Widening participation through e-learning
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This project trialled, explored and evaluated how a range of social software technologies could be used in the fully online eCommunications foundation degree delivered by The Sheffield College and which has been validated by Sheffield Hallam University. There was an emphasis on how these technologies could be used in Work Based Learning.
Executive Summary
The focus of the project was on the use of:
- blogs for individual reflective blogging
- wikis for collaborative work
- forums as an interactive online space
The online eCommunications foundation degree has been introduced to meet the needs of potential students who can not attend courses delivered face to face. They might be shift-workers who need to access work experience in their work place but a significant number will be home bound and work experience must be found via the internet for them. The purpose of this foundation degree is to equip students to be able to confidently function as professionals in an information society that is always expanding and where our collective knowledge doubles every eighteen months (Olofson, 1999, quoted in Richardson 2006).
The students on the eCommunicatons foundation degree course will need a direct experience of the technologies that are now being used on the Web and the opportunity to evaluate these technologies through use (Odell 2006). Graduates from this degree will find employment online and inhabit the Web socially; their social selves and professional selves may often blur and merge. The use of social software tools on the course explores how these can be used academically, professionally and socially. Using blogs and wikis is particularly important as they help students become aware of e conventions and develop the skills necessary to be good e communicators (Lane 2007)
The project has built upon the experience and expertise that already exists at The Sheffield College (TSC) where wholly online academic courses and professional courses have been delivered successfully for 10 years. A feature of all the College’s online courses is a pedagogy based on e-Learning 2.0.
Following the current success of the eCommunications foundation degree, especially its experience of how the use of social software can promote independent learning, the College is now actively promoting the use of social software in all of its foundation degrees. Currently, TSC has three other foundation degrees moving incrementally towards online delivery as part of a seven year that will involve the use of online or blended modules in a range of its foundation degrees with an ultimate aim of the provision of a suite of up to 16 foundation degrees that each share a common core of online modules which involve the use of social software tools. The ultimate aim is to deliver the College’s entire suite of foundation degrees online. All are validated and topped to Hons level by Sheffield Hallam University.
See the project wiki
See the project blog