Flaming June is with us once again though there's little sign of combustion from where I sit. Never mind, we'll try to turn up the temperature with this latest edition of the mighty Newsfeed bringing you word of new connections, new collections, new calls and new conferences. So, for the next few minutes try to drag your mind away from those students who've still to complete the module, drop the daydreams of warm nights to come in the Med and skim through the latest learning technology news. There's something for everyone…
As always, we welcome feedback on NewsFeed (or any RSC service you may have used) through the RSC website.
Hardly has the ink dried on the postal ballot forms but the dedicated team at KnowUK 'the ultimate online library of UK information' have updated the data on the UK electoral system to reflect changes in the Scottish constituency boundaries and to include details of the new intake of MPs on May 5th. These are just a few of the recent updates on the KnowUK website.
Take some time out and celebrate the end of the history exams - and the academic year - with a free interactive, hands-on, one-day event full of tips and advice about teaching with a selection of online history resources from the JISC Collections. The event will feature demonstrations of the new JISC FE Exemplar for History created for JISC Collections by the Western Colleges Consortium and much, much more. For full details and to complete an online booking form go to the JISC website.
Five free tutorials for adult learners - Arts and Crafts, Digital Photography, Gardening, Health and Wellbeing and Job Searching - have just been launched by the Resource Discovery Network's Virtual Training Suite (RDN VTS). Developed by tutors from the Adult Community Learning sector, the tutorials teach people how to find and use the best online resources to support and enhance their studies.
The latest additions are added to the over sixty existing tutorials available from the RDN VTS. These cover a very broad range of subjects, and are targeted at teachers, researchers, students and enthusiasts across the FE, HE and now Adult and Community Learning spectrum.
The number of broadband connections in the UK has exceeded dial-up connections for the first time. Figures from BT show there are now more then 7.4 million broadband users (2 million on cable and 5.4 on DSL - Digital Subscriber Line.) Check out the whole story.
The Higher Education Academy and the Times Higher Education Supplement have once again joined forces to celebrate innovation, good practice and achievement in the field of e-learning. Individually, or as part of a team, are you using e-tools in a novel way to improve your students' learning experience? If so you might be eligible to enter this year's competition which has a first prize of £1000 awarded by the Times Higher Education Supplement. Two runners up are awarded £250 in book tokens by the Higher Education Academy.
For more details and to download an entry form visit the Higher Education Academy website. Closing date for entries is 1st July 2005 .
…. According to Mike Pringle, Head of AHDS Visual Arts “The inexorable rise of digital technologies, led by Parliamentary initiatives such as Modernising Government, is, as promised, ‘revolutionising our lives, including the way we work, the way we communicate and the way we learn.' Sadly, as with all revolutions, there are many silent, innocent victims.
In UK arts education, many of the traditional modes of creativity that have kept Britain at the forefront of the international art scene are at risk from the small grey boxes that are increasingly dominating art students' workspaces. With an ever growing digital environment comes the potential for loss of cultural absorption for students: that invisible but fundamental air that exists in an environment where face to face contact is the predominant learning tool, not an impersonal screen and keyboard where every image is simply a collage of pixels and bytes.”
In response, AHDS Visual Arts has established the Digital Picture: an initiative funded by the JISC Images Working Group to produce an overview of issues, and potential solutions, relating to the effects of the digital image revolution within the UK arts education community. Register your view by going to the site or attending one of the meetings being held around the country…
The Digital Picture will be holding a series of workshops/expert seminars in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (free of charge to anyone who wants to attend) This National consultation will include a number of Expert Seminars, held around the country, which will help us to engage with the community in order to fully understand all the issues that surround the Digital Picture. Librarians, Academics, Lecturers, Artists, Art Historians, Learning Support Workers, Managers and Students are all welcome to come along and discuss the issues. Seminars will run from 10am - 4pm and will involve presentations, discussions and breakout groups, with lunch and refreshments provided. Numbers are limited to 35-40 per seminar, so booking early is essential. The Glasgow event will be held at the Glasgow School of Art on the 23rd June.
Three new collections of art from the Imperial War Museum are now available through the AHDS Visual Arts service:
Together the three collections - all copyright cleared for educational use - contain over 4000 images and include work by leading 20th century designers from Britain and abroad.
Searching is a booming market alongside broadband as the major players continue to introduce new services. In fact the use of search engines is expanding faster than the Internet itself. While Internet growth in Europe rose by 4% between 2004 and 2005, searching grew by 11%. However, the frequency of the use of search engines varies across the continent. While in Britain and France , 80% of Internet users used a search engine, this figure drops to 64% in Sweden.
Keen readers of Newsfeed may recall an item from the 18th Feb edition this year highlighting Google's plans to digitise large sections of some of the world's foremost academic libraries. These plans have now hit the buffers in the face of objections from academics that the initiative represents a '...systematic infringement of copyright on a massive scale' while French sources have complained that the project promotes the English language and Anglo-Saxon culture to the detriment of French. Sacre Bleu... for full details see the BBC website.
Internet search phenomenon Google has overtaken a swathe of venerable rivals to become the world's biggest media company by stock market value. After its shares hit an all-time high on the New York markets on Tuesday June 7th, Google is now worth $80 billion (£44 Billion). For further information see the BBC article.
A recent Guardian article has reviewed the popular concept of 'learning styles' (LS) and suggested considerable doubt about the reliability of some LS theory and how it has been applied to pedagogy. A review carried out by Newcastle University identifying no fewer than 71 different learning styles started the debate and you can read the story so far at....
Transport is in the news again this week as the government contemplates charging motorists by the mile to avoid gridlock. However, forecasting the future of transportation is notoriously difficult as you can see by some of the turkeys in this exhibition which never made it off the ground...
Mergers are in the air in Scottish FE at the moment and this recent article from The Guardian provides a good overview of where we’re at and where we’re heading. Read it on the Guardian's website.
EEVL Xtra - the Hidden Web at your fingertips, for engineering, mathematics and computing. EEVL Xtra is aimed at academics, researchers, students, lecturers, practicing professionals and anyone else looking for information in engineering, mathematics and computing. Items available within EEVL Xtra include:
JISC regularly announces opportunities to put forward proposals for funding in designated project areas. Details of current opportunities are available on the JISC website.
Are you involved in running a project? If you are preparing for an inspection or quality review, implementing the FERL Practitioners Programme or selecting and implementing information systems, the answer is 'Yes'. These and many other activities we undertake as part of daily work can be handled more easily and effectively using a project framework.
'Project Management for the Education Sector' is a one-day workshop offered by the Regional Support Centre of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and delivered by JISC InfoNet, the Centre of Expertise in the Planning and Implementation of Information Systems. JISC InfoNet has developed a project methodology specifically tailored to the needs of the education sector which can be adapted for any size of project.
Date: Wednesday, 29th June 2005
Cost: Further and Higher Education delegates £50.00
Venue: North Campus
Boardroom (room N109), Edinburgh 's Telford College
For further details and a booking form, see the RSC Scotland North & East Training page.
Wednesday 15th & Thursday 16th June 2005, RSC Scotland South & West, Todd Campus, Glasgow.This workshop is aimed at lecturing and support staff in both the FE and HE communities who are interested in working with digital video and audio technologies. Organised as a largely practical event, the workshop will result in participants producing a short piece of video work, after consideration of the educational value and use of video material and the planning and production processes involved in creating them.
Places for the workshop are limited, and cost £100 (which covers all workshop materials and lunch for both days). For further details, go to the RSC Scotland South & West Events page.
These courses and others are listed on the Scotfeict website which also lists other staff development opportunities for FE staff within Scotland.
Nationwide training opportunities are available on the NLN events database.
Unsubscribe - email support@rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk
Regional Support Centre Scotland North and East
Helpdesk 0131 315 7674
www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk
Regional Support Centre Scotland South and West
Helpdesk 0141 558 4098
www.rsc-sw-scotand.ac.uk