WBLWAY - Importance to FD Development

East Staffordshire Childrens' centre registered for WBLWAY Infomation Point services today. Hayley Johnson (training Officer) will be the point of contact. Staff and students relayed their appreciation of WBLWAY aims (the report posted in Google Groups details their response). One outcome from todays meeting is the role that the project is playing in the development of FD's, particularly in respect of administration and delivery.
Ian Watts and Dan Robinson's document (Google Groups 2007) covers "Responsibilities" of parties involved with Staffordshire Universities FD's. Perhaps this could do with some prescriptive elaboration, particularly around the role of tutors delivering the courses and expectations regarding use of ILT and Information Services. It would be helpful to both the project and immediate classroom delivery to FD students at Burton if expectations were restated or even made mandatory.

Employer Registers and college upgrades IT software for WBL.

Rachel Huyton from Burton Arts Centre registered on 10th Jan 2008. A report has been filed in Google Groups, detailing Rachels first impresssions. The Aim Higher Survey on local employer attitudes towards the service proved useful during the process of introducing Rachel to the information point. Hayley Johnson, Training Officer East Staffs Childrens' Centre is sheduled to be introduced to the service, alongside Sue Cornes and Sally Whitbread the centres management team, on Thursday 17th Jan 08.

The IT infrastructure at Burton continues to be developed. The updated list of MIS developments presented via Google Groups in July 2007 has been supplemented by Trax, Covalent, and Frame-up. As staff have to routinely use course management packages such as Pro Achieve etc, the software training consequences for the college are difficult to counter. Add to this Moodle, its ancillary software, and Well at College and staff are understandably "IT overloaded".

I would welcome the team's opinions on Frame-Up (www.wblresources.co.uk) and its implications for the project.

Scheduled meetings with employers

Having piloted the information point with Ruth Gill at Burton College, meetings with other employers have been scheduled. The Burton Arts Centre manager is to review WBLWAY on Thursday 10th January 2008 followed by the training manager for East Staffordshire Childrens' Centre on Thursday 17th January 2008.

Information Point not working 23rd Nov to 3rd December 2007

Met up with Max from Stoke on Trent and Dave from Shrewsbury at Burton College on 23rd Nov 07 to restart the pilot with our "friendly employer" Ruth Gill. The information point fell over everytime we tried it. Reports made to Sam Rowley during appointment with Ruth. We did get to screens of employer and employee but "work based learner details not available" appeared when we attempted to go further and provided Ruth with a link to her learners details.

November 07 Update

SMT welcomed visits from WBLWAY Team to college groups. Comment, "as project has invested £Xxx in college there is an expectation that updates occur".

Staff most responsive to Harvest Road Hive developments. Some are eager to access FD materials formerly in Blackboard in our own VLE.

ILT curriculum development bids which have been accepted include the kind of employer engagement that WBLWAY promotes. I have been charged with "keeping developers informed of WBLWAY". Gerrard Larkin (computing and Electronics) looking also at integrating FD with PTime HNC. Students to either opt out after 2 yrs and gain HNC or take final yr to gain FD.

Marketing WBLWAY within college to Senior Staff

SMT (Senior Management Team)
Along with Assistant Principal Garry Phillips and following Mark and Fleur's presentation to our ILT Group, I included WBLWAY in my 1st October update to the SMT on my activities to drive ILT before our anticipated inspection. "The Future is further away than you may think" and " "The future is already here" were my two themes, as I put a realistic slant on where Burton College stands and where our SMT wants me to quickly go (all by myself it appears ).

College Work Based Learning Team.
As a result of SMT meeting I was asked to perform again on Wednesday October 24th for the WBL team. (Note at this stage: That I have informed a recent college governors initiative aimed at questioning the new college structure that cross college organistion of WBL stops at a level below FD's.)
People who should but aren't involved in WBLWAY attended the meeting (ie Marketing) were introduced to all of my initiatives (mostly VLE, ILT training, and WBLWAY). All that I can say is that I raised awareness without really establishing any future level of co-operation.

However with Mark and Fleur's performance at our ILT group, and these two meetings, I can say that all of our senior managers would have a problem claiming they don't know about WBLWAY or the future that I hope we are heading towards.

Burton Pre - trial trial

Richard Booth and Dave Shearan from Shrewsbury College met up with Myself (Mike Parker) today to run through the support portal and run a pre-trial trial with friendly employer Ruth Gill and one of her FD students Kim Padmore. As the support portal is not due to be launched for trial until next Monday (22nd October 07) we expected disappointments...and we were not disappointed. A bug report was sent to Fleur today....plus a repeated request for a "clean system" to be available when the trial starts in earnest. (Clean = all user data cleared for Mon 22nd Oct 07 - except for student info access via staffs logins.) Ruth was impressed with the potential of the support point but not the registration process. Kim was baffled by the process - "couldn't the reason for the access password to enable employer to view student data be explained?"