New Year highs

It's been a while since my last post in December, so thought I'd give a little update!

I had a great Christmas and New Year, a very much needed relax!  I even had an overnight stay at Temple Sap in Huddersfield.  What a lovely warm and relaxing place it is.  I spent all day relaxing in my robe, then a dip into the pool then trying out the heat and ice experience with saunas, steam rooms, foot baths, ice and plunge pools!  After the very busy and intense 2014 it was good to recharge my soul with peacefulness.

After a great break, I fired straight back into work.  I had a visit from a chap from City College Norwich.  They wanted to see how we were running the new Level 3 and 4 in Digital Learning Design qualifications with our apprentices.  So I shared how I plan and operate this within Elephant Learning Designs.  It was a good day to talk about what we are doing and how it is working.

I have also started the course in promoting English and Maths in teaching and learning.  It interested me as I have this underlying passion to do better with English and Maths.  So this was perfect for me to develop my understanding as well as promote the importance with our apprentices and in eLearning itself.

Recently I created a presentation that I will be showing to Advanced Practioners.  I'll not detail it here because I will share it at some point.  I called it 'A Desktop Analysis of eLearning Packages'.  It explores how eLearning is delicately created through a process and is underpinned by relevant theory of how important it is for learning.  Because it is my belief that people might view and use it just for the fun factor or for bell and whistles in lessons.  I felt it was needed to show teachers what actually happens with eLearning rather than assuming its copying and pasting multimedia into some sort of PowerPoint style product.

Barnsley College has successfully maintained outstanding in a recent mock inspection by Ofsted.  So there was a lot of preparation for this.  The Learning Technologies Unit wasn't on the scope for inspection, but they were interested in what we were doing so we had an inspector come to talk to us.  Our apprentices did an excellent job in showing and talking about what they were doing with teachers and in the College.

Last week me and the apprentices had a visit down to the Learning Technologies event at Olympia in London.  It was a great day to collect, share and network with others.  We also helped support a stall with Design eLearn who helped create the Digital Learning Design qualifications.

Just found out today that I received a distinction in my first module assignment.  I really wasn't expecting that at all!  I was really hoping for a C at least as I just felt this assignment was a shambles and I'm not experienced with academic writing.  But it obviously paid off, I just can't believe it.  Now this has set the bar for the future, I should be pushing myself further in the next modules.  We had to submit part 2 of the module via our blog which is here.

At present, I am focussed on refining the course elements of the apprenticeship.  Not only do I have an External Quality Assurance visit in March, but I am in the process of arranging unit task sheets to give to our apprentices amongst other bits.  These unit task sheets will help them achieve each unit within a timescale.  They will help everyone involved and having a clearer structure.

That's a very brief summary for now!  But as always, it's happening!

Evaluating Moodle course pages through learners

Below are a series of questions that were created using Moodle Feedback that was distributed across all course pages on the site.  The questionnaire asks learners about their experience of their Moodle course pages to make an informed judgements on how to improve them.  The results are then populated and discussed in quality reviews with departments.  The departments then develop actions from the results to make the suggested changes - so student needs should be met as well as developing the VLE.

1.  What do you think of the content of YOUR Moodle course page?

• Poor
• Average
• Good
• Excellent

2.  Any suggestions for improving the content of YOUR Moodle course page?

3.  What do YOU think of the variety and content on this Moodle page? (Video, audio, images, quizzes etc.)

• No variety
• Some variety
• Wide range of variety

4.  Any comments on the variety and content of this Moodle course page?

5.  Is the content of this Moodle course page developing YOUR knowledge and understanding?

• Not developing
• Reinforces what I know
• Developing more understanding

6.  You are satisfied with the materials and development of your Moodle course?

• Disagree
• Neither agree or disagree
• Agree
• Agree strongly

7.  Do you use this Moodle course outside College?

• Yes - I do use the materials
• No - I don’t study outside the college
• I have some issues, please give the issues below

Developing a Learning Technologist

Since having our apprentices, I've since realised that I need to educate them in the Learning Technologist role.  They predominantly create content, however they do need to have the knowledge and experience to support others in the use of learning technology.  So, to make sure I am teaching them everything I know and more, I need to have some sort of guideline to work to develop them.  But then it got me thinking, what should a learning technologist know?  Below is a list that I will be working towards over the next few months to make sure our apprentices have a greater understanding of their wider role.  It's a broad list that can cover a wide range and it's not exhaustive.

Learning and teaching:

• What is learning
• Learning theories
• What is teaching
• What is assessment
• What are Learning Technologies and the types of Learning Technologies
• What is eLearning and the types of eLearning
• Multimedia in eLearning
• eLearning design
• Facilitating eLearning and working with difference and inclusivity
• Current global markets and trends in eLearning and practices

Technology:

• Social networking
• Online tools and resources
• eLearning packages
• Devices (mobiles, tablets, laptops, Interactive Whiteboard, digital cameras, lecture capture)
• Applications
• Emerging technologies and horizon scanning
• Impact and evaluation of eLearning
• Accessibility
• Copyright

Developing individual expertise:

• ICT skills
• Specialist area(s)
• Reflective practice
• Curate resources
• Working in an academic environment
• Network researching in own and organisational pedagogic practice

When they are confident and competent in their roles.  I would like them to participate in the Certified Membership of the Association for Learning Technology (CMALT) scheme as it's really useful for their professional and future development.  It helped me greatly when I first did it.