The FE and Skills Bid Call

On 17 February the FE and Skills Sector Funding Call was announced, it provides an opportunity for the sector, in keeping with their own strategy and priorities, to apply for funding with the objective of:
a. enhancing student experience;
b. improving efficiency and effectiveness of their organisation; and
c. enhance organisational capability to meet the new requirements envisaged in policy and funding by means of:

• applying  "existing resources (from JISC or elsewhere) to their work and adapt them for their needs." (£450,000 available) 
• identifying "gaps in these resources and/or current uses made of technology in the sector and create new resources for use by other providers." (£900,000 available)

This call is unique in a number of ways; firstly FE and Skills sector will not be competing with universities for funding, the entire £1.4 million will be invested in projects proposed and managed by colleges (including sixth form and specialist colleges) and the skills sector (work based learning, adult and community, offender learning).

Secondly efforts have been made to make this call less onerous to bid for, this has been achieved in a number of ways:

1. Its free, unlike a standard JISC funding call there is no requirement for you to match the bid award with your own finances. All that is really required is a good idea (well explained) and a sensible, well thought through work plan to see it through. This is therfore a great opportunity for you to action a good idea that you could not otherwise afford.
2. Straight forward documentation - the forms have been simplifying and streamlined to make your job in completing them easier.
3. Everything you need is one place; the bid application, call details and plenty of supporting documentation are available on a dedicated wiki. Examples of a budget and risk assessment are included to help you with the more demanding parts of the bid.
4. An exended bidding period, although bids have been accepted since 1 March you have until 31 May for final submission. 
5. A resubmission plan is in place and provided your idea is deemed good enough to merit funding you will be given guidance and an opportunity to complete any missing details in order to resubmit your bid (the ultimate deadline for this is the end of June). In such cases funding will be nominally allocated to your project, so with funding reserved, you need only follow the recommendations and resubmit your bid to stand a good chance of final approval of your project and the funding. This is call does therefore offer an oportunity for even the most inexerienced bidder to learn and benefit from the experience and feel they have opportunity to secure funding equal to any other bidder
6. Local help and support is available from your local Regional Support Centre, this helps ensure a quick and personable response tailored to your needs. Your RSC can help you in a number of ways for example answering queries, signposting you to resources, recommending practices or partners for a call or proof reading your bid prior to submission.
7. Additional briefing sessions with the bid Project Manager (Nigel Ecclesfield from JISC Advance)  The RSC West Midlands held a briefing and questions session today 26 March at 10am, the recording  is available on our event wiki. If you are in another region check with your local RSC to find out if they have run a similar session.
8. Flexibility, Funding for approximately 40-50 small projects is available, small projects start at a minimum of 5K up to an expected 40K, the upper limit is however is open to negotiation. Project start and completion dates also have some flexibility (in negotiation with the Project Panel)

Visit the funding call wiki for more details: http://bit.ly/fes-drp

The Post PC Era

IBM early PC
Image: mwichary, Flickr



This summer (12 August 2011) marks the 30^th anniversary of the IBM home computer.  Although not the first personal computer on the market (Apple and Radio Shack were already there) IBM production marks the start of a big boom in computer use in the home and is therefore a significant point in computing history. As we know the last thirty years have seen a rapid evolution in computing capability and scale both for business and home – smaller components but more power and impact.
Technology has certainly moved on in new and exciting ways, smart phones for example have made good use of micro technology to provide us with highly personalised devices that we tend to think of as essential to life. (How many of you run your life from your mobile?) Although we have quickly become accustomed to the multi-functionality of the smart phone, such devices have only been with us a surprisingly short while. The first iphone for example was not launched until January 2007, there are now expectations that version 5 will be launched in the Autumn, showing how fast this type of technology is developing. Building on the popularity of the iphone Apple’s innovative development of the ipad has created a new must-have breed of mobile technology revolutionising both the market and our idea of how we can use computing power quite radically.
You may have seen the headline the “PC is dead” it seems to have become a popular and suitably dramatic headline in the media. Last week it appeared with rather a buzz following Mark Dean’s (IBM's Chief Technology Officer Middle East and Africa) blog post  prompted by IBM’s significant 30 year anniversary. Prior to that it was splashed across the media following Steve Job’s launch of the iPad 2. Neither of these significant voices actually used those headline words but they did both refer to the “Post PC Era”. While it may be fair to say that this implies the beginning of the end for the PC as we know it this does not mean the PC is dead just yet. In practical terms (cost and how we currently work) the PC still has much to offer but both Dean and Jobs wanted to convey their professional vision for the future of computing technology in convergence with mobile devices. They see an increasingly significant change in the way we use technology in the not too distant future, with a move away from permanent fixed services and hardware to the convenience and flexibility of un-tethered, mobile devices that make use of “the cloud” to provide everything essential for an individual’s personalised connectivity for life, work, leisure and play.

smart mobile devices
image: exacq, Flickr

Not surprisingly the potential of smart mobile technology is generating considerable interest in educational circles. Educators are investigating the potential of new mobile technologies in various projects. Here at the RSC WM we have already run one successful mobile technology project with local learning providers and produced an insightful report entitled "The Learning Journey Made Mobile", worth reading if you are interested in how you might make use of mobile devices for teaching and learning yourself or an evaluation of mobile devices from an educational perspective. As well as various tablet devices (Samsung Galaxy, Android and Apple) the project kit included ipods, pocket projectors, the mimio portable white board, digital camera and the Kindle e-book reader.

The Student Lifewide Development Symposium

Recently I attended the Student Lifewide Development Symposium at Aston University, organised by the Centre for Recording Achievement (CRA) and Surrey Centre for Excellence in Professional Training and Education (SEPTrE). This event focussed firmly on the learner as a holistic being, with the objective of moving beyond the formal accredited curriculum to examine and incorporate the significance and value of informal learning; hence the term "Lifewide" Development".

Lifewide learning acknowledges and celebrates the value of learning through activities outside formal learning channels directed by an educational institution. Professor John Cowan’s keynote called for a “radically revised pedagogy” to encourage, recognise and reap the most benefit from learning outside of formal academic acheivement in higher education. In part this responds to the need for graduates to develop life experience alongside their academic qualification, to be actively engaged in their learning journey, enabling them to leave education as well-rounded individuals with life and work skills not explicit to their formal qualification. The proposal for a “revised pedagogy” although student-centric, does therefore reflect the needs of life in the modern world and the expectations of employers.

Undeniably technology and connectiveness through rapid and amplified communication channels could play a significant role here and opens up many new possibilities for learning individually and collectively both formally and informally, expected and unexpected. 

My Summary of the proposed "revised pedagogy"

Although formal curriculum design acknowledges the value of windfall learning (unintended benefits) the lifewide philosophy goes further. It embraces all aspects of an individual’s life as the learning arena, making the learning opportunities extensive and an individual’s “curriculum” route flexible and unique. This means it is impractical and undesirable to describe outcomes in advance beyond aiming to develop confidence and self-analysis skills. The individual chooses the context for their own learning dependent on their interests and experiences putting the learner in control (rather than the institution, an awarding body or tutor) and allowing outcomes to unfold naturally as part of their individual learning journey.

Assessment of such learning has a very different emphasis from competency driven formal curriculum; it is extremely bespoke, pertinent to personal values and goals. As such the only possible approach is a reflective one where students reflect objectively on the learning value of experiences and analyse those reflections in order to pinpoint their learning value and acknowledge self-knowledge and growth.

Professor John Cowan’s keynote explained in more detail why these features of lifewide student development require a radically different approach and pedagogy and how curriculum in this context becomes an open framework rather than a prescribed and structured, pre-planned design.

A Comparison of pedagogy reflected in Curriculum Structure

Traditional pre-prepared formal academic curriculum programme with accrediatation. Lifewide framework developed during informal learning journey of personal value with formal recognition (although not accredited) by the institution.

Clouds on the Horizon



Clouds, taken by Kevin Dooley, Flickr CC

Many new words have entered our vocabulary due to the development of computer technology; recently using IT services in “the Cloud” has become a very popular concept. However just as weather clouds vary so do computer clouds and what someone means when they use the term can be as variable as the weather.

In its broadest term all services residing on the internet that you access and make use of without hosting them yourself are part of the big “cloud” landscape. This includes social services such as Facebook and Twitter as well as other Web 2.0 interactive software programs; for example Delicious bookmarks, Flickr images and all those Google services. These types of service offer great scalability (think how many people use social network applications) but no control over developments and changes, while removal of a service is always a concern.

 The current interest in cloud computing is focused on a more niche use of the term or to put it another way a specific type of “cloud” formation.  In the past this has more usually been referred to as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), meaning that specific software hosted by someone other than the user is made available flexibly and securely to end users on demand (within a business or learning environment).  The host is able to make the most economic use of shared capacity to cater for variations in service demand and maintenance of service.

Providing for a Sustainable Future
 

Clouds by John Mueller, Flickr CC

Research such as this has led to a substantial investment (£12.5 million) in “cloud computing” services for the future by the Higher Education Funding Council (announced 7 February 2011). This money will allow the development of two separate projects: infrastructure and procurement (£10 million) and project administration for research (£2.5 million).

Both JISC and the HEFCE have become increasingly interested in the potential of Cloud computing for educational institutions as a way of saving money and introducing efficiencies while maintaining a good IT infrastructure.  During 2009- 2010 JISC has provided project funding to investigate “cloud” potential for different purposes (research, environmental benefits and organisation efficiency) producing a final report "Cloud Computing in HE and FE".

Infrastructure and procurement means the establishment of a shared infrastructure consisting of virtual servers, storage and data management. Alongside will be the establishment of a broker service for efficient procurement of shared services. This service will incorporate development of “a sustainable financial model for the brokerage beyond the life of the UMF” (HEFCE).

UMF is the University Modernisation Fund, this fund was established to help institutions improve efficiency, make savings but offer more places and prioritise learning in strategically important and vulnerable subjects (sciences, technology, engineering, maths and languages) that are key to national economic recovery. Some of the effects of this fund should have been evident in Universities this academic year. I am uncertain as to whether or not the change of goverment has influenced or curtailed this funding's investment initiative but it has provided the impetus for this interesting cloud computing initiative which is likely to have considerable impact on stratergy in near future for universities at least and maybe provide a lifeline for sustainability.

Partnerships for HEFCE’s investment

JANET is already well known as a provider of cloud based services centred around the education and research network. Over the last 10 years JANET’S services have developed considerably and continue to move forward with the advances in technology. JANET (UK) will help realise HEFCE’s vision of cloud provision for Higher education, also involved is Eduserv and the Digital Curation Centre.  

Going for Green

The new gold is green! 

We are all aware of the initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint and take responsibility for the welfare of our planet both at home and at work. For the learning provider this means considering efficiencies and future sustainability in respect to all policies and activities.Technology is rather Jekyll and Hide in that it can be the “good guy” offering savings and efficiencies but it also has a dark side with regard to the amount of power consumed and the disposal of old equipment.

It is essential for every learning institution to implement an active Green ICT policy. In response to the need for guidance and effective solutions JISC have established their Greening ICT programme which encompasses several key projects investigating different ways to reduce wastage and power consumption.

File Storage Efficiency

Planet Filestore, completed in Dec 2010, is one such project. Piloted by Information Services at Cardiff University the project aimed to develop file storage in the most efficient way with the intention of reducing energy consumption by an impressive 80%.

JISC say  that the project has intentionally used techniques and technologies that will easily transfer to a wide range of corporate systems across the world, including those in education, research, public bodies and commercial companies." Currently Cardiff University has funding to develop “a web-based tool that universities and colleges can use to model the benefits of different scenarios of file storage in terms of environmental and economic savings.”

Once the system is fully operational Cardiff University estimate that they will reduce their KW usage by 87600KW.h (equivalent to approximately 51 tonnes of CO2) with a saving (at current prices) of around £10,000 per annum. (all facts and figures quoted from JISC). Other environmental benefits are also likely to be made in terms of space occupied, procurement, shipping, disposal and hazardous waste reduction.

Download the Planet Filestore project report and recommendations here: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/greeningict/planetfilestorepp/PlanetFilestoreFinalReport.pdf

For more help and guidance on green efficiencies see the JISC publication "Green ICT: Managing Sustainable ICT in education and research" .

If you would like to speak to someone regarding Green ICT your local RSC can help. If you live in West Midlands region contact support@rsc-wm.ac.uk

Other Related links

The Climate Change Act 

HEFCE: Sustainable development in higher education February 2009 update to strategic statement and action plan (2008)

 

The UK Blogosphere

On the Outside Looking in

Looking at Technorati  and its report “State of the Blogosphere” was an interesting experience but also highlighted the fact that it is very much US biased. Not surprising really as Technorati is an American site and, to quote their own data, 49% of blogs are published by US bloggers.

I was interested however in information specifically about UK bloggers, for that reason and because I had a pre-occupation with effective communication channels, I created a short survey last week to look at why people blogged and what they felt they achieved by doing so. If you would like to participate in this short survey please follow the link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7QRX3PZ

If you are looking for worthwhile educational blogs to follow several of my RSC colleagues keep a blog. The following recommendations are particularly relevant to our West Midlands education providers:

Staff Development blog written by Alison Wootton http://rscstaffdev.blogspot.com/

IT Infrastructure blog written by Colleen Romero http://www.rscwmsystems.org.uk/rsc-it-blog/

Wobble (work-based learning) blog by Theresa Welch http://wblwestmids.blogspot.com/

 

Learning Resources blog written by Matt Gallon  http://rscwmlr.blogspot.com/

The Great Big Blogosphere

Once I began to muse on the blog phenomena an internet search very quickly introduced me to Technorati.

In their own words Techorati is "The leading blog search engine and directory" and "was founded to help bloggers succeed by collecting, highlighting, and distributing the global online conversation."

The service has grown since it began in 2004, it now boasts an index of  over a million blogs and uses those sites to produce a  stream of daily information covering news, entertainment, technology, lifestyle, sports, politics and business. So quite a comprehensive service!

Since 2004 Technorati has also produced an annual report "State of the Blogosphere" focussed on the “growth and trends in the blogosphere”.  This report makes interesting reading below is my summary of Technorati's findings.


The blogosphere of today is:

• “in transition”

blogging is becoming an established means of communication; it forms loose communities around areas of interest and has an increasing influence on that community. As such blogging has potential to grow and evolve.

• Part of the big social media connectivism that influences most of us

“Bloggers’ use of and engagement with various social media tools is expanding, and the lines between blogs, micro-blogs, and social networks are disappearing.”

• Increasingly mobile

Not surprisingly the rapid development in the capabilities of mobile technology has started to have a huge influence on blogging. Why wait until your back at your PC if you can blog about something you have just experienced there and then? Such immediacy also impacts on the style of some blogs, “shorter and more spontaneous posts.”

• Increasingly giving women a platform and voice

The number of female bloggers is up, some of them with significant influence.  “Their impact is perhaps felt most strongly by brands, as the women and mom blogger segment is the most likely of all to blog about brands.”

The Blogosphere future is looking rosy

“These changes are occurring in the context of great optimism about the medium”

Based on Technorati’s research  established bloggers are planning to blog more frequently and on a wider range of topics. Their motivation and expectation is that the significance of blogs in society will increase and they will be increasingly valued as a reliable source of information.

“48% of all bloggers believe that more people will be getting their news and entertainment from blogs in the next five years than from the traditional media.”

What do you think; do blogs influence your life? Do you trust blog commentary more than traditional media?

 View the full report “State of the Blogosphere”  from  Technorati