Monday, June 01, 2020

Busy , Busy , Busy



I started trying to record what the new Learning and Teaching Academy has been up to on a weekly basis . I can't really believe this is week 10 of the lock down . 

I'm just about to push around a newsletter that is testament to all the hard work put in by teams and staff across the College.  June will be just as busy with virtual events across the College and nationally .  Hoping to finalise details of an ALT Scotland Special Interest Group meeting for end of this month - this week. 


( with thanks to Tom Duff) 

Here is a wee list of what we have achieved in 10 weeks.

  1. On day college closed we had advice in place for teaching , support and students on working remotely.
  2. We moved all support on line - our inbox every day has now dealt with around 1500 support requests ( at 27/5)
  3. We immediately rolled out Zoom as a practical delivery tool for teachers and provided associated support.
  4. We’ve run 2 webinars a day covering critical systems and support – with more than 950 staff attending sessions . Through online booking platform and we've had great feedback.
  5. Our offer has tracked staff demand – initially focusing on communication tools , now focusing on assessment and evidence gathering tools and we will focus on learning design to make courses more digital and blended for start of next session. ( we are using our own version of ABC Learning Design. 
  6. We have continued both to support a number of commercial projects like https://www.offsiteready.com/  and have won more commercial funding during lock down – and we are still bidding for new business. ( we are just about to roll out a UFI Project - watch this space) 
  7. We documented our approach and it has been picked up as good practice and will feature in a future GTCS Magazine.
  8. From 17 March we have offered a digital first library service with advice, support, guidance and access to resources for students and staff.
  9. We have designed, developed and launched the Learning and Teaching Academy online presence. Re-branded existing pages and building whole new libguide platform and creating a wordpress site and created a suite of short instructional videos and guides for staff working remotely.
  10. Our team has offered an online landscape to enable and support teaching teams to deliver online. With daily learning opportunities such as webinars to online learning courses that encourage and exploit digital technologies such as Teams, Zooms and many educational technologies and software.
  11. The LTA has successfully created a team ethic that is centred on supporting academic development and enhancing teaching and learning within City and beyond.
  12. We just managed to squeeze out a Jisc Digital Insights Student survey - which I know will give us some valuable data on how learners are coping in lockdown.
  13. We are now well positioned to start the real work of transforming delivery at City of Glasgow College in a new working landscape.
In amongst this I've  continued to support the College Scotland's #DigitalAmbition work now morphing into a more directed bit of work to deal with the immediate crisis . I've to completing data gathering for feedback to be in this week. 

Also managed to present  on a CDN/Jisc Virtual Bridge Sessions along with some of my colleagues. 

whew ! 

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

#OER20 Still reverberating around kitchens and home offices around the world.

The  #OER20 conference was an interesting experience . It was brilliantly switched from face to face to becoming a wholly on-line conference in a matter of weeks and it proved to be a great experience on many levels. What a great achievement by ALT team who have even shared the methodology they employed to run the online conference.

The #OER conference always has great speakers and explores a broad range of open educational practice from around the globe. In some ways with us all sitting isolating in different parts of the world and beaming into home offices , kitchens in my case ,  it seemed to emphasise the global nature of open educational thinking and practices.

I'm guessing we were all balancing our institutional commitments. I've reflected these in some earlier posts and workload and on-line meetings did get in the way of some of the sessions I would have liked to tune in to.

The on-line conference grew from it's usual physical size of around 400 delegates to 1300 delegates , the social hangouts and back channels allowed some of the networking and chatting that is a critical component of the learning that comes from a conferences, though I have to say I missed the mingling and meeting old friends and new.

It was topical and on the ball and even managed to have its own Blackboard Collaborate Bombing - it's not just Zoom, it  can happen on any platform folks.


I've embedded the conference playlist here ..




You can sneak a peak and many of the attendees who completed a splot and played social bingo.
As Lorna Campbell succinctly highlights

Please note, the OER20 conference wasn’t just free as in speech, it was also free as in beer, so if you participated in the event, either listening in to the presentations, or even just following the hashtag online, please consider making a donation to the conference fund. Every little helps to support ALT and cover the cost.

Our own session went well ... without rehearsal we summed up what we have achieved through a collaborative partnership around a shared G-Suite for Education - and the travails of getting staff to work in the open. You can find a recording of session and be your own judge.  The site is in transition to NMIS and Strathclyde University and is currently not sitting on it's usual domain - the resources are open and reflects well on what was a real team effort and a development that I think breaks the mould in Scottish education at least.

And finally delighted to be chairing next year's conference along with Lou Mycroft and Louise Drumm . Wherever the conference physically happens and I am hoping we can bring it to Glasgow ,  I know it will be very different.

I look forward to shaping it with the ALT team and my co-chairs.

In meantime I have three days off - I mooted this with rest of family,  I am going on a camping trip into my suburban back garden.  Initially, they thought I had finally cracked , but I think they maybe joining me. Now is the time to think differently folks.







Thursday, April 02, 2020

A week in learning technology #Clickview #OER20


So update we ran 10 webinars last week and over 250 staff tuned in .Between the learning tech and library team we dealt with over 1000 inquires through help desks and social media.  We now have around 700 staff across teaching and support with an active zoom account and we look good to go. 

In between the full on workload I managed to support a Clickview Online Conference presenting to some 418 colleagues across UK. It is worth checking out video, not for my input , but for the excellent overview of ClickViewYou will find out in session how we are using ClickView - many of our own staff have not yet embedded this in their teaching.  That's the next target - we have just started rolling out Click-view Training . I am publishing this a bit prematurely simply to show a workshop how to embed publicly available click-view content . 


In this current week ..

We’ve worked out that the wider community need some Zoom training so we are opening that up - offering free seats to the public - to make sure staff in front line services are confident Zoom users. We will open up our subsequent offers too.

I wonder what other colleges and universities could open up for to colleagues across public sector - we are now living in a remote working, on-line world.

Our own programme is expanding, having covered key communication channels, we are adding ClickView Training and for some Microsoft Teams training and we’ve added an online booking system - to make sign up easier.
And we are planning on building around a community of practice https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/teach-online while promoting the bridge initiative from CDN and jisc . Tomorrow we are creating a What's On Page to capture more of the on-line events and training that are available to the College staff across the UK and beyond.


And I delivered a paper on how we harnessed google sites to deliver a national programme at #oer20 on Wednesday - Blackboard Collaborate this time globally 1200 delegates making this biggest #OER conference yet . Special thanks to my co-presenter Dr Lewis Ross and in the background Dr Julian Hopkins , John Casey and colleagues who supported delivery of this project including Jim Hannigan at SDS . They included a nice platform for delegates to introduce themselves https://oer20.socialbingo.oerconf.org/participants/joe-wilson
I borrowed the meme from Clint Lalonde .

I'll post later on fabulous online #oer20 experience and some exciting news.
In meantime this is what's making us laugh this week.




Monday, March 23, 2020

Remote Working Across Large Scottish College

Sunday on a remote beach near Glasgow - self isolating 

At City of Glasgow College, this is what we’ve been busy doing.

Last week, as the College closed to face to face teaching, we jumped from developing more blended approaches to full on , online learning.

Our priority has been working on improving communication between lecturers and their students. It has been a real team effort from shaping the offer to communicating across the College. 

  • We’ve prepared and published guides for teaching staff , support staff and students around all the systems we have in place for remote learning.
  • We’ve changed the way we can be contacted and how we deliver our support services for those who run into technical challenges or simply need some online support.

We’ve always had a rich set of training and support resources around blended learning. To this point they have mainly been used by those who wanted to pioneer new approaches to learning and teaching. Behind the scenes we are refreshing parts of this but mainly we are just reminding folk what is there already.

This week we are rolling out a webinar programme. Two sessions a day, 10-11am and 2-3pm. A cycle of :

  • Reminding staff by running webinars on how to use enquirer, our MIS system, to send emails and sms messages to class groups and individual students.
  • Showing staff who haven’t been using forums inside their Moodle courses. How to set one up and how to make use of it to engage with learners.
  • All sessions delivered by Zoom with additional training for staff on how to use Zoom with their students. We anticipate Zoom is our new face to face.
We can deliver most digital skills remotely. But the digital divide is wide , staff and students don’t all have reliable internet connections or devices capable of coping with webinars. We have some staff who are really just learning what our systems can do for the first time.

Some of this links back into our Moodle and is unavailable to those outwith College but I hope process and some of guides are helpful to others.

Remote learning guides:

Support staff :: Lecturing staff :: Students :: Staff Help guides and videos

Learning Technologies Help

I think this will be similar pattern to most further and higher education institutions. When this process is finished I don't think we will be going back to the bad old world.  

If I had one wish it would be that SQA applied some of the same rules they have just applied to end the School session . Universities seem in main to have found ways to wind down for the year , schools have effectively ended - we need a tidy national way to close off the end of year for students in Colleges across Scotland. 

As an end piece here is a good commentary on what happens when on-line learning goes wrong.  We need to keep expectations realistic . 



Friday, March 06, 2020

Blended Learning Consortium in Scotland / save the date @FeBlc

Next Thursday in part due to the collapse of FlyBe we have switched the national Scottish gathering of the Blended Learning Consortium to an online gathering by Webinar - from 10-12 noon on Thursday 12th of March.

https://ca.bbcollab.com/guest/04f58e6003e945f58448288573a27210

Why not pop in to hear latest from what is the largest vocational learning content sharing collaborative across the UK.

Over the next few months many more of us will be polishing up our webinar skills. Here is a guide we are using across this large College, aimed at teaching staff.

Thursday, January 09, 2020

#Bett20 , #Bett2020 , #Bettshow2020 Welcome to the roaring twenties !



Here we go again .

I am heading down to #BETT20 early on the Wednesday morning for some pre-meetings and then the usual busy schedule in and around the conference.

I'm expecting to catch up with Google , Microsoft , Fujitsu , Click-View among many others. 
I'll be around until Friday afternoon.

I can't claim to have been every #BETT but I've attended since last century  Reflections over last few years here and some guides for #BETT newbies. 

My diary is pretty full, but  if  you have something unique and engaging aimed at any part of the assessment , e-portfolio space, digital skills for vocational teaching staff landscape  or you have some genuinely open learning or you are looking for meaningful partnerships with a school , college or vocational learning space either in Scotland or internationally,  then I would be interested in talking to you. 

The College I am working in currently offers a great space to launch new ideas and systems in to the Scottish vocational sector and has a strong international reach. 

I am easy to get hold of - just tweet something to @joecar and I'll respond. You can find out about me and my institution  here or get me through the new BETT app  , it has improved over the years. 

I am looking forward to meeting friends old and new and, above all,  being inspired. 

Saturday, November 23, 2019

#UFITrust Showcase Event London 21/11/2019

Image

It does not seem that long ago that I met with Donald Clark , Bob Harrison and assorted others in a meeting room borrowed from City and Guilds in London to offer some advice on what kinds of activity and what models should be adopted around distributing the funds from the UFI Trust.

It is great that it has gone from strength to strength - and very timely - in England the monies arrived just as public funding dried up for innovation in educational technology and the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group started looking around for models and partners to deliver more blended learning and assessment in vocational learning. To some extent the UFI Trust monies have filled a gap that might otherwise have come from BECTA , Jisc or other agencies that had funding pots to encourage innovative practice.  There is now a strong and growing legacy.

In Scotland while there has been no such drivers in the vocational space, we have been able to adopt some of the out puts from the UFI Trust and a number of Colleges have benefited from funding for a range of projects. But a good model for both current #digitalambition work in Scotland and broader UK #CollegeFutures work to take a careful note of.

It was great to see projects past and present on display and meet some old friends and colleagues.  It is good to see those who innovate in education being constantly resilient and inventive  - and great too to meet new people and projects trying to shake things up.  This is a list of all this years crop of projects .

Note these are mixture of private and public organisations - this is seed funding for sustainable projects so different from some of the more speculative experimental projects that may have been funded in past with EU Monies. The projects are funded here on their basis to be revenue generating and self sustaining when UFI funding ends.

City of Glasgow College have a number of projects funded with #UFITrust funds past, live and in development with a range of commercial partners.

Here are my own take a ways - some from wandering around the stands and some from networking at event. 

1. The great work done by Open University with Cisco - is open and available to any College . I am going to bring them up and see how we can get these materials used more widely. These are free.

2. STEM resources - I've come across Learning Science  and these materials before and I made some high level sector introductions . I don't think things moved on from there - so will bring them up for a conversation - their simulated lab materials are used widely in the HE Sector. They now have a special offer for maths and engineering.  Interested in price point.


3. Aftab and ADA Bolton College's digital assistant - just goes from strength to strengh - I'll shine a light on this again - I think model is great. The struggle in institutions is that this is so new and cuts across lots of silos - challenge is not technology but culture and ownership of data - that is the barrier to getting more projects like this moving.  ( we have some interesting conversations happening with Google and Amazon services in background)



4. I like the 'engineering apprentices mate' materials  nice simple training materials . I'll take these links back to relevant College team.  Looking for website that takes me straight to the materials.

5. If you are a college teaching dental nurses , dental receptionists then CHOMP looks great and from a very passionate team - turning learning into gaming.

I had some great chats around the room and would be great to get a similar showcase event in Scotland -waving too at Vikki and https://set.et-foundation.co.uk/etf/ who are doing great job with focus on digital learning skills for College lecturers in England.

Always happy to make introductions to those in Scottish sector who are willing and able pick up opportunities.

All the projects are worth a look , I've just sampled the ones that caught my eye.

And I've a few other leads to follow up. 

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

#UNESCO , #Openscot Email to My Daughter.







 I got some great news yesterday and I tried to explain what it means  to my daughter who is in 5th year in a Scottish Secondary school. I thought worth sharing with a wider audience. I know some organisations that regulate teachers and lecturers like the General Teaching Council for Scotland and the Higher Education Academy, as well as those that fund education developments across the public sector will now have to take notice. It's great news for learners across the world. 

How will we now embrace this in Scotland ?

In my immediate domain one for Colleges Scotland and College Regional Boards to sit up and take notice - this needs to be embedded in practice. We've already started at City of Glasgow College. 

MJ , 
You might remember I disappeared to Malta, Slovenia and Poland among other places over the last few years. I wasn't having a holiday.
This is what I was helping to draft. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/in/rest/annotationSVC/Attachment/attach_import_b1276dcd-237e-488f-8b37-3c8847cb2e31 

I was invited as the co founder of Open Scotland along with Lorna Campbell of Edinburgh University - as what they call domain experts. We were standing on the shoulders of giants from the Association of Learning Technology and early work done by Jisc and many others across the education sector in Scotland and the rest of the U.K. , especially those involved in the #oer , open education resource , series of conferences. 
At the heart of it is a really simple principle.

One that Scottish Education should find easy to embrace.

'That publicly funded learning and teaching materials should be open and shareable.' 
One day, this will make teaching and learning much easier for everyone.
For you, it’s an example of a real UN resolution and now you know someone that helped shape one. It’s just as complex as the resolutions you debate in the schools model UN.

Perhaps you can show it to your teachers and maybe they will start working to share learning materials with colleagues in other schools , colleges and universities.

It was approved to go forward yesterday ;-)



Tuesday, November 12, 2019

#DigitalAmbition City of Glasgow College


I plugged these sessions as they rolled out,  I am part of national consultation group . Yesterday, the roadshow came to City of Glasgow College and we had a good attendance from both the College and Colleges across Scotland. 

I know that following this roadshow that the findings from all of the roadshows will be tested again with the wider community and opened up for comment. I hope everyone is ready to chip in their ideas - there was a lot of good thinking going on yesterday. 
Ken Thomson OBE leading event cc Tom Duff City of Glasgow College
There was a lot of good use of feedback technology in the workshop and was pleasing to see http://www.allourideas.org/ used as part of consultation - if you want an ordinal list in a survey great way to do it - driven by Adaptive Comparative Judgement.



Tongue in cheek but perhaps one of our ambitions may be to find out what Scottish FE staff use in terms of social media #digitalambition , if it's Friends Reunited and MSN Messenger -we have a journey to travel - but clearly from engagement around the #digitalambition tag , at the moment perhaps it's not Twitter ?

Thursday, October 17, 2019

#OER20 #Openscot Tell Your Story , Find out how to become an Open Practitioner , Meet an international community.

I know there is a growing amount of open education activity beyond University and College initiatives in Scotland,  for my  international readership this is the  first and the best UK and international conference on Open Education and associated practices . 
Get a paper in and/or get the date in your diary.

We are delighted to announce that the OER20 Call for Proposals in now open. The deadline for submissions is 1 December 2019.

The 11th annual OER conference for Open Education research, practice and policy will be co-chaired by Mia Zamora, Daniel Villar-Onrubia and Jonathan Shaw. Read more about the conference co-chairs.

The conference will be held from 1-2 April 2020, in London, and is themed around Care In Openness. Covering issues of privilege, equity, precarity, power relations and public interest, OER20 will put the spotlight on both the value and limitations of care in open education.

We are particularly interested in receiving proposals from people who have an interest in the following conference key themes: 

Theme 1: Openness in the age of surveillance
Theme 2: Sustainable open education communities
Theme 3: Open education for civic engagement and democracy
Theme 4: Criticality and care in open education
Theme 5: Caring pedagogies and designing for diverse communities of inclusion.

And also Wildcard submissions : open education practice, research or policy session proposals that address the overarching conference theme.

To submit your proposal, please visit our OE20 Conference website where you will find full guidance, and our submission form. The deadline for submissions is 1 December 2019.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Scottish Training Federation Conference #STF19 September 2019


I was asked to do a quick provocation for the annual gathering of all of the training providers in Scotland. Thanks to Scottish Training Federation for the kind invitation to address all of their members.

I've been about a bit , I can't believe it has been nine years since I last addressed this gathering. Some of the issues have changed and some are stubbornly the same , for training providers it is still the uncertainty of year to year funding and the scramble around the bidding and tendering processes.

My reflections in this presentation are all based on working in and around the English Vocational Reform Programme. While it has different drivers, we do not appear to be learning lessons from this coordinated reform programme in England , rather we have set a number of fires in the heather - and there may be longer term consequences in tackling vocational reform in this more piecemeal way in Scotland. We are the only home nation that does not have something called a vocational reform programme. Though we have been made lots of changes.

Most of key messages are in the presentation, as I spoke I added that we need to make more of SCQF , decide who will actually fix Digital Literacy as a core skill across vocational learning and get on with it , Do more of a push on blended learning and sharing basic learning materials across Colleges and Training Providers and work towards cost effective on-line delivery for all knowledge based areas and some skills based ones too. STF members should tune in to digital skills courses appearing in FutureLearn and from the Education and Training Foundation in England.

 

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Scottish Colleges #DigitalAmbition



I am part of this working group, so good to see this consultation now rolling out.

The College Development Network is running a series of consultation events on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council to inform the work of the #DigitalAmbition working group.

What is it all about ? : To find out what staff working in Colleges think the future of learning looks like !

Why is this important ? : There is a pot of capital funding for College buildings, but perhaps we need a pot of capital available for some national digital learning initiatives !

So the question is : What Digital Ambition do you have for Colleges in 2030 ?

Booking is now open for #DigitalAmbition roadshows.

This is your opportunity to shape the future! :
  • What will learning look like in 2030 ?
  • What will learners expect?
  • What will colleges look & feel like?
  • What will staff need to meet learner and employer expectations ?

Check out https://www.cdn.ac.uk/courses-events/ for all events.

Book here for Monday 11th of November City of Glasgow College Event https://www.events.cdn.ac.uk/ereg/index.php?eventid=488121&

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Business Breakfast #heraldAI

Guest this morning at Herald AI briefing - so these are some quick jottings on proceedings.

The Sponsors:  Cathcart Associates , Brodies , The Herald , Incremental Group and Strathclyde University. 




Image result for data science hierarchy of needs

Everyman Cinema Glasgow Princes Square - is a nice venue but no wifi.

Pre meeting coffee, met microforming man from Strathclyde, charged with buying NMIS kit for next 4 years - Strathclyde have VR suite for developers - had useful conversation around www.nmis-skills.org and the establishment of the new manufacturing centre that is centerpiece of National Manufacturing Institute Scotland.


To see other tweets from event check out #heraldAI on twitter.


Event starts with great marketing around GPT2, too dangerous to release into wild,  apparently. You can check out the back story here,  example implementation called Talk to Transformer.  And follow creator here @adamdanielking ,see it in the context of other current  AI solutions here 


Perhaps how Herald will be written soon, spotted Donald Martin Herald Editor in audience. 

Thinkpiece keynote from Dr Adam Sroka @adzsroka


Incremental Group data and AI . The organisation do Digital transformation through microsoft and associated technologies. 
Presentation gave some good examples :


  • AI and manufacturing - can now scan and find faults in sheet metal etc - autonomous inspection -
  • Retail - AI to analyse transactions around buying and returns - could focus sales and avoid customers who bought and returned most.
  • Insurance - predicting - risk and wealth - use satellite images of addresses - it’s illegal to price on ethnicity - but you can do scrabble score in surnames though. ( Hmmn  ) and hope HMRC are using the matching postcode to house image - wonder too how GDPR compliant this all is. 
  • Banks can monitor millions of transactions and stop your account when they see outlier behaviours.
  • Most banking communications now driven by AI people can text and get answer from AI not a human. 
  • McDonalds can do speech to order with AI  find Drivethru.wav speech recognition to burger order - good example.
  • Ethics and things like driverless vehicles - autonomous systems need rules
  • Data science hierarchy of needs - see heading. 
Then on to Question and Answer and some of the usual suspects on the panel - 

  • Digital Health and Care directory looking for more AI examples around Healthcare.
  • Centre of excellence in Satellite Applications Strathclyde - good question -. What are limits of data collection it does cost money and energy to collect and crunch.
  • Craig Patterson Data Lab - the aim to make Scotland famous for data - education advisor.
  • Aggreko ( the generator people )  have team of data scientists.
  • Stachastic solutions Sam Rhynas < girl geek scotland > commercial supporting data analysis for private companies - putting data at heart of business.
  • Prof Crawford Revie - data analyst working in health - data driven models to predict health outcomes - delivering new masters degree in artificial intelligence.
  • Stevie Grier Microsoft. AI example -
  • How do you analyse the data set from colonoscopy 40,000 images AI is better than consultant.
  • Martin Sloan Brodies LLP and Deryck Smith Clydesdale Bank.

Q and A 

Can you retrain business analysts to be Data scientists ? good question - I think Business Analyst covers lots of job descriptions.

Big focus on how AI is used to understand the customer actual and potential and their behaviours.
There is real fear and lack of understanding of how AI can bring benefits and a lot is simply still process automation - look where you have seen AI drive value and how you apply this to your own business.


AI danger of introducing bias in workflow - if not thought through.
Amazon example - used past data and then found no change in recruitment metrics - bias had been built into system - by using past data as system training methodology - they built in bias.

AI as seventh consultant - offers another opinion- human experts evaluate this - perhaps improves decision making.

Stephen Grier cites - thriving Modern Apprenticeship programme - but still 10/12k people shortfall digital skills - Stephen - banish word computing - industry pays on average 25% more than other occupations. Amen but familiar cry.

Check out 99% invisible podcasts and articles

Brexit is starting to drive skill shortages - BI < business intelligence systems > programmers not enough people doing this.

How do we promote neural diversity , maths is creative , mix of skills , data lab supports placements , daydream believers creates learning materials for teachers to help them understand . I knew about this but good to share again.

In banking used to prevent fraud - almost AI v AI and money is becoming obsolete.
In remote places card machines are easier than cash - when there is no bank to bank the cash. This is to me counterintuitive .  I think this is wishful thinking from the Clydesdale bank - case study Argyll where apparently you are most likely to see signs saying card payments only. I am wondering if this is, as all the rural banks have been closed down. I'm still used to seeing cash only in remote communities in Scotland. 


Usual collective moan from panel mostly composed of industry, it is  all education's fault apparently. 

Kudos, I think to Strathclyde who have just started an MSC in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. 

As a throw away someone recommended
Book -The 100 Year Life


Useful event now scrambling back to work.


That's all folks ! 

Friday, August 30, 2019

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 16.30-18.30 Sighthill Campus, Edinburgh College #NMIS #Openscot Please RT


 


I haven't posted on this for a while but this has been keeping us really busy and attracting a lot of interest around both the open assets and how we did this . The model is applicable to lots of cross educational partnerships. The NMIS is finally making the news more regularly too - as bidding opens for construction of the physical centre.


Here is an opportunity to meet the team and find out more - book up now event is free , places are limited.


The National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) www.nmis-skills.org is a unique networked partnership of Colleges and Universities across Scotland with digital learning resources for everyone and tailored programmes of CPD for those with an interest in Industry4.0.


Come along to our Edinburgh Teachmeet to find out about the partnership, the resource and how to become an ambassador. This is relevant to all staff in Colleges, Schools, Training Providers and Higher Education institutions interested in digital skills and industry4.0.


Edinburgh Teachmeet
You are invited to our Teachmeet to promote digital skills, sharing and collaboration.
A Teachmeet is an organised (but informal) meeting where participants are offered a variety of nano (two-minute) or macro (seven-minute) presentations on any aspect of education.
Participants can be actively involved as presenters, or can simply relax and listen to all that will be on offer.


Click to book your place as a participant or as a presenter now!


Date: Wednesday 2nd October 2019
Time: 16.30-18.30
Location: Sighthill Campus, Edinburgh College, Bankhead Ave, Edinburgh EH11 4DE

Please share this information widely with your colleagues- we look forward to seeing you on 2nd October!







Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Musings on Educational Technology and Learning


Thanks to ALT and CMALT Programme Pages for image 

I was asked by a commercial organisation some questions around where I think technology around learning and assessment is currently and where it might be going .  I was presenting this week too at the Scottish Qualifications E-Assessment Group - so probably good time to share this generic thinking. Think some of CEAG stuff will be shared at a later date. The questions here specifically about work based learning.


What do you recognise as the current, most effective methods in training and assessment?


This is two questions but I think you mean in a formal learning and training setting where assessment is linked to training and competency assessment for regulatory purposes in the workplace.



Is there particular types of training you feel would best suited to deliver through technology, and is there other types you feel should stay the same in the way it's delivered?

It is actually all about cost and efficacy, some things are always best demonstrated in real life - so the skill and assessment at same time , But increasingly simulation will be used for formative assessment - how can AR and VR be used to give candidate experience without cost of running full summative assessment . Been happening for along time in things like pilot training or even container ship skippering - where people spend hours working through simulations both to develop basic skills and to deal with hazardous situations that could not practically be assessed in real life .You are also beginning to see good application artificial intelligence to both guide learners through materials and to assess their capabilities.


Training should be as real as possible and observed and recorded for reflection and evaluation, that should be staying the same.  


What are your reasons for that?

Almost everything that is knowledge and understanding should by now be assessed on line - dependent on nature of content by MCQ , Short answer questions etc - or simply assessed at same time by candidate being filmed performing the task and through this demonstrating they have the underpinning knowledge. This is within all organisation reach. 


What technologies do you use or know of that are in use today to train, develop and assess the workforce?


It is actually all about cost and efficacy, some things are always best demonstrated in real life - so the skill and the assessment at same time , But increasingly simulation will be used for formative assessment - how can Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality be used to give the candidate experience without cost of running a full summative assessment . Been happening for a long time in things like pilot training or even container ship skippering - where people spend hours working through simulations both to develop basic skills and to deal with hazardous situations that could not practically or cost effectively be assessed in real life.

Policy can be real barrier. In England the switch back to End Point Assessment in apprenticeships will actually skew the value of the assessments and have added a lot of cost to the assessment process. 
What are the benefits or challenges with using these technologies?

I've worked as an  independent educational consultant and  in large organisations, I use and appraise regularly a range of platforms and technologies - they all come with own benefits and challenges - the main thing is to pick technology that fits the aims and outcomes of the learning. Make sure it is as future proof as it can be and uses standards that are open. 


For training it's got to be video - at entry level a youtube channel - but you can use lots of platforms , for delivery you need a Virtual Learning Environment  or Learning Management System  - you choose - VLE normal in education LMS in workplace learning - systems have own strengths and weaknesses .  An e-portfolio and reflective approach if done properly along with some MCQs probably the most effective approach for learner - but often regulatory requirements stipulate assessment strategies. 

VLE/ Moodle/ Canvas / Brightspace/ Google Classroom - I am seeing as core currently or relevant LMS Totora , People Soft , Bridge etc in workplace environment 
The main challenge is getting whatever platform embedded in practice - the default for many trainers is still paper and or email. 


Do you know of any future technologies that will enhance training, development and assessment? What are you doing, if anything, to prepare for these new methods?


I am working with City of Glasgow College currently they have the full package of useful platforms that enable on-line assessment and feedback - Turnitin , Gradebooks etc 
We've invested in content Blended Learning Consortium , a platform for video - ( Clickview) , we are working out how to use Google Apps for Education and Microsoft 365 particularly teams in supporting our training.


We train training staff in use of H5P so they can build their own interactive content when they need it and we are working out how to get them thinking about learning design. So the VLE is more than a collection of powerpoints and word documents and 
we  are no longer reliant of a few staff with higher level learning object creation skills. 

We are looking at systems around artificial intelligence - how it can support learner journey , Blockchain - how badges can be linked to certification and verified evidence 
In a College setting we are looking at how we can share more open educational resources - massive open on-line courses may be beyond us - but we have platforms that can do the same. We should have offers for students and the broader community who can't engage with formal education .  Where you can everyone should be giving away learning materials. See Open Scotland Declaration. 


But it does mean we need to get all staff to think about digital learning design - it is more than blended learning or flipping the classroom - you can plan and use new delivery and collaborative learning strategies. - you need to re-think your engagement strategies.  In old money you lesson plans need to be different. Have a look at ABC Learning Design.

What are the barriers to using technology to train, develop or assess staff?  


These get lower all the time but often it is the digital skills of the staff who are being asked to change their delivery skills to a blended one that requires less face to face time. 
Learners in the main lap up being able to learn and be assessed at times and on devices that suit them.


It should leave trainers more time to focus on the learners who are struggling.
In Glasgow not everyone has broadband but most learners have a smartphone ! 


Our Skills Landscape work highlighted a shift towards new, innovative ways of learning including the use of simulation in training.  Do you think there will be a drastic change to the way we learn in the short term (5 – 10 years)?


Yes I do - what is holding things back is probably regulatory environment and the skill sets of training and assessment companies - and to be fair it is still the cost of some technologies,  building a simulation is still expensive and repurposing one - if for instance the assessment rubric changes can be equally expensive - I think we may see some more partnerships with games industry around building and creation of simulations. Or whole area may be rethought Augmented Reality and layering questions and problems over other media is probably more cost effective than full Virtual Reality. 


Have you received feedback from your workforce regarding recent training?  Any comments on what has worked well or what they would change?


A lot of the regulatory  mandatory training is simply bought off the shelf - repurposed slightly - company logo etc and delivered in chunks through VLE or LMS generally its is not very good - but delivers an audit record of those who have read materials and passed assessment - staff find it boring but realise it is a necessity - it should be better than this . As cost of development of materials come down we are creating and developing more materials in house. 
What is working well - re-thinking approaches building closer partnership with Google for instance - see www.nmis-skills.org for example 


How do you think we can assure competency using technology? 


Yes,  you certainly can - sampling and all the things you need should now be on line - audit trails , analytics , lots of things that should make both internal and external verfication easier across a very broad range of assessment strategies. And a lot of things I've suggested already - around real practical skills it is hard to fake doing something on video.
For the learner they should have an on-line digital portfolio showing their on-going CPD - 

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Wednesday, March 27, 2019

NMIS-Skills Soft Launch #NMIS



 I've sent out some initial invitations tonight to what will become a different sort of on-line community. The targets and mission are clear . You can find them here on the website . I'll move this post across to the project's blog site in next day or two.

While for some there is not much new in webinars and some teachmeets , nor in driving at the torpidness of the education sector and industry around sharing learning materials and knowledge. There are still many who have not changed their methods of working and we are really going to have a go at it in an innovative way.

What has been done before :

  • We are trying to summarise a lot of the excellent work that is already out there in one place.

What is new:

  • We are trying to model best practice by using open tools and resources and sharing with a creative commons licence.
  • We will showcase tools that are within the reach of anyone.  
  • We have quite a compelling offer for ambassadors. 
  • We are mapping our offer to the digital competency frameworks for education as they exist in Scotland, so that the offer is relevant to all who wish to boost their skills in collaborating , sharing and co-creating.
  • There will be plenty of space for collaborating and working together. 

The only thing that is out of scope is the kind of support that staff get already from within their own institutions and organisations . So we will be talking about learning design and tools for building learning content but we won't be talking use of specific virtual learning environments.

We have started by sucking up and pointing to the useful courses and resources that we know about already. We do know when the discussion gets going there are many that we have not discovered yet.

To some,  the website and resources,  might look a bit different . The whole resource is being built in a way that we hope can move from being a website with some interesting bits to being a community resource owned and led by the ambassadors.  This is thanks to some creative thinking and support from  Google Apps for Education.

I am sure this won't be without some initial technical hitches - but that is what learning is all about.

I'm afraid everyone can't be ambassadors, our target is membership from Scottish Schools , Colleges, Universities , Employers and Work-based learning providers with an interest in Industry4.0 and the innovation centres and agencies in Scotland around this. If we break some of the silos down around this we will have achieved our mission.

So why this post - if you work in one of the above please consider becoming an ambassador and start following NMIS-Skills . Have a look around the website and feedback please.

If you are from my network  and the bigger wider world of digital skills for education and open learning, then let us know what we need to add to help our community find your resources.