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Research Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning
ILT/ICT/e-Learning/Technology enhanced learning
This section of our website includes information and resources concerning:
ICT And ILT Good Practice, reaching hard-to-reach learners via UK On-line Centres and Evaluation Of National Programmes And Projects
Engaging the hardest to reach: what works at UK online centres
There are around 6000 community-based UK online centres throughout England providing access to IT, the Internet, and online information services and training for people who may not otherwise easily gain access to these. This publication reports the findings of research which explored the processes and services developed by a sample of UK online centres for tackling social exclusion, and identified organisational and financial factors which can facilitate or inhibit effective engagement with target audiences, including people most educational institutions consider hard to reach.
ICT and ILT Good Practice
ICT and ILT Good Practice in the North West
The 'ICT and ILT Good Practice in the North West' project Sought examples of the positive impact of the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Information and Learning Technologies (ILT) on teaching and learning in further education colleges in the North West of England, and produced multimedia case studies that highlight good practice. The brief publication summarises the findings and signposts the multimedia casestudies within the e-learning in action database on LSN’s e-learning and technology website.
The learning technologies site also contains hundreds of other examples of ICT/ILT/e-learning good practice within the learning and skills sector as well as free resources and information at www.learningtechnologies.ac.uk/ask
The National Learning Network (NLN)
The NLN evaluation team’s first major report was at the end of 2002. This subsequent publication by LSDA and Sheffield Hallam University provides yet further evidence of the influence information and learning technology (ILT) has on the work of colleges and on the lives of staff and students. This is highlighted by our sector's increased use of the term 'e-learning', as technology becomes a progressively more important component of innovation, planning and delivery. The evidence in this report is based on case study visits to a small, but representative, number of colleges during 2003 and the early part of 2004, and on data from large-scale surveys of sector staff and students which took place from late 2003 to early 2004.
Download PDF versions of the following elements of the report:
The transformation projects
Between March 2004 and March 2005 nine projects were funded by LSDA in an attempt to ‘transform’ an area of their work involving the use of technology. The nine transformation projects included single further education colleges, two college consortia, and a college and schools consortium; they covered a representative range of FE, sixth form and adult education colleges. The projects were diverse in nature, in their levels of experience, their geographical spread, their mission and their scope, ranging from one department in a single college to a countywide consortium. The key questions on which projects were expected to concentrate, and on which to report, were: What are the key success factors to transform teaching and learning with information and learning technology? and What are the barriers to embedding e-learning successfully and how can they be overcome? The publication “e-learning, making it work, the Transformation Projects: lessons learned” is based on all ofthe projectoutputsand on the evidence we collected of the further impact of the projects since their formal conclusion. The printed version of this publication is accompanied by a DVD which includes: the projects’ final reports and outputs, the inputs of the external staff who had helped guide their progress and a synthesised report on the initiative.
Wireless Outreach
The Wireless Outreach Networks (WON) initiative was managed by NIACE and LSC on behalf of the DfES.Almost three hundredvaried centres were chosen in late 2002 to be part of the initiative, which has supported the purchase of laptop computers linked via a wireless network and for use in a range of community education and training settings. LSDA was asked to evaluate the impact of the scheme; we did this by using an on-line survey every six months to gauge the developing impact of the scheme. For more information and copies of the project reports please see www.NIACE.org.uk/Wireless Outreach Networks.
TrEACL projects
This work, also for NIACE, involved an investigation of the impact of these e-learning projects in the adult and community sector. More details of the initiative can be found by clicking here. Our latest report was produced in spring 2006
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