NewsFeed | RSCs Scotland
Fortnightly bulletin from the Scottish Regional Support Centres
26th September 06
The first hint of autumnal hues are appearing on the trees, mellow fruitfulness is in the air and it's almost time to look out the woolly vest and combinations. But, before you snuggle down for the winter, welcome to the latest edition of NewsFeed, full to bursting with information from the online world. What's currently being planned online for Scotland's schools? Where can you find royalty-free images to enhance your learning materials? How can you step back through time with newsreel footage of the 20th Century or forward into the teaching and learning of tomorrow? Read and ye shall find...
As always, we welcome feedback on NewsFeed (or any Regional Support Centre service you may have used) through the RSC website.
1. Vacancy at RSC North & East: e-Learning Advisor (Resources)
This post provides an ideal opportunity for development in the expanding field of e-learning as you will engage with a range of colleges and higher education institutions, agencies and organisations on a regional and national level. The position is based at Edinburgh's Telford College at its new campus on the Edinburgh waterfront development. Some travel will be required to colleges and universities throughout Scotland.
e-Learning Advisor (Resources) details.
2. JISC news
JISC FE Exemplars
The JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee) FE Exemplars Evaluation Study, funded by JISC and the DfES (the Department for Education and Science), aimed to assess the effectiveness of the JISC Exemplars of Online Resources, published in 2005, and their success within the FE community.
JISC RTT (Request to Tender) Software Toolkits & Demonstrators
JISC invites proposals to develop software toolkits and demonstrators that align with the strategic aims of the JISC/DEST (Department of Education, Science & Training) e-Framework for Education and Research. Funding is available to:
- a) DEVELOP A TOOLKIT - to develop web services API (Applications Programme Interface - an interface that allows one programme to use the facilities of another) for existing applications along with software development kits (SDKs) that enable developers to use the web services APIs in one or more popular programming languages.
- b) DEVELOP A DEMONSTRATOR - to develop applications or services that consume documents from web services APIs and/or submit documents to web service APIs.
As a general guideline it is anticipated that most projects will be awarded funding of between £30,000 and £40,000 depending on the extent and complexity of the work involved. The deadline for proposals is 13:00 on Monday 16 October 2006. Successful projects will be expected to start as soon as possible and no later than 2 January 2007 with submission of the final work on or before 30 June 2007. Further information on the JISC website.
Breaking the sound barrier...JISC and the British Library Announce New Archive
A massive digitisation programme by JISC and the British Library makes 3,900 hours of historic sound recordings available to students, researchers and academics. A major new online resource available free to everyone in further and higher education will provide easy access to thousands of hours of rare and historic sound recordings. Archival Sound Recordings (ASR), launched today will make available to students, researchers, teachers and academics some 12,000 unique materials from the dawn of recording history to the present day.
Archival Sound Recordings breaks new ground in the delivery of digitised sound recordings for use in education and research and features a huge range of material, including classical and popular music, radio drama, oral history, and field and location recordings of traditional music.
3. The Best Wee Country on the Planet?
Vocational Academies Announced
First Minister Jack McConnell, speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester has announced plans for vocational trades academies in every region. Despite fierce opposition from Scotland's biggest teaching unions, the First Minister used his speech to unveil proposals for 100 "skills academies" across Scotland. What are the implications for FE? See the Scotsman article.
Podding Jack Flash
The Scottish Executive has launched a new podcasting service. Subscribers can choose to receive audio podcasts of First Minister's Questions in the Parliament every Thursday, or video podcasts of various Ministerial events as and when they happen.
Glow
The GLOW network which is set to link up schools and learners across Scotland took centre stage at the SETT Conference in Glasgow last week. This is a development with major implications for all aspects of education in Scotland, not least FE colleges, and here at Newsfeed we'll be monitoring developments on your behalf and bringing you the latest news. If you want to see just how warm the GLOW currently is then trying following the links below:
- Scotland wakes up with a healthy Glow
- Our secret: get the teachers on board
- Glasgow leads the way in innovation
RCAHMS
From the future to the past...the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland is responsible for recording, interpreting and collecting information about the built environment.
4. Google Accessible Search
The ability to search the web for information has become a key tool of modern life, so this latest innovation from Google which allows accessible web searching for the visually impaired is especially welcome. Accessible Search is an early Google Labs product designed to identify and prioritize search results that are more easily usable by blind and visually impaired users. Regular Google search helps you find a set of documents that is most relevant to your tasks. Accessible Search goes one step further by helping you find the most accessible pages in that result set.
5. All the News that's Fit
Guide to Scottish Newspaper Indexes
This searchable list provides details of Scottish newspaper titles that have an index. The new database from the Scottish National Library, which currently covers 184 titles, records the type of index, the dates covered, and the libraries that have a copy. You can search by newspaper title and by keyword.
News Map
Another fantastic resource which uses the potential of the web to the full. Go to the News Map website where you're presented with a world map. Select a country that you're interested in. Click on that country on the interactive map to open an archive of current news stories about it.
Newsfilm Online
Newsfilm Online promises to be one of the most exciting resources ever offered to Higher and Further Education in the UK. 3,000 hours of television news and cinema newsreels, taken from the huge collection of the ITN/Reuters archive is to be made available online in high quality format for teaching, learning and research. Newsfilm Online will be a gateway of unmatched richness to nearly one hundred years of news, from the 1910s to the present day. Fully available from Spring 2007, but you can preview it today.
6. Move on Up! - Mobile Technologies Roundup
W3C guidelines for mobile device websites
Modern phones and PDAs are increasingly likely to be used to access websites as mobile wireless access grows. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) has published a new set of guidelines aimed at helping website managers better design for mobile devices. Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 offers practical guidance to content authors on how to offer mobile users on a range of devices a consistent and effective experience. Details on:
Internet on the Move
Even though a huge number of mobile phones in use can access the internet, and after the launch of faster third- generation (3G) data services, only 10% of Europeans actually use their handsets to go online, a situation mirrored in almost every other nation apart from Japan and Korea where faster mobile networks are much more common. For a fuller discussion of why this is still a technology waiting for a market see the BBC article.
7. Images
Flickr Geotagged
Flickr is a vast online repository where you can store or access digital images. A new facility on the site allows you to enter a location you'd like to see images of then all you have to do is sit back and wait. Flickr images are 'geotagged' - stored accompanied by information on the location where the image has been taken - the system flicks through these tags at the speed of light and finds the appropriate ones for you. Try looking for locations in the 'best wee country on the planet'.
Every Stock Photo
Images have enormous power to bring learning materials to life but often there are issues of copyright which have to be addressed before you can use an image. However this doesn't apply at everystockphoto which is a search engine for creative commons photos, meaning that images can often be used freely for educational purposes. Check it out EveryStockPhoto.
Photo Messaging
Closer integration with websites such as Flickr and the unchecked growth of blogging are seen by analysts as possible reasons for the rise in photo messaging using camera-enabled mobile phones. Researchers M:Metrics report that over 50% of mobile users in France, Germany, the US and the UK now own camera phones. This is a significant increase over the 22% figure for the same group at the start of 2006.
8. Broadband
Broadband Makes e-Potatoes of us all
A poll conducted by YouGov, combined with data collected by Ofcom, suggests that users of the internet in the UK spend an average of 23 hours per week online, compared to only 19 hours per week watching television. The research suggests that online gaming, video streaming and IP telephony are popular activities, but that old favourites such as online banking, shopping and email still play a significant part. For details get off the couch and go to the register's article.
Broadband Takeup in the UK
A new survey from the UK government's Office for National Statistics states that at the end of June 2006 some 14.3m households were connected to the internet, 69% of these (9.87m households or 40% of all UK households) via broadband. The South East has the highest level of internet connections while Scotland has the lowest. Read the Guardian's full article.
9. VLE Online Conference (16 - 19th October, 2006)
VLEs: pedagogy and implementation - the theory and practice of learning platforms and virtual learning environments.This online conference will be of interest to all those using and working with learning platforms and VLEs. There is a very wide range of presenters, from FE and HE, adult and community learning, and schools.
Sessions cover topics including:
- accessibility and VLEs
- cultural change within organisations
- implementing institutional VLEs
- content creation tools.
As well as workshop sessions, there are also various "Ask the Expert" sessions, with presenters from CETIS, Becta, ACL, etc. Conference presentations will be available to delegates from the 9th October, for reading and viewing; and the conference proceedings will be available for viewing for a month after the 19th. For a full programme, and more information on booking and registration costs, visit the online conference website.
10. I Have Seen the Future....Aye...but does it work...?
Is this the shape of things to come? Here's your chance to study law at Harvard on a course which is 'unlike any that have ever been taught'. Welcome to the course website for Law in the Court of Public Opinion. It is a course in persuasive, empathic argument in the Internet space. The course uses the whole range of technologies currently available enhance teaching and learning from blogs and wikis to simulations. Much of the teaching and learning is carried out by avatars in a simulated world. Intrigued? For a taste of the future - or one possible future - visit CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion. It's a long way from the banda machine (readers under 40 should ask an older colleague)!
11. Training from the RSCs in September & October
RSC North & East
- 26th October: Blogs, Wikis and Social Networking
- 27th October: Writing for the Web
- 2nd November: Information Skills: Is Google Enough?
- 3rd November: Train the Trainer
- 9th November: CSS - A Complete Web Style Toolkit
- 10th November: Accessibility, Usability & Your Web Site
- You Decide: Choose from our portfolio or request customised training
RSC South & West
- 3rd October: Writing for the Web
- 4th October: WebPages from Scratch
- 5th October: What's up and What's in
- 10-11th October: Dreamweaver Essentials
- 31st October: Blogs, Wikis and Social Networking
The full listing of all the workshops currently being run by both RSCs in Scotland is available at:
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.