Today we hosted the RSC Northern e-Learning meeting. There were 16 attendees from around the region mainly from FE Colleges. I was proposed as chair of the group. It is a good group and we had a number of interesting discussions including one about e-safety and social networking. Most colleges including ourselves include e-safety in their induction programmes for students and emphasize the need to be responsible and stay safe online. As far as using Facebook is concerned, I was surprised to find that all other Colleges block its use. This is due to the scarcity of resources ie computers so they are needed for work at all times and also because it is felt that it is not a suitable site fir students to be on as it us equivalent to playing on computer games. I think we have a lenient approach but I'm not sure whether it us right or not. Students get distracted from working and it creates a social rather than learning environment. Also does it conflict with our duty of care to students.
We had a round the table round the region discussion about the latest developments in each institution. I really like this part as it's interesting to know what is happening in other colleges. There are a lot of new Principals about - ours, Bishop Auckland, East Durham, Darlington - it means change and in some cases redundancies which is very hard.
James and Richard delivered a presentation about online assessment in Blackboard and the batch feedback upload tool. It went very well.
There are a few events coming up in the region including an e- responsibility conference which I am interested in going to.
Next meeting is in March.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Middlesbrough College
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