E-Learning

E-Learning is facilitated and supported through the use of ICT. It may involve the use of computers, interactive whiteboards, digital cameras, the internet, the college intranet, virtual learning environments and electronic communication tools such as e-mail, discussion boards, chat facilities and video conferencing. E-Learning should form part of the overall teaching and learning strategy for courses. There should be appropriate references to e-learning in schemes of work, lesson plans, assignments, course reviews and staff development plans.

Effective e-learning should

• Improve learners’ understanding of topics or activities that are part of their academic or vocational programme
• Improve their skills and their knowledge of the technology being used
• Help maintain their interest in their programme. Ofsted (formerly ALI) 2002

Hampshire Learning now has twenty four E-Guides helping to drive improvement in teaching and learning by increasing the effective use of e-technology in all areas of learning. Based in the 11 district/borough councils areas, and are working through local learning partnerships, each E-guide has successfully completed the intensive 3 day training required to complete the LSIS/NIACE National E-Guides Programme.

A vital aspect of the training is the opportunity for hands on practice and experimentation with a rich variety of hardware and software including digital cameras, voice/video recording and mobile technology along with a wealth of interactive materials and applications.

E-Guides are able to support colleagues in their use of technology to:

• enhance the effective use of e-learning across their organisations
• identify appropriate applications of e-learning throughout the learner journey
• produce interactive learning content and support colleagues to develop interactive e-resources
• coach and mentor colleagues in their application of e-learning to their practice.

Hardware

Laptops, projectors, interactive voting equipment, cameras (stills & video), digital movie creators, voice recorders, USB 4 hub port, speakers, headsets, A4 digital notepad, wireless mouse & keyboard, iPod including docking station, tabletop zoom microphones.

The above list represents just some of the equipment available for loan from Hampshire Learning, please ask your centre manager for more details.

Training

In addition to requesting the support of an E-guide, tutors and centre staff can attend one of our training E-vents. These take place throughout the year and are intended to introduce tutors and centre staff to e-learning whilst providing an opportunity to try out available equipment such as interactive voting system, digital voice recorders, digital cameras) and software packages (including Hot Potatoes, Photostory 3, Interactive Excel, Word and Powerpoint).

• Hampshire Learning’s Big E-vents
• Find and book training E-vents on the Staff Development Calendar

Chips with Everything

Chips with Everything is a newsletter produced by the ICT and Learning team at NIACE as part of the communications plan to ensure that adult learning practitioners are aware of the benefits of e-learning.

Download current and archived issues of Chips and the Excellence Gateway supplements.

Books

Hampshire Learning holds a full set of the books in the series, titles are

1. Online Resources in the Classroom by Alan Clarke & Claudia Hesse
2. Digital Cameras in teaching and learning by Phil Hardcastle
3. Developing E-Learning Materials by Shubhanna Hussein
4. E-Learning in Outreach by Glyn Owen & Khawar Iqbal
5. E-Learning and modern foreign languages by Jacky Elliot
6. Integrating ICT Skill for Life with financial education by Alan Clarke
7. Attracting and motivating new learners with ICT by Jackie Essom
8. E-Learning for teaching ESOL by Mary Moss and Sue Southwood
9. Supporting adult learners with dyslexia by Sally McKeown
10. Using e-learning with deaf learners by Christine Nightingale and Sue Stevens
11. E-Learning for adults with learning difficulties by Yola Jacobsen
12. Handheld technologies for mobile learning by Di Dawson

Please contact sue.muldowney@hants.gov.uk if you wish to borrow one of these publications

AccessApps developed by the Scottish JISC Regional Support Centres in co-operation with JISC TechDis. It consists of over 50 open source and freeware assistive technology applications which can be used entirely from a USB stick on a Windows computer (full list of applications on offer).

AccessApps will run without the need to install anything on a computer and provide a range of e-learning solutions to support writing, reading and planning as well as visual and mobility difficulties.

Audacity Free, open-source software for recording and editing sound.

Photostory 3 for Windows
Captures memories; brings photos to life; shares stories… your digital photos will come to life with motion, music, voice narration, and more.

Picture Grid Editor
Create drag and drop exercises, another useful resource particularly for tutors delivering to learners with learning difficulties/disabilities.

The Excellence Gateway
Here you can access high quality resources and information, inspire innovation and share best practice. Step-by-step guidance on how to register and search on the site can be found below.

Registering on the Excellence Gateway.pdf
Searching the Excellence Gateway.pdf

www.shrinkpictures.com/create-avatar
Want to turn a photo or picture into an Avatar for your favourite forum? Then you have found the place to do it!

NLN Materials
Funded by the LSC and available free to all authorised organisations in the post-16 sector, the NLN materials represent one of the most substantial and wide-ranging collections of e-learning materials in the UK. The materials can be accessed online and can be downloaded, added to a local intranet, learning platform or burnt to CD.

ALISON
For basic and essential workplace skills providing high-quality, engaging, interactive multimedia courseware for certification and standards-based learning.

Intute
A free online service providing a database of hand-selected web resources for education and research e.g. if you or your tutors have difficulty sometimes in finding good sources of copyright-cleared images for publications, it would be worth exploring the new online tutorial produced as part of Intute’s Virtual Training Suite.

www.tinyurl.com
Enter a long URLs to make it tiny.

www.bhelpuri.net/Snippy/default.htm
An easy way to select, cut and copy text from a web page and copy it to another application.

www.freedigitalphotos.net
Thousands of royalty-free photos for websites, PowerPoint presentations, newsletters, forums, blogs, school projects and homework.

www.sensoryworld.org
An interactive place for learners with learning difficulties, their support workers, family members and friends; a place that is fun, stimulating, relevant, appropriate and responsive.

www.exelearning.org
The eXe project was conceived to address the use of technology in the design and authoring of learning resources for the web.

www.techdis.ac.uk/watchwords
Watch Words – deaf awareness for teachers.

Virtual learning environments (VLE)/platforms are online locations where tutors and learners can access electronic teaching and learning resources.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight local authorities are working in partnership to support staff in the adult and community learning sector through a VLE www.support4tutors.net.

www.support4tutors.net has been created using ‘Moodle’, a course management system designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities.

We hope tutors will access and download resources, submit their own resources to upload and share and sign up to forums. Most areas of the site will be open access to tutors and centre staff from across Hampshire and IOW. In addition, each local authority will have a password secured area where tutors can create course folders, which will enable learners to access course materials for homework or from a session they have missed.

For username and logon to the HCC staff area of www.support4tutors.net  contact Matt Herbert matt.herbert@hants.gov.uk

If you have not used a VLE before, I suggest you start with the 'Tutors Guide to Moodle' course to become familiar with how this online learning platform works. Have fun!