Pontydysgu - Bridge to Learning Pontydysgu.org

Photo: Yeweni

As promised a new podcast in our Sounds of the Bazaar series. Dr Jile and Mr. Tian from the Institute of Vocational and Adult Education in Bejing dropped in yesterday to talk about technology enhanced learning.

I couldn’t miss the opportunity to get them in front of the microphone. And it is truly an interesting talk. Many thanks to both of them,

Intro and extro music New Generation by  ‘Souled Out‘

 

 Sounds of the Bazaar [8:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (68)

I had a fascinating meeting with two representatives of a Bejing school district last night. They are in Bremen as part of a European programme which including other things is developing a programme for the Continuing Professional Development of vocational teachers in the city.
They came to visit us to discuss e-learning and how the use of new technologies might help in their project.
The big issue that emerged was that of the scale of they challenge they face. Most of the teachers in vocational schools have received no pedagogic training at all, gong straight from university to become a teacher. Because of pressures on the system, the CPD programme is being organised out of school hoursd. Attendance is voluntary. And the teachers are keen. A recent seminar held on a Sunday attracted more than 800 particpants! The biggest issue is that there are not enough resources to organise a tradtional CPD programme. There are simply too many teachers who want to participate and not enough trainers. And that is when we started thinking about Massively Open On-line Courses (MOOCs). The infrastructure and access to networks and computers is relatively good in Bejing. Teachers are open to new ideas. Could we organise a programme that combined face to face events with on-line provision open to all who wished to attend? How could support be organised? What kind of platforms and tools would be required?
I started out as a sceptic about MOOCs but the meeting last night has changed my thinking.
If you are interested in hearing more about the project, we recorded a quick podcast with the Chinese colleagues and we will try to get this online in the next couple of days.

Lsy week I helped organise the on-line conference on the training of teachers and trainers. And thanks to hard work from Dirk Stieglitz and cristina Costa the proceedings of the conference are now all on line on the Network of Trainers in Europe website. It is well worth checking out the web site and especially looking at the online exhibition which accompanied the conference.

We have been doing an online surevy to help in the evaluation of the conference and I will post some of the results this weekend.

In the meantime, if you missed the conference here is your second chance to see what happened.

5 November 2008

Theme: The changing role of trainers in learning

Morning sessions (for Elluminate sessions click here) featuring:

• Professor Alan Brown, Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick
  • Employees supporting the learning, training and development of other employees while working in groups: examples drawn from aerospace, health and accountancy (mp3, ppt, paper)

• George Roberts, Oxford Brooks University, UK
  • Education, training and employment (mp3, ppt)

• Barry Nyhan, Ireland
  • Lifelong learning and the role of trainers (mp3, ppt, paper)
• Lorna Unwin, Professor Alan Felstead and Nick Jewson, Professor Alison Fuller
  • Can anyone be a trainer?: towards a more embedded role for vocational trainers (ppt)
    

Theme: Support for the professional development of trainers

Afternoon sessions (for Elluminate sessions click here) featuring:

• Seija Mahlamäki-Kultanen and Anita Eskola-Kronqvist, HAMK, Finland
  • New Innovations into trainers’ training: Documenting and analyzing work processes with digital photos (mp3, ppt)

• Prof. Eduardo Figueira, University of Évora Portugal
  
  • Developing competence for trainers in Portugal (mp3, ppt)

• Simone Kirpal, University f Bremen, Germany
  • The Eurotrainer network survey (mp3, ppt)

• Eileen Luebcke, Pontydysgu, Germany
  
  • A framework for continuing professional development of trainers (mp3, ppt)

• Summary of the first day By Graham Attwell (mp3)

6 November 2008

Theme: E-learning for trainers

Morning sessions (for Elluminate sessions click here) featuring:

• Cristina Costa, University of Salford / Pontydysgu, UK
  • Using social software tools for supporting the online training of trainers (mp3, ppt)

• Doris Beer, Lohberger Unternehmerinnenzentrum e.V., Germany
  
  • e-learning for medical healthcare assisstants in Germany (mp3, ppt)

• John Pallister, Wolsingham School, UK
  • The ePortfolio process, supporting the Trainer and Training (mp3, ppt)

• Vance Stevens, Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi
  • Teacher professional development in groups, communities, and networks (mp3, ppt)

Afternoon sessions (for Elluminate sessions click here) featuring:

• Carla Arena & Mary Hillis, USA and Japan
  • Professional Development in Online Circles of Learning (mp3, ppt, wiki)

• Anne Fox, CV2, Denmark
  • VITAE – introducing 21st century skills through mentoring (mp3, ppt)

• Regina Lamscheck Nielsen, DEL, Denmark
  
  • TrainerGuide – made in Denmark (mp3, ppt)

• Linda Castañeda, University of Murcia, Spain
  
  • On-line Collaboration to teach and learn with each other (mp3, ppt, wiki)

We have just finished the two day online Conference on the training of teachers and trainers organised by the Networork for the Training of Traners in Europe and Evolve.

It was - at least I felt - an inspiring event. Although I don’t have accurate figures I guess at least 70 people attended at some art of the conference - including particpants from more than 20 countries. Despite the usual technical annoyances, the technology never got in the way of the exchange of ideas. In fact, rather the reverse. The discussion was more interactive and reflective than in most face to face events I have attended. We had 15 presentation in four two hour sessions - allowing about 15 minutes presentation and 15 minutes discussion for each presentater. As we had hoped, bringing together researchers and practitioners in the training of teachers and trainers and e-learning practitioners allowed for a productive interchange of ideas and practice.

We will be provding access to the outcomes of the confernece in a variety of different media over the next seven days. Here are just a few of my impressions about the themes of the discussions.

One theme was the increasing prevalence of work based learning. This is expecially so as the divide between initial training and continuing training becomes blurred. As learning becomes embedded in work processes then it becomes increasingly bound by context. Technology can help greatly in capturing learnng from practice in the context it occurs. But this does not really fit with the idea of predeterminded outcomes specified in qualifications. Furthermore the competences required today are changing with a focus on collaboration, working in teams and the ability to support others in their learning and work. Two different approaches were put forward to deal with this. One was to support more community based learning with facilitalors to support enquiry based learning. Another was to move from seeing learning as primarily a question of individual qualification to see it as an integral aspect of innovation. An inovation approach would lead to a focus on learning rich work.

The role of teachers and trainers is also changing with a move from didactic teaching to supporting learners especially in scaffolding learning and developing learning pathways. In many ways we are all beoming teachers and learners. The best teachers, it was said, are learners. It is no longer possible to merely absorb a body of knowledge, especially given increasing job flexibility. But how much employees need to acquire basic competences before being able to learn from work and what those competences are was an issue around which there was no agreement.

Given that more and more people are having responsibility for supporting the learnering of others, the issue of how they are supported in that role becomes an issue. Traditional training the trainers courses are not enough. Rather there is a switch to encouraging peer group support and facilitating the development of communities of pracice. The many web 2.0 tools are valuable in this repect. However, many teachers and trainers are not confident in the use of such tools. There are different approaches to how to deal with this, ranging from targeted courses, the provision of interactive web based resources and fostering self directed learning networks. For all this motivation, the willingness to invest time and effort and above all self-reflection are critical. There is an issue about in whose time learning should take place and to what extent we should be personally reposnsible for our learning and employability. Web 2.0 tools can allow us to link self directed and networked learning to practice. Especially important are the wide range of open learning opportunties being developed through the web.

Three buzzwords emerged from the conference - sharing, collaboration and openess.

Sorry for all I have missed. But please feel free to comment below and add to what I have said - or correct me if I misrepresented what people said.

It was the first day of the on-line conference on the Training of Trainers, sponsored by the Network to Support Trainers in Europe and Evolve.

Not bad. Particpation in the different sessions varied between 25 and 45 people. This compares to the 110 who have registered for the conference which is about in line with other free and open online events I have organised. People either choose whch session interests them most or work around various meetings and other work activites. And of course, some people register but then find something else has come up.

We had some technical problems with firewalls but that is par for the course. A few people got lost in the sandbox but we managed to dig them out and get them to the right place.

We had the usual problems with sound levels and microphones not working. But - once more as usual - these settled down as the day went on. And - most interestingly for me - the techncial barriers seemed no worse with the conference particpants who were for the main part researchers in education and training - and not educational technologists - thean we have had with techy online conferences in the past.

The presentations were good and the discussion even better. I would go as far as to say the discussion was better than at many face ot face conferences I have been to. Once again the use of the back channel provoked lively exchange.

We are presently editing the audio and creating slidecastsso that the conference proceedings will become Open Educational Resources.

So my conclusions - online and open learning using video conferecing is mainsteaming. Lets build on it!!

It os certainly a busy online time. Last night was a great Evolve seminar with Dave Cormier about Massively Online Open Courses (MOOCS). I will post a few ideas about that later.

Tomorrow and Thursday is the the first annual on-line conference on the Training of Trainers, sponsored by the Network to Support Trainers in Europe and Evolve.

When we first launched the conference I was rather doubtful of how many would come. After all this was not an event targeted at the EdTech community. Most researchers and practitioners working in this field have never been involved in an online conference before. I have been overwealmed by the response. To date some 110 articticapnst have registered from I guess about 20 countries. I don’t suppose all will turn up for a free event but I still expect a sizable turnout. For me this represnets two things. The first si the mainsteaming of online conferencing technologies which are now being embraced by researchers and practitioners in many diverse dicplines and subject areas. The second is to reinforce the idea of open events - I huess you could say this conference in a mini-MOOC!

We have been fairly conservative in the conference programme for which I am grateful. One issue which arose in the conversation with Dave Cormier last night is that size matters! It is not easy moderting discource with 100 peole online. I am sure we will hit some technical problems but we will juts have to overcome these as we go.

If you would like to attend the conference please register as soon as possible. The registration page is online here. It is free and open, but we need some record of who came for our project reporting.

We also have created a conference exhibition on wikispaces. Have a look - there is some neat stuff there. And if you would like to contribute to the exhibition please get in touch.

Before travelling to Portugal I helped run a two day workshop on policies and practice in the training of teachers and trainers. The workshop, sponsored by the European Commission brought togther researchers and practitgioners form five different countries. And we ran it as a real workshop. The participants themselves produced the materials. And not a powerpoint in site. It was like a breath of fresh air to be talking, working, developing and sharing ideas. Sometimes I wonder if the ease of use of tools such as Powerpoint have made us lazy and worse has stifled creativity and particpation.

I left AltC early last Thursday morning to travel to Leiden in the Netherlands for a meeting of the Eurtrainer porject. Eurtrainer is developing a network for trainers in Europe and together with Cristina Costa and Dirk Stieglitz, I am organising an online confernce on the training of trainers on November 5 and 6. The conference is free and you can register online on the Trainers in Europe web site.

Anyway here is the main conference blurb.

First International on-line conference - 5-6 November 2008

The Network to Support Trainers in Europe is launching its first annual on-line conference on “the Training of Trainers” on 5 and 6 November, 2008. The confernce is co-sponsored by the Jisc funded Evolve network.

Who is the conference for?
The conference is for all those interested in the training and professional development of teachers and trainers. This includes teachers, trainers, tutors, researchers, managers and policy makers and other interested individuals.

About the conference
The conference will take place through the internet using the Elluminate conference tool. We hope this will not only reduce the carbon footprint of our activities, but will allow wide participation by those who might not be able to travel. The conference will utilise simple web-based tools and will be accessible by anyone with an internet connection and a web browser. For those of you not used to presenting on the internet, we will provide full technical support and a short pre-conference training course.

To find out more go to the conference technology page.

Conference themes
The conference will be organised around four themes:

• Theme 1 - The changing role of trainers in learning
• Theme 2: E-learning for trainers
• Theme 3: Work-based learning
• Theme 4: Support for the professional development of trainers

Go the the conference themes page to find out more.

Speakers

Speakers include:

Professor Alan Felstead and Nick Jewson, Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, UK

Professor Alison Fuller, School of Education, University of Southampton, UK

Professor Alan Brown, Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick, UK

George Roberts, Oxford Brooks University, UK

Barry Nyhan, Ireland

Seija Mahlamäki-Kultanen and Anita Eskola-Kronqvist, HAMK, Finland.

Eduardo Figueira, Academus, Portugal

Simone Kirpal, Institut Technik und Bildung, Univeristy of Bremen, Germany

John Pallister, Wolsingham School

Cristina Costa, Pontydysgu, UK

Doris Beer, Germany

Vance Stevens, Abu Dubai

Carla Arena et al - United States, Japan, Ukraine, Argentina and the UK

Anne Fox, Denmark

Regina Lamscheck Nielsen, DEL, Denmark

Linda Castañeda, University of Murcia, Spain

Titles and abstracts for the presentations can be found on the programme page. Presentations will be 15 minutes allowing 15 minutes for discussion.

Exhibition

There will also be an on-line exhibition. Go to the exhibition page for details of how you can participate.

Registration

The conference is free. However, we would ask you to please register for the conference in advance as places are limited. Please go to the registration page. It is possible to register for one or more of the four seperate conference sessions.

More information
For more information email the project coordinator Simone Kirpal – kirpal @uni-bremen.de or the conference organiser Graham Attwell – graham10 @mac.com.

As promised more on the Training of Trainers. The presentation is based on research we are undertaling through the TTplus project. The  project aims to support and improve the continuing professional development of trainers and has been examining the context in which training takes place in enterprises and the effectiveness of  present policies and provision for the training of trainers.

The project is developing a framework for the continuing professional development of trainers and examining different measures and mechanism for implementing the professional development framework.

The research undertaken by the project showed that the number of trainers in Europe has increased. These ‘trainers’ include full time trainers, people with a formal training responsibility and all those for whom supporting the learning of others is part of their job. It also concluded that many of these people do not have effective or adequate access to continuing professional development opportunities or support or recognition for their own learning.

It is clear that if the standards of training are to be raised, improving the training of trainers must be a priority.  However, given the heterogeneous nature of the group and the range of sectors and occupations in which they work, it is difficult to see how this could be standardised, or indeed whether it is desirable to do so.  Certainly some sort of common framework would have advantages. It would provide a degree of coherence to what is a very fragmented field. It would increase the visibility of trainer training and in so doing, increase awareness. It could also stimulate the establishment of communities of practice between trainers.

The TT-Plus project has the objective of designing a framework for professional development for trainers in Europe. One approach to this is to develop an accreditation framework. Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process under which an organisations’ services and operations are examined by a third-party accrediting agency to determine if applicable standards are met. Should the facility meet the accrediting agency’s standards, the facility receives accredited status from the accrediting agency. Such accreditation often takes the form of a ‘kitemark’ or quality mark designed to show that the organization has met the standards.

The challenges in designing an accreditation system for trainers are three-fold:

Firstly, how can a framework reflect the TTPlus project research findings and be –

• Inclusive enough to accommodate the diversity of people labeled ‘trainers’ and the diversity of contexts in which they work.
• An instrument for improving the quality of practice
• A process to improve and increase access to training opportunities for trainers

Secondly, how can a framework incorporate the best features of previous approaches whilst minimising their disadvantages. Specifically how can a framework:

• Identify ‘gaps’ in organizational or individual trainer  ‘performance’ AND simultaneously facilitate the learning necessary to close the gaps
• Provide recognition and reward for both individuals and organisations.
• Be relevant and sensitive to a range of occupational identities

Thirdly, how can a single framework be flexible enough to allow sectoral, local, regional and national variation whilst still maintaining transnational coherence and a shared European approach?

In short, how can standards be improved without standardization?

The project has produced a consultation paper outlining a possible solution based on a set of common or shared elements and another set of elements where there are choices or divergences to be made at country, organizational or individual level.

The paper elaborates on six ‘components’ of the frameworktogether with linking mechanisms.

• A set of principles
• A set of standards
• An infrastructure
• Processes and mechanisms for applying them and documentation.
• Tools and materials to help those engaged in the process
• Exemplars of evidence

The full consultation document can be downloaded here - Framework for the Professional Development of Trainers.. If you are involved in the training of trainers - or are just interested in te topic we would like to hear your views on the Framework

Last week i took an all to short four day holiday in Romania. But this week sadly it is back to business. And tomorrow I am off to Jyväskylä for the EARLI conference. Wednesday evening I travel to Kuressaari in Estonia for a meeting of the b-learning project. And Friday it is back to Bremen. Phew! In fact I did not plan such a schedule -  I managed to double book myself.

Anyway in Jyväskylä I am presenting a paper from the TT-Plus project on the training of trainers. The paper is officially co-authored between myself and Pekka Kamarainen - although I have to say he has done most of the work. Given my limited input, I feel able to say that I think this is a very good paper. The abstract is below and if you are interested you can download the full paper. I will also post my presentation slides for both meetings as soon as I have finished them.

In search for common ground: Starting points for analysing the professional situation of trainers in six European countries

“This paper gives an account on the working hypotheses of the European cooperation project TTplus (“A framework for continuing professional development of trainers”) concerning the diversity of training cultures and on the distribution of training functions. Then, the paper examines some methodological starting points for analysing the European training cultures with the help of sociological concepts like  ‘contextual images’ (Ritsert, Bracher) or e-portfolio -related concepts like ‘use cases’ (Rees-Jones). Based on these grounded reflections the paper provides justification for the ‘controlled but explorative’ research strategy (Bracher) that was applied in the empirical studies. In this context the paper discusses the role of concepts like ‘instances of good practice’, ‘instances of change’ and ‘instances of innovation’ for the research approach of the project. In the concluding reflections the paper discusses the relevance of such a research approach for European knowledge development into the professional development of trainers.”

Download the full paper here