STAFF OCN PILOTS BLOG

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Pilot Unit One:

The staff OCN provision is aimed to be heavily centred around supporting their skills to plan and deliver learning using a range of digital tools. The initial pilots are prioritised around structuring and using a VLE, in our case Moodle.

The first unit being piloted is 'Structuring your VLE' this is an 8hr one credit OCN unit and we have six candidates registered on the Moodle course. The six candidates are made up of 3 study centre staff and three teachers all of whom are the stakeholders at the chalkface of VLE delivery and support in the college.

We had very strong ideas in mind what we wanted to achieve with this unit so initally searched to see if other regional OCN groups were running such a module rather than duplicate.

We found a company called Moodle4Teachers www.moodle4teachers.co.uk

To ensure we could plan for the whole OCN experience we felt it was important to not just write or base ideas around units, but actually experience them as the learners.

With this in mind, at the start of the project 2 members of the early project team completed a unit with Moodle4Teachers called Moodle First Steps. This pretty much fulfilled what we wanted to achieve with our own units. However we felt we needed to slightly amend the unit outcomes to meet and frame our college PAL pack agenda.

The PAL Agenda

In February 2010 Worcester College of Technology (WCT) announced they needed to address a deficit of £2 million government funding and as a result needed to make a 20% reduction in teaching hours. After a consultation period the college turned their attention to the claims made about technology and e-learning to find a solution. The ‘Defined Model’ for Personally Accountable Learning (PAL) was introduced as a new model for curriculum delivery that meant as of September 2010 15% of all Vocational BTEC First and National Diploma further education programmes would now have be delivered through e-learning self-directed study PAL packs. PAL pack sessions are timetabled in study centres and unsupervised by teachers. The PAL agenda would see the VLE environment used to replace face to face teaching hours.  

PAL sites are recommended to be structured with:

All PAL packs should contain clear instructions, learning materials, learning activities and assessment activities.

The following model is suggested as a possible way of implementing and structuring a PAL Pack.

Instructions 

These can simply be simple text instructions like this using a label on Moodle. Alternatively consider using a video of you talking or maybe an MP3.

Learning Objectives To be written by tutors to signpost learners

Learning Resources An online pack of resources to support active learning activities. These should be selected to embrace differentiation and engaging different learning styles. Sources of resources could include home grown content, NLN materials, web based content (in particular Open Educational Resources) and e-books. Linked to videos or embedded videos should also be included where good content is available. Where good free content is not available it may be worth seeing what is available via educational publishers.
 

Learning Activities Where possible active learning should be encouraged through group activities using Moodle tools such as forums, glossaries and wikis.
 

Assessment Activities Learning should be assessed using online quizzes and or assignments. These should be designed to minimise danger of copying from fellow students or the internet.

In Summer 2012 the PAL packs are being audited and we felt our staff CPD unit needed to be aligned specifically around teachers being able to build Moodle PAL sites and meet the set criteria for PAL packs. Our findings suggested that teachers digital literacy skills to create PAL packs was an issue that needed to be addressed. This unit would introduce staff to the skills needed to structure online learning but also to the range of tools available on Moodle to facilitate and signpost learning activities.

The OCN takes participants through week by week building the elements needed for a PAL pack. For example week 1 (see image to left) asks participants to plan a scheme of work and the learning outcomes/instructions for each section of their Moodle site.    Next the session takes them through adding learning resources that relate to the topics and learning outcomes, then onto adding quizzes and then experiencing, selecting and building a learning activity that promotes learner participation to meet a learning outcome.   The site it clearly laid out for participants what they need to read and do demonstrating a visual representation of the recommended layout for a PAL or learning section in a Moodle site.   An example of a finished site that meets the criteria of the unit is also available for candidates to look at as a guide.   The first pilot of the unit begins Week commencing Monday 30th April 2012   One week prior to the unit officially starting an email was sent out introducing participants to the unit to ensure they can fully access the content, ask any questions they need to and also to explain the structure of the course week by week so they are fully prepared for the journey ahead.

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W/C Monday 30th April - Staff OCN Week One

An introductory email instructing participants on their first task was sent out, three of the six responded and completed the task by Tuesday afternoon. Others have responded with work load related issues that may delay them in completing the task.

This unit offered a very interesting insight into where support needs to be focused especially when it came to developing content for the VLE.

We found participants struggled less during the phase of uploading instructions, objectives and learning resources, but when they came to considering activities for learners ‘to do’ (rather than resources to access) all made contact with the tutor for guidance. The less confident more so in this area.

It became quite apparent that the teaching staff involved had been using the VLE more as a repository to extend access to resources used in the classroom. However were not familiar or yet comfortable with using it in the context as an active learning platform. This was quite a worrying finding as our PAL strategy at Worcester relies heavily on this knowledge and application of the VLE.

All the staff that took part felt the support offered around structuring the VLE like a scheme of work and adding in more active content was a key factor in the support needed in this area. They all felt this unit would be beneficial college-wide to support both VLE digital literacy skills for teachers and the Worcester PAL strategy.

This has been piloted with a 2nd lot of people seperate blog underway.