!”

With the ability to instantly reel offthe names of all those who’ve workedat the RSC in the last 10 years, timehas flown so fast for Gwen that it allmerges into one short decade!

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Over the next year or two, the use ofmobile technologies, such as netbooks,smart phones, e-book readers and otherportable, Internet-enabled devices willcontinue to increase. The challenge forlearning providers will be to ensure thata learner’s personal device can easilyconnect to the organisation’s networkand then to determine ways in which thedevices can be used to best effect withinlearning and teaching.

Also set to proliferate is the availabilityof open educational resources (OER),where learning materials are madeavailable under open licences that allowfree use and repurposing of resources.JISC and the HE Academy are currentlysupporting pilot projects in this area.More information is available atwww.jisc.ac.uk/oer.

Further into the future, augmentedreality (AR) will become moremainstream, helped along by theinclusion of AR applications on smartphones. AR enables you to overlayinformation onto a real-life scene.

Imagine for example, that you’re walkingdown a street full of restaurants andsimply by looking through the camera lensof your mobile phone you can see ratingsand customer reviews before you choose.Now apply that to education: use it toidentify species of plants, trees, insects, orprovide historical information aboutbuildings as you walk down a street, oroverlay maps with historical data. You arelimited only by your imagination!

Still some way off, but being explored bygames companies, is gesture-basedcomputing. Think of the Wii minus the

hand controller. This is about controllingthe computer directly through bodymotion. The Wii has already been shownto increase dexterity and motor controlacross a range of people, from disabledchildren through to surgeons. Allowingthe user to interface directly with thecomputer should create an even morerealistic experience and could have thepotential to improve these results further.

And what of the Web? How will thatevolve? We’re currently in what is oftenreferred to as the ‘Web 2.0’ phase, whichis all about web applications and socialnetworking (think Facebook). However,over the next ten years, it is predictedthat Web 3.0 will begin to emerge.

Billed as the ‘intelligent’ or ‘semantic’web, Web 3.0 will use search enginesthat can understand, or interpret yourrequest so that, based on your browsinghistory, it will deliver a set of results thatare unique to you.

So, two people performing the samesearch would, in theory, end up withdifferent results based on their individualprofiles. A bit like having a virtual personalassistant who knows everything aboutyou! And if that sounds a little bit scaryand intrusive, watch out for Web 4.0...

To find out more about futuretechnologies and their impact in theeducation sector you might like toinvestigate OSS Watch and JISC CETIS,which both offer horizon scanning,whilst JISC infoNet has a StrategyInfoKit that will help you to thinkabout your organisational responses.

...and the next 10?

During the next ten years technology will almost certainlycontinue to evolve at a rate that will involve most of us in aperpetual game of catch up; a game with no opt out and no end!For, if we wish to continue to provide the best learningexperience for our learners, then we must continue to adopt,adapt and embrace new technologies.

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Around theregionIn the Summer edition of intouch weasked you to join with us incelebrating the different work beingdone in the region that usestechnology to improve learning andteaching. Here are a few snippets:

Jason Fowler, Strategic TrainingSolutions (Mansfield) Ltd

“I encouraged learners to reflect ontheir learning in the E2E departmentby using a web-based blog site,blogger.com. I also blog with mylearners to encourage them to blog.”

Lynne Brandt, Sue Roberts and AnnickFructoso from Derby College

“We developed and delivered ILTpassport training and a certificationscheme to College delivery staff. Thisimproved ICT competence of the staff.”

Patrick Lander, Loughborough College

“I’ve introduced Sports Staff toArticulate animation in order to bringinteractivity to HE Sport.”

Paul Joseph, Wyggeston and QueenElizabeth 1 College

“I used argument mapping software tohelp with the learning of argumentsand essay planning. It helps studentsvisually see the structure of reasoning.”

Kayleigh Panton, ISIS Training

“We have put our E2E curriculumonline - getting rid of most paper-based resources and linking to video,interactive and online resources. This can be accessed by all on thecompany intranet.”

Danuta Jeeves, Leicestershire AdultLearning Service

“I used the BBC – My Story initiative inall literacy classes (Skills for Life) and alllearners submitted a story and used ICT.This built confidence and self-esteem, aswell as enhancing literacy skills.”

Colin Kistruck, Grantham College

“I had students develop Xertelearning objects/templates in lessons.This develops greater learnerinvolvement and engagement.”

The full details are available on ourMoodle site in the e-fair 2010 sectionat http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk.

Recognising good e-practice

Phil Wilson at South NottinghamCollege summed up the experience ofthose providers who have taken part.“The scheme has been an excellentexercise for us - I’m delighted to saythat we had a lot of entries, so wedecided to give two internal awards inaddition from our own funds and overallwe generated several case studies.

“The presentations went down anabsolute storm with the staff andcreated a lot of interest. We’ve alsoasked our winner to run some internaltraining sessions for other members ofstaff so that they can adopt his goodpractice too.”

Brooksby Melton College – TinaHorsman and Angharad HarropTina set up a project that used MicrosoftOutlook calendar as a platform for astudent to complete their work experienceassignment, as the learner is dyslexic andfound it very difficult to put down inwritten form his ideas or knowledge.

Angharad’s (top right) students learnperformance material in dance classwhich is filmed and then placed intoMoodle with feedback from tutorsthereby allowing students to continuetheir learning.

Castle College – Adrian CroninAdrian has put together an interactivePDF document that has video tutorialsembedded in it and contains all thematerials, including formative andsummative assessments, for a year-long,two-hour a week course.

Charnwood Training Group – Tony RoseTony has been using ICT as a learningand assessment tool, adapting tolearners’ needs and requirements fordifferentiation. He has used a widevariety of learning technologies includingvideo, Tablet PCs and Fizzbooks.

Northampton College – Lindsay CursonLindsay (top centre) is an AdvancedPractitioner in Beauty Therapies and haspioneered the effective use of Moodlewithin her department, particularlychampioning the use of online assignmenthand-in and overseeing its rollout.

Moulton College – Alison ThompsonAlison (top left) developed Llama Blog, anonline video diary demonstrating thepioneering training regime for Star, theCollege’s Llama. It was planned, producedand edited by Alison’s students, engagingthem with latest e-technologies andenabling them not only to develop theircommunication skills, but to use theirexperiences as a visual learning resourcefor other students.

Portland College – Natalie TrippettOver the past year, Natalie haschampioned mobile learning with herlearners within the Additional LearningSupport (ALS) cohort. The majority of ALSlearners have memory difficulties as aresult of acquired or traumatic braininjuries and Natalie has fully embraced theuse of mobile technologies to meet theirneeds, including digital photo keyrings,pagers, mobile phones and iPods.

South Nottingham College – EdwardWhiteleyEd has successfully adopted the use ofan online resource, Turnitin, which allowshim to check at a glance which learnershave submitted their work; who has metthe deadline; and obtain a plagiarismpercentage report for each submission.It also allows online marking andfeedback. Find out more atwww.excellencegateway.org.uk/snc.

Full details of all the winners can befound in the Hall of Fame at www.rsc-em.ac.uk/awards.asp. The good news is that we will berunning this scheme again in 2010/11.

A dozen organisations took up the offer to run our LearningTechnology Awards scheme in the 2009/10 academic year. Herewe take a look at some of the individual winners and the benefitsthese learning providers have found through running the scheme.

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Best practice in the UK

The challengeThe Service provides a range of formallearning opportunities to adult learnersacross the county but it wanted toexpand its work in informal learning, asone of its core values is to encourageparticipation and engage hard-to-reachlearners, a group that is often bestapproached on a more informal basis.

The activityLALS helped pull together a partnershipbid for £100k of funding from the LearningRevolution in the autumn of 2009.

The two main focuses for LALS withinthe partnership were to:

• Create a network of e-Championsworking in communities across theregion;

• Create a community website withonline learning resources.

The plan was to recruit five co-ordinatorsto cover the five boroughs of the county,each with ten e-Champions. The co-ordinators were recruited from existingstaff who worked on a fractional basis forthe Service who were paid for their workas a co-ordinator. The e-Champions wererecruited primarily through staffrecommendations of learners who wereon ICT classes run by LALS.

In total 49 e-Champion volunteers wererecruited across Leicestershire to providelocal support to those wanting to learnto use a computer and access theInternet. Support was given via drop-insessions, one-to-one guidance, as wellas by phone and email.

All the e-Champions had access toequipment including laptops with 3Gdongles to access the Internet, cameras,and video cameras.

Many of the referrals for help that come tothe e-Champions originate from the publiclibraries, a key partner in the success of thescheme. The e-Champion then arranges asuitable time to meet up with the learnerin need, often at one of the libraries, butalso at a range of other environmentsincluding cafes, workplaces, surgeries,community halls and care homes.

One of the e-Champions, Jane Coulson,commented: “In February this year, Istarted the training as an e-Champion;a thoroughly enjoyable experience withvery pleasant people. We all had onevery important aspect in common, thewish to help in the further education foradults. My computer knowledge maybe basic, but by preparing a scheduleof interesting activities relevant to mylearner, this has increased my owncomputer skills.”

The second objective for LALS was tocreate a series of online learningresources. The original plan had been todevelop a community learning portal forlearners across the county. However theydecided to use an existing website,Leicestershire Villages, instead.

A series of videos were created for thewebsite that covered topics that wouldbe helpful for relatively inexperiencedlearners such as help in getting startedwith their own computers, the internet,e-safety, digital photography and asection on family history, a popularinterest for many of the target learners.

The outcomesAfter the conclusion of the originalproject LALS secured new funding, thistime from the UK Online scheme in orderto keep the e-Champion scheme running,although the number of co-ordinatorswas reduced from five to two.

In the future they hope to return to fiveco-ordinators as the project is currentlyone of the best performers in thecountry. So far the e-Champions havebeen able to help over 300 people toimprove their IT skills.

We hope that this will have given yousome inspiration for your organisation.Our thanks go to the ExcellenceGateway website for allowing thereproduction of this case study. To viewthe full version of this case study andfind links to other resources on thistopic, we recommend that you visitwww.excellencegateway.org.uk/lals.

Resource CornerMoLeSHARE supports the MobileLearning Network (MoLeNET) from theLearning & Skills Network (LSN), aunique collaborative approach toencouraging, supporting, expandingand promoting mobile learning.

A new series of case studies on usingmobile technologies is now available atwww.moleshare.org.uk/case_studies.asp.

This includes several from some of thelearning providers in our region.

Moulton College• Using Nintendo DSis and FIFA 10 in

a Sports Studies Classroom

• Using QR Codes

Chesterfield College• Using Pre-Installed Learning

Resources ATT Automotive TrainingSystem with Netbooks

• Using Web 2.0 file share technologyDropbox for improved resource/evidence sharing

Castle College• Using wireless routers in the

classroom

• Pinball and Parties – netbooks as alearning resource

• Qwizdom in the classroom

• Nintendo Wii in community learning

• Developing a sustainable IT/VLEPlatform through MoLeNET

• Health and Fitness for SEN studentsusing Nintendo Wii

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In this edition of intouch our example of best practiceshowcases one of the workshops at the 2010 RSC East Midlandse-fair and looks at how Leicestershire Adult Learning Service(LALS) have made Informal Adult Learning work for them.

A QR code for the web address of “intouch”

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Hints & Tips:The WaybackMachineHave you looked at the WaybackMachine?

It is part of The Internet Archive, a non-profit organisation, which is building adigital library of Internet sites andother cultural artefacts in digital form.Like a paper library, they provide freeaccess to researchers, historians,scholars and the general public.

As well as the Wayback Machine thedigital library contains a wealth ofdocuments, films, audio recordingsand a concerts archive.

The Wayback Machine does exactlywhat it says on the tin. It gives you theability to go back in time on the web.

So why not take a look at yourorganisation’s website from years ago.Be warned that not all images andother functions will be available orreplicated in their entirety.

Here’s what the RSC web site lookedlike in 2003.

One use of this website is that itoffers a way to access blocked sitesvia its cached web pages. Clicking onthe latest copy of what the WaybackMachine has should be somewhatsimilar to the real site.

Teaching staff have used this timetravel for showing their learners howthe internet has rapidly developedsince its inception.

The Wayback Machine can be used tore-visit a certain time period to seewhat was on the web around amemorable date, particularly useful ifthe archives have been removed fromany of the websites you want to view.The cached pages have been used inlegal proceedings around the world, sodiscussions about the legal and ethicalrights can be linked into the tool.

Can you think of other ways it mightbe useful for you?

Sharing regional expertise

Matt brought expertise and experiencein the areas of Assistive Technology (AT)and accessibility. As well as leading anevent on using key accessibility tools,providing training sessions direct withlearning providers, and contributing tothe updated RSC AT boxes, he alsocreated a range of resources which arenow freely availably (see page 7).

“Thesecondmentwas a greatopportunityas it gaveme thechance toshare myspecialistknowledgewith a wideraudience, for example by writing theguides - something which I had wanted todo at Portland yet had never had the timeto do. Working with the RSC has alsointroduced me to new colleagues acrossthe East Midlands, many of whom I will bekeeping in touch with.”

In addition to making support visits tolearning providers and being editor of themonthly ILT e-bulletin, Eileen organised theILT Forum and the Moodle Users Group.

“Working for theRSC hassharpened mytechnology skillsand helped meunderstand thestrategicenvironmentfrom a regionalperspective. Ithas been veryinteresting to

find that all providers face commonissues and barriers but remain positiveand supportive. The enthusiasm oftechnologists to share ideas anddevelopments continues despite cutsand uncertainty.”

The value of secondments to theindividual, their employer and the RSCleads to favourable outcomes for all.In the future we hope to offer furtheropportunities to share expertise.

Matt Harrison from Portland College and Eileen Kirk fromDerbyshire County Council Adult Community Education Service(DACES) spent the first half of 2010 on secondment with theRSC on a part-time basis.

Running an e-portfolioSeveral colleges in the region wereinvolved in the ePortfolios andLifelong Learners project carried outby the Centre for InternationalePortfolio Development on behalf ofthe Lifelong Learning Network (LLN)for Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

The project ran time-limited trials ofinstitution-free, learner-owned e-portfoliosystems with more than 1,000 users acrossa range of course and learning contexts.

Whilst work is on-going in theinstitutions who took part, the officialproject has finished and reports are nowavailable on the findings atwww.nottingham.ac.uk/eportfolio.

The pilots demonstrated that there wasvalue to learners across the whole rangeof functions available within the ePortfoliosystems provided, including butexceeding assessment functions. In somecases pilots generated new functionality.

The main strengths of the institution-freee-portfolios for LLN learners were thatthey could be personalised and wereportable as learners moved across

providers. From the providers viewpointthey could be rapidly deployed and sowere a good test-bed in deciding how toproceed inthis area.

The reporteddownsideswere that thee-portfolioscould beviewed asperipheral toan institution’smainstreamprovision andemployersinvolved infunding the e-portfolios may wish to exertownership rights.

If you want any support for yourorganisation in how, or whether, toimplement e-portfolios please getintouch with Ben Williams on 01509 618116 or [email protected].

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Focus On: Accessibility

RSC Accessibility ProjectIn the first half of 2010 we put extraemphasis on building our support foraccessibility and inclusion. The project wasdesigned to help embed inclusion withinstrategic support to learning providersand to extend RSC assistance to LearningSupport staff. This was approached bymeans of a series of free events and staffdevelopment training sessions.

Learning Support contacts wereidentified and visits were made toseveral Additional Learning Support(ALS) managers, resulting in sometraining sessions. Identifying the needsof learning support staff has beenhelped by the East Midlands AdditionalLearning Support Network (EMALS).

A joined-up approach to inclusivity inproviders is a continuing priority,especially given the lack of funding thatwill characterise the sector in the comingyears. We hope to be able to be part ofa development of the network forlearning support managers/staff. Thiswork will be ongoing and we hope toprovide a Training Needs Analysisframework for ALS staff.

We were also joined on secondment byMatt Harrison, Research andDevelopment Manager at PortlandCollege, who produced:

• 17 ‘Guides to free tools’ (based on theAccessApps suite) – available fordownloading via our Moodle platformat http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk;

• An introduction to Switching –http://bit.ly/cGBHob;

• Several accessible learning objects inXerte – http://bit.ly/do61Fl

Single Equality DutyThe Single Equality Duty (SED) becomesoperative in October of this year.Learning Providers have to be proactivein promoting equality.

Should technology be explicitly mentionedin your Single Equality Scheme?

The answer is an overwhelming “Yes”;for the following reasons:

• At the individual learner level,personalisation and reasonableadjustment will be better enabled bythe use of free and mainstreamassistive technologies;

• At the organisational level, technologycan help identify strengths andweaknesses in inclusivity andencourage ownership by all staff.

Support availableTo help you meet your legalrequirements for the SED we are offeringsome new services.

JISC TechDis and the UK-wide RegionalSupport Centres have developed anSED toolkit which is being madeavailable in September. This will helpyou identify where a provider sits on theinclusivity spectrum and point you totools to help address the needs of yourlearners and the approach to apartnership model of inclusivity.

We also have a new Moodle course‘Accessibility: an introduction’ which isavailable via http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk.The course can be downloaded into yourown version of Moodle where it can betailored to include any specific materialsor instructions for your own organisation.

Our Accessibility & Inclusion specialist,Martin Cooke, will also be updating via anew accessibility blog athttp://rscemaccessibility.blogspot.com.

In the coming year we will be lookingat providing examples of LearningSupport models; senior managerbriefings; accessibility self-assessments;and the new ITQ in accessible IT.Useful resources not only for ALSteams, but the wider community too.

JISC newsImpact of the RSCsTo celebrate the 10th Anniversary ofthe RSCs, JISC has commissioned areport detailing the impact the RSCshave had on the post-16 educationand training sector across the UK overthe last ten years.

The Impact Report comes out at the endof September and will subsequently bedistributed across the region.

Funding OpportunitiesJISC has recently updated the futurecalls section of its website atwww.jisc.ac.uk and now showsplanned Grant calls and Invitations ToTenders (ITTs) from August 2010 toJuly 2011.

Two new online tutorials forvideo and audio resourcesJISC Digital Media in conjunction withthe Virtual Training Suite (VTS) haslaunched two new online tutorials:Internet for Audio Resources andInternet for Video and Moving Images.

These are both free-to-use tutorialsthat have been designed to assist staffand students within the educationsector to locate audio and video foruse in both teaching and learning.They can be accessed atwww.vts.intute.ac.uk/tutorial.

New Guidance on the DigitalEconomy Act 2010JISC Legal has released its guidanceon the Digital Economy Act 2010 thatexamines the Act in detail andexplores its implications for collegesand universities. The guidance can befound at www.jisclegal.ac.uk/DEA.

Although we looked at the topic of accessibility and inclusionrelatively recently, in the summer 2009 edition of “intouch”, somuch has happened in relation to this topic since, and is aboutto happen with the arrival of the Single Equality Duty that wethought we should re-visit the topic.

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ForthcomingEventsSeptember28th (online) Single Equality Duty

updates

October6th (online) Introduction to running

online events13th (am) ILT Forum28th (am) Heads of IT Forum

November2nd (am) Accessibility and

Inclusion Forum3rd (am) Learning Resources

Forum3rd (pm) East Midlands

Informational Skills(EMIS) meeting

5th (pm) MIS Network Forum12th (am) Where next for ACL

and e-learning?16th (full day) Creating inclusive

learning resources 17th (am) Moodle Users Group19th (am) Joint ACL/WBL Forum23rd (am) SharePoint Forum24th (full day) Discovering and

sharing freely availableeducational resources

December1st (online) e-Safety Resources8th (am) Using technology to

enrich the learner’svoice

TBC (online) Changing roles oflibrary/LR staff

For further details please visit www.rsc-em.ac.uk where youcan also sign up to our EventsRSS feed.

All our events and forums can becounted for CPD hours.

Get intouchJISC RSC East MidlandsLoughborough CollegeRadmoor RoadLoughboroughLeicestershireLE11 3BT

Tel: 01509 618110Email: [email protected]: www.rsc-em.ac.ukVLE: http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk

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2010 e-fair reaches new heights

This publication is printed on paper from sustainable sources. In the interests of the environment, please passon to a colleague when you’ve finished with it or recycle it. It is also available online at www.rsc-em.ac.uk.

It was a chance for learning providersthroughout the region to get together tofind out the latest developments in e-learning, share good practice and network.

Feedback from delegates was extremelypositive and we’re glad that the event hasbecome a fixture in many peoples’ diaries.

We’ve collected together a wide variety ofthe resources from the e-fair so that anyonecan access the wealth of informationcreated for the day. Just go to our Moodlesite at http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk.

This year’s keynote was on Learner Voiceand featured a series of film clips fromlearners around the East Midlands givingtheir views on how technology is used intheir studies, what could be improvedand what it might be like in the future.All the clips are available to view.

The Learner Voice Hub gave ideas onhow you might capture Learner Voice inyour own organisation. It included adviceand guidance on the use of audio andfilm, as well as Web 2.0 technologiessuch as blogging, Twitter andpodcasting. We’ve also updated our‘Capturing Learner Voice using ILT’Moodle course with some of thesematerials and it is available for downloadto your own Moodle.

There are also presentations and audiosummaries from the 12 workshops thatwe ran. There were too many to name allthe topics covered but some of the mostpopular topics included animation; socialnetworking; video conferencing andmobile learning.

Previous newsletters areavailable via our website at

www.rsc-em.ac.uk

RSC East Midlands held its 6th annual e-fair at the WalkersStadium in Leicester earlier in the year. With almost 200delegates in attendance it was the largest one yet.

Kathryn freely gave energy, enthusiasmand an unfailingly positive attitude tolearning and life. Her own careerconvinced her of the value of lifelonglearning, and she was determined others

should benefit from that opportunity.She was a steadfast colleague whobrought both warmth and a sense ofhumour to her work.

Kevin, her husband, would like to thankall those who sent the many messages ofsupport. Sue Green, Manager ofNottinghamshire ACL Service, capturedthe thoughts of many. “We have alwaysenjoyed excellent support; Kathryn’sgenuine interest, support andenthusiasm were very muchappreciated by our team and we willmiss her greatly.”

So will all who knew her.

Kathryn RobinsonKathryn died peacefully at home in July this year after a longillness. She had worked for the RSC for three years, initially asAdvisor for Higher Education and then as Advisor for Adult &Community Learning. In the last year, she also worked withEMCETT, promoting the Institute for Learning (IfL) in the region.


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