So we did it in rizzoma.com it has all functionality that wave did. And we also tried to make interface clean for newcomers.

At the moment I am just search on web and think how to make wave easier for use. Let me know if you have any ideas for it.

It seems the funding is being used as a tool to inker with or change the nature of training. This is not a good way to do it. I have just spent 2 days talking to various managers from different organisations responsible for apprenticeship training in the construction industry in Germany. And whilst they all had various concerns – foremost of which is the difficulty in attracting apprentices – the funding seems to be working well – based on a training levy on companies. this levy funds the industry training centres and companies themselves receive a rebate for providing apprenticeship places. Training in the dual system involves an apprenticeship contract with a company and then block time spent in a vocational college and in the training centres. The training centres provide project based learning and is designed to ensure that all apprentices receive sufficient breadth of training, regardless of the specialities of the enterprises where they are employed.

I nkow such systems are not easily appreciated culturally from one country to another but am convinced that as a model it offers a stable basis for developing quality education and training.

In the time I’ve been teaching them (for a private provider albeit a tiddler compared to Pearson) the Level 2 apprenticeship we mostly deal with have gone from 2 years to 14 months while acquiring a mandatory ERR element (11 units) and an ICT Key Skill (and that despite the fact it’s an ICT apprenticeship to start with. In additional it’s become measurably harder. Standards which were Level 2 suddenly started appearing in level 1 units about 2 years ago and the exams (some now on version 7 because of continual tinkering and error corrections) have also grown in length and difficulty, some of the practical ones now having a recommended 6 hours time allowance (not a typo) where once they were 2 hours.

If any commercial client agreed a contract then suddenly decided to up the workload by 20%, chop 80% off the timescale and expect to keep the price the same, they’d be laughed out of town!

And has it improved the quality? Arguable, because with the same funding allocations and same recommended guided contact hours assigned to more work, what’s far more than likely to happen is that everything gets ‘covered’ – a word I loathe in teaching – but in far sketchier detail than before).

The government’s money is simply not where its mouth is – Literacy is supposedly a priority but it’s a plain fact that the Communications qualification they made mandatory is the lowest funded of ANY qualifications in the apprenticeship framework…

They talk about quality – doing more with less is not the route to quality. The route to cost saving, yes absolutely! And no one would argue that the Government needs all the cost savings it can get these days – but making cuts and brazenly trying to pass them off as quality improvements isn’t really playing the game.

As a business, our lot generally seem resigned to the truth that there is in fact no way to make a profit from apprenticeships. It’s cashflow and turnover but that’s all.

But what’s the alternative? Colleges as the obvious centrally funded option tend to do it very badly -the flexibility an employer wants does not sit well with the college model of bums on seats and everyone following a timetable. When we ask employers why they chose this route the flexibility of it vs a central course was one of the main reasons.

I was browsing on the WWW ( teaching and learning) on the internet and curiousity got the better of me when I saw Pontydysgu on google. I am very impressed with your site however where have all your long curls gone?

You may remember me from the days when Dyfed LEA was alive and well about twenty years ago. I now live in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand.

As you may recall Dyfed was reorganised in 1996 and I ended up in Pembrokeshire for a year while my little Empire was carved up. I went to Singapore on a two year contract and met some great colleagues. We went to New Zealand in December 1999 on a six month visit and liked the lifestyle and the weather so much that we decided to stay.

The Minis Try Man is on Youtube not a website. I bought a MacBook back in 2009 when we were last in Wales and I had a go at a competition that HP were running the video was my attempt. Time has moved on and I spend much of my time coaching Cricket and Badminton at Bethlehem College because my son is very good at these sports.

In 2013 we are visiting the UK around Easter and stopping off at Singapore. I plan to launch my site Badminfun.org (Be Wise Exercise and Socialise) which is going to be the vehicle for promoting my ideas about skill based learning.

Hope you have a successful 2013 and perhaps we can keep in touch.

Kiaora

Ray

I enjoyed your Question Time show (I was the guy in the red tie asking the sceptical question about MOOCs). I agree with your thoughts here about MOOCs and the predominance of video-related services on the floor of the exhibition hall. But I would diagnose a more fundamental problem. Maybe expositive video is the hottest thing around because here is nothing better on offer? I suggest that there are some fairly fundamental problems with the whole of the TEL community. Would be interested in your comments on my post at http://edtechnow.net/2012/12/05/tel/.

Thanks, Crispin.

http://coop-pbl.com/en/archives/1578

I know that it is not much of an answer to say that European researchers have discussed this issue (with inputs from Spain, Germany and Australia). Yet, I hope that our joint discussion was not mere lip-service but paved a way to initiatives and proposals how to tackle such problems as Ana mentioned in our future projects.

All the best,

Paulo