Now here's an interesting challenge!

One of the blogs I follow is Jane Hart's Elearning pick of the day. Although the sites she highlights are sometimes of no interest to me, more often they fall into the "could be worth bookmarking" category. Then, every so often, she adds a link to one which is right up my street.

Like today.

The 140 University delivers learning in regular nuggets of 140 words, by means of Twitter or Facebook. There is a variety of subjects to sign up for and the material is archived to review later.

I'm not a Twitterer and not really a fan of Facebook either (though I have accounts for and have used both), but this could be something I'd like to take advantage of and I might well sign up to see what's what. It's also got me wondering how we might use this idea and take it further. Any ideas? Do share them here, in the comments!

Art and Craft tutors, please read

I had an email today from Mark Hewlett (AdEd Head of Quality Improvement and Contracting) which shared a link to an incident report which made me shudder.

As the original email, forwarded by Mark, said:

"I’ve not sent this out to you all to shock or upset but more to highlight the fact that this case proves that even when the task/activity appears to be straight forward, the lack of awareness and Risk Assessment has resulted in horrific injuries.

This was a simple classroom activity which should have been fun and enjoyable but the outcome so avoidable!

It may be worth sharing with those in your organisations (in particular large organisations like colleges where classroom activities are so varied) who doubt the need for health and safety, the appreciation of the importance of Risk Assessments, the need to communicate these risks to those who need to know and the potential consequences of failing to tell Learners! It may be an eye opener to them?"

Read the report yourself here

Thoughts and comments would be welcome.

Creative and Media materials

Some tutors who came to the core training events last term might remember the "wheel" activity about initial assessment? Although it was targeted at language tutors, we used it more broadly and many tutors found it an interesting discussion starter.

I now have a box of similar resources aimed at our Creative and Media curriculum and though I love them to bits - satisfying packaging, beautiful production values and some great concepts and starting points - I don't want to keep them to myself!

Why not have a look at these materials online, see if there's anything there you'd like to use - either with your learners, for your own professional development or simply to satisfy your curiosity. If, as a result of what you see, you'd like to borrow the whole pack (A4 size, 15cm thick and weighing just over 3kg) drop me an email and we'll see what we can do!

I intend to bring the materials to our next training event in any case but don't feel you have to wait!!

Not only that, but as a result of Subject Learning coach training, there are several copies of the Developing the Expert Learner and the Learning Maths materials in the county too. They of similar size and design to the Creative and Media materials and though they look beautiful on my shelf - coordinated colours and all of that - they'd look better still on your CPD record!

Magic?

Need a bit of something to get the grey matter going? Have a read of this.

(photo is of Jane CD at the recent Digital Photography workshop, with tutor, Leigh Preston)

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)

Inviting ESOL tutors of pre-entry and Entry 1-2 to share ideas and materials. There doesn't seem to be a lot out there that is suitable for refugees and asylum seekers apart from the SKills for Life materials.