On 25 November 2020, I was invited by Mary Moss and Dawn Buzzard to be a panellist along with Jackie Lewis and Emma Langlois. To discuss the challenges of delivering Essential Digital Skills qualifications (EDS Q), with a particular emphasis on pathway-specific theme preparation for life and work.
My involvement with EDS Q includes:
- I am an active External Quality Assurer for the awarding body Ascentis and will be overseeing EDS Q. I also scrutinised Entry Level 3 and Level 1 EDS Q Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs).
- Reviewed and advised on The Education and Training Foundation's EDS modules that are available on their Enhance platform. I also reviewed the accompanying learning guides; English spoken as another language (ESOL) and preparation for life and work (PLW).
Post session Mary Moss added:
"Dear Daniel, Jackie and Emma,
Very many thanks for a really excellent session today. It went down very well, many positive ‘thank yous’ in Chat. Your contributions were much appreciated, and I think the session felt coherent with topics running into one another and your comments referencing each other’s points. There was a lot of interesting information exchange and hopefully we can build on this for the future, extending the conversation on the Community of Practice. I think everyone went away feeling better informed about EDS Q, and feeling they had gained ideas in relation to challenges of moving teaching online and to blended programmes. Some really great advice and helpful tips from everyone, delivered in a very friendly accessible and professional manner!
I have really enjoyed working with you on this, and appreciate your time and effort in preparation as well as in the session today."
In turn we responded to three main questions, except question three for me as I wasn't required for it. I had a focus on learning design aspects to determine synchronous and asynchronous approaches. Below is a recording of my responses to the questions asked in the panel session - however, as the session failed to record, this is a 'simulated' version recorded on 30 November 2020. Extremely annoying, especially when there was such good contributions and energy throughout. Plus I much preferred my flow in the original and I didn't have connectivity issues! But hey, it happens. What is absent from this new recording is discussion from me on digital wellbeing during the asynchronous piece. I also emphasised creating more asynchronous opportunities in an effort to reduce both learner and tutor being online too much. So perhaps pre-recording teaching sessions in bitesize chunks and facilitating a Q&A around them. Or perhaps using H5P to embed the videos and overlaying with rich interactive questions to challenge and check learning throughout.
