Cluster meeting

We held a cluster meeting for Cluster group B yesterday and it was an interesting day.

My evaluation work to date has been firmly centred around the learner experience and based on our project objectives; following the session on evaluation yesterday I think I may have to include some evaluation of the impact that the Learner Portal has on the College as a whole and I need to discuss this with Patricia and Jo. We will need to agree priorities because otherwise there will be too much data to collect and analyse. I would love to do a case study around the use of the PDP, but I suspect that there won't be enough time to include this as well.

In the meantime I'm looking forward to the Christmas break now and hope to come back with fresh eyes in the New Year!

Ho ho ho - Merry Christmas!

Not much blogging

Although the tutors have access to a staff blog, there is not much activity to date. There was a problem with accessing the blog from within the College but I think this has now been resolved.

I am concerned that I am not capturing their experiences as they happen and that even if I ask them in the new year they might not be able to recall significant events. Hopefully we can have a catch up session immediately after the Christmas break and this will prompt them to voice their thoughts about the delivery of the Diploma using the Learner Portal.

Discussion boards and staff blogs

At our project meeting yesterday Jo Burbidge and I asked the tutors to try to blog at least once a month about their experiences of using the Learner Portal to deliver the Diploma. I know that it may be time consuming but I also know from personal experience that it is invaluable when trying to remember how something feels when looking back some months later. Things that are fresh in the mind this week, will be a distant memory next summer. To help with this, Jane Teh has set up a team blog and is encouraging all tutors to contribute to this, but some tutors are finding that they have to use their Internet Use Quota time to do this, so this will need to be investigated and resolved.

We have also asked tutors to contribute to the discussion boards, so watch this space!

Contributions gratefully received

At our last project meeting we talked about getting the students to add their comments to the discussion boards that I set up. At last - the students have begun to post their thoughts about using the new features available to them in the Learner Portal (a big thank you to Jane Teh, their wonderful course tutor, for helping with this) and there is lots for me to read. I hope by replying to their posts we can open up a dialogue which might encourage them to continue to talk about their experiences.

Personal Development Plan refresher training

Held a session yesterday with the tutors who are teaching on the Diploma course in order to refresh their knowledge of using the electronic Personal Development Plan (PDP). It has been sometime since the initial training session and only now are they actively using the PDP with their students. As this initial session took place before the summer holidays and our tutors have also had to learn how to use a new Student tracking system as well as all the other aspects of the Learner Portal, it is unsurprising that they felt that a refresher was needed.


During the session some tutors had an issue with the updating of progress reviews as this is something that is, in the School of Computing, currently completed by the learner in the paper based version and then agreed by the tutor. In the electronic version, only the tutor could complete this area. We agreed to ask ULCC to amend the functionality to allow for update by tutors and learners, which they did immediately (fortunately this was a minor amendment) and tutors seem to be happier about this. I am conscious that sometimes we are adding to their already heavy workload and so I will try to do anything that I can to facilitate the use of the learner portal features with their students.

Evaluation feedback

I have now received feedback about the evaluation in the interim report which has given me some food for thought. Students who would be willing to keep a Blog were identified by the course tutors, but as yet there is no progress in this area. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the last project team meeting, due to illness, so I was unable to follow up on the progress of this.

Electronic Discussion forums

I have set up discussion forums for both the Higher and Advanced Diploma courses.

Although I had already set up a forum for the Higher Diploma last term, only one tutor had contributed to it and when I checked, the topic was not available to students, so it was not suprising that there were no posts! I have now made sure that it is available.

In each course there is a discussion area for staff only (which is hidden from students) and one for students and staff. I want staff to be able to comment freely on different aspects of using the learner portal to deliver the Diploma, hence the staff only discussion. To date there have been no posts added in either forum on either course! Hmmm! - maybe the next step is to go into the classroom in order to encourage the students to add a post. I will use the upcoming training session on 2nd November to encourage the staff to do the same.

A lull in the proceedings

I have not posted to my Blog for some weeks now. Summer holidays came (and are now a distant memory) and we have been very busy implementing the new Learner Portal across the College. I have been heavily involved in training for the wider college and this has taken a large proportion of my time.

A meeting took place at the beginning of October with the course leaders of the two IT diploma courses and this provided an opportunity for me to outline what I need from them. As a result of this meeting we are planning to do some more training in the use of the PDP and other aspects of using Moodle tools such as submitting assignments electronically. I need to ensure that all staff are using these tools effectively in order to properly evaluate the effects of their use.

Writing up my findings

The time has come to make some sense of the baseline data that I have gathered to date. Although I had to present findings to the curriculum teams at the event in July, I was able to generalise to a degree - now I must collate the information and present it in a report format for contribution to the Project Manager's report. I have been editing videos that I shot back in June and it is a useful experience (I'm very glad I videoed the interviews now - I would never have remembered everything). Reviewing these interviews has brought back lots of small nuggets of information that will help to summarise the way the teams worked before the intervention of the various technologies (Moodle, including electronic ILP's, Mahara etc.)

Evaluation feedback to Curriculum team

July saw an event which aimed to showcase what the curriculum teams have achieved to date and I was able to feedback to the teams the results of initial baselining. The video below is my presentation to the teams

This event also provided an opportunity for the teams to think about how they will use the different technologies in their delivery, which in turn ensures that I can evaluate as per my plan

Learner interviews

My attempts to interview the learners were not very successful. Unfortunately, by the time I was ready to interview them, they were no longer attending classes at the college, so my plan to hold a focus group with them and to use the voting buttons came to nothing. Although I did manage to speak to a couple of them, they were reluctant to be videoed. I used a voice recorder to record our conversations, but the quality was very poor and the only voice that stands out is mine! Fortunately, this was not crucial to the evaluation.

I am going to plan my interviews and focus groups further in advance for the coming academic year and make sure that the tutors are aware of these dates, so this does not happen again.

On the move

I'm on the train to Birmingham - again! Whilst the breakfast is very welcome - it would be nice if an event could be held in London. Today's event is all about looking at the learner experience. I am getting ready to do a group interview with the Diploma students in the next week or so, so I hope I will be able to use what I learn today to help me ask the right questions. I am going to use voting buttons, which I hope will lead to a fun and engaging session.

Questionnaires and interviews

The learners have now completed the online questionnaire and I now need to save the results electronically. I have begun to interview key staff who are working on the Diploma and my attempts at interviewing are highlighting some issues.

I am using a a very funky orange Flip camera to record my interviews. In the first interview, conducted with a member of the Entitlement and Support team, I held the camera and frankly it looks like we did the interview sitting on a bus. Second time around, I used the tripod that comes with the Flip. Although the film does not look as jerky, the angle of the tripod meant that the subject was looking down and in her own words it made her look miserable! Third time lucky then...I have just conducted my third interview, this time with a professional tripod and this enabled me to sit behind the camera and the interviewee was able to look at me as she answered the questions. An altogether better result and I will use this tripod in the future.

My questions have been OK and I have managed to stick closely to the questions as written and this has been fairly successful. I intended to interview a number of other staff from the school of Computing, but I am going to ask them to submit their answers on paper now as we are close to going live with the Diploma course on Moodle and I want their feedback before this date (12th May).

Learner questionnaires

I have now created my initial learner questionnaire, using Questionmark, which I will deploy to the group of diploma course learners in order to gather baseline data for the evaluation. I had originally wanted to use Moodle itself to create and deliver the questions, but the learners do not yet have access to the Moodle course. This has been delayed because they are currently completing assignments that have been set in Blackboard and these need to be completed before they move across to Moodle on 12th May.

Ready to go

The project manager has now submitted our project plan and I am now ready to begin the real work of evaluation. I am going to review my plan and see where I can start to create my questionnaires.

Changes to plan

Just when I thought I had finished my evaluation plan, I have been informed that there has been a small change to the project outcomes. Fortunately my middle names are flexible and adaptable.

JISC Evaluation

After a few revisions and input from others I think I may finally be ready with my evaluation plan. The original plan was too focused on the technical aspects of the project, but I hope that it now addresses the project outcomes.