2024 In Review

Graphic from Co Author Studio

Strange year, 2024. While Scottish education wrestled with AI's implications, I shifted back to consultancy after 7 years leading digital transformation at City of Glasgow College. The timing proved interesting - just as assessment anxiety peaked and international interest in Scottish vocational education grew and with the funding model for Colleges pretty much in crisis.

Some key developments from 2024:

In College -

• Supported Turkish Vocational Authority's education reform programme with workshops in Ankara.
• Led AI policy development at City of Glasgow College and continued to share this work internationally.
• Presented at QAA Conference on assessment in an AI world and delivered series of workshops on Active, Blended, Collaborative Learning for Tertiary Sector in Scotland and garnered welcome support too from SQA.
• Pushed on continued development of Canvas platform and staff digital skills against some interesting internal headwinds.
•Hosted ALT Scottish SIG - this time on-line from COGC.

Post College -

• Participated in UNESCO's Future of Education bootcamp in Bilbao and now authoring bid with international partnership around adoption of open badge framework to support micro-credentials.
• Continued pushing for open educational resources despite system inertia
• Supported hashtag#Canvascon in Barcelona and facilitated a tertiary sector workshop back in Scotland.
• Ran series of workshops for HE and Colleges on blended learning for QAA including online workshops - deploying model developed @cityofglasgowcollege. Active, Blended and Connected.
• Supported an enjoyable workshop on Future of Learning with Prof Martin Bean.

These posts from LinkedIn capture pivotal moments:

"It's not the end of learning design and blended learning - it is just the beginning." Moving back to consultancy while reflecting on 7 years of institutional change.
https://lnkd.in/eb4anc2y

"It was an amazing privilege to be invited to make presentations and chair workshops in Ankara." Supporting vocational education reform internationally while Scottish reforms continue.
https://lnkd.in/em6K23C8

"Scotland is still not even partly on the bus despite best efforts of hashtag#openscot. Yet we are a country proud of education as a public good." The perpetual challenge of advancing open education.
https://lnkd.in/evGZVnrJ

" It was great to have opportunity to be part of cross sectoral expert team to develop this resource for QAA and associated workshops"
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joerwilson_planning-and-delivery-of-active-blended-learning-activity-7252070604621631488-6Uyb

Grateful to colleagues at City of Glasgow College and the team at Instructure Canvas who helped deliver real change, and to the broader Scottish education community still working to embrace open educational practices despite the obstacles.

Looking ahead to 2025: ready to help more institutions navigate AI integration thoughtfully while continuing to advocate for open education. The challenges around transferable skills and digital capabilities remain much the same as 20 years ago - but the positive relationships between learners and teachers still drive meaningful change.

Broadly I anticipate working with;

• UNESCO - Continue shaping bid for project around better understanding of the open source code available for creation and management of Open Badges in support of Micro credentials.
• Continue work with UK Digital Badging Commission
• Champion - Teachermatic and other AI platforms , Adaptive Comparative Judgement and Canvas by Instructure as means of changing the learning paradigm.
• Hopefully continue to support work of QAA around Scottish Tertiary Quality framework.
• Continue supporting sensible policy and practice around adoption of AI in vocational system.
• Following recent Dubai Summit working with Open Scotland to encourage more open educational practice in Scotland.
• Supporting institutions and staff who want to digitally transform their practice and their learners’ experience
• Continue as chair of ALT Scotland SIG and have a bit more time for community building - perhaps exploring new community platform.
• Where I can, offer informed input on shape of tertiary sector and future of vocational landscape including qualifications. 
• Continue having more me time - great trips since great escape to London, Berlin, Bologna, Viareggio, Lucca and France - along with business trips been a busy end of year.

To everyone working to make education more open and accessible: it is always the people who make the difference. Be as optimistic and cheerful as your learners.  

Here's to more progress in 2025.

Off the Fence

Perhaps fittingly, I'm authoring this as my ham cooks for New Year.

I count myself fortunate to have been one of the 700 staff who left the Scottish Further Education (FE) sector in recent years, following a fantastic 38-year career and better still, my skills are still in demand.

As I reflect on my time in this vital sector, it seems fitting to publish these thoughts at a time of hope and renewal. Ever the optimist, I believe in the potential for change.

Over the years, I’ve worked with national agencies responsible for awarding, funding, and staff development. I’ve collaborated with or worked for all the Glasgow colleges, including serving for 15 years on three college boards. Yet, I’ve never seen the sector in a more precarious position than it is today.

Scottish FE colleges are a cornerstone of the nation’s educational landscape. They provide vocational training, open pathways to higher education, and offer opportunities for lifelong learning. These institutions reflect Scotland’s historical commitment to accessible, practical education for all, evolving to meet the changing needs of society and the economy.

You won't find these stats in many places in terms of life long learning but most of the Scottish population are touched by a College at some point in their life. More so than say a university. 

They are a critical community resource. Vocational or leisure all of my family and friends have benefitted from a College course. It is the same across the country.

Having stepped away from the system, I feel compelled to highlight its challenges. These issues run deep, and it’s disheartening to see no sensible solutions on the near horizon. Agencies that once offered support and guidance are now in disarray.

Despite this, college boards, principals, teaching, and support staff continue to innovate and deliver exceptional results for their learners. However, the system they operate within is inherently unfair, inequitable, and in dire need of reform.

Staff are overwhelmed by the dual expectations placed on colleges: to close the attainment gap and drive social mobility, while also addressing skills shortages. These ambitious goals are undermined by ever-diminishing resources. Colleges, which could be a powerful engine for economic renewal both locally and nationally, are starved of the sustained support they need. In some cases, poor workplace relationships—driven largely by a lack of resources or a clearly articulated and funded national strategy, exacerbate these struggles.

It is rare to see college principals or even Colleges Scotland publicly addressing these issues. Given that college chairs are government appointed and principals are employed by college boards, it’s a testament to the severity of the crisis when these leaders dare to speak out. It is tough speaking truth to power and we need much more of this.

It's perhaps simply better that the public are aware of the manifest imbalance in the system.

The challenges, are undeniable. Audit Scotland has been flagging the sector’s fiscal issues for years. We are now past the critical point.

If there is less money in the system, a fresh approach is essential. The tertiary sector needs rebalancing, and there must be an acknowledgment that “free” higher education comes at a cost to the system as a whole.

Colleges operate differently from universities. I began my career as a local authority employee, transitioned to working for incorporated colleges, and ultimately worked for a regional college. Throughout this journey, colleges have always been directly reliant on public funding. Today, they are controlled and funded by the Scottish Government via the Scottish Funding Council (SFC). Unlike universities, which enjoy greater fiscal freedom, colleges are almost entirely instruments of government policy.

When a College gets into really deep challenges, the leadership team and even the College Board can be replaced, this is not how a University senate operates.

Recent history—particularly regionalisation—demonstrates that the system can be radically reshaped through direct intervention. Yet, what is lacking today is a clear vision, a direct steer, and mostly, appropriate funding.

Addressing these issues requires fundamental changes to how the education budget is allocated across the tertiary sector. There may not be more money but the resource needs to be distributed in a more equitable and focused way across life long learning.

While universities are also facing financial pressures, they have much more autonomy in managing their resources and have been more effective in lobbying.

Their stronger connections to senior politicians across the political divide, many of whom find posts in the university sector after public service, may partly explain the lack of collective political will to address these imbalances.

It is not simply that old chestnut that the policy makers and journalists move from school to university - they don't understand what Colleges do. It is much more pernicious. I think it may be some time before for instance the esteemed educational departments within our University sector speak out and or offer any solutions to the current College crisis. Their output on vocational learning is still scant. 

The disparity is stark. Glasgow residents cannot fail to notice the large-scale campus developments across the university sector, as well as the booming private student accommodation market. While academics often face precarious short-term contracts, for some universities, this is a golden age of campus expansion. Others, however, face much bleaker prospects.

What Needs to Change

Within the current college policy framework, certain elements appear for the present to be immutable: regionalisation, national pay and conditions bargaining, lecturer membership of the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), and “free” higher education.

Yet, there are areas ripe for reform. Here are some questions and suggestions—some more radical than others:

1. Regionalisation: What is the point of college regions if they aren’t connected to more regional funding?

2. Funding Integration: Break down siloed funding within the SFC for further and higher education. Include funding for work-based learning and ensure activities are funded at the same rate. This would mean reallocating some university funding to colleges and work-based learning. Yes, there are proposals here but things are simply moving far too slowly.

3. Differentiated University Funding: Recognize that universities are not all the same. Adjust funding formulas to reflect these differences and use public funding to shape what is available. Any course at a University should surely be based upon national occupational standards. This would support proper articulation links.

Some institutions may value global status over local delivery but let them make that strategic decision.

4. University Mergers: Encourage mergers within the university sector. 

Perhaps make old guard of research led universities have much closer partnerships with teaching led institutions.

Any changes here are tough with current governance arrangements. For example, a merger between Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of the West of Scotland could create efficiencies and similarly in Edinburgh and Dundee regions. 

UHI is a gordian knot - arguably Perth, Moray , Inverness and other partners need strong local College provision.

5. Inclusive Development: Ensure that any nationally funded development projects include colleges and work-based learning. How does the National Manufacting Institute for Scotland and Data Lab and other initiatives link deeply with Colleges, Training Providers and schools.

6. Open Education: Foster the adoption of UNESCO’s policies on open education across all sectors, including schools and local authorities. Let's make learning much more accessible to all.

Perhaps it’s even time to consider the unthinkable: university-college mergers. While this may seem radical, it could pave the way for a more integrated and equitable tertiary education system.

My caution against this would be that the very sector that that can be fleet of foot. That has short flexible courses and a vocational focus could easily be absolutely stifled by our slow ponderous and expensive higher education system. 

The simplest solution is an equalised funding formula for every candidate for public contribution to tertiary education in Scotland.

In College, in University in work based learning the disparity in funding needs to stop and focus needs to be on learning and skills.

I better go a check my ham - Happy New Year to one and all.

Shaping The Future of Education Session with Martin Bean

It was great to present alongside Professor Martin Bean To an audience of colleges and universities including some former colleagues. This was a busy session at City of Glasgow College around shaping the future of education. 

Thanks to the team at canvas by Instructure for facilitating this session. 

A summary below for folks who could not make it along.  

Martin laid out well the challenges facing global education. Generally we are far too slow to embrace innovation and deal with disruption. This has been familiar cry over the 38 years I have worked in the sector but more critical now than ever. 

We may not appreciate challenges like 

"Today is the slowest day of the rest of your working life"  But there is a truism here, change is becoming ever more rapid.

I summarise below some of Martin's gems but you really should get hold of his latest book ToolKit for Turbulance 

There is a re-skilling emergency across the world 

https://www.weforum.org/publications/putting-skills-first-a-framework-for-action/

While LinkedIn and others are busily mapping opportunities and candidates to skill descriptions and using AI to provide tailored learning solutions and microcredentials for learners. The established providers of learning are moving too slowly.

Knowledge and skills are a currency. The workforce need regular updates and current students need courses that are regularly reviewed, updated and delivered flexibly. Paper diplomas are old currency and current validation processes too slow.

Useful examples to have a look at 

Australia developing a digital skills passport to be used across life long learning.

https://www.education.gov.au/national-skills-passport-consultation

https://www.mypassglobal.com/

Even tied into migration policies 

https://www.jobsandskills.gov.au/consultations/draft-core-skills-occupations-list

In Europe the Europass continues to be developed

https://europa.eu/europass/eportfolio/

These developments allow the true creation of learning pathways based on micro/meso and macro digital certifications than stack together. In Australia being built around digital competency national skills descriptors.  

Digitally native Learners are moving to online platforms - examples 8 million Google professional certificates through Coursera , Salesforce and their Trailhead Academy Futurelearn in UK with 14million users 

Institutions often spend to much time focusing on their physical estate and do not realise that investment in their digital estate can deliver real value to their learners. 

The final challenge - 

Surely, Scotland with a new tertiary system should be looking at a digitally enabled skills passport/digital wallet for learners in Colleges, Universities and work based learning.  It would support employers and life long learners and make candidate search and opportunity discovery easier for all.  ( I know a few Scottish innovators in this space who would agree) 

My own reflection too much time and energy has been spent in changing the policy landscape and not enough time has been spent on looking at some of these system level changes in Scotland. It's easier to shuffle around agencies and lines of responsibility than to deliver real change in system. 

I followed up with a session focussing on how these challenges could be picked up in Scotland and what solutions institutions should be putting in place.  On the day I focused on challenges and vanilla solutions for broad audience. The presentation also covers how we used Canvas by Instructure to future proof our delivery.  I've redacted delegates inputs on day - feedback was really positive. 

I look forward to supporting future sessions. 

Co-creating open solutions through interdisciplinary collaboration for the future of education

It was a pleasure to attend the Open Solutions Workshop in Bilbao as a guest of #UNESCO and the University of Monterrey.

The eProjects Bootcamp is an initiative that focused on equipping participants with the skills and knowledge needed to develop and implement innovative projects using technology. 

I am now working on a global education project around applications of the open badges framework. A number of the other projects have a focus on AI and teachers and learner skills and around Open Educational Resources. 

It was great to work with focused colleagues from around the world and have a little time to see around Bilbao and enjoy Spanish hospitality. 

In due course I will be in touch with relevant institutions and agencies in UK who will benefit from working with this collaborative. 

It was well run, very focused, and a challenging couple of days.  It was good to work with teams who were technically able and prepared to hit the ground running. We made full use of the tools that were available to us including https://grantedai.com/  

#CanvasCon24 Barcelona #canvascon

It was kind of the great folks at Instructure Canvas to invite me over to a very sunny Barcelona for their annual European conference and to enjoy their impeccable hospitality. I write this up with a certain sense of longing, as I have now left the College and won't be rolling out some of the great new developments. However, I will keep doing my bit to champion many of the themes and ideas that were discussed in the sessions.

I will also feed this back to my former colleagues at City of Glasgow College.  As ever with a large event, I could not be in all of the sessions, so apologies if I missed some other key nuggets.  The space themed conference hotel and venue very fitting for some really useful future gazing, though many of the issues are old and apparently intractable.

Moon Walk 

 Here is my quick review.  Excellent keynotes, well organised and chaired by Dan Hill, MD EMEA.  Preconference, I enjoyed getting my brain being picked on what Colleges need next from their VLE platforms. 

Anne Marie Imafidon was a super opening speaker,  her work with Women into STEM is superb and it was great to hear her speak about the need to educate for the future and not for now. How important too that we inspire the next generation - gravitas is one of my pet hates - that as a young bright black girl she could only see images of serious looking dead white men with beards who had apparently invented the future - could have been a block to her own aspirations.  She is truly a great role model. 

This fitted well with later speaker Jóhanna Birna Bjartmarsdóttir (johannabirnabjartmars.com) a now confident, high achieving, young women who was initially rejected by the education system. A truly humbling story.  Interesting how much AI and other tools like Speechify and Grammarly enabled Johanna to re-engage with learning. 

 Ishan Kolhatkar from Inspera challenged us around the future of assessment. Exams will still be a thing, but in increasingly in smaller and more personalised bursts, and an old acquaintance and well known leader of digital learning Martin Bean - chaired some excellent panel sessions over the day. 

More on that later but hoping to see him in Scotland in December.  

Main messages here is that Generative AI means the end of lots of things and beginning of lots of new things particularly for learners and learning.  In twenty years time learners will scoff at old means of delivery of learning , just as they will be puzzled by computer keyboards and or even that in olden times people touched screens - voice and face recognition is future.

Here are my takeaways 

1. What seemed to be fairly standard "what is AI session"  from AWS services suddenly became quite exciting when presenter demoed PartyRock. Worth a look.
2. Mary McCooey of Queens University - has created a Canvas course for academics to make the most of data available to them to them at course level. Many teachers don't know how and don't access all the data they already have access to.  They have also pushed on with Canvas Data2. The analytics has enabled useful learning that has impacted on practice.  It seems counter intuitive but learners like doing as much as possible on the small screen on their phone. Has done a lot to link range of data and reports on usage of LTIs etc.  Also on when and what learners access and that they prefer interactive content. As COGC about to do some more work here would be useful follow up, there is also scope to work with Corry at Glasgow School of Art on Canvas data 2 in navigating this as she has very small team and would benefit from nearby critical friend. 
3. Cidilabs  this platform blew me away perhaps worth having a look at but do that alongside the new page creation designer from Canvas . The UDoIT tool might be more useful than blackboard ally as more Canvas native . They even have a tool that takes a PDF and converts it into a Canvas page. City of Glasgow College does have a few courses where there are squinty old PDF images of text that would benefit from this converter. 
4. Similarly worth having a look at Feedback Fruits some of their work around collaborative assessment particularly interesting and offers possibility of much more authentic assessment of group work and contributions of learners to team based assessments.
5. From AI sessions - we have all policy etc in place at COGC what is needed next is a more technical road map around adoption across College operations. I think most institutions need that. 
6. I met with Rosie Loyd of Tutello a platform that turns lecture notes and more into AI enabled agents - which looks just what many centres now need. 
7. Ryan Lufkin ran a great session I will certainly start following his podcast  I wonder if COGC would be interested him as speaker for future Learning and Teaching Conference ? His vision around impactful eight is good and aligned to global change The Impactful Eight - Instructure Community - 599792 (canvaslms.com)
8. Most Colleges in Northern Ireland and Sweden all use Canvas opening up more opportunities for national cooperation around Canvas Commons.
9. Swedish institutional lead interested in how UHI manages online and blended learning will make relevant introductions to colleagues at UHI.
10. Met EDF a development organisation who supported and continue to support Oxford Universities Canvas journey. I still think its amazing that we give Glasgow College students the platform used by most of the top global universities. EDF useful to know about if you need Canvas support.
11. Encountered, a new to me, similarity detection engine and I will have a poke around and promote if it is as good as it looks.  Shame they have just missed the APUC framework window.
12. Portflow by Driem - another portfolio solution not sure I need a deeper look .. but if you already have Canvas folio ? 
13. Manchester University are where we were five years ago but giving themselves a very generous two year window to move across to Canvas.
14. Had a useful conversation with Wiris  block in past to adoption is that they were always looking for an institutional licence which was just prohibitively expensive - suggests they may now be able to do smaller departmental deals.  If contact comes back will pass on to college. 
15. Finally great overview of Canvas Product Road Map My favourites are the new block editor and ability to have differentiated content release along with in course smart search, the new AI discussion summary tool and for the teckie in me the new LTI management tools.

I hope this summary is useful I am now back in very cold Scotland.  Thanks again Instructure for a really useful conference. Thanks too to all the great folks I met at conference for making it rewarding and fun.  

Goodbye and Hello

 

I let folks know on LinkedIn that I was finishing up my shift at City of Glasgow College at the end of August and moving back into world of educational consultancy. My association with vocational education and educational technology is continuing into its 38th year. I was overwhelmed by all the good wishes from friends past and present and job offers.I am really going to pick and choose I already have some irons in the fire, but looking forward to some me time too.

I've had a busier than anticipated September, my first month on the loose. 

Happy to say I arrived and left smiling from COGC. I am grateful for the opportunity to ride off into the sunset. I don't intend to be competing in the full- time job market again and a mix of paid and pro bono work will see me into retirement comfortably. Special thanks to Joanna Campbell who hired me initially with a clear vision and to all the learning technologists, IT team members past and present and the team of the Learning and Teaching Academy who helped roll out Canvas and much more at City of Glasgow College over the last seven years. Thanks too to all of the staff and students who in this period had to engage with learning technology more than at any other time.

Reminder -
It's not the end of learning design and blended learning - it is just the beginning.

I think we've transformed a lot and I'm sure there is more change to come across the College and the tertiary sector. Thanks too to the commercial sponsors and funders that trusted us over the years with lots of money and kit to push on our digital projects and capabilities and to all our educational technology suppliers who smoothed the way.

I leave behind a great team and robust learning technology platform for someone to write the next chapter.

I'm now looking forward to pushing on some things that were simply not possible in an institutional setting. 

Turkish Vocational Qualifications Authority Exchange Ankara

It was an amazing privilege to be invited to make two presentations, chair and  participate in a series of workshops in Ankara following catching up with the Turkish delegation in Scotland some seven months ago.

I was on familiar ground around talking occupational standards, national awarding , accreditation, credit and levelling and quality control at national and centre level, but my talk was about how centres can use technology to support innovative delivery  and personalised assessments which is my current day job, reflecting the work of our team. 

I know we as a centre can support centres and training staff in Turkey to innovate their practice. I hope a partnership can grow around that. 

Interesting opportunities too with a large centre in France for learner and staff exchange and with a centre in Italy keen to figure out portfolios, microcredentials and digital badging with us. I'll take these back to our international team. 

It was great to hear the progress that has been made in Turkey where they have broadly adopted the Scottish Vocational system. Like many other countries. Unit based awards with clear approval criteria for centres and a sensible sampling quality assurance process is a sensible option. Well done SQA who were along to support event and great to catch up with Roderic Gillespie and Donald Paterson two former SQA colleagues supporting the developments in Turkey. Well done too to the SCQF partnership who were truly european trail blazers around setting up a national qualifications framework. 

We visited a really well equipped training centre and sampled their processes. These would be familiar to any training centre or College in Scotland. One thing stood out, when assessing candidates on solar panel installation or working at height on powerlines, all of the practical assessments are videoed as evidence and kept for later sampling. At moment evidence is required to be kept for 100 years. In Scotland we just need to hold evidence for around 12 months, though we do keep records of resulting for 3 - 5 years.

It was good to hear too the progress that has been made in France, Italy and Germany who made presentations on their own systems. 

All have clear employer levies that support employers and trainees. France and Italy have perhaps the most flexible system to support employers and employees upgrade their skills.  Germany is looking to modernise their established system - the delegates knew that many countries look at their system as leading.  It was interesting to hear them describe their own system as like Sputnik - a world first but now in need of upgrading. Their system is creaking a bit in terms of it ability to innovate and on the ground they are having challenges around recruiting and retaining assessors. 

My own reflections - 

• I think we need clearer line of sight in Scotland between the employer levy and where money is then committed to the vocational system. It is clear that is an essential element of a successful vocational system. 
• Ankara is a modern metropolis of 6 million people, it's very cold in winter - but with warm friendly people and amazing food. Turkey has a population of 84 million. 
• I've encountered the massive success of Scottish vocational system all around the world. It is easy to forget for a tiny country, we have always hit well above our weight on educational exporting, developing global thinking not at institutional but at national level, this around our vocational system - not school assessments nor the Scottish University system. I am still concerned this will be seriously disrupted or even lost when reforms come to SQA. 
• Other countries are making strong progress around digital certification. In Turkey you can request your certificate in any major language. 
• It was great to meet again colleagues from the European Training Foundation and from GOPA  and great to hear that expat Glaswegians in their ranks  follow my wee brother's Lost Glasgow Facebook and Twitter pages. 

Here in full flow speaking and chairing and  presentation linked to this blog post.  The work here is a reflection of work across the Learning and Teaching Academy at City of Glasgow College. I'm taking some Turkish delight back to my team.