e-Learning by Bicabel

Enjoy eLearning Games

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:30:00 +0000

3 Minute eLearning Games

These are eLearning programs with reusable games and exercises.

Theres is a free trial using a login.

Preview of over 50 models of eLearning games, exercises and activities. Reuse them as many times as you wish.

Some advantages of virtual teaching or learning

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Of all the advantages VLEs for teaching/learning offer, I think the most important one, is the facility of access and usability to acquire new knowledge for people with disabilities. They find it easier to do a course without the need of moving from home.

Another great advantage of this kind of learning is that it offers the possibility of reflection about how we are learning/teaching, and gives the opportunity to do it better next time looking back at the stored information. You cannot stored this in your traditional classroom lessons unless you were able to record them with a video camera!

It also gives students the opportunity to learn at their own pace increasing, at the same time, their learning autonomy which will be very important for them as learners and as professionals.

It is much more learner-centred because teachers can correct learners individually, as if they were your own private instructors.

It usually works as a linker between cultures, too. You can meet peers or teachers from other different countries in your course, giving you the chance to interact or collaborate together with them.

Another of its outstanding characteristics is that it is very flexible talking in terms of space and time. You can enter to share your knowledge, do your homework, submit your tests, send your assignments, etc. at the hour that best suits you and write as much as you need and then correct your writing or your learners one before sending it to be read by the other students and instructor, for instance.

It is a good time-saver. You don't need to travel from home to attend to nor to teach your lessons, neither arrive late to them due to traffic jams!

In terms of order, space and revision, it is very useful, of course. Learners and teachers used to waste a lot of time storing their notes taking, summaries, commentaries, etc. They also need a place to have all of these together with books and other materials on hand. But when you are taking or teaching a course online everything is in order and in its right place stored for you to check once and again and come back over it as many times as you need. And...it does not take any space at home, if it is not a blended course!

I have taken more than 8 courses online as a student, appart from being teaching with ANGEL Learning and Elluminate Alive!, at the moment, though I have used other ones previously like Wimba or Lyceus. I find both asynchronous and synchronous tools very useful and not difficult to manage neither for a teacher nor for students. I am very fond of these kind of courses, as you can see!.

We must remember that feedback, given in time, is a very important characteristic in this kind of tuition and very useful if you want to learn from peers, too.

Oh, learning or teaching online is another way to keep your knowledge updated about new technologies for information and communication !

Are you an stressed teacher?

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Mon, 17 May 2010 08:29:00 +0000

Glad to read this Yahoo News,

' Are Singapore teachers overworked?'

I was thinking I was the only one to be overworked as an online teacher, when I realized that my course had been deleted on the second week of my Spanish for Health Care Professionals (course I developped & teach at CDL, at SUNY ) during the Nov. 2009 Term. You can't imagine what stress is till this hapen to you! Can you imagine what this means till you can see it again online as it was...and in just a week?... fighting by e-mail with technitians who don't know a Spanish word at all!! Funny, isn't?

Well, thanks God we were given an "enlargement" (without being paid more, of course!) and the course , in the end, was finished by me, late in February 2010!!!

Oh, another good fact! In my country, Spain, figures say that 90% of public teachers -all of them civil servants = good salary & a secure post for the rest of their lives! =>nothing to worry about economics!- are going to the psychiatrist 'cose they're depressed!! Any clues about why?

Some "silly" ideas come to my mind about their possible causes (poor of them!!):

1 - Students' lack of motivation.

2 - Contents have nothing to do with real life and new technology dealing with & quicky need of teachers' adaptation to them.

3 - Contents too long to be taught during planned too short hours.

4 - Most students behave more like animals in a jungle ...than in a classroom, 'couse they are getting bored with such non-sensical-for-them-contents & depressed & un-motivated teachers, they now more about TIC than their teachers' do, etc.

5 - Let's start at the first reason and read it again, once and again.

My tip: "Don't worry , be happy!" ... sooner or later all of us will be dead!! };=D

Best,

BI

e-Learning con Huamour Cap 5 Sexizando el español

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:13:00 +0000

ANUNCIO DE CLASE DE INGLÉS ONLINE PARA ADULTOS SUPERDOTADOS

NOTA INTERESANTE para mis alumnos adultos Americanos de Spanish 1, en SUNY:

NOTE: "EstudiantAs"/ intead "estudiantes = "Silly Spanish word" that comes from stupid polititians , as they have nothing more important to do, like dealing with economics crisis... they are trying to tuun Spanish into a "NON -sexist one", as if languages had a SEX, intead people..well.

So they say in they meeAtings, ... just with the wise intention to waste the time of their followers:

"Queridos estudiantes y estudiantAs".

Like our "Ministra de Cultura" says. Poor of HER!! She believes that it is turnig a word into "género femenino"... instead showhing she's just completely silly & withour Culture, at all!!

Spain...What a wonderful country.!

Isn't it, Dear Reader?

*********

¿Qué no lo ha comprendido?

What a pitty!!

Si usted no ha sido kapaz de NO comprender lo k está eskrito akí..¡tiene un serio problema kon su komprensión eskrita, tanto del inglés, komo del español!!

¿Le akonsejo k me eskriba Vd. un Komentario con su direkción de e-mail (k borraré inkluso antes de k Googl lo lea!!), para ke usted tenga la suerte de ser mi alumn@ de Konversación de inglés para adultos super-dotados con Klases Online/ Intenet..kieroo decir...

¡Y no es broma!

¡A lah, ya lo sabe...si Vd. qkiere..¡¡Puede!

¡¡Se lo digo yo!!
¡Si yo fui kapaz de aprender inglés... ¡y komencé a los 26 años...!! ¡siendo ahora, prákticamente "bilingüal" pork tengo 2 lengüas="tongues"... ¡Qué tongo!!

¿Cómo no va a poder Vd.?

**
Y le aKonsejo k no Kopie y pegue este texto en ningún sitio... pk kONTIENE VIRUS!! ¡¡je; je!!

BI

My comment 1 about ESC website redesign

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:48:00 +0000

At first sight the design looks great!

But:

1. The designer must take into account that the CDL has got students with disabilities, and they must count. SO ESC web must be "readable" and "watchable" and the same time.

I recommend the web designer to take into account these 2 websites for info:

a) Understanding accessibility: http://www-03.ibm.com/able/access_ibm/disability.html

b) The Center for Universal Design - Universal Design Principles: http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/about_ud/udprinciples.htm

All of this must be taken into account:
- Usability (easy to navigate)

- Easy access (for every body: colors of characters, background, links, etc. avoiding greys and such small characters as it has, though I used the zoom, I cannot read them properly, sorry!) I know orange is the color of ESC logo, but why not use it only in bars to separate instead writing over it? I’m afraid it’s not sight-shorted/blind people friendly!)

- Images with an Alt Tag with a brief explanation to be read (The image banner is not readable: no message when you scroll over it!

- Clear navegation-bars and research windows with a bigger image and more readable characters (the letters on these windows are too small, impossible to read!…the same with the ones that open the windows over the banner!)

- A friendly interface design similar to this one. HOME pages created with Flash are less heavy to download for navigators, and show a much more corporative but some times are less accessible, characters usually are static, size of text cannot be changed for bigger ones!

I'll have another look later to see how it goes.

I appreciate the effort.

Regards,

Berta-Isabel

Madrid, Spain, 21, Sept, 2009

Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 12:42:00 +0000

The key findings of the report are:

1. Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.

2. Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction.

3. Studies in which learners in the online condition spent more time on task than students in the face-to-face condition found a greater benefit for online learning.

4. Most of the variations in the way in which different studies implemented online learning did not affect student learning outcomes significantly.

5. The effectiveness of online learning approaches appears quite broad across different content and learner types.

6. Effect sizes were larger for studies in which the online and face-to-face conditions varied in terms of curriculum materials and aspects of instructional approach in addition to the medium of instruction.

7. Blended and purely online learning conditions implemented within a single study generally result in similar student learning outcomes.

8. Elements such as video or online quizzes do not appear to influence the amount that students learn in online classes.

9. Online learning can be enhanced by giving learners control of their interactions with media and prompting learner reflection.

10. Providing guidance for learning for groups of students appears less successful than does using such mechanisms with individual learners.

Detailed statistics are provided in this full report: "Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning. A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies"

This report is also available on the Department’s Web site

***********

Reflecting about Training

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Since I was told I was going to teach online from March 2006, I started to worry about how to do it. Despite my 21 years of experience teaching English lessons I had never taught a distance one. Much more complicated seemed to me by doing it within 6 hours of difference that separated my schedule from my students' one, and without being able to see my students faces.

What I centered first was in being able to manage the tools I was going to implement during my lessons. In 2006 we were still using an old LMS, which had been especially developed for the SUNY. But it wa not so bad as you can imagine, though less flexible and with less possibilities than ANGEL Learning –the one we are using now- offers. So since September 2005 till the end of February 2006 I was doing training courses without stopping. I learnt how to navigate in that Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to familiarize with all the facilities they would offer me when I had to be an Instructor by myself. I photocopied all these courses I took, and still keep them. They are important to have a look back and remember how it was compared with how it is now.

Important facilities we had and lack of now were:

1. The threads to follow discussions in forums were separeted according to replays, and now are mixed up without being able to clarify which one follows another.

2. When correcting my students writings you clic onto the “red pen” and could correct all of them without stopping once and again to select color each time you move forwards or backwards in the checking. It seems a silly thing, but it saved me a lot of time.

Well, during those training days, apart from learning about our VLE, I read different articles about the Empire State College teaching policy, evaluation and assessment. It was completely different from how I used to do it. Because I used to anote in sheets of paper the records with entries for all the skills my students were pactising every day. Here quizzes grades were going to be automatically archived after taking them.

I also received a training course about how to deal with Live Classroom. The Wimba webcast I had to use for my Oral Practice lessons as a Teacher Assisstant (TA). Only one day, and it was not enough. So I entered several days into it, till I was sure I could manage it alone, and without the “help” of its guide.

I believe it is important to know all of the advantages a tool gives you, though you are not going to use all of them in your courses. In Live Classroom I could share with my students any kind of programme I could open in my own desk. So I had the possibility to produce a great variety of contents in several formats adecuate for my Oral Lessons: PowerPoint Presentations, webs, videos, podcasts, images, any kind of sounds, etc. The board gave the possibility to use it as if I were in my own classroom in front of my students. But soon I realized that webcast lacked of the Spanish symbols and that if, for instance, if I wanted to write these characters in a sentence : ñ, ¿, ´ I was not going to be able to do it. So I asked Wimba to incorporate the International keyboard into their webcast, what they did as soon as they could. Another thing they added, after my request, was the possibility to send students to other rooms when I was teaching in the Main one. I am happy with this tool because I can archive all of my Oral practise lessons for my students review whenever they like, or for learners who could not attend that day having the advantage of entering when they are available to pracise them by themselves. As the Tracking of the tool gives information about who came to my lessons, and who later watch them, this facilitates my task to control their Attendance Report.

Tracking is also a very useful tool ANGEL has got, keeking the record of all kind of activities learners do: entries, tasks, submissions, etc. Following very precisely all kind of movements students do in a course. This can give an Instructor a clear idea about how a student is doing in his/her course.

The Gradebook that is incorporated in ANGEL is very useful,too, and saves you a lot of time. The only thing should be improved is that it should be able to get the average grade from forums grades submission, that Instuctors still have to do at the end of the course.

In our Spanish 1 course we are also using another tool, WebSam, which is in the Quia website. Quia produced an interactive Workbook for Panorama students to practise online before taking the course quizzes in ANGEL. I encourage all my students to do these exercises, because they can take them as many times as they want, and the grades they obtain there can give them an idea about how they are doing, before being evaluated by me.

Nowadays I am using these three different environments to teach my lessons online. When I most learnt about how to use them was during my first course. When I was my boss' TA, and she was so kind to trust me and gave freedom to teach the oral practices as I wanted.

I will keep on reflecting about how I use them soon. I hope this can be as profitable for you, as it was for me.

A Turn of the Screw

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:17:00 +0000

When I was at the Madrid Conference ‘Internet en el Aula’ (The Internet in the Classroom) I realized that what my collegues most would appreaciate was the ‘How-tos’ about how the e-Learning professionals are doing in their own lessons.

So I decided to turn this blg into a reflective one about what I am doing in my lessons while teaching Spanish 1or Spanish for Health Care Professionals at the State University of New York, Empire State College, Center for Distance Learning.

I hope my writings can be useful for other Teachers/Instuctors/TAs, etc.

Madrid, November, 6, 2008

Is CollegeBrian.net the end of the Moodle era?

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:31:00 +0000

CollegeBrain.net is a free course management solution that facilitates the sharing of educational information between Instructors and Students. They don't depend on any Institutions and their system is modularly designed. This means that Instructors don't have to wait for their Institutions to install costly hardware to support an open source solution, or pay yearly fees for a private solution, or spend years developing an internal solution. It is able to manage all of the hardware and software in-house, which virtually eliminates overhead costs for Institutions.
They host courses for any kind of institution. If your institution does not exist on their network, you can signup for an account select "None" as your Institution. When you first log on to CollegeBrain.net, you will be asked a few easy questions about your Institution, and it will be automatically added to thier network. You can add an Institution and begin managing your courses online for free!

It is 100% free for College users. Including technical support, training, infrastructure plugins, and much more. Today, the majority of their revenue comes from advertisements on peripheral services. They have decided not to put ads on the CollegeBrain.net, since this takes away from the experience that their users enjoy when interacting with their site.
It has been designed so that the average web user can immediately create and account and begin managing their courses without reading complicated manuals and instructions.

They offer many ways to assist their users in everything from basic use, to requesting custom changes or additional features. Concise video tutorials are available for every tool and feature on CollegeBrain.net, as well as step-by-step documentation. They we have 24/7 support available through the Help! link at the bottom of every page. You can also request a CollegeBrain.net conference or seminar at your Institution by submitting a request to their support team.

CollegeBrain.net uses the latest technology to prevent attacks such as Cross-Site-Scripting (XSS), session hijacking, data injection, and so on. They use an SSL-only login process and do not store personal information in your computer's cookies.

They will never share your information with third parties such as spammers. No personal identifiable information is stored on any servers outside the SSL secured CollegeBrain network.

Unlike Open Source programs, CollegeBrain.net does not disclose it's source code which means that hackers cannot attempt to exploit vulnerabilities. This is important because even the most tested and scrutinized open-source application is no match for an individual with ill intentions who can read and understand the code. Vulnerabilities can be exploited in Open Source easily using the freely available knowledge about the internal workings of the program combined with simple human error.

School Administrators can set up an account for their institution with CollegeBrain.net by submitting a request to their support team. From the dropdown labeled "Issue Type" select the "Request Integration with my School" option. Once this process is complete, your institution will have access to the CollegeBrain.net API, which allows your staff to leverage the power of CollegeBrain.net and customize its functionality to your exact needs. When you log in, you will be asked some basic questions about your Institution, and then it will be added to their network automatically.

More info about CollegeBrain-net

I & my learners’ life events & our development

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:08:00 +0000

June 27, 2007

How might your own learners’ life events affect how they react to your materials?

As human beings we cannot escape from reality and the problems that expectedly or un-expectedly arrive at our lives. I and my students are affected by them. For instance, in the mainly sphere, one of my students cannot performed adequately in her Oral Practice lessons, because her son is always around her trying to catch her attention; another one, one of the best in his group, has not been doing well lately due to several checking at his doctor; another one got lost after his grandmother’s death. But I m aware of almost all of these especial circumstances and trying to support them, also offering to have extra lessons or writing e-mails asking how they are doing or encouraging them with their work. I am a person that is easily affected by personal trouble I understand that my students need me more when something extraordinary is happening in their lives.

Dearnley (1) also argues that many of the nurses ‘depend on “authorities” to tell them what is right or wrong’. That’s a long way from students who are becoming independent of their teacher. …Does this ring true for any stages of your own life or for people you know? And if you are working in education or training, how far, if at all, do your own learners depend on ‘authorities’?

About me. I sometimes need to be told exactly what is expected from me, because I was taught in a very authoritative tuition system were you were always told what was expected from you, but I lately learn to be more independent when I started to learn at the OU. But, in any case, I sometimes need to be explained more that if I were a native student.

Some of my students at the State University of New York are soldiers and policemen, so they are supposed to come from an academic background were they were very dependent, but I do not find any difference between them and the other one. All American students are very practical. They only study and do the tasks when they are given marks for what they are doing, and they always want to be told “exactly” what is expected from them. That is why I suggested my boss to give them marks for every task they are doing in the course, forums included, and this tactic has increased their participation in them. Last year they were given only 5% percent for their Oral Practices and the most numerous synchronous lessons had 5 students. This year they are given 15% per cent and the synchronous lessons have 8/10 students out of groups of 20.

I think it is interesting to see things “the other way round”. I mean “know your enemy :) (student, in this case)” to develop your teaching tactics. Support and tactics must be developed according to circumstances. This is an advantage tutors have over the best technological system of social interaction.

Q1 Focus on your prospective learners: will they have any of the same issues as the students in Dearnley’s paper?

It is curious, but the prospective learners for the course I am developing are nurses and doctors. So probably their characteristics are going to be very similar to the ones she discus in her paper. Most of the nurses and doctors will be women between 30/50, married with children, full of family problems, without academic trouble.

Q2 Which social, academic and professional frameworks do you access as a student – for example, in your study of H807?

Social: family problems with my sister illness and waiting for heart surgery, legal and economical problems due to my husband’s death trials that have been lasting for 13 years…

Academic: not a lot, because I have always been studying, but with problems of not having a native facility for discourse.

Professional: trying to improve professionally and stressed by a lot of work and responsibilities.

References:

1. Student support in open learning: sustaining the process, Christine Dearnley, The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 4, No 1 (2003), ISSN: 1492-3831: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/132/212 (Accessed 17/05/2007)

Why e-tivities are asynchronous?

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:06:00 +0000

June 25, 2007

I has been wondering why Gilly Salmon (1) says that e-tivities are "asynchronous".

For instance, I teach Spanish Oral Practices in a synchronous system.
Sometimes I use a PowerPoint presentation that includes dialogues accompanied by images for better understandng of the content.

Students participate playing a role.

They interact taking part in a conversation where each of them are performing like the characters in a play.

Cannot this be considered as an E-tivity according to Salmon?

If not,why?

Reference:

1. E-tivities : the key to active online learning, Gilly Salmon: http://www.netlibrary.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/Reader/ (Accessed 12/05/2007)

All Things in Moderation

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:04:00 +0000

Are you clear about the differences described in each stage?

Yes, I think the differences are very clear in each stage. But I can also appreciate how important is feedback and support from course partners and course moderators.

And I completely agree that under knowledge construction is socialisation. It is important to build and sustain groups, for them to set a strong relationship and them being able be reflective and to dare to be critical with other course partners.

Do the five stages map on to the learners and content that you have to deal with?

The fist meeting I plan in the course I am developing is to greet course partners, them to introduce themselves. I have included discussion forum to exchange information between student-student, student-tutor and student-group. I consider interaction one of the most important characteristics on distance learning. It is very hard to progress when you feel alone. I find it very motivating to feel that others are also striving in your same ship. I have also design some activities for students to do in an synchronous conference without the presence of the tutor to favour participation without constraints, and feed motivation, creativity by students, and so on.

Comment about "Transliterathy"

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:02:00 +0000

June 24, 2007

I am glad to hear (1) that as I am a teacher who, not only teaches and delops courses online, but I am able to share brandwidth, sever, sotfware, chat, write in wikies and blogs, manage my photos in Flickr and my bookmarks in Del.ici.ous , create and publish my PPT, create and publish videos in iTube, Podcasts, etc... I have become "Transliterate"!!

What a word!

Are they going to create a new Nobel price for such important people like me?!!

References:
1. Del.icio.us way to talk_ Times Higher Education Supplement, 28 October 2005
http://writing.typepad.com/digital_life/2005/11/_delicious_way_.html (Accessed 05/05/2007)

NOTE:

By the way..."Better late than never" (Spanish Proverb)

Disabled students in Spain

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:54:00 +0000

April 02, 2007

What sources of advice or financial help are available to disabled students in your country?

The main problem to agree about how to help disabled people is that there has never been a state Project for them. Disability has been helped mainly by organizations like: ONCE, the Catholic Church, and other private organizations working in autonomies or all over Spain.

Till 2002 the economical help for “Special Education” (Ed. Especial) was included in the budget of Primary and Secondary Education!! ..and it was very low. This budget, although, it has been separated is still very low. According to the data taken from the National Institute of Statistics (INI) [1]

Ed. Secundaria, FP y EE. de Reg. Especial: 1994: 5.043.069; 2004: 11.434.511
Ed. Especial (3): 1994: 329.659; 2004: 714.008

BECAS Y AYUDAS TOTALES 1994: 531.635; 2004: 1.023.963

New measures have been taken recently to change this situation:

1. A new law was passed (14/12/2006) about the Promotion of the Personal Autonomy and Attention of People that are in situation of Dependence (Ley 39/2006, de 14 de diciembre, de Promoción de la Autonomía Personal y Atención a las Personas en Situación de Dependencia) This law is the beginning of a new era in Spain for the social rights of disabled people, because it is the first attempt to unify the national politics about social protection and economical resources. The Government is forced to inform the Courts about the implementation of this law. [2]

2. ORDEN ECI/2575/2006, 12th July, about national prizes for educative institutions, all over the country, that develop activities aiming disabled students. [3]

3. The Cabinet has approved (01/12/2006) the 1st national plan for disabled women. Related to education will try to sensitize parents about how important education is for their disabled daughters. And the introduction in the national curricula the themes of gender and disability. [4] I think this is very important because according to this news [5] 78% of disabled Spanish women do not work, because they did not have access to higher education, and only 4% have HE studies [4, p. 34], This Plan also tries to promote “Telecentros” among disabled women for them to be prepared in the use of the New technologies.[4, p.35]

If there is financial help, what can it be used for?

Yes, this Order (Orden ECI/1568/2006), 8th May, regulates grants and academic help for disabled students during 2006-07 academic course. [6]

If you work in a teaching establishment, what help is available for disabled students?

Yes, in the Empire State College we have got a webpage with information and links for disabled people called “Welcome to disability services” where disabled students can find all kind of interesting information for them. Students can request for reasonable accommodation, texts in alternative formats, for example. [7]

RESOURCES:

[1] Gasto público total en educación por actividad educativa y años: http://www.ine.es/inebase/cgi/axi ]http://www.ine.es/inebase/cgi/axi (Access 22/03/2007)

[2] Ley 39/2006, de 14 de diciembre, de Promoción de la Autonomía Personal y Atención a las Personas en Situación de Dependencia: http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2006/12/15/pdfs/A44142-44156.pdf (Access 23/03/2007)

[3] ORDEN ECI/2575/2006, 12th July: http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2006/08/04/pdfs/A29413-29416.pdf (Access 26/03(2007)

[4] 1st National Plan for Disabled Women: http://www.igualdadoportunidades.es/documentacion/documento/?url=http://www.seg-social.es/imserso/normativas/pamcd2007.pdf (Access 25/03/2007)

[5] News: http://sid.usal.es/mostrarficha.asp?ID=26707&fichero=1.1 (Access 24/03/2007)

[6] (Orden ECI/1568/2006), 8th May: http://sid.usal.es/idocs/F3/LYN9255/3-9255.pdf http://sid.usal.es/idocs/F3/LYN9255/3-9255.pdf (Access 25/03/2007)

[7] Welcome to disability services: http://www.esc.edu/ESConline/Across_ESC/DisabSvc.nsf/wholeshortlinks2/welcome (Access 27/03/2007)

Definitions of disability

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:51:00 +0000

March 22, 2007

Are the Disability Discrimination Act and the World Health Organization examples definitions of disability examples of medical or social models?

I think that DDA’s definition is an example of the medical model, because it considers disabled people like patients who need special care and treatment to “rehabilitate” them for society as they have an internal and individual problem to be solved. While WHO definition focuses on the social necessities that must be covered for disabled people not to have barriers in society that can be a problem for them to be as much independent as possible, and also considers disability as an external factor that makes disabled people to have different kind of problems as a group.

ICF (WHO) [1] describes how all of us can live with our health condition. They consider that both the medical and the social descriptions of “disability” are partially valid.

“A better model of disability, in short, is one that synthesizes what is true in the medical and social models, without making the mistake each makes in reducing the whole, complex notion of disability to one of its aspects.
This more useful model of disability might be called the biopsychosocial model.
ICF is based on this model, an integration of medical and social. ICF provides, by this synthesis, a coherent view of different perspectives of health: biological, individual and social.” [2]

I agree that disabled people need to be considered as somebody with some health and individual necessities to cover, but also a lot social external barriers (physical, prejudices and exclusiveness) to be broken.

[1] International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF): http://www.who.int/classifications/icf/en (Access 22/03/2007)

[2] Towards a Common Language for Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF):
http://www3.who.int/icf/beginners/bg.pdf (Access 22/03/2007)

Why disabled are early adopters of ITCs?

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:48:00 +0000

Why disabled are early adopters of ITCs?

Well, I think that if I were a disabled person when Internet appeared in our lives I'd consider it a window opened to new possibilities and chances to do things I had never imagined before: be able to communicate with people without having mobility problems, to exchange written messages with other blind, to read about others that were disabled like me, etc.

Apart from that, when you're in the Internet usually you're not seen, so you can express yourself without having the feeling that others are feeling pity for your physical conditions. This is another freedom that disabled had gained with the use of the Internet.

Technology developers are worried about how to supply disabled necessities and a lot new devices are been added to this technologies to break the barrier that suppose for people who cannot manage like the ones that are not disabled. This was widening new opportunities for them to be in the Internet.

The most spectacular one was invented last year with the possibility of reading your mind from the screen, only moving your eyes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/5224386.stm

Nowadays the Internet also count on them and different products are being developed: games http://www.arcess.com/ and http://www.boardmanweb.com/party/disabled.htm , magazines http://www.disabilityview.co.uk/index.shtml, etc.

These can be some of the reasons why disabled are early adopters of new technologies...

Criteria for adopting innovations

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:46:00 +0000

March 19, 2007

Q1 Which three criteria are you going to argue for, and why?

My first criteria would be this innovation will cover most of the educational necessities our institution had at the moment. My reasons would be that we need to modernise our educational system to be successful among students.

My second criteria would be based in explaining the economical benefits that the adoption of this new innovation would suppose in the future for our institution. Perhaps we would have to invest an mount of money in updating our system, but it must be consider that benefits will overcome soon.

My third point would be based on the reasons why I had rejected other similar innovations in the market. I would speak about the advantages and disadvantages of the other ones and gave them reasons why I had chosen this innovation an not another one.

Q2 What, if anything, do your responses tell you about your own attitudes to innovation?

I think that nowadays the e-Learning market is a very competitive one and you need to be updated, but I only would accept innovations on the condition that they offer a better quality of teaching and learning, if they facilitate the role of the teacher and the student. So I would try to be objective about the adoption of an innovation in relation to its usefulness and also taking into account our budget to know if our institution can afford it or not.

About Moore’s Chasm Theory

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:44:00 +0000

March 01, 2007

Strengths and weaknesses of Moore’s chasm theory, and any implications for my own life/work/etc.

Moore’s theory only deals with adopters, but not with benefits, so I find this a weakness in a marketing theory. And “Benefits” are the matter of any kind of marketing campaigns, e-Learning included.

Other weaknesses are that the theory of chasm does not answer questions like:
How do I need to wait, after adopting an innovation, to get benefits?
How much should I invest to reach the early adopters?
How much do I need to spend in staying in the market?
How long is it going to take me to cross the time barrier marked by that 16% to be known by the early majority?

This theory seems to be only applicable to non-continuous or riotous innovations. So perhaps it is not very useful for innovators who try to stay in the markets as long as possible.

If I were an innovator, this theory could help me to know what kind of clients should I think of, that I would need a period of time to reach all of them with my innovation, so I had to fight to shorten it, and that if I could convince “Opinion leaders” about the goodness of my product I would have a possibilities to be successful and reach the early majority, at least.

Sketch out a presentation to clients or colleagues about an e-Learning innovation:

1. How would your focus vary according to whether you see them as early adopters or as the early majority?

I think the strategy should be completely different if I had to promote my innovation among early adopters from one targeted to the early majority. The most important points would be to identify my audience and to clarify my objectives. So, as the audience would be different the objectives should be designed accordingly.

A good example is given by mobile phone companies marketing strategies. They are always making advertising campaigns to catch new clients.

To get a new client you need to know how he/she is. It is important to take into account Roger’s types, and also analyse their characteristics. Why they would be interested in my product? Would they adopt it only because it is innovative, or would I need to promote something more, like, its usability and reliability? I could reach the early adopters more easily, perhaps, because they are appealed by innovations, but to convince the early majority, that does not like taking risks, I would need to motivate them.

2. Would you spend more time demonstrating the software to one group rather than another, for example?

I would make “client centred” campaigns.

As I think that early adopters are more open minded to innovations and that they usually like to deal with new gadgets, probably they would not need a long time to show them how it worked. Teenagers are the typical example.

On the contrary, I believe that most adults are in the early majority group. They like learning from the early adopters to be shown how an innovation works. I am thinking about mobile phones or GPSs, which men are so fond of. This group needs longer time to be convinced about all the possibilities an innovation can offer to them. If they are only going to buy it if they find it useful, I should take a time to show its usability, and at the same time I should show they can trust me instead my competence. To convince this group I would need to dedicate them longer time.

Resources:

[1] Early adopters or early majority – who is the key? (course H807 resource) (26/02/2007)

[2] The Innovator Theory: http://www.mitsue.co.jp/english/case/concept/02.html (Access 27/02/2007)

[3] Decription of the line graph on Mitsue web page (course H807 resource) (Access 27/022007)

Will a potencial innovation "fly"?

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:41:00 +0000

March 01, 2007

In my lessons of Spanish for the Empire State College, CDL, I use Live Classroom, conferencing tool created by Horizon Wimba. Its main advantage is that scattered geographically students are taught at home in a suitable schedule for them. Lessons can be recorded and accessed for later revision. It is highly compatible with common PCs, but you must have Java and QuickTime installed, and headphones and microphone. It is not complex so it is adopted easily. Students can trial several times before the lessons start. However, triability is not equitable - trials are only in English-and there are not any statistics of results on it, so observability is impossible.

Questions About Roger's Types

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:37:00 +0000

Q1 Do Rogers’ categories correspond with your experience of people’s attitudes to innovation?

I think there are some people who easily adopt innovations. My later husband used to be one of them. He loved testing any kind of gadget, and was very fond of PCs. As he died in 1994 he had not the opportunity to enjoy Internet. On the contrary, I had always been very reluctant to adopt technological innovations till he died. I had never felt that attraction most men usually show for machines. I suppose there are some people born with that kind of attraction or perhaps it must be developed and enhanced at schools. That wasn’t my case. Although I cannot be considered an “early adopter”, following Roger’s stereotypes, I cannot be considered a “laggard” either.

But if you ask me about Spain, my country….I have found there are early adopters, but the general politics of our governments is a lack of worry to put money for the improvement of the majority in new technologies in education, and, of course, in education in general occupying the 21st post in education budget expenditure in education in 2001 (only 4.41 million) passed to spend 4.29 in 2003. But on the other hand private enterprise seems to be more conscious of innovations. In 2004 87% of Spanish business had Internet. [1] & [2]

And about gender and innovations…. It is very curious that “Among 15-year-olds in Spain, females were significantly better than males in reading, significantly worse in mathematical literacy and had almost identical results as males in scientific literacy”. [3] Figures that in general mean nowadays women in my country are very fond of technological innovations, and I can also see this in my own students.

Q2 How far can you apply his model to a context you know – a current or past place of work, or a less formal situation? For example, can you link it to an innovation in elearning?

When I started teaching, I could never imagine that one day I could be able to have students in the USA that I could teach in real time. Now this is a reality. We are using our computers to meet in the classroom, but I am sure that very soon we are going to be able to enter through other media, like it could be a mobile phone or a PDA, and that we do not need to be at home/ or at our working pace to be connected, but that we can also do it in the countryside or at the beach…

I believe this, because in the last years the figures of users of conferencing or videoconferencing had increased a lot in the last years, and not only for teaching, but also decrease the figures of the expenditure in travelling for business people.

"The ability to communicate and share information with anyone in real time over the Web and private networks is what's behind the rising use of conferencing applications in the workplace. Real-time collaboration, convergence with IP communications as part of unified communications, software-as-a-service delivery, and integration with business processes and applications will be the key drivers for conferencing applications over the next several years." — Mark Levitt, program VP, Collaborative Computing, IDC [4]

Conferencing also gives the possibility of being taught although you live in a remote pace and far from were your education institution is. The Open University is a good example of what I am saying.

Q3 Do you think that, deep down, Rogers’ model assumes that innovation is a ‘Good Thing’? And that being an ‘innovator’ or ‘early adopter’ – the inverted commas are there in case you reject those categories – is the only respectable thing to be?

As I cannot read the whole book, I can only refer to what I think he means. I do not think he was giving an opinion about if being an innovator was good or bad. He studied objectively what was happening according to reality, and he found that early adopters were considered leaders of the group, society trust them, and as a consequence they occupy posts of responsibility.

“He observed that Early Adopters were perceived as opinion leaders of the community with respect to that change/innovation.” [5]

On the other hand, he observed that the last people in adopting innovations can be separated from society for different reasons or were people that find very difficult to accept innovations due to their traditionalism.

“The last adopters, laggards, can either be very traditional or be isolates in their social system.” [6]

Now the next question is how does our society consider people who do not go with the wave? I think that traditional people are not well considered nowadays, but innovators become famous and “respectable”, but this does not mean that it is the best…

Resources:

[1] Europe- Key facts: http://europa.eu/abc/keyfigures/index_en.htm (Access 26/02/2007)

[2] http://ec.europa.eu/publications/booklets/eu_glance/51/en.pdf (Access 26/02/2007)

[3] Education at a glance: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/34/33714562.pdf (Access 26/02/2007)

[4] Worldwide Conferencing Applications 2006–2010 Forecast Update and 2005 Vendor Shares: Taking the Niche Out of Conferencing: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=204543&pageType=SYNOPSIS (Access 27/02/2007)

[5] The Danger of the "Early Adopter" Myth: http://www.technobility.com/docs/article032.htm (27/01/2007)

[6] Diffusion of Innovations, by Everett Rogers (1995), Reviewed by Greg Orr
March 18, 2003 (p. 265): http://www.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/Diffusion%20of%20Innovations.htm (Access 27/02200)

About Roger’s types

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:32:00 +0000

Q1 Do Rogers’ categories correspond with your experience of people’s attitudes to innovation?

I think there are some people who easily adopt innovations. My later husband used to be one of them. He loved testing any kind of gadget, and was very fond of PCs. As he died in 1994 he had not the opportunity to enjoy Internet. On the contrary, I had always been very reluctant to adopt technological innovations till he died. I had never felt that attraction most men usually show for machines. I suppose there are some people born with that kind of attraction or perhaps it must be developed and enhanced at schools. That wasn’t my case. Although I cannot be considered an “early adopter”, following Roger’s stereotypes, I cannot be considered a “laggard” either.

But if you ask me about Spain, my country….I have found there are early adopters, but the general politics of our governments is a lack of worry to put money for the improvement of the majority in new technologies in education, and, of course, in education in general occupying the 21st post in education budget expenditure in education in 2001 (only 4.41 million) passed to spend 4.29 in 2003. But on the other hand private enterprise seems to be more conscious of innovations. In 2004 87% of Spanish business had Internet. [1] & [2]

And about gender and innovations…. It is very curious that “Among 15-year-olds in Spain, females were significantly better than males in reading, significantly worse in mathematical literacy and had almost identical results as males in scientific literacy”. [3] Figures that in general mean nowadays women in my country are very fond of technological innovations, and I can also see this in my own students.

Q2 How far can you apply his model to a context you know – a current or past place of work, or a less formal situation? For example, can you link it to an innovation in elearning?

When I started teaching, I could never imagine that one day I could be able to have students in the USA that I could teach in real time. Now this is a reality. We are using our computers to meet in the classroom, but I am sure that very soon we are going to be able to enter through other media, like it could be a mobile phone or a PDA, and that we do not need to be at home/ or at our working pace to be connected, but that we can also do it in the countryside or at the beach…

I believe this, because in the last years the figures of users of conferencing or videoconferencing had increased a lot in the last years, and not only for teaching, but also decrease the figures of the expenditure in travelling for business people.

"The ability to communicate and share information with anyone in real time over the Web and private networks is what's behind the rising use of conferencing applications in the workplace. Real-time collaboration, convergence with IP communications as part of unified communications, software-as-a-service delivery, and integration with business processes and applications will be the key drivers for conferencing applications over the next several years." — Mark Levitt, program VP, Collaborative Computing, IDC [4]

Conferencing also gives the possibility of being taught although you live in a remote pace and far from were your education institution is. The Open University is a good example of what I am saying.

Q3 Do you think that, deep down, Rogers’ model assumes that innovation is a ‘Good Thing’? And that being an ‘innovator’ or ‘early adopter’ – the inverted commas are there in case you reject those categories – is the only respectable thing to be?

As I cannot read the whole book, I can only refer to what I think he means. I do not think he was giving an opinion about if being an innovator was good or bad. He studied objectively what was happening according to reality, and he found that early adopters were considered leaders of the group, society trust them, and as a consequence they occupy posts of responsibility.

“He observed that Early Adopters were perceived as opinion leaders of the community with respect to that change/innovation.” [5]

On the other hand, he observed that the last people in adopting innovations can be separated from society for different reasons or were people that find very difficult to accept innovations due to their traditionalism.

“The last adopters, laggards, can either be very traditional or be isolates in their social system.” [6]

Now the next question is how does our society consider people who do not go with the wave? I think that traditional people are not well considered nowadays, but innovators become famous and “respectable”, but this does not mean that it is the best…

Resources:

[1] Europe- Key facts: http://europa.eu/abc/keyfigures/index_en.htm (Access 26/02/2007)

[2] http://ec.europa.eu/publications/booklets/eu_glance/51/en.pdf (Access 26/02/2007)

[3] Education at a glance: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/34/33714562.pdf (Access 26/02/2007)

[4] Worldwide Conferencing Applications 2006–2010 Forecast Update and 2005 Vendor Shares: Taking the Niche Out of Conferencing: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=204543&pageType=SYNOPSIS (Access 27/02/2007)

[5] The Danger of the "Early Adopter" Myth: http://www.technobility.com/docs/article032.htm (27/01/2007)

[6] Diffusion of Innovations, by Everett Rogers (1995), Reviewed by Greg Orr
March 18, 2003 (p. 265): http://www.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/Diffusion%20of%20Innovations.htm (Access 27/02200)

Case Study 4, Learning without boundaries

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:29:00 +0000

Learning without boundaries - A university for the 21st century

According to this article Colleges and Universities as we know them today will probably disappear.

The new innovations in technology applied to devices that are implementing more and more a personal way of delivering learning and teaching contents.

We are accustomed to see students and teachers going to University campus where their faculties are, but in the near future teaching and learning can be done wherever a person can have access to Internet. Nowadays we are still tied to places with electrical sockets, but soon mobile Learning laptops, logbooks or PCs will become autonomous for hours with the possibility of using batteries that would have been charged previously.

All of this implies a great innovation in the world of education, because neither tutors nor pupils will need to be in a physical classroom to follow a course.

Probably terms that are going to be mentioned in the future a lot will be related to mobile, collaborative and personalisation learning.

Advantages are being done in the mobile phone industry, but I think a new prototype of mobile will substitute the ones we are using now, because they were invented only to be listened to, but not to be read. So a bigger screen size is necessary and services PCS have must be included to improve its possibilities, so that they can take the place of the heavy laptops we are using nowadays.

Resources:

[1] Word: http://www.elearning.ac.uk/innoprac/institution/resources/boundaries.doc (Access 14/02/2007)

[2] PDF: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/boundaries.pdf (Access 14/02/2007)

[3]: http://www.elearning.ac.uk/innoprac/institution/boundaries.html (Access 14/02/2007)

Case Study 3, Changing Culture-NHC

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:26:00 +0000

Changing culture − North Hertfordshire College of Further Education

North Hertfordshire College has made a great effort since they opened their Stevenage Integrated Learning Centre in 2003.

Nowadays everybody can enjoy all of these facilities [3] in NHC ILCs at Stevenage and Hitchin: open Intenernet access in computer suites with over 120 computers, a Library supporting the national Inspire initiative with more than 20,000 books, 100 journals and “Voyager” library catalogue and reciprocal borrowing facilities with Hertfordshire Colleges and Universities, trained staff to support computer users, borrowing or online Induction video, software, you can also have a place to study, for research, etc. These Centres are opened from Monday to Friday for 8 hrs a day. Letchworth Centre counts with a Learning Resources mainly for local users opened about 9 hours a day. The Stevenage Centre has more than 3,500 students using its facilities each day!

What started as an idea in the middle of the 1990s, due to the shortage of technological skill force in the area, is now a dream come true.

New technologies must proof to be used in an effective way, and I think that in this case, figures of achievement speak by themselves:

Learners at North Hertfordshire College found out they had achieved some of the top marks in the country on Thursday 24th August, when their GCSE results were published. [4]

The overall pass rate for GCSEs at NHC has improved by 1% in 2006 to 74%.

Improvements: A-Cs in Science, 12%, in English 10%.

Students with A grades in 2005 were 20% and in 2006 were 24%.

The GNVQ results: Foundation courses at NHC with pass grades 88% students (7% improvement), and in Health and Social Care 100% received pass rate (88% with Merit or Distinction), while in Business 93% students were qualified ( 11% on pass rates).

Probably these figures of success will increase with the implementation of their aim of providing every enrolled learner with a mobile device to access both in-house and external resources to support their learning, and to extend the use of SMS messaging. [1]

Resources:

[1] Word File: Changing culture: Building the 21st century college − North Hertfordshire College of Further Education
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/northherts.doc (Access 14/02/2007)

[2] PDF file : http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/northherts.pdf (Access 14/02/2007)

[3] Discover our Integrated Learning Centres, Learning Resources and Library Facilities: http://www.nhc.ac.uk/lifenhc/lr.htm (Access 16/02/2007)

[4] NHC Learners Achieve High Results, 28.08.2006 http://www.nhc.ac.uk/about/news/060825results.htm (Access 15/02/2007)

Case Study 2, the Interactive LogBook

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:22:00 +0000

Supporting personalised learning – the Interactive Logbook, University of Birmingham

The Logbook may have wider applications still to be discovered. The ability to add plug-ins for additional software could enable the tool to provide support for students with disabilities. [1]

The Interactive LogBook was the result of a project at the University of Birmingham within the former CETADL, now CLIC (Centre for Learning, Innovation and Collaboration) [2], and awarded funding by JISC for its development, and it is now been tried in higher and further institutions in the UK.

Although it has some advantages for collaborative projects, like: access to online learning resources and lectures, creation, sharing and amendment of docs in real time, keeping record of activities, artefacts and planning for their e-portfolios, I am afraid I cannot see what the great advantage is between a LogBook and a laptop.

Most of its tasks and applications can already be done by Application Sharing/ Web Collaboration Products, like Centra Live 7 [3] or Horizon Wimba [4], for example.

If it weighs about 1.4 kg, it is still too heavy to be competitive and laptops can also be used nowadays with wireless connection.

Perhaps, its use will be reduced to help students with impairment or dyslexic problems, and supported with funds from important institutions, because the costs of maintenance, replacement and staffing can be very high, and I do not think that if a student can manage with a laptop can find it useful to ask for a loan to buy one of these LogBooks.

Resources:

[1] Word file: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/birmingham.doc (Access 15/02/2007)

[2] CLIC (formerly CETADL) The Centre for Learning, Innovation and Collaboration-U. of Birmingham: http://www.clic.bham.ac.uk/ (Access 14/02/2007)

[3] Centra Live 7: http://www.centra.com (Access 15/02/2007)

[4] Horizon Wimba: http://www.horizonwimba.com (Access 15/02/2007)

[5] PDF file : http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/birmingham.pdf (Access 15/02/2007)

[6] Video clip : http://www.elearning.ac.uk/innoprac/learner/birminghamvid.html (Access 15/02/2007)

[7] Video transcript: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/vt_birmingham.doc (Access 15/02/2007)

Case Study: City College Southampton

noreply@blogger.com (Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:18:00 +0000

February 15, 2007
H807: Case Study 1, City College Southampton
This is a project with joint funding from Southampton College and the NRDC.

Sountampton College found in m-Learning an innovative and collaborative solution for its learners to acquire a new language in a quick an entertaining way

Most part of C.C.S. students are adults and speakers from other languages. The use of the mobile phone in their College activities has proved to motivate and integrate them in their local and academic community, improving, at the same time, their level of English very quickly.

How did I get it?

They are using a camera phone – any one can be used - in combination with a web based multimedia message board, mediaBoard, which can receive SMS or MMS messages from mobile phones.

Activities are collaborative. An image is placed previously on the board by tutors and zones are created for each student. Pairs of students contribute building their zones sending pictures, text messages, audio files, research, etc. and they are allocated by mediaBoard. In this way, maps of the campus area have been created for new students, groups have been researching into past migration populations and into jobs in the local area…

Students not only learn about the area were they live in, but are, at the same time, practising grammar rules, idioms, pronunciation, increasing their level of self-steem by improving their knowledge, making contact with a wider and diverse community supporting two-way communication, gaining multi-sensory skills, taking charge of the content of their own classes by producing their resources by themselves.

What are the keys of this success?

- Little evidence of misuse/ theft by learners.
- Visually impaired learners participate in activities helped by sighted ones and/ or by enlarged images on keyboards.
- Training is given to practitioners with little experience.

Looking further:

The College is exploring new implementation areas: vocational training, ice-breaking activities, collaboration ad sharing data, virtual tours to other countries, research assignments, and with the introduction of NVQ–eportfolio: personal diary/ record achievement, and formative and summative assignment…

Proofs a successful experience?

This table [2] reflects how the percentage of success in City Southampton College learners has increased from 2005-6, especially in English.

Subjects 2005 2006
Maths A-C :74% A-C :82%
English A-C :39% A-C:60%; Pass: 97%
Catering Pass: 80% Pass: 97%
Psichology AC: 74% AC: 80%

Resources:

[1] http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/southampton.doc (Access 14/02/2007)

[2] Data taken from: News: Success for City College Students: http://www.southampton-city.ac.uk/jkcm/default.aspx?pg=135&path=2964 ( Access 14/02/2007)