Think piece for College reviewing its thinking about educational technology and blended learning

1. Sector leading practice
pedagogy, retention and
attainment
The eternal Trinity – but all
about a sense of achievement
for all
Joe Wilson

2. And they are all linked to -
New technologies
New pedagogies
New science of learning
Optimism is a choice ! As are high
expectations !

3. Pedagogy
Where are the MOOC’s being used ? Do you promote
course from EdX, Coursera and Future Learn as staff
and learner development opportunities
Where are you in developing and exemplifying Staff
digital skills ?
Do you value and develop Learner’s digital skills ?
Do you make the most of Windows 10 , the network , the
VLE , Mahara , Microsoft 365 , Do all learners have an
eportfolio or somewhere to showcase their own work ?
Are you using technology effectively for internal
verification ?

4. Pedagogy
How much learning happens out of the
classroom ?
How much can you open up to schools and the
community ?
How much can you deliver directly into the
workplace
Do you learn from workplaces ?
Where are you with Communications /
Numeracy / Digital Literacy ?

5. Pedagogy Green Shoots in
Scotland - some examples
• Forth Valley College and their ‘Pandas’ allowing extinction of
unefficient work practices
Allowing course teams to plan and integrate delivery – volunteers –
but changing face of delivery
• West College Scotland 4-6K learners doing ‘free’ on-line courses
and positioning as Microsoft champion for sector
• Clyde College – learning object repository and developing
learning lab at Langside Campus with new technology
• UHI doing good work but behind all hidden in VLE
• What next – if you are thinking mobile learning – and more user
friendly interface – what about https://www.canvas.net/ life after
Moodle ?

6. Pedagogy Some Tools used
around the system -
• Turnitin http://turnitin.com/ Used as a learner
development tool rather than just plagiarism
checker
• https://www.clickview.co.uk/ integrating video
clips into learning
• https://www.lynda.com/ being used for staff and
learner development
• Do you make the most of Jisc Collections e-
books ? Hardly any colleges in Scotland make
effective use of this free resource –Why ?
https://www.jisc.ac.uk/e-books-for-fe

7. Pedagogy More tools used around
the system
Are you making the most of Blended Learning
Essentials
• https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/blended-learning-
getting-started
• Have you thought about accessing cHow about free
support from the Open University OEPS Project ? –
learning materials on understanding open learning
straight into your moodle ?
• http://www.open.edu/openlearnworks/course/view.php
?id=2274
• Content from the Blended Learning Consortium ?
http://www.blc-fe.org/

8. Pedagogy – staff development
• Are you making the most of SQA ?
Eportfolio work , Online Assessments , Learning Resources , Quality Data
• Are you making the most of CDN ?
Workshops on classroom practice ? Highly rated and still free
• Where are you with GLOW ? - a gateway to schools and resources and
underused by Colleges – GlowTV ? What could college contribute to schools
across Scotland ?
• Are you using Khan Academy well ? How about Citizen Maths ? Or
https://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/star-dash-studios
• Have you picked up and are you using Jisc materials and or pilots around
Students and digital learning journeys ? Get involved – work around digital
capabilities, delivery and assessment.

9. Retention ?
• Do you do analytics ? – and how much
can they help course teams ? Tutors ?
Learners ?
• Have you picked up on any of the Jisc
pilots ? Get involved this will help you
build the institutional dashboard you
need.

10. Attainment and Achievement
• For learners it is about making it real - It’s all about work placement or relevant external inputs
– work with teaching staff to make sure learning and assessment tasks are authentic.
• For Staff - “promoting and participating in teacher learning and development” has twice the
impact (effect size) as the next most effective activity – “planning, coordinating and evaluating
teaching and the curriculum”
• What Dylan William says about closing attainment gap in schools holds true for Colleges
https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Pages/sac42-dylan-wiliam-key-drivers-for-
educational-transformation.aspx Highest impact slide for me tells us that attainment gap often
not between schools but across classrooms in same school . If we improve learning and
teaching across institution can have biggest impact on closing attainment gaps. Improvement
Hub has useful information for Colleges as well as schools !
• Remember last year’s global award winning teacher – was putting his own maths lessons on
youtube – that should be within reach of many teachers ! And it could be in the reach of some
of your learners ! Look at co-creation !

11. Who are the unseen competition ?
Who are getting it right but Colleges might not notice ! QA
Powered by Canvas eating up IT apprenticeship market

12. Based in Scotland delivering globally – if you can deliver
Art on line you can deliver most things

13. College lecturer opened up his photography
class to world and made history

14. Can’t get to school ? It is no longer a lonely experience
with peripatetic teacher visiting you. You can be in an online class
with a teacher and class mates you can see

15. Google Moonshot 2015
Reaching out into community
Gamification
Global communities
Task orientated
Industry engagement
Learner generated content
Crowd sourcing and
collaborative learning
Challenges of Education are challenges
that big global corporates see too

16. Are you ready?
• WiFi ?
• Social Software policy ?
• BYOD ?
• Open Moodle ?
• Digital literacy and Digital participation for all – what do you do when a
learner can’t access a browser ?
• Who are your digital leaders – in the staff room and in the classroom?
• Do you have any open practitioners ?
• What’s your policy on Open Educational Resources ?
• Where can I start ?
• Which apps do you use ? What apps do the learners use ?
• What collections ?
• Where , how do you share, reuse , remix ?

17. Digital Launchpad service
Using data and functions from other new
Jisc services
Digital
Launchpad
service
App and
content store
Digital
capabilities
discovery tool
and CPD
playlists
This is about to arrive and you ready to make the most of this ?

18. Jisc Digital Capability Framework for staff and learners

19. What next?
Beyond MOOCs Open Education and Creative Commons
Licensing - have a look at open.ed.ac.uk see how Edinburgh
University are moving – Colleges can do this too – Have a look at
Canvas.com it could be next step on journey
A tutor for every learner – sounds far fetched but not that far off –
look out for more and more artificial intelligence AI in assessments
– where are you with systems in maths and literacy and digital
literacy ? You can use some of the on-line tools already in public
domain
Everyone should have their own personal learning space and be
able to cope with collaborative and social learning How to combine
the learning benefits of social and personal learning – The answer
to protect staff and students is not facebook – have you seen
Learnium ? Do you know where and how learners store their
important book marks – where do staff share these ?
19

20. What Next ?
Learning is already happening out with the classroom embrace this and embed it in your own
teaching and learning – have you noticed that evening classes have disappeared – time to think
about new offerings ! Tie this in with your blended learning strategy –
Facilitating informal learning have you seen Barclays Digital Driving Licence , or Google Academy or
Google Garage – and lots more – how do you embed this in delivery ?
For staff in support and delivery and for learners you should be building runway to lifelong
professional development
Connecting learning in workplaces and classrooms – do you and your staff have a personal
learning network are you helping learners to build their own ? Everyone needs a personal learning
network that stretches beyond the institution and ideally globally
New forms of certification and accreditation
Open Badges have a place in this and Blockchain technologies for education – you are doing
open badges already with digital literacy in community – what else do you need to give these more
value. Learners should have these on their Linkedin profiles . The online CV
Analytics
Big data analytics to support learning – AI and use of what was Tin Can Api now called XAPI Will
never replace knowing your learners – but should support learners in knowing their own strengths
and weaknesses

21. Right out there – classes you could fill
• Manufacturing 3.0
• Web optimisation
• Analytics
• Ad Words
• Gumtree / Ebay sellers
• Youtuber
• Drone Pilots
• Whitegood repairers – learning on youtube !
• Managing your AirBnB / servicing Airbnb
• Makerspaces/mensheds and new forms of learner engagement
• Start up support / incubators
• New programme development does not have to be a long and
painful process !

22. How I use digital space
Pre-internet: Banda Machines, photocopiers, OHP projectors, Epidiascopes,
electronic typewriters , Gestetners …
Post-internet Timeline:
When What Why
1996 – Webpage using free hosting Teaching notes or useful links on line
for my classes and anyone else
2000 – Blogger Reflections as a practitioner open
2001 – JISCMail Part of many on-line communities
2001 – RSS feed Reader – currently Digg Efficient scanning of relevant
resources
2003 – PB Wiki and Wikis Collaborative platform when needed
2003 – Website on own domain Some personal branding and more
space
2003 – Delicious Bookmarks in once place and
accessible every where
2005 – Dropbox/One Drive Easy sharing of information
2005 – Skype Why travel you can still face to face
2006 – You Tube Channel Make your own and/or curate useful
collection for your learners
2006 – Flickr CC images and make your own

23. When What Why
• 2006 – LinkedIn On line story of who and what I do
and links to peers
• 2006 – Slideshare Sharing my work and accessing work
of others – great learning
• 2007 – Twitter Sharing my learning journey and
sharing it with like minds – great
source of links and ideas
• 2007 – Hootsuite Coping with lots of connections on
twitter efficiently
• 2008 – Paper.li Effective way to share best bits of
twitter and more – syndication
• 2009 – Foursquare/Swarm Learning about places and sharing as
you go
• 2009 – Creative commons
licensing
Not an tool but a way of thinking
about open education !
• 2010 – Pinterest , Yammer More collections and networking
• 2011 – Google Apps/Docs Where I do most of my work now
• 2012 – Google+ hangouts Why travel you can still face to face
• 2013 – Glow , Make your own and curate useful
collection for your learners
• 2013 - Event Brite You can organise conferences easily

24. When / What Why ?
2013 Microsoft 365 Lots of storage – easy to use –
useful tools – global community for
educators
2013 Padlet Great tool for workshops and
feedback
2014 Basecamp Running on-line projects with
distributed teams
2015 Nuzzle Best bits of twitter and blogs
delivered to my inbox
2016 Simply Book Me Allows me to manage multiple
appointments as a consultant
without a PA
Apps 2010 – now Apps Too many to list – getting better all
the time this year’s finds Memrise ,
Photo Math
2015 Persicope Live event streaming almost forgot

25. Not listed
• All the other tools I use in other bits of my life
like Facebook , Trip Advisor Guitar playing
communities etc - you need to keep your
personal and professional digital identities
separate.
• And not listed all the different platforms that
have disappeared over the years

26. JoeWilson@joewilsons.net
Follow @joecar on Twitter
www.joewilsons.net
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