Ealing Hammersmith and West London College

Ealing Hammersmith and West london College

Experience

Ealing Hammersmith and West London College’s applications have been shortlisted for Molenet 1, 2 and 3 and have been successful on two occasions.

Molenet 2;

Making the Foundation Tier Mobile, the project was aimed at Level 1 learners studying on the BTEC Introductory Diploma courses at Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College.
In total there were 256 learners and 21 members of staff, consisting of teaching staff and technical support staff, involved in the project.
The whole project focused on introducing a number of M-learning devices to improve literacy and numeracy skills. These ranged from gaming devices and MP3 players for numeracy to net-books and e-books to improve literacy skills
However the action research part of the project concentrated on two devices Nintendo and MP4 players.

Molenet 3:

By working with two partners, NHS Trust and eDEC Academy, the project aims to develop the use of a range of mobile technologies to create a more innovative and responsive pedagogic model which exploits the full potential of digital technologies to enable collaborative and problem solving learning across the 3 partner institutions.
In particular working with NHS to develop appropriate and sustainable mobile learning models that are acceptable to employers in the Health and Social Care field
We aim to skill teachers to be able to explore a range of pedagogical models through their own interaction with mobile technologies to create a radically remodelled learner / teacher experience.
We aim to train a minimum of 200 staff and over 300 learners during the project.
In order to retain sustainability we are developing a M-mentor network to carry on after the formal ending of the Molenet project.

Areas of Success:

Technology has a real and positive impact on Ealing, Hammersmith & West London College’s core functions: the way students learn, teachers teach, administrators work and managers manage. The development of bespoke systems has allowed all aspects of student learning journey, teaching and administrative functions to be truly integrated.
The 2006 OFSTED/ALI inspection acknowledged the innovative use of ILT awarding the college ‘outstanding’ for the use of data, leadership and management and quality assurance.
Further, the college’s development of technology features positively in the Foster Review Realising the Potential (2005, p86).
Technological developments have had a significant underpinning role in the college achieving a number of quality awards.
In recognition of its excellence within the further education sector, the college was awarded QIA Beacon Status in May 2007
In 2008 the college won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise. The Queen’s Award, the first of its kind to a college, acknowledges how successful the college has been in finding alternative sources of funding in the increasingly complex landscape of education.
The development of multimedia on line content contributed significantly to our successful participation in national projects such as DfES Skills for Life - whole organisation approach to embedding Skills for Life, QIA Pastoral Support Project 2007 and various EMSAG projects.
We are the first FE College to offer an MBA.
We developed, as part of a consortium of two FE colleges, two sector skills councils and the Solar Trade Association, a highly interactive multimedia course aimed at solar domestic thermal hot water installation, which has won the best training solution of the year award. This followed on from an equally successful Gas and Plumbing e-learning programme also developed by the consortium.
The college has developed a range of on-line multimedia course including DTE(E)LLS and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and many award winning on line modules.

Milestone, Impact and Success:

We plan to map our current Teaching and Learning with Technology on-line course to the ITQ in Mobile Learning, this programme would be available to the Molenet Academy. We have also registered our interest to pilot the ITQ in Mobile Learning and a key milestone would be to have successfully completed the pilot and have key staff in each division having gained a recognised qualification.
Each subject area to have an e-mentor with responsibility for supporting 10 members of their team.
An essential part of our plan is to establish a self sustaining network of practitioners within our institution and across the sector.
Each participating partner could possibly specialise in a particular area and be able to cascade and share their expertise to the whole network.
By sharing and collaborating through the Molenet Academy brand each partner would gain recognition of the quality of their contribution.

Support to other sectors:

Value for money as we already have a great deal of experience and Ofsted recognition that we have outstanding areas of innovation.
We are proposing a sustainable model that will not depend on external grants to continue the work of the Academy and one that will support our Centre of Excellence plans.
The college has a commitment to innovation and will resource this commitment.
The colleges has built up a substantial Learning Technologies team which incorporates a strong talent base embracing those with network, technical and programming skills; those who are fully aware of the pedagogical concerns that have to be addressed in order to create engaging and effective on line learning resources and those with multimedia design skills including fine art, graphic design skills, animation, audio synchronisation, film, video production skills.
We have the infrastructure, the skills and SMT commitment to be able to support the wider Molenet community in a variety of innovative and creative ways.