Value for MoneyThe Rolling Stones sang, ‘Time waits for no one’. How very true! The JISC RSCs are in their tenth year of operation and it seems like only yesterday that I put together the fi rst year operational plan for the West Midlands. We have come a long way since August 2000. At that time, we supported 54 FE and Sixth Form Colleges - one of the fi rst priorities was to assist colleges with their 2Mb connection to the JANET network. Today, the RSC WM team supports over 300 learning providers across a number of post 16 sectors.

As the summer approaches with hopes of sunnier days, the sector faces some challenging and uncertain times. We are all too aware that the path to economic growth is a steep one and the outcome of the impending general election poses a mixture of positive and negative thoughts for us on the future provision of education. Demonstrating value for money is a mantra we are all very aware of and at the RSC, we are conscious of the budget restraints on the sector, particularly in areas of staff development. It is important for us as a service to provide value. We will continue to offer advice and guidance across the region and offer a variety of events and

staff development opportunities that are either free or on cost recovery basis. Developing and nurturing RSC regional communities of practice still remains a cost effective way of engaging with and learning from like minded colleagues.

In our planning for the next academic year, we will be working closely with LSIS and Becta strategies. Indeed the RSCs have made an important contribution to, and are a key partner in, the Becta Harnessing Technology implementation plan for 2010-13. In the West Midlands region we will be planning more ways to support providers on issues around e-safety, Business and Community Engagement and Accessibility and Inclusion. Our support is based on the needs of the sector and as always, if there are any areas you would like the RSC to consider supporting within the context of stimulating innovation in learning, please contact me at the e-mail address below.

Greg VivashJISC RSC Managergreg.vivash@rsc-wm.ac.uk

RSCNewsletter Issue 5 – Spring/Summer

2010

Stimulating and supporting innovation in learning

Contents

1. Value for Money2. Around the Region - Annual Event Celebrates e-Learning Journey - iSkills Update3. Meet the Team: Technical Adviser - MOT For Your Network4. TEN Colleges in Our Region - Media Streaming5. What’s New on the Wiki - e-Learning Lessons From the Private Sector - Our Favourite Resources and Technologies6. Accessibility Tips - Quick Wins - Save Yourself Time Online7. Switching VLE’s Shrewsbury 6th Form College’s Story - Latest Case Studies From Our Region8. Forthcoming Events - RSC Events Continue to Prove Popular

a bi-annual update from the Regional Support Centre West Midlands

From 11th-12th May, the RSC will host its annual online e-learning conference, taking place entirely through our Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).To mark the 10 year anniversary of the JISC RSCs, this year’s event will celebrate the e-learning journey of our learning providers, with examples from FE, Work-based learning and Adult and Community Learning.

Taking place over two days, the event allows you to login and take part at a time and place to suit you, giving you the fl exibility to ‘attend’ around your work commitments. Some sessions, however, feature live elements such as chat which will require participation at a fi xed time.

During the two days, delegates will have opportunities to post questions to speakers, share best practice and chat to other delegates – just like at a face-to-face event but without having to leave your desk!

We are now taking bookings for this free event. To secure your place, visit our website at www.rsc-wm.ac.uk now. Places fi ll quickly so book early to avoid disappointment.

We look forward to meeting you online!

Annual Event Celebrates the e-learning Journey

iSkills UpdateInformation skills are increasingly important for learners, and with so much information available online, library and learning resource centre staff are ideally placed to help staff and students become more information literate. To support learning provider staff involved in this work, RSC West Midlands has recently formed its Information Skills Network.

The Network meets online through the Ning social networking tool, and a series of face-to-face meetings and Webinars are also planned. The Network aims to:

- Facilitate the sharing of information skills resources and good practice- Encourage the creation of models for delivering information skills support, within and outside the classroom- Promote links with other information skills interest groups such as the East Midlands Information Skills Group

To join the network go to http://rscwmiskills.ning.com/

Around the Region

Worcester College of Technology gave a warm welcome recently to visitors from the Open University in Zambia. This followed a visit made by e-Learning Director Peter Kilcoyne to Zambia as part of the Computeraid project, which provided funds for Peter to do a week’s training and consultancy for the Open University in November 2009.

The University aims to increase provision for distance learning from 5,000 to 50,000 by moving from a paper-based system to Moodle. The visitors saw Worcester College’s Moodle VLE in action and also visited Kidderminster College and Worcester University.

North Warwickshire and Hinckley College’s Librarian Ihar Ivanou is using Facebook to promote the LRC, and to create dialogue with its users. The Facebook page includes event notifi cations, posts on library services and advice. The ‘wall’ encourages users to post questions and the ‘Cite Me’ application is a useful tool which shows users how to cite using different referencing systems such as Harvard.

The Facebook page is available at www.facebook.com/library.nwhc

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Meet the RSC Team: Technical Adviser

Tell me a little bit about your technical backgroundI have worked in a technical support role for more than 15 years mainly in a commercial, environment. I began in application development and support but eventually specialised in system and database administration – mainly Windows, Unix/Linux, Oracle and SQL Server. I still do some Windows and Linux shell scripting and tinker with the PHP code on our Moodle and MediaWiki servers. It has been a bit of a learning curve for me with respect to education-type systems such as Moodle and Mahara, but I have gained some valuable experience in the past year supporting those systems internally.

What are some of the typical queries you get from learning providers? In the last week alone, I helped one college troubleshoot their Xerte installation, another confi gure their Shibboleth server, and advised another on their network infrastructure. In addition to these ad-hoc queries, we support learning providers by running events where they can network and share good practice. So far for this year, I have run the IT Managers Forum, Shibboleth and SharePoint events, and arranged a Microsoft Forefront webinar. All the events were well received.

Who do you liaise with on a daily basis?Ad-hoc queries come mainly from technical staff and occasionally IT managers. We also visit colleges to meet IT managers to keep up to date on the issues that they are dealing with and to discuss how we can improve our support for them. I have also worked with ILT staff with respect to VLE issues, and with learning resources staff on access management.

What are you currently working on?At present I am working with our HE adviser on an e-Portfolio sandbox service, where a learning provider can experiment with e-Portfolios on their own Moodle, Mahara, Mahoodle, WordPress and ELGG sites. I wanted to confi gure the sandbox so that administrators could use the same credentials across all the sites and I did not want to set the same user account manually in each site. I managed to achieve this using the standard LDAP modules with some tweaking to auto-assign administrative permissions. Like many learning providers, we are having problems managing our electronic documents, so I am spearheading a project to migrate our document storage from a network drive to SharePoint. I have been documenting my ‘adventures’ on my blog at www.rscwmsystems.org.uk/rsc-it-blog.

For more information about how Colleen could help your organisation, contact her on 01902 518978 or e-mail colleen.romero@rsc-wm.ac.uk.

MOT for Your Network

Don’t wait for something to go wrong with your network. Why not give it an MOT courtesy of our free network analysis service?

The Fluke Networks EtherScope™ Series II handheld network monitoring system is available to hire from the RSC on a weekly basis. It can detect and analyse problems on your wired or wireless network

The EtherScope can do the following:

• Monitor network traffi c and switch interfaces• Discover devices, networks, VLAN’s, AP’s, mobile clients and more• Identify network nodes and AP’s that are generating the most traffi c • Analyse protocols running on the network• Cable wire mapping

Network analysis reports can be viewed from a browser or saved in XML format to a CompactFlash card (included) and then transferred to another computer.

For more information about the Etherscope, visit the Fluke Networks website at http://bit.ly/fl ukenetworks

For more information, or to book the Etherscope, contact Colleen using the details on this page.

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Have you registered with the Gateway?

Media Streaming

Learners increasingly demand the convenience of viewing video resources on their desktop. West Midlands learning providers have been quick to meet this need with a range of different media streaming approaches.

Clickview - Bournville CollegeClickview 24-7 is a subscription service, which allows the full content of any six Freeview channels to be stored and streamed on demand across your network, with other broadcasts available on request. Clickview supported the college in setting up the system and also delivered training to groups of staff. To view programmes, the Clickview Player is needed and this was installed by IT staff across all PCs on the network. Amanda Braund, Learning Advisor at Bournville, comments “the service has been particularly popular with social care and catering tutors. We plan to add links to the programmes to our Moodle VLE and library catalogue in future.”

www.clickview.co.uk

Contact: amanda.braund@bournville.ac.uk

Open Source at Worcester College of Technology This bespoke streaming video service, allows digitisation of videos recorded under the college’s Educational Recording Agency (ERA) License.

The system uses servers running Microsoft Server 2008 and Windows Media Streaming Services and Distributed Files System.

Existing video content is converted using a video capture card running Microsoft Expression Encoder and a DVD or VCR player. New off-air recordings are made on an Apple Mac using the Migilia USB TV Tuner and Elgato EyeTV software and output to a queue on the encoding PC.

Staff and students are able to browse an online catalogue of recorded content and watch recordings from any College-owned computer on campus. The catalogue contains the URLs of the recordings which can then be copied and placed in any location from a document to a VLE course.

http://www.miglia.comhttp://www.elgato.com/

Contact: dkings@wortech.ac.uk

Video Library at Henley College CoventryHenley College Coventry has a long-established library of video recordings and is transferring the collection to DVD. The next step was to increase convenience with the addition of media streaming to users’ desktops, along with a searchable repository, so the college can make the most of this valuable resource.

A combination of commercial technologies, including Video Library from Streaming Ltd., Hauppauge UK’s digital recorder and a freeware encoder known as Handbrake, provided the required solution. The college can now offer both its off-air recordings and back catalogue directly to users’ desktops and work has already begun in promoting the resource through the college ILT Manager and Advanced Practitioners.

www.streaming.co.uk/www.hauppauge.co.uk/http://handbrake.fr/

Contact: s.bird@henley-cov.ac.uk

TEN Colleges in Our Region

Phase 2 of Becta’s Technology Exemplar Network (TEN) is well underway with Derwen and North Warwickshire and Hinckley Colleges from this region identifi ed as two of 16 ‘Exemplar’ providers.

The TEN works to share best practice for using technology between different learning providers.

A further 15 providers from the region were selected as participating providers to benefi t from peer networking with other organisations to develop their use of technology. They are:

• Birmingham Metropolitan College• City of Wolverhampton College• Fircroft College of Adult Education• Herefordshire College of Technology• Hereward College• Nuneaton Training Centre Ltd • PTP Training Limited• Refl ections Training Academy• Riverside Training• Solihull College• Stoke on Trent College• Stourbridge College• Telford College of Arts & Technology• Walsall College• Worcester College of Technology

Exemplar colleges hold open days to showcase their work. The open days are available to LSC funded FE and Skills providers - details of forthcoming events from all TEN providers appear on the Becta website at: www.becta.org.uk

Both Derwen and North Warwickshire and Hinckley Colleges also have case studies highlighting their good practice on the Excellence Gateway website. Visit www.excellencegateway.org.uk/westmids

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Europe’s largest corporate e-learning event, held earlier this year, highlighted a wealth of advice from organisations that have taken cuts to their training budgets as a result of the recession.

Technology is increasingly being used to save money, improve business and training effi ciencies, with companies such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers making signifi cant training savings by using live webinar tools1 such as Adobe Connect, or Elluminate.

Examples of using new technologies were also shared with delegates, such as Huddle.net and blogs to create internal knowledge sharing communitiesThese types of innovative approaches e.g.Dare2Share are

becoming more popular as many organisations in the UK are re-appraising their Learning Management Systems (LMS), or adding (free) Web 2.0 tools into the mix.

Becta in conjunction with the Towards Maturity project2 have released two new related reports on Work Based Learning. They both stress the importance of measuring impact3 and sharing effective practice to help us all implement and embed ILT effectively.

References:1. http://bit.ly/wcast2. http://bit.ly/towmat3. http://bit.ly/measimp

Our Favourite Resources and Technologies

What’s New on the Wiki?The RSC West Midlands wiki pages are full of excellent resources on a wide range of subjects, to help staff in learning organisations of all descriptions with their ILT and e-learning. The wiki is a ‘live’ resource which is constantly being updated and it is well worth taking some time to browse through all the sections – you don’t know what you might fi nd!

Looking for some help in developing your ILT strategy or fi nding some useful software to create learning materials? You will fi nd the ‘Strategy and Management’ and the ‘e-Learning Technology’ sections particularly helpful.

Have you seen the ‘RSC-WM Event Wikis’ pages? Whether or not you’ve attended one of our events, the supporting materials hold a wealth of useful information and links, including the presentations used in the sessions.

One hot topic at the moment is greener ICT; these pages keep you informed of the latest green ICT projects, initiatives, funding and much more. The wiki is also contributing to this green agenda – no need to print out hundreds of pages of handouts!

Don’t just sit there! Visit the wiki which can accessed from the home page of our website at www.rsc-wm.ac.uk

Jason Curtis, RSC WM’s Learning Technologies and Information Offi cer shares his favourite tool of the moment – iMindMap.

iMindMap from ThinkBuzan.com is a mind mapping tool which allows the user to think more freely and organize their thoughts, and to then represent and share that free train of thought pictorially.

iMindMap literally 'maps' out your thoughts, using associations, connections and triggers to stimulate further ideas. Comparing this product to other tools it differs in the way each thought is labelled and organized with specifi c labels attached to each thought process.

This tool can be used not only as a mapping tool but for rapidly creating animated interactive learning objects which can be exported into PowerPoint or as individual Flash based learning objects. So whether you are a free thinker mapping out your thoughts on the fl y, or prefer to use a regimented list to organize your thoughts, iMindMap can accommodate your own way of working.

To access a demonstration copy go to http://bit.ly/immap

e-learning Lessons From the Private Sector

The RSC Wiki

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Switch your browser

Internet Explorer is just one of many different Web browsers you can use for free. Why not try one of these alternatives?

Mozilla Firefox This browser has a good reputation for preventing intrusion by spyware and is more fl exible and expandable, with many add-ons available. www.mozilla.org/

Google Chrome The key advantage of this alternative is its speed of operation – much faster than the other options; its feature set competes well with Internet Explorer.www.google.com/chrome

Opera Another very fast alternative, Opera is also expandable and customisable using widgets. The version of Opera for mobile devices is award winning.www.opera.com/

Free time management tools

There are many tools available online to help with time management – here are three examples of freely available tools to boost your free time.

HassleMe Not eating enough fruit? Forgot to feed the fi sh again? This tool will remind you by e-mail, so you’ll never forget!www.hassleme.co.uk/http://www.hassleme.co.uk/myHours.com An online time management and time sheet solution, which can be accessed anywhere online. Track your work time, your projects and any regular tasks you perform. http://myhours.com/http://myhours.com/eventWax A free, online way to organise events, conferences and workshops, send out invites and collect replies.www.eventwax.com/

What tips do you have for improving effi ciency? We would like to hear from you and share your ideas in a new regular newsletter feature.

Send your hints and tips to Kirsty Hill by e-mail: kirsty.hill@rsc-wm.ac.uk

Google Chrome

Firefox

Opera

Accessibility Tips

Auto SummariseAn easy way to condense large documents into an easy to read format. Available in Microsoft Offi ce 2003/2007, it allows you to highlight key points in a different colour throughout the document, or create a separate summary document.

Sound RecorderA useful tool to help summarise the key points of a lesson. This can be found in the main Windows menu under Accessories>Entertainment. It can help with playback for learners who struggle with note taking. The fi les are easily accessibile and can be stored in Moodle.

MyStudyBarA new fl oating toolbar to support learners with studying, reading and writing. Developed by RSC Scotland North & East, the tool includes portable, open source and freeware applications, assembled into one convenient package. It’s easy to use and provides comprehensive learning support on the desktop.

To fi nd out more and download MyStudyBar, visithttp://bit.ly/stbar

Quick Wins - Save Yourself Time Online

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Looking for new resources to use in teaching and learning? Try

some of these free options:

URL shortener - http://bit.ly/ . Fed up with unwieldy web links?

Sign up for a free account to create shorter web links, track the progress of your links and access

all your shortened links.Screen capturing tool – www.

screentoaster.com . Create your own videos of onscreen actions

in one simple click. Useful for capturing screen casts and

demonstrating screen casts, demonstrations, tutorials and

lectures. Visual search engines. If you are looking for an alternative search engine to aid visual learners, try

these two options:

Middlespot.com – see your results as screenshots which

you can pan and zoom like a map. Allows you to create and

share a ‘workpad’ for saving and annotating search results.

Search-cube.com –presents thumbnail search results through

a 3-D cube interface.

Shrewsbury Sixth Form College has been using Moodle for one and a half years, when it replaced the previous

learning environment, DigitalBrain. In that time, it has seen phenomenal growth in the three areas that it aims to serve (staff, students and curriculum) with growth far exceeding expectations. New students to the college receive an initial introduction to the VLE during the yearly tutorial induction and are encouraged to check it regularly for news items. It enables them to access information on all aspects of college life from fi nance to examination entry.

Likewise, staff are encouraged to use Moodle for informational purposes and within their curriculum areas. Although usage within curriculum areas varies from subject to subject, most have embraced Moodle warmly and all areas have some content on their Moodle site. Recent surveys within the college have shown that Moodle is accessed regularly at home and within the purpose built learning centre.

Uploading to Moodle has been traditionally done by support staff and many subject areas still heavily rely on that but many teachers now habitually upload materials to the VLE. Some subject areas use it interactively with regular quizzes for students

using forums and assessment feedback.

The RSC has recently developed some training materials for the college which will enable staff to train to use Moodle online from any location and contributing to staff’s required hours of professional development.

The full story of Shrewsbury Sixth Form College’s adventures with Moodle – the triumphs and the pitfalls will be a feature of the RSCs annual online conference in May. For bookings, visit the Events page on our website at www.rsc-wm.ac.uk

Shrewsbury Sixth Form College’s Moodle

Switching VLEs - Shrewsbury Sixth Form

College’s Journey

Latest Case Studies from our Region

There are now over 220 e-learning case studies on the Excellence Gateway website spanning the post-16 learning and skills sector 37 of those case studies are from the West Midlands region. Here are the latest to be published:

Kidderminster College: Learning Resource Facilitator Equips Learners with iSkillsLearning Resource Facilitator Jackie O'Brien is dedicated to delivering information skills and assignment workshops to support students' independent learning. These workshops have proved extremely popular, with uptake increasing year on year.www.excellencegateway.org.uk/lri

Solihull College: EasyVoter for Moodle Following unsuccessful trials with commercial voting systems, Solihull College developed its own solution, EasyVoter – a plug-in voting system for the Moodle virtual learning environment (VLE).www.excellencegateway.org.uk/evm

Stratford-upon-Avon College: Free applications assist dyslexic Media studentThe College trialled DSpeech and Sticky Notes applications with a dyslexic learner, as part of an Accessibility project devised by the JISC Regional Support Centre for West Midlands. www.excellencegateway.org.uk/frapp

For more examples from the region, visit www.excellencegateway.org.uk/westmids

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Over the last 12 months, we have run close to 70 events, including a combination of both online and face-to-face events covering a wide range of e-learning themes. Over a quarter of these are regular forums where learning providers from across the region come together to discuss a variety of topics. This academic year, two new forums have been introduced; the e-Learning Managers Community of Practice Group and a Shibboleth Forum - both of which have been well attended.

Did you know?

Over 85% of RSC-WM events and forums are free to attend.

RSC-WM hosts 11 different forums covering a wide range of e-Learning themes such as virtual worlds and learning technologies.

Views from our delegates:

• “It’s the best and most informative event I’ve been to in years” (taken from the recent PHP Primed and Ready event)• “Well organised, well presented and very informative”(taken from the recent Generator workshop)

Evidence of your CPD

Did you know that all RSC events and forums can be used as evidence of your continuing professional development (CPD)? Electronic certifi cates of attendance are issued after every event via e-mail. This certifi cate also contains a few questions to help you refl ect on what you’ve learnt from the session and how you can go forward.

RSC Event wiki

Resources relating to events and forums can be found on the events wiki page. A link to the wiki page can be found by visiting www.rsc-wm.ac.uk and clicking on the RSC-WM WIKI link in the menu box.

Future Event Planning;

During the summer months, the RSC West Midlands team creates a forward plan for the forthcoming academic year. This includes ideas for future events.

Should you have any ideas for possible future events, please get in touch at:eventsrsc-wm@wlv.ac.uk

We are always on the look out for academic venues to host RSC West Midlands events in the region. If you are in a position to help contact Lea Smith, Events Co-ordinator on 01902 518977 or e-mail eventsrsc-wm@wlv.ac.uk

Join our community

Don’t miss out! Get the very latest event information from RSC West Midlands by joining our learning provider community.

To join, simply visit http://info.rsc-wm.ac.uk/register and complete the registration form. Contact us

JISC RSC West MidlandsTechnology CentreWolverhampton Science ParkGlaisher DriveWolverhamptonWV10 9RU

Tel: 01902 518982E-mail: support@rsc-wm.ac.ukWeb: www.rsc-wm.ac.uk

For full details, visit the events page at: www.rsc-wm.ac.uk. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed and get the

latest updates as they are announced.

AprilLearning Object Creator • WorkshopSecond Life – Next Steps• e-Safety Policies Workshop• Repositories - the Why’s • and Wherefore’s

MayDiscover-e 2010• West Midlands Moodle • Users Forum (Summer)Assistive Technology • Traininge-asy Assessment• HE in FE Conference•

JuneIT Forum• e-Learning Managers: • Community of PracticeVirtual Worlds Forum• Teacher Trainers Online• Introduction to Second Life•

JulyGreener ICT• Staff Development • Managers OnlineACL/WBL e-Learning • Forum

This newsletter is printed on recycled paper

RSC Events Continue to Prove Popular

The RSC Event Certifi cate can be used as evidence towards your CPD

Forthcoming Events

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