The education press is awash with stories about the new Ofsted regime. These include claims, that for FE College, 61% of inspections have received a lower grade than the one previously awarded and stories that some institutions are taking legal action, with respect to the actions of the inspection team.
I can only speak from my experience and I have recently been in contact with two of the centres who use our e-portfolio, one fully and the other partially, who have both been awarded outstanding grades in virtually all aspects of their provision. This means that two of the three training providers in the South West, awarded outstanding grades, both use our e-portfolio.
It would be easy to say, especially in this blog, that it is the e-portfolio that makes the difference but that would seriously distort the truth. What would be true is their use of the e-portfolio, demonstrates their openness to embrace innovation particularly through the application of technology.
However what really makes the difference is the quality and commitment that runs throughout both organisation and their level of ambition. One of them Didac took the bold step of purchasing their own training centre two years ago and investing in high quality equipment, for a relatively small skill area. At the heart of Didac though is not a building but a leadership team that really cares for their staff and students. As one of their team said recently it is rare to have a boss, who when he has not seen you for a few days, texts you and wishes you well for the weekend.
The other organisation is Reflections Training academy that rather than resting on their laurels following a good Ofsted, pushed ahead with embracing technology; improving their facilities and driving up achievement rates.
In terms of the Ofsted process both organisations speak of very rigorous and intense experiences with lots of contact with students and observations of delivery. You get the sense that the inspectors really got to know the organisation which I imagine is virtually impossible with a large college. The best the inspectors there can do there is to hope that their examination of the performance figures, highlight an issue that they can follow and that this leads them to practice, that is indicative of the organisation. It is a tall order.
I am in no position to comment on the validity of the inspections that are being contested, other than to say that in the ongoing debate about Ofsted we do not lose sight of the organisations that fully deserve their grades good and bad.
Wednesday 18 July 2012
Monday 16 July 2012
Qualifications Free(d) for All
There has always appeared to be a hidden ‘scandal’ about the way that qualifications are developed and then marketed in the UK. Registration and examination fees have grown incrementally each year, to the point where some High schools are spending the same amount on exam entries than they do on the salaries of five teaching staff.
This would be just about legitimate if the money from the fees, was ploughed back into the education system, however the truth is that there are cases where the money has disappeared directly into the pockets of individuals.
There was a point where this looked like it was all getting sorted out. The previous government had introduced the Qualification Credit Framework. Underpinning this approach was the notion that units of learning were to be shared and therefore the ability of awarding bodies to ‘own’ and market qualifications was starting to be eroded. However one of the first actions was to remove the quango responsible for the implementing the QCF and declare that the business of developing and designing qualifications should again directly be the responsibility of awarding bodies.
So cue for big celebrations amongst all the large awarding bodies because they can again sit back and watch their profits again start to steeply rise. However there are dangers to the market economy and there is news that there are new players starting to enter it, who are beginning to challenge some of the ‘big players’. Losing the ability to award qualifications for a small sector like for example furniture skills, may not fundamentally shake their foundations but like a small hole in the dam it has the potential to have a significant impact, not least in demonstrating that all Goliaths have their David.
This would be just about legitimate if the money from the fees, was ploughed back into the education system, however the truth is that there are cases where the money has disappeared directly into the pockets of individuals.
There was a point where this looked like it was all getting sorted out. The previous government had introduced the Qualification Credit Framework. Underpinning this approach was the notion that units of learning were to be shared and therefore the ability of awarding bodies to ‘own’ and market qualifications was starting to be eroded. However one of the first actions was to remove the quango responsible for the implementing the QCF and declare that the business of developing and designing qualifications should again directly be the responsibility of awarding bodies.
So cue for big celebrations amongst all the large awarding bodies because they can again sit back and watch their profits again start to steeply rise. However there are dangers to the market economy and there is news that there are new players starting to enter it, who are beginning to challenge some of the ‘big players’. Losing the ability to award qualifications for a small sector like for example furniture skills, may not fundamentally shake their foundations but like a small hole in the dam it has the potential to have a significant impact, not least in demonstrating that all Goliaths have their David.
Monday 9 July 2012
Hunt for the missing JISC funded e-portfolio initiative.
Ever heard of LIPID; PortisHEead; ePISTLE; FILE-PASS; ELP; Flouish; Reflect 2.0; PDP4XL2; PC3; SRC; Co-genT; EPPSME; SAMSON; TELSTAR; FASTTECH; MABLE; and PIOP Phase 2 and 3?
Perhaps more importantly do you know where any of them that are currently been used and have had a significant impact on the use of e-portfolios to support the delivery of HE and FE programmes? By significant impact I mean being used across an institution or even a whole faculty or department?
The common feature of all these projects is that according to JISC, all these projects use Pebble pad as their e-portfolio and the subject of investigation or development. In some cases the investigation is wide ranging such as examining the use of e-portfolios by SMEs. In other cases the focus is very narrow e.g. LIPID is about exploring how to take data from the student management system used by Wolverhampton University and make it available via a web service to the Pebble Pad e-portfolio system.
Just for information Pebble Pad was developed by Wolverhampton University but became owned and marketed by a commercial company called Pebble Learning.
I am sure the majority of the money that JISC awarded all these projects went directly to the HE and FE institutions involved and not to a commercial company and I am sure all the money was used and accounted for properly, however it seems right for JISC consider, as is the case with all educational institutions whether they pass the value for money test?
I welcome the fact that all this money has been invested in e-portfolios but to return to the theme of the last blog ‘So What?’ The real question for JISC, amongst others to answer, is have the projects they have been funding been seeking to answer the right questions?
Perhaps more importantly do you know where any of them that are currently been used and have had a significant impact on the use of e-portfolios to support the delivery of HE and FE programmes? By significant impact I mean being used across an institution or even a whole faculty or department?
The common feature of all these projects is that according to JISC, all these projects use Pebble pad as their e-portfolio and the subject of investigation or development. In some cases the investigation is wide ranging such as examining the use of e-portfolios by SMEs. In other cases the focus is very narrow e.g. LIPID is about exploring how to take data from the student management system used by Wolverhampton University and make it available via a web service to the Pebble Pad e-portfolio system.
Just for information Pebble Pad was developed by Wolverhampton University but became owned and marketed by a commercial company called Pebble Learning.
I am sure the majority of the money that JISC awarded all these projects went directly to the HE and FE institutions involved and not to a commercial company and I am sure all the money was used and accounted for properly, however it seems right for JISC consider, as is the case with all educational institutions whether they pass the value for money test?
I welcome the fact that all this money has been invested in e-portfolios but to return to the theme of the last blog ‘So What?’ The real question for JISC, amongst others to answer, is have the projects they have been funding been seeking to answer the right questions?
The E-Assessment or the So What question?
This week sees the 10th anniversary of the international ePortfolio & Identity Conference and welcome and the second ePortfolio World Summit. It should be a time for celebration however if you read reports like the one below on the LEAP 2A specification for e-portfolio data exchange http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/Leap2AReviewReport_Final_1.3.p then you would have to conclude that the e-portfolio movement is in real danger of losing its way if it has not done so already. The report is littered with examples of interesting initiatives but the authors find it difficult to come to any conclusions because of the lack of users.
It is worth asking why this is the case when intuitively the development of e-portfolios is an idea that makes such apparent sense. There are potentially huge savings in people’s time and in resources however that is if you consider that the primary purpose of e-portfolios is to support assessment.
The reality will be that at this 10th conference there will be little attention given to this subject and instead there will be the normal focus on e-portfolios and their role, as providing people with their digital identity and then the inter-operability and ownership questions that flow from this.
I have always been baffled by why interoperability is such a big issue for the e-portfolio community. It does not appear to be such an issue for the Apple and Microsofts of this world, who particularly in the case of Apple delight in ‘forcing’ software developers to create applications that work on their devices only.
Is interoperability really such a fundamental issue when individuals are happy to put their content in different places, provided that it can be easily exported to other places and where appropriate links can be made to enable their data, so that it flows between different systems using API links.
With respect of ownership, is it so critically important that the owner is always in total control of their data, particularly when it is being used as part of an assessment. Surely one of the big benefits that e-portfolios bring to assessment is the way that they make the whole process more transparent, to those that have the rights to view evidence because of their role in the assessment process.
So it is not surprising that if all e-portfolios are about is creating digital identities, then users are saying So What and not using them. From our perspective if you do create e-portfolios that have a real purpose, often in the context of assessment and where that e-portfolio is supported by an admin tool that enables you to control who does what and when, then they are used.
It is worth asking why this is the case when intuitively the development of e-portfolios is an idea that makes such apparent sense. There are potentially huge savings in people’s time and in resources however that is if you consider that the primary purpose of e-portfolios is to support assessment.
The reality will be that at this 10th conference there will be little attention given to this subject and instead there will be the normal focus on e-portfolios and their role, as providing people with their digital identity and then the inter-operability and ownership questions that flow from this.
I have always been baffled by why interoperability is such a big issue for the e-portfolio community. It does not appear to be such an issue for the Apple and Microsofts of this world, who particularly in the case of Apple delight in ‘forcing’ software developers to create applications that work on their devices only.
Is interoperability really such a fundamental issue when individuals are happy to put their content in different places, provided that it can be easily exported to other places and where appropriate links can be made to enable their data, so that it flows between different systems using API links.
With respect of ownership, is it so critically important that the owner is always in total control of their data, particularly when it is being used as part of an assessment. Surely one of the big benefits that e-portfolios bring to assessment is the way that they make the whole process more transparent, to those that have the rights to view evidence because of their role in the assessment process.
So it is not surprising that if all e-portfolios are about is creating digital identities, then users are saying So What and not using them. From our perspective if you do create e-portfolios that have a real purpose, often in the context of assessment and where that e-portfolio is supported by an admin tool that enables you to control who does what and when, then they are used.
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