Excellence Gateway
Looking for ways to improve curriculum design, management and delivery? Need ideas on adjusting your teaching to meet specific learning needs? Or may be you're looking for ways to improve quality, planning and performance as an organisation?Whatever area of improvement you're looking into, read the case studies here on good e-practice taking place by learning providers across England.
Whether you're a college provider, adult and community learning provider, work-based learning provider or an offender learning provider, these exclusive case studies will help to inspire and inform your ideas.
All case studies published here have been produced by the JISC regional support centres (RSC) on behalf of the Excellence Gateway.
The focus of the case studies is good e-practice in the context of the three main strands of the National Improvement Strategy:
Click on a strand above (or in the left-hand menu) to access the case studies relevant to that strand.
Alternatively, you can view all case studies.
Note: A case study may be relevant to more than one strand, in which case it will appear under all relevant strands.
Download a simple tool (Word document) to help you reflect on the case studies in relation to your own practice and in planning developments based on them. Download a PDF version of the tool.
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The Manchester College has been addressing the issues of how technology can be used securely in offender learning through a co-ordinated project. This has involved specific OLASS-focused E-Guides training, providing access to appropriate technologies and e-resources, and bringing together security and teaching staff to try to overcome the barriers to using technology in prison establishments.
Halesowen College has saved thousands of pounds by choosing an open-source telephony system to link its three college sites.
New College Durham has developed an interactive quiz that assesses learners in a fun way. The quiz encourages, enthuses and motivates learners, and adds value to the course by promoting co-operative learning. The quiz has been created on a low budget and uses a combination of different technologies. During the last Ofsted inspection the quiz was offered as an example of ILT integration and, along with other examples, was considered by inspectors to be 'good practice'.
Portsmouth College tutors are piloting an interactive, multimedia approach to individual learning plans for adult learners following the Working Towards Independence course. Many of these learners have learning, physical and sensory difficulties, making traditional paper-based plans inaccessible. Using a combination of interactive whiteboard, Microsoft PowerPoint, digital recorder, pocket video camcorder and internet connection, this course now enables its learners to take control of their own learning targets, develop self-advocacy, raise their own self-esteem and become much more engaged in the process of developing independent living skills.
'Sparks', Bexley College's Moodle-based virtual learning environment, was not a popular platform by September 2008 and was underused by both lecturers and learners. John Jackson, e-Learning and VLE Professional Tutor, and Dave Byrne, ILT Training and Development Co-ordinator, set out to discover what could be done to turn this situation around and start to embed e-learning across the College. Over 60 staff and 1,750 learners were involved in the drive to extend and enliven e-learning at Bexley College.
Moulton College has integrated a number of important systems so that, with a single sign-on, its learners get to access their courses on the College virtual learning platform (Moodle), their email and their space on shared drives, and have automated access to various external software programmes.
Riverside College Halton has implemented an eMentor scheme where students provide ILT support to their tutors and peers. The scheme is not only having a positive impact on the eMentors and those they support, it is also helping to improve the use of ILT at the College.
It is said the best ideas are often the simplest ones. At Huntingdonshire Regional College, Ken McKerral, an Advanced Practitioner in e-learning, has developed a very simple idea to engage students and improve teaching and learning. Ken has named his method "The Teacher/Learner Switch". It is a process that uses a unique colour-code system to help differentiate learning outcomes and deliver ownership of time to the students to enrich learning experience.
Bromley Adult Education College (BAEC) selected NComputing as a cheaper and greener IT solution for some of their classrooms. A pilot system was implemented within a few months and the evaluation has identified quantifiable benefits.
Through working together, supporting each other and sharing good practice in the e-Learning Peer Review and Development Group (e-Learning PRD Group), four work-based learning providers have benefitted from each other's experiences. The project has also contributed significantly to the development and confirmation of the aims and objectives of each member organisation's ILT strategy.
You can find this page and download any referenced resources from the Excellence Gateway at http://excellence.org.uk/casestudies.
