CLIPP Board

Good CoP

from acorns.....

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We recently held our inaugural internal e-portfolio community of practice (ae-PiG) meeting.  The plan is to hold these on a regular basis both face to face and run an online dialogue. The online discussions will of course be using some of the tools built into PebblePad, e.g. blogs, or shared comments on specific assets.

The first meeting was well attended by representatives covering; placement roles, academic tutors, graduate employment support staff, technical support and students.  We discussed the application of e-portfolios in the current economic climate of enhancing graduate attributes, with regard to personal development planning (ePDP) and the Higher Education Achievement Record  (HEAR).

Minor technical gripes were thrashed out along with a look to the future, regarding our impending upgrade to version 2.5.  We discussed the potential of Blackboard and Turnitin “plug-ins” which are both on the horizon (summer 2011).  Enhancements such as these plug-ins promise to improve and potentially join up the core systems here at Aston, which will add value from both the teaching and students experience perspective.

Themes for future meetings were agreed as;

1)      Assessing and supporting reflective statements e.g. digital stories.

2)      Assessing (or not) the quality of submitted webfolios.

3)      Collaboration/collaborative learning  was muted as common ongoing theme for future meetings.

The next breakfast meeting is planned for mid Jan’ 2011.

On that topic, I am also involved in a JISC funded project aimed at developing and fostering a community of practice for e-portfolio pedagogies for work-based  and life-long learning through a synthesis of existing practice focusing on identifying the key principles from that practice that can be applied elsewhere.  Please join our CoP, and attend some of the live sessions due Jan’ 2011:  http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2201

BUFVC Survey 2010

As users of BUFVC services at Aston I would like to encourage you to head over to the  2010 BUFVC Feedback Survey. Further details of the survey:

The (BUFVC) is currently undertaking a survey regarding the general use of moving image and sound in the learning environment and in particular the use of BUFVC services and resources by its members.

Your opinion is important to us. An anonymous summary of the feedback received will be fed into the review that the BUFVC is currently undergoing. This review is being conducted for the JISC as part of its portfolio review activity.

The survey is intended for all users of the BUFVC services and resources.  This can include librarians/information staff, AV/IT support, academics, researchers, students, e-learning specialists, administration staff etc.

Its only a short survey and as an added incentive you can win £200 worth of Amazon vouchers.

New Tools

I recently attended the JISC Learning and Teaching Practice Experts Group, held in Birmingham.  The day was full of small presentations and updates on various JISC funded projects.

The two projects which resonated with me in terms of helping to embed technology enhanced learning were the Learning Design Support Environment (LDSE), which is a new tool being developed to help educators design technology enhanced activities, aligned to the assessment.  This new environment/authoring tool is being developed from two existing projects  (phoebe pedagogic planner and LSE) which are both worth investigating.

The second project of note is a new curriculum design toolkit developed by the http://qaqe-sig.net/ . I have begun to adapt this for our work here at Aston in terms of promoting a deeper undestanding of the e-business and support processes involved with delivering blended or purely distance learning. ALT have a Word.doc version of the above toolkit to customise.

Curriculum redesigned

I recently attended a JISC webinar highlighting the changes that a cluster of projects in the JISC Curriculum Delivery programme have made to their delivery methods, highlighting how these changes have delivered improvements to learner progress and employability through use of different supporting technologies.

Each project demonstrated the necessity to start at curriculum design level if you really want to make a difference to changing learning from transmissionist to transformative. Thus achieve the desired outputs of enhancing learning, greater engagement, higher achievement, better progression and of course employability.

Two favourites were the springboard TV platform which serves as both a learning space and a showcase, and the Lewisham e-portfolios linked to their VLE. Demonstrating learners at the heart of the learning process, being given opportunities to take greater control and using the technology to support the pedagogy.

The four projects narrated were;

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