Second group session

I decided to try to talk to the whole group of Advanced Diploma students and this time use the Turning Point voting buttons to engage them. This was more successful than the last group - they were more animated (in fact a bit too lively) and they seemed to enjoy using the voting buttons. Jo came with me to video the session, but they did not want to be filmed. Therefore Jo tried to record their feedback by pointing the camera at the floor and simply recording audio.

After a few warm up questions, I began to ask them my questions about the use of the Learner Portal. They were happy to vote but when I asked them to expand on the answers they had given, I had difficulty in getting them to answer sensibly. They were very loud and although Jo recorded their responses it was hard to transcribe. There are a few nuggets that will be in my report.

I am not sure how much I have got out of this and whether the results are any better than if I had just asked them to complete a questionnaire. It would have been much better to do this with a small group, but they are unwilling to put themselves forward for this. Perhaps now that they have met me this might be a possibility.

Meeting the students

I have been trying to arrange focus groups with both ICT Diploma groups without much success. In both groups the students are very reluctant to put themselves forward, so much so that in the Higher Diploma class only one student is currently willing to attend - not sure that they can be a group of one! Added to this they are beginning to enter the controlled assessment phase of the course and time is getting very tight.

I therefore thought I would go into the class this morning to meet the whole class and ask them my questions whilst their tutor set up their PCs for the assessment - my thinking here was that if I met them all together they would be less reticent. Hmm - how wrong could I be. They were unwilling to be videoed and getting them to respond to my questions was like pulling teeth. One or two of the group had a few things to say, but for the most part, responses were monosyllabic and not particularly illuminating. I was hoping that following this morning session, I could encourage a couple more of the group to join in a focus group, but they are still unwilling.

I have since spoken to the tutor, who informs me that they were quiet because they were nervous about starting the controlled assessment so maybe there is hope yet. I still have to get them to complete a questionnaire, so hopefully this will provide better feedback.

I have a similar session with the Advanced Diploma group on Thursday - this time I am going to try to engage the group by using the voting buttons. Watch this space.

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.