Outstanding use of technology

Moodle Magic – Thurrock & Basildon College

With sliding guided learning hours and an ever-increasing emphasis on every learner succeeding, there’s never been a better time to review your strategies for developing your learners’ independent learning skills. This 5-minute film and case study will show just how powerful Moodle (or indeed any VLE) can be in saving you time and increasing the impact of your teaching.

Blockbusters – Bromley College

‘Exams’, ‘tests’, ‘assessments’ – not the sort of terms that make learners relax and not the sorts of activities that most people look forward to. But Errol and his team found that the on-going task of measuring the impact of their training could actually be quite a lot of fun if they stopped doing what they’d always done and tried something new.

Fault finding – Bromley College

This case study is an illustration of one of the fundamental elements of any good lesson. With its emphasis squarely on teaching the learners how to become independent thinkers, the teacher’s approach is dominated by the ‘coaching’ of the learners’ understanding, rather than the delivery of information – an approach that teachers from any vocational area could benefit from.

Voting buttons – Kwik-Fit

‘Refuse to allow people to fail. Do whatever it takes to support them to succeed.’ This phrase captures Steve’s moral commitment to his learners. It’s become the driving force for quality improvement, and helped Kwik-Fit’s Derby academy to achieve a grade 1 at inspection.

Video replay – Plymouth College of Art

“When you’re teaching students new skills there can be an awful lot for them to take in – I certainly found this as a student. So I’ve worked hard to overcome this problem by developing an approach to my teaching that combines a simple video capture programme and our Moodle VLE.

I’ve increased the effectiveness of my teaching and saved myself hours of work in the process – though it’s not always easy to convince other staff of these benefits.”

ePortfolios – Revolutions Training

For years learners have been overwhelmed by the complexity of paper-based portfolios. Assessors have risked back problems heaving boxes of portfolios in and out of car boots and employers’ premises. Cynics adopted a view that if it’s not heavy enough it’s not good enough. But the NVQ in care was never meant to be like this – and Revolutions Training dared to be different…