"What mobile phone have you got?" survey of FE students

Today, I decided to conduct an impromptu survey.  It is part of a bigger 'project' which I've started in the last couple of weeks about using iPod, iPhone & iPad Apps for education (more of that in future posts).  I wanted to have a quick overview of which mobile phones students used so I spent the afternoon ( about 2.5 hrs) working on the enquiry desk on the 2nd floor of the LRC.  Whenever I student came to book a computer, I asked them what mobile phone they had.  It was deliberately unstructured and I definitely wanted to ask just one question to see what response I got.  It is easy to ask students one question and everyone that I asked was helpful and interested in why I was asking.  I made the last minute decision to note down whether the respondent was male or female.  This is a bit of a contentious issue with me as I'm reluctant to take on board that there maybe a gender factor involved (part of the bigger project again) but the results are interesting.

The results were as follows:

126 students were asked

“What mobile phone have you got”?

17 (5F 12M ) iPhone (12 4s 5 3Gs)

31 (26F 5M) Blackberry

9 (5F 4M) HTC

22 (15F 7M) Nokia

9 (6F 3M) LG

9 (6F 3M) Sony E

22 (14F 8M) Samsung

7(3F 4M ) Other

It was a random sample which turned out to include more female students than male students.

Blackberries were the most popular (in conversations this was because they were reasonably affordable) especially with girls (which might be because they have a keyboard that requires more nimble fingers)

iPhones were more popular with male students but some female students said, unprompted, that they would definitely like an iPhone whereas those with iPhones showed no interest in any other make or model.

The next stage is to survey more students at different times / days.  To try to find out whether the course that they are studying makes a difference i.e. if you are studying a computing / media / games design course then you have a different phone than if you are studying health and care for example

Also to ask whether they have an iPod Touch or would like to use one as part of their course.

Health Check and Inspection

The Health Check which is an independent planned inspection has been scheduled since the autumn. It was to take place in a week in December. However the bad weather and snow meant that it was postponed until February. Therefore it is due to take place this week and next week. It is quite difficult for everyone to maintain momentum and keep performing at a high level but I think it will be good.
On Friday the College found out that we are to have an Ofsted inspection the week beginning 28th February. The health check has now become pre Ofsted preparation.


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Save Libraries

Save Libraries
http://donlanlibraries.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-library-tour-for-savelibraries.html?spref=tw

Demonstrating effectiveness and impact

Our action planning for the rest of this academic year revolves around three main topics.
Demonstrating effectiveness and impact
Curriculum Liaison
Promoting and developing learning technologies especially to support self study.

Demonstrating effectiveness and impact is difficult because first of all you have to get over the idea that a learning experience shouldn't be measurable - that it should have value for a student but it is not always possible to quantify it. This is quite difficult as as an educator you want to believe in an inherent value but as a manager you have to have evidence Then you have to find a method of measuring - this is not easy in eLearning / Learning Resources as you don't have a ' success rate' as such. Therefore the only way is to have statistics and data recording what you do, which shows an improvement year on year, which can be compared to other institutions and can be verified by an external framework and by peer review.
I think that eventually there will either be a way that it is inspected as part of the curriculum it supports or that it will be seen as essential and therefore not measured at all. In the latter case, eLearning depts, learning resources depts and libraries will not exist as separate entities but be absorbed by the area, staff and students that they support - which may be no bad thing.


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January Induction sessions

In Sept & Oct we do a large number of LRC/IT inductions for students. This academic year we delivered to more than 3000. The sessions are very useful and although time consuming are quite enjoyable to deliver. It is fairly fast paced and we do quite a few each day so the momentum carries you through. In January it is different - not as many, in fact only a few. So it is like starting again each time and remembering what to do.
Got to go - electrical engineers are here.....

Student behaviour meeting

Last term a working group was set up in College to look at student behaviour issues. In general this academic year there had been more than the usual number of incidents of bad behaviour and also it was felt across the College that behaviour in general was of a lower standard. The attitudes of students has been poor and disrespectful to staff both teaching staff and support staff. We had some incidents in the LRC of students behaving inappropriately and disrespectfully. As ever it is a small minority of students but nevertheless it does have an impact and it is important to recognise the issues.
The first meeting was a general meeting with representatives from across the College staff and was an opportunity to raise issues. For the second meeting a working group was set up in order to be more focused - a task and finish group! Some suggestions were put forward of ways to ensure students would be wearing their ID cards on the official college lanyards. This was agreed as an important way of ensuring that students can be recognised as members of the College. Vending machines are an area that was highlighted regarding vandalism Security was also discussed in order to ensure a safe learning environment. The next meeting which was today, staff reported back about incentives that are going to be introduced to incentivise students to wear their ID cards and lanyards. These include marking registers with a lanyard present mark so that students can be entered into a lanyard lotto - free meals from the cafe for a week, spot 'prizes' for lanyards and good behaviour and also linked to merit awards.




-- Post From My iPhone

New Year Resolutions as Word Clouds

I have created two word clouds using Wordle for my New Year Resolutions - one for home/everyday life and another for work.  There is some overlap as quite a lot of my work stuff I enjoy doing anyway and quite a lot of places and resources that I discover or visit are relevant to e-learning/libraries/technologies etc.
The black background with blue and green text is the home one, the white background with brown and blue text is the work one.