#DigCompEdu Citylearning4.0 10 things

I've been given the opportunity to shape CityLearning4.0,  an ambitious strategy to change the face of delivery at City of Glasgow College.

Here are some practical tips we gave some staff last week.

#cogcdigisymp Some Quick Wins

CC Devon Poole 2nd Year Photography City of Glasgow College 

Yesterday, I was kindly invited to chair the afternoon discussion session at the City of Glasgow College's Digital Symposium. In the morning we bounced around the very familiar landscape of the gulf that still exists between the needs of the computing industry and the outputs from all parts of the education sector ( schools , colleges , universities ) . I am of course sorting that out in another blog post.

My solution would be to get Colleges to work more closely with industry but with staff development and a much greater cascading of skills with the resources going through the arteries that exist for staff development and the shaping of qualifications - rather than inventing new and I'll say it probably not very sustainable new models but I can hear a civil servant being satisfied and saying ' at least we got the money out of the door' and the disappearing footsteps of a politician moving on to the next big task having built a new service as a personal legacy.

It might seem faster to create shiny new organisations or new kinds of apprenticeship - but without deep engagement and some retooling and re-skilling of the existing organisations, agencies and staff - the money will run out before we have achieved the system level change that is required. My favourite anecdote comes from a primary teacher who loves all the coding stuff and the folk who come to the school, as it allows more time for marking and a cup of tea. The skills transfer that is happening is zero, perhaps this will be picked up soon.

While from College staff I heard that some of the links between vendor awards and SQA qualifications have drifted apart again and that staff need some focused formal re-training , a bit more than the half day taster sessions on new technologies that are currently on offer. We wondered out loud too who is training the vocational assessors in the University sector - graduate apprenticeships sound great but they do require quite a sharp change in University assessment processes. And apprenticeships are based on national standards not institutionally validated ones or interpreted ones, hope some external verification arrives with these.

Why are we still talking about giving appropriate recognition for all the teaching staff who do the Apple , Microsoft, Google and many more programmes in becoming a digital educator ? This probably has more impact on learners than many of the academic programmes on offer. And from conversations around the gathering still lots of digs at education leaders who can't cope with the technology -I  hope that an understanding of  the application of technology in learning features highly in any leadership programmes perhaps this is as important as learning and modelling your management style . There must be sensible bridges built here.

In the afternoon we had some great discussion around digital literacy and changing the delivery models  in schools , colleges , universities and work-based learning. That is bit I was chairing.

From that session I  promised I would list the things I said on the day. The things that as a College you could do now.

Here they are , in no particular order;

1. Edx  https://github.com/edx - We discussed the inability of our system to do more that mark multiple choice questions using artificial intelligence. I am not sure I like using AI in context of what in assessment jargon is automated MCQ.  There is a solution at hand but I've never found an organisation with the appetite to adopt it and use it in anger. Give it a sample of 100 essays and it then marks and grades them at a high degree of reliability.  ( I'd actually stop using essays as a means of assessment but that is another blog post) 
2. Content creation - I've been plugging this for a while most teachers with a power point will be able to cope with https://lumen5.com/  Most staff should of course have a reflective blog,  that would make using Lumen5 even more compelling. 
3. If you have staff who are a bit more adventurous get everyone using https://h5p.org/ you can create engaging learning materials and port them straight into your virtual learning environment. 
4. If you want to see what AI can do at speed to build serviceable on line courses then catch a demo of http://www.wildfirelearning.co.uk/ Donald explains how it works on the website 
5. Make sure your organisation has a Wikipedian You can find out how to do this here and get some advice  http://open.ed.ac.uk/wikipedia-training-lesson-plan/  If you have a wikipedian they can register your College IP address and this means that you can use wikipedia and other tools properly in the classroom. It all about collaborative creation. It is much more than wikipedia - check out all the things that wikimedia can bring to you on Ewen McAndrew's blog.
6. Learn how to harvest , harness , create and publish open educational resources from Scotland and the OER global community - there are just too many links to add here. But here is a local start http://open.ed.ac.uk/how-to-guides/ to get staff creating. 
7. Get ready for open text books http://ukopentextbooks.org/  a raft of content about to arrive and the programme is looking for Scottish College partners. If you would like a workshop in your institution, you can email vivien.rolfe@gmail.com  One for all Colleges in Scotland would be good. 
8. Have a look at the UNESCO action plan . Open Scotland and others will keep pushing for the adoption of  a policy change across Scottish Education - but look at the bits you could do now as a leader of learning , as a classroom practitioner , as a signatory to the Open Scotland Declaration.Get moving ! 
9. Remember you don't have to be Edinburgh University to open up to learners - but have a good look at http://open.ed.ac.uk/ and embrace the way of working. Start learning too about open research and knowledge  and how to access it - it will enrich learning at all levels.
10. Discover and use Learning Wheels and look out for the announcement on 10th of October  
11. Don't reinvent the wheel check out things like http://www.23things.ed.ac.uk/ and make it better 
12. Give more love to your learning technologists and give them appropriate staff development and let them out to meet other learning technologists - it will help you move forward at all levels . Join https://www.alt.ac.uk/ and encourage relevant staff to work towards https://www.alt.ac.uk/certified-membership 
13. Have a look at http://aims.fao.org/activity/blog/digital-skills-and-digital-literacy-european-union-policy-actions There is a competency framework that should be embedded in what we do with learners and in staff development and in how Colleges are inspected - schools too ! 
14. Think passed where you are now - for some, perhaps the computing department the future should be in the cloud and virtual machines , for learners a domain of their own,  but  for the institution it might be looking towards https://www.canvasvle.co.uk/ 
15. And finally a MOOC is about to start for the Vocational and Training sector to develop blended learning skills https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/blended-learning-digital-skills/

Grateful to the creatives,  doing some great things in the main area of the conference, for capturing me in zany mode. I hope these links and reflections are useful.

Apologies too to all the great initiatives from Jisc and some of the other organisations I work for and with - it could have been a much longer and more technical list.

I am looking forward to seeing all the slides from the day.

If you understand learning needs to be creative and engaging for staff and learners I'm always ready to help you do better things in new ways.

Thanks to City of Glasgow College for hosting the International Symposium.

To See Ourselves as Others See Us

It's been a great week touring around and listening to domain experts from across Scotland with an international delegation,  looking at our technical and professional learning system.

It was a wee while in the planning,  but good things take time.  Great too to reflect on why they are interested in the Scottish technical and professional vocational system.

1. It makes sense,  ( not always the case when you are too close to it  and it is sometimes too easily dismissed by some around and within our own system) the work of SCQF , SQA , Education Scotland and SDS in making sure that there are clearly funded progression pathways through different vocations into work or onto further study. The Colleges make sure it is a collaborative effort to get this right.

2. The links between qualifications and national occupational standards and in the main the transparent way that these relate to each other. The strong links to industry that all the Colleges work to maintain.  We saw learners working with the latest equipment from tractors to TV studios with equipment often supplied by employers.

3. The unit based , competency based qualification structures  - based on notional 40 hours of study or in some cases short 10 hour SCQF credit and leveled courses that can lead to both academic and vocational progression make sense. The logic and structure of this appealed to our visitors  as well as the flexible and varied assessment methodologies that are in place. The evidence that it makes sense exemplified by the many deep international relationships in place across and beyond Europe between College and international partners. These competencies are embedded in the Scottish system and travel around the world.  I'd make one rule though ,  if it is  not an exportable qualification, let's not make it - we seem to be crowding our system with different types and titles of award.

4. Core skills - that we try to give learners a set of transferable skills - both in the workplace and through their College courses. That we are working hard to build in entrepreneurship into all of our programmes and giving learners as much direct business experience as we can. The philosophy of  a Curriculum for Excellence along with Developing Scotland's Young Workforce  and the efforts made in reaching into schools to show that progression to higher education is not the only path to professional and fulfilling careers struck a chord with our guests. The work of Young Enterprise Scotland in supporting creative thinking and of  Business Gateway Scotland in supporting those who want to start their own ventures -opened the eyes of our visitors.

5. Our College governance arrangements , funding arrangements and quality checks from Education Scotland , SQA , SFC,  SDS , national and regional plans and monitoring   - the externals thought it was a lot of auditing. I think some in system think the same.

6. The dedication of all the teaching staff to the success of their learners . I know on these outings we sometimes meet the handpicked rather than those having a tough week. But all the Colleges we visited had inspired learners and inspiring and supportive teaching staff who welcomed us into their classrooms and we just popped into classrooms along our tour.

7. That through the Princes Trust and others we reach out to the hard to reach and work hard to get young learners to take a full and active part in our society and our economy.

8. That private training providers , charities and employers all play a part in delivering the system as a whole. .

Thanks to all the Colleges and agencies that opened their doors and made significant inputs.  I am sure a range of opportunities will open up in this region. I've now got a lot of data and documents to gather together and sometimes the tougher job of explaining some parts of our system that still don't make sense.  Why for instance all HND learners cannot progress into 3rd year of any relevant degree programme and equally why there is not a seamless progression from an apprenticeship into HND or HNC with advanced standing and why schools are still not embedding a lot more vocational options.
Perhaps, too why learners persist in taking up places on University courses that often have no clear routes to employment. ( I can hear the poet in me rebelling - but we still don't have the mix right). 

They are thinking about redirecting greater resources to Colleges as they understand the economic impact this will have on their learners and their society as a whole. 'The next generation of technicians and entrepreneurs will spring from the workplace and from the College sector'  It is a good vision.

On reflection perhaps  we do not always value the contribution that this eminently exportable system makes to the Scottish economy as a whole.

And as a final footnote - three Colleges said they were the biggest at something - this does not always  impress better to explain the quality of the learning and teaching and present evidence of the  positive destinations of the learners and then perhaps add how big you are. Our guests were amused by this as they have a population of over 30 million and some gigantic institutions.  

Open Scotland Declaration - Still Garnering International Recognition #OER

It is great that this work coordinated and authored by my co-conspirator and co-founder of Open Scotland , Lorna Campbell of Edinburgh University,  continues to attract global recognition and attention.

I've been responding today,  to the Polish Government. I know too  that the work is currently forming the basis of policies in Morocco and beyond in the middle east as well as being the basis for many other global policy initiatives.

But I had to re-iterate today that the Open Scotland Declaration is a statement of intent to engage Scottish policy makers and institutions to support changes across  our system –but it is not,  as yet, reflected in any  government policy.

I know the Scottish Government is currently reviewing its own plans for the next five years - I hope that story changes soon.

Our progress best summarized here in Lorna's post 

In response to the enquiry around adopting Scotland's policy and giving some examples of open policy and practice in Scotland -  I responded 

1. http://declaration.openscot.net/  is the Open Scotland Declaration,  it is a statement of ambition and demonstrates an approach towards having national policy in place.
2. http://openscot.net/     Is the community blog from Open Scotland,  a grass roots organisation to promote greater openness. 
3. https://oepscotland.org/   Is an example of a national initiative led by the Open University in Scotland  to encourage more open practices, this was funded in part as a  response to Open Scotland.
4. http://open.ed.ac.uk  Is an institutional response to becoming more open from Edinburgh University and is in part as a direct response to Open Scotland. 

I know other work is underway at Glasgow Caledonian University and we are fortunate through ALT the Association of Learning Technology to have a strong network of innovators across Scotland and we can see the green shoots of open education appearing across the University and to some extent the Galleries , libraries and museums sector . It would be great to be able to say that the Government were endorsing this approach in Scotland and that schools , colleges , and the training sector were coming on board.

#oerforum #openscot Warsaw European Open Educational Policy Forum

Storify by Joe Wilson

Fri, Jun 09 2017 13:11:01

Edit

#OERForum #OpenScot Warsaw

An Overview of Two days of discussion about Open Educational Policy Across Europe

1. This is a short snapshot of the proceedings of the Open Educational Resources Policy Forum held in Warsaw 1st-2nd June 2017 supported and facilitated by Alec Tarkowski @atarkowski Centrium Cyfrowe Poland . I was invited to talk about Open Scotland openscot.net , the Open Scotland Declaration declaration.openscot.net and Open Educational Developments in Scotland, as co-founder of Open Scotland. I have to make special mention of my co-conspirator @lornaMCampbell who made sure we had a Scottish voice at these proceedings. I cannot do justice to all of the useful things I discovered over the two day sessions so here is just a sample . I will post up the presentations I delivered across two sessions in a separate post. This was an opportunity to hear about some great developments happening across Europe.
2. 

   Lorna M. Campbell@LornaMCampbell

   @josiefraser *Waves* at everyone! So sorry I can't be there to join you all. #oerforum

   @joecar

   ·

   Thu, Jun 01 2017 11:59:59

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3. 

   Evening with the Policy Forum  http://goo.gl/2Cea7E  so many countries around one table! #oerforum pic.twitter.com/abSYEYzwhF

   Josie Fraser@josiefraser

   @joecar

   ·

   ·

   Wed, May 31 2017 19:44:01

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4. #oerforum getting underway looking forward to hearing lots of radical new ideas to feed back into #openscot pic.twitter.com/zoOVKnCATz

   Joe Wilson@joecar

   ·

   Thu, Jun 01 2017 10:56:18

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5. In terms of a nation on the move, the Netherlands was frequently cited as having the most progressive system. Progress is being led by the universities but is embedded in the school system too . This is the policy conundrum . Some Countries have some very ambitious policies - Slovenia , Romania, Georgia , Moldova and USA but less evidence that change is being taken up by the practitioners. In Germany , Poland , Norway , Italy , Spain and France systems at some level are already moving ahead with open educational resources and practices sometimes with fewer policy drivers.
6. In some countries open practice is more developed in the School or Vocational College sectors rather than in the University Sector. In many countries development is being led at grassroots level rather than being driven by a unified government policy - though increasingly governments across Europe are adopting the principles of the UNESCO Paris Declaration within their policies and practice. Some throw away lines showed educational systems that are enormously progressive . Estonia normalised creative commons licensing across education in 2010. That makes them seven years ahead of Scottish system already !
7. 

   #openforum #openscot go the Netherlands ! I think leading on policy across learning pic.twitter.com/cYac2RhrFQ

   Joe Wilson@joecar

   ·

   Thu, Jun 01 2017 11:31:12

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8. Slovenia is really leading charge to influence policy across Europe - but other countries are not far behind, as Education Ministries come to understand the benefits to the whole educational system through the adoption of open educational policies and practices.
9. 

   #OERforum #openscot hope some scottish policy wallahs see this - look how Slovenia moving ahead in this space pic.twitter.com/zGrcqkcUEu

   Joe Wilson@joecar

   ·

   Thu, Jun 01 2017 14:38:45

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10. #oerforum @jatenas outlines open education policy examples: national initiatives in Greece, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands & Romania pic.twitter.com/a8g7MmiqB9https://t.co/a8g7MmiqB9pic.twitter.com/a8g7MmiqB9

    Josie Fraser@josiefraser

    ·

    Thu, Jun 01 2017 11:33:01

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11. We did keep returning to the fact that Open Educational Resources and policies in this space are really a subset of a much broader open movement. But that without some specific policy drivers here developments will not happen. In Spain it is already embedded in teacher training and the formal CPD for teachers.
12. 

    The open education policy landscape across Europe #oerforum #openscot pic.twitter.com/RYmQdwf29J

    Joe Wilson@joecar

    ·

    Thu, Jun 01 2017 11:19:35

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13. Norway are already 10 years down the road of having a sharing economy for school teachers . They have a set of impressive figures that show the materials that are co-created by learners and teachers in Norway are now used around the globe and have had a postive impact on achievement and retention in Norwegian Schools I have linked to a small sample for English teachers below . You can see scope of project and global partnerships here  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Digital_Learning_Arena …
14. Engelsk

    Norwegian Digital Learning Arena, Open Educational Resources

    

    ndla_no
15. They have also developed free tools for creating learning materials and mixing existing #OER Content . When I tweeted this out I discovered that a few UK Educational Technologists are using this already . The Moodle and Wordpress Plugins should make it a tool that many teachers and FE staff should be using.
16. H5P

    H5P empowers everyone to create, share and reuse interactive content - all you need is a web browser and a web site that supports H5P.

    

    h5p
17. These developments now rolling out globally to provide learning materials for the world.
18. Global Digital Learning

    Global Digital Library GDL

    

    name
19. There are some other useful developments on the way Get CC Certfied should be getting embedded in many professions . The European Digital Skills Framework has been refreshed to pick up open practitioner skills for teachers and learners. A study in Poland will show the impact on teachers and learners of having access to a libary of open text books . The Open Knowlege Foundation continues to map a range of initiatives and people engaged in open educational activity around the world. There are growing sets of resources in place to help teachers and administrators navigate through the world of open education - See USA Department of State Play Book to show teachers how to create accessible open learning materials.
20. Some governments are using the lever of the Open Government Partnership to bring in new policies around Open Educational Resources . While Sparc continues to support the open research agenda but is now also supporting open educational resource initiatives,
21. In breakout sessions and in the open forum we spent some time talking through the European Copyright Directives and the aim of getting proper fair usage policies in all European countries. It is worth following this campaign and the broader debate communia-association.org
22. Get CC Certified

    the open project for Creative Commons certification

    

    Get CC Certified
23. 

    Joe Wilson@joecar

    #oerforum hearing how this framework is being used across life long learning in Europe #openscot has #oer inside !  http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC101254/jrc101254_digcomp%202.0%20the%20digital%20competence%20framework%20for%20citizens.%20update%20phase%201.pdf …

    Fri, Jun 02 2017 11:07:42

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24. 

    Joe Wilson@joecar

    #oerforum hearing that there is a study on impact of open books on schools in Poland EU Funded useful evidence of impact of #oer #openscot

    Fri, Jun 02 2017 11:25:56

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25. 

    Joe Wilson@joecar

    Open Education Working Group reminded how useful this is #OERforum #openscot  https://education.okfn.org/ 

    Fri, Jun 02 2017 11:35:18

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26. 

    Joe Wilson@joecar

    #OERforum a nice playbook for #OER #openscot  https://eca.state.gov/files/bureau/open_licensing_playbook_final.pdf …

    Fri, Jun 02 2017 11:59:51

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27. 

    Joe Wilson@joecar

    Open Government and Open Education - SPARC worth a look #OERforum #openscot  https://sparcopen.org/our-work/opengoveducation/ …

    Fri, Jun 02 2017 12:37:53

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28. 

    Joe Wilson@joecar

    Open Government Partnership #OERforum wonder how embedded this is across the UK #openscot  https://www.opengovpartnership.org/ 

    Fri, Jun 02 2017 12:34:29

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29. In the French government presentation some things really jumped out at me . The first is that to date I have not really been aware of the French systems progress in and around open education . There is a rich set of open learning materials becoming available . Here is a sample a self testing language platform  http://certiflangues.univ-littoral.fr/ … and an ambitious plan to embed blockchain technology into national certification - so moving to digital certification for all. For France traditionally often seen as conservative and bureaucratic in Education circles - this is amazingly progressive. This based on work of the Learning Machine learningmachine.com/ and on bokk.io/en/home-2/
30. Our hosts Poland are in the midst of a very ambitious educational reform programme including a lot of teacher training initiatives around embedding open practices new.ore.edu.pl/ and pioneering work around having a national open text book programme  https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/poland-pioneering-worlds-first-national-open-textbook-program … and are building and sharing resources for global learning e-globalna.edu.pl/
31. PIX

    PIX est une plateforme en ligne d'évaluation et de certification des compétences numériques des citoyens francophones (élèves, étudiant•e•s, décrocheur•se•s, demandeur•se•s d'emploi, sénior•e•s).

    

    beta
32. 

    Accueil - sup-numerique.gouv.fr

    

    sup-numerique

    ·

    Mon, Jun 05 2017 13:26:20
33. About the Blockchain

    The blockchain is a decentralized global network of computers that records transactions between two parties in a permanent and verifiable way.

    

    Learning Machine
34. I am looking forward to seeing the full proceedings from two very valuable days of work with some very inspirational people from across the learning universe. I will share this post with the Open Scotland #openscot blog and community.
35. Images from last weeks #oerforum pic.twitter.com/5fXAxT5MNW

    Joe Wilson@joecar

    ·

    Fri, Jun 09 2017 13:09:59

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Key Messages from UNESCO European Regional Consultation #OER #Openscot #Digiscot

I had a moment or two this morning to try out Lumen5  what a cool tool - but I hope you pick up the key messages as well as learning about this new medium

All England but worth reflecting on Skills Policy/ Politics in England

Thanks to https://unsplash.com/@heftiba for this image

Education and Skills is thankfully a devolved issue in Scotland and we have our own levers and our own challenges in making Education and Skills in Scotland reflect the needs of Scottish learners, employers and broader civil society. And thankfully education and training is still viewed in the main as a social good across the political spectrum in Scotland.

But it is worth having a keek over Hadrian's Wall as large UK employers will have an appetite or at least will question the Scottish institutional response to some of the broader English reforms around Further Education and Vocational Skills Reform.

Some of these policy commitments could have big implications for Scottish training providers operating in England and for FE Colleges in Scotland trying to hold on to training contracts from English based organisations.

In amongst all of this there are some good ideas, from both sides of this political divide. Some of these ideas might even creep north of the border but only the good ones,  I hope.

The summaries of Labour and Conservative Manifesto's as reported by The Federation of UK Awarding Bodies appear below along with links to the full party manifesto.

Labour Party Manifesto

• Labour would introduce free, lifelong education in FE colleges, enabling everyone to upskill or retrain at any point in life.
• Labour would abandon Conservative plans to once again reinvent the wheel by building new Technical Colleges, redirecting the money to increase teacher numbers in the FE sector.
• To implement Sainsbury’s recommendations, we would correct historic neglect of the FE sector by giving the sector the investment – in teachers and facilities – it deserves to become a world-leading provider of adult and vocational education. 
• Labour would restore the Education Maintenance Allowance for 16-18 year olds from lower and middle income backgrounds
• Labour would replace Advanced Learner Loans and upfront course fees with direct funding, making FE courses free at the point of use.

In relation to apprenticeships, the draft manifesto includes commitment to:

• Maintain the apprenticeship levy while taking measures to ensure high quality by requiring the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to report on an annual basis to the Secretary of State on quality outcomes of completed apprenticeships to ensure they deliver skilled workers for employers and real jobs for apprentices at the end of their training 
• Set a target to double the number of completed apprenticeships at NVQ level 3 by 2022
• Cover apprentices’ travel costs, which currently run to an average of £24 a week – a quarter of earnings if apprentices are on the minimum wage. 

 

Conservative Party Manifesto 2017

•  Roll out of T Levels with an average of 900 teaching hours per year and a 3 month work placement. No specific mention of or timescales licences etc.
• Repeated commitment to create 3 million apprenticeships for young people by 2020.
• A UCAS-style portal for technical education
• Commitment to establish skills as a key part of the "modern industrial strategy"
• £250 million investment in skills by the end of 2020 from the National Productivity Investment Fund
• Double the Immigration Skills Charge levied on companies employing migrant workers, to £2,000 a year by the end of the parliament.
• Ensure that the skills and qualifications gained by members of the armed forces are recognised by civilian employers
• New institutes of technology, backed by leading employers and linked to universities, in every major city in England. They will provide courses at degree level and above, specialising in technical disciplines, such as STEM, whilst also providing higher-level apprenticeships and bespoke courses for employers
• Employers still "at the centre of these reforms" with Skills Advisory Panels and Local Enterprise Partnerships working at a regional and local level.
• Discounted bus and train travel for apprentices
• A new right to request leave for training for all employees.
• A national retraining scheme - the costs of training will be met by the government, with companies able to gain access to the Apprenticeship Levy to support wage costs during the training period.
•  A right to lifelong learning in digital skills.

 

 

 

 

 

 






  


  




 


 

#oereumt UNESCO Regional Consultations for 2nd World #OER Congress 2017 #openscot #digitaldifference

Interview with Joe Wilson
Joe Wilson

Spotted that the papers and all the sessions from the UNESCO #OER Regional Consultations are now up - if you are interested in this important global dimension of learning really worth having a good dig around.  You can get all the key notes here  and if you don't already know about Video Lectures as a platform worth having a look at that too.

Here is me caught on one of the coffee breaks on a sunny balcony over looking Valletta harbour.
Shout out to https://twitter.com/LornaMCampbell whose work I plugged in session but is not mentioned in this edited version.

Main lessons coming out of sessions

1. Open Educational Resources is  a subset of Open Practice
2. That countries need quite clear competency frameworks around digital literacy for learners and for those who work with learners ( teachers , lecturers , trainers , librarians , community education workers , GLAM workers ) which includes an understanding of Creative Commons , open licensing and how to create, publish , find and re-purpose open educational resources and embed this in their practice.
3. That to move on both digital skills and open educational practice there needs to be some quite clear policy drivers - not sector by sector - but from government. To be really effective this can't be from Education Ministry alone it should be seen in broadest context to get both civil society and industry engaged,  they all have things that they can share openly to support learning. But Education Ministry is a good place to start.
4. That there does need to be some sort of technical infrastructure a national repository or another suitable  aggregation, tagging , discovery  tool as a means of  finding and tracking openly available learning materials

Remember too where ever you are in the system you can just share your own learning materials with an appropriate creative commons licence . You don't have to wait for permission to innovate. 

#Jisc #FELTAG UK FE and Skills Coalition London

I had the opportunity to present to the #FELTAG FE and Skills Coalition in London this week on the challenges I see around the vocational reform programme in England and the opportunities emerging from this. I will not rehearse them all here but  will offer a short summary.

I think the system is becoming comfortable but needs more challenge around delivering 20% of apprenticeship programmes off the job. There is still room for more innovation around on-line delivery. Training organisations unused to classroom delivery need most support here in shaping innovative on-line offerings.

The main challenges lie around how to manage the movement of learners through programmes and towards end point assessement without the scaffolding of the unit based qualifications that existed in previous frameworks. There is an opportunity here for open badges and other forms of micro-credentials.  You can see City and Guilds and the other former awarding bodies that operated in this space positioning their delivery systems to supply learner content and step by step assessments that are supported by open badges.

Managing learmers progress is a mechanistic  challenge too.  Many frameworks require the collection of  on-going evidence to be presented at end point assessment. The system as a whole needs new approaches to e-portfolios that better support learning and development.  The previous vocational system was over reliant on checklist based systems while the systems that are used in Higher Education are too aimed at deep reflection against very broad outcomes.  The ideal system for the new apprenticeships lies somewhere in the middle - twinned with an reliable virtual learning environment for learner delivery and tracking. This to allow trainees, employers, training providers and End Point Assessment providers a window on the progress of the learning.  Trainees need to be highly confident that they are ready for end point assessment.

For providers there is still a challenge around making sure that there is a consistency of decision making and reliable quality control both around delivery and in decisions about predicting gradings.
Grading is a new concept in this area of training.  There needs to be greater transparency around the quality assurance mechanisms for End Point Assessments. Candidates and training providers need clear guidance both around understanding the pass/fail criteria and the grading criteria in many frameworks.

There remain some gaps - some of which might have been held up by the general election. I think many observers were anticipating the publication of a new set of digital competency standards around digital literacy to be published in England. This to form part of the underpinning essential skills for apprenticeships. There is already a new framework in place in Wales.

There remain too some deeper structural challenges that need tidied up by the new Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education. Some standards and assessment standards are not fit for purpose though published and approved. Probably best exemplified by the diminishing but still stubbornly high list of frameworks with no end point assessment body. This is still a potential crisis needing averted. The offer for non-levy paying employers still seems unclear and will stop many SME employers engaging with the programme. I think too the cost of end point assessment may act as a deterrent for both employers and employees in achieving fully qualified status.

From a Scottish view point 

As someone with a lot of experience of this sector in UK and internationally I understand the English drivers for many of these changes - but I don't agree with many of the reforms. I think the system should be rightly very anxious about the next wave of changes in trying to shoe horn vocational delivery towards 15 strands. Yes,  they do things like this in New Zealand and in other vocational systems but not in the manner that is being attempted in England.

I wish the term UK Vocational Reform Programme was used less - in what is in essence and practice an English Vocational Reform programme.

But I am jealous about some of the high level movement and thinking going on.

On the data side, the willingness to make more use of the Universal Learning Number ( we have had this in Scotland since the 1970's, the Scottish Candidate Number,  but have never fully exploited its utility around reporting learner progress through all of our learning system) The work around both the Individual Learning Record and the Individual Learning Plan with that focus on how the system supports and pushes on the performance and achievement of the learner so that centres are  not rewarded for simply allowing the learner to mark time is something the Scottish system should be exploring.  Yes,  it does take some learners longer than others to achieve but system should be working to understand this.  It will be interesting to see how the final link to HMRC shows a clear link to income and productivity. Would be great to see some of these approaches in Scotland.

We have data and some of these tools but have lacked the willingness and ambition to join this data up in Scotland.

I like too the grading of apprenticeships - as will employers and apprentices - but I think you can achieve this without the cost and disruption of End Point Assessment.

I like too the broader ambitions of the graduate apprenticeship programmes in England . In Scotland we are doing these targeted at areas where there has been a lack of flexibility from the Universities and a latent demand from industry. In England you are doing this too  but also building a rich set of alternative pathways into the professions like law and accountancy. This will really close the academic and vocational divide.

Finally I like the innovation around delivery and assessment that has been driven by both the FELTAG coalition and by the changing landscape shaped by the vocational reform programme. There is a greater sense of urgency to adopt new delivery methods and drive up the technical capacity of centres and teaching staff in English Colleges and training providers.  We do have some excellent practice in Scotland but it is more distributed.  Jisc and other have been doing a great job in supporting centres through this period of change .

I'll do a follow up post on the growing list of support available for centres in this new landscape.