February 2009

Monday 2nd February – the day the draft plan’s due. Looks like I might be working from home today!

Along with the snow this month, we also had our first visit from Andrew Comrie – how he managed to get from Scotland to Lewisham on the day the college re-opened amazed me. It was great to meet up with him (eat some more chocolate chip cookies) and get some feedback on the draft plan that had just been submitted.

Later in the month we also met with Lisa and her colleagues from JISC and were able to introduce them to other key players involved in the project and again got some really good feedback about our draft plan. This really made us think about how much we would achieve during the life of the project and the final plan reflects the more focused approached we are now following. In line with this we have revised our vision to reflect this.

The core components of “Making the new Diploma a Success” will be:

My Learning – this is the VLE element of the Portal, offering learners access to their course materials, resources available from the Learning Resource Centre, a range of formative assessment tools and opportunities to collaborate using forums, discussion boards and chat facilities.

Reflections on My Work – will focus around the e-Portfolio where learners can store their work, create CVs, reflect on their learning through the use of a blog and showcase what they have produced with tutors, peers and prospective employers.

Planning for Progression – will primarily be the learners’ e-ILP enabling them to work with tutors and support staff to articulate their personal goals, set realistic targets and evaluate their progress towards these.

My Support – will provide an online support network to enable learners to make the most of their time at College and support them in making possible and realistic choices about their future.

My College – will feature College news and events, will enable learners to have their say, get involved and contribute to College life.

January 2009

The year began well with a launch to the Diploma team during our January learning days. Separate sessions took place reviewing the Moodle facilities with both curriculum and support staff. There’s still a lot of work to do structuring the site but the teams are all enthusiastic and raring to go. We’re looking at how various different technologies can enhance learning and the team were able to feed back on what was happening in the school with Mobile Devices, Web Conferencing and Google Applications. We hope to pilot a selection of components and applications during this academic year in order to inform the Learner Portal that will be introduced to Diploma learners in September.

Bev (she’s doing our evaluation – you can link to her blog on the right) and I attended the JISC evaluation event in Birmingham which was really worthwhile (especially the chocolate cookie evaluation) and left us with a lot to think about. It also gave us an opportunity to catch up with the other members of our cluster group and meet our critical friend Andrew Comrie.

November/December 2008

The project really started to get going after the start-up meeting at the University of Warwick where we got the opportunity to meet staff from other institutions and find out about the different projects. We were allocated cluster groups based on the main project areas of interest and we are working with Kingston College, Kingston/De Montfort University and the College of West Anglia.

Following the start up meeting we came back and started to put the detailed plan together by presenting the vision to those who would be involved, agreeing roles and responsibilities and forming a steering group. These discussions not only enthused our stakeholders but also helped us to clarify our objectives and work began on setting up Moodle to provide the core components.

Meetings took place between our technical team and the guys at ULCC to agree how the databases would be populated and the eLearning team worked with them to create an initial look and feel.