Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education

Year 2: Connect to Succeed 2008/2009

The project will utilise mobile technology to improve retention and achievement within identified curriculums, through improved access to learning resources across the campus, via hand-held devises and new accessibility via our fleet of buses, through the use of tablets and third generation phones. The project will purchase mobile internet tablets, routers and build m-learning to enable students to access course information on the College's VLE, Moodle, the internet and in user group portals created for their courses. We will create a closed user group to evaluate the positive impacts, as well as share best practise as a BECTA ILT Exemplar.

Project Aim

The aim of the project is to improve retention and achievement on target courses by incentivising students and improving access to personalised learning via m-learning. Be it 14-19 students from urban or rural hinterlands, we will undertake a targeted personalised learning programme, creating new portals of access. We will create a new m-learning environment, which extends via our fleet of buses to provide learners with access from the moment they get on our coaches, to the moment they get home, as well as portals across the campus. The Institute is already an ILT Exemplar. We will build on these foundations.

Project Objectives

The key objective of the project is to improve retention and achievement in courses that are currently demonstrating below benchmark performance, notably for students aged 14-19. The technology requested will capitalise on our prior investment as an ILT Exemplar, where we have already established demonstration e-learning environments, to create new m-learning applications. The Institute has seen a radical expansion on the use and application of ILT, but this has been confined to fixed learning resource bases. We wish to target 14-19 provision and notably, areas of curriculum weakness or where, GIFHE, along side 10 local schools are developing new diplomas. The Institute is leading on 8 of these lines of learning, and would wish to implement and evaluate the use of m-learning to evaluate the positive impact ILT has on developing personalised learning.

Whilst encouraging students to attend and achieve on their current course, the Institute believes that the application of innovative and inclusive techniques that increases student access, will be motivational and encourage students to progress.

In addition to improving retention and achievement, the College's objective is to develop the soft outcomes associated with m-learning. Students will increase their confidence in using the technology, working collaboratively online, and access barriers will be removed with all students within the class having access to the same equipment.

Young people are already highly technologically literate. This project will improve connectivity across our sites as well as create new connectivity across our fleet of buses (as we bus in hundreds of students each year via 4 coaches from rural areas). Home study could therefore be completed on the journey, via G3 telephony. This is a targeted intervention to improve student success rates via the innovative application of ILT. We will evaluate this impact from both a staff and student perspective.

Young people are already active social net-workers. We will tap into this behaviour and stimulate more activity as a basis for learning, so that their social skills/interactions including peer-to-peer support promote greater involvement in learning. The use of m-learning will afford greater empowerment and access.

A further objective is to enhance collaborative working via course portals (password secure user groups).

Additionally, the objective is to encourage staff to benefit from the project by learning to adapt to new technologies (the onsite ‘Learning Curve’ teacher training facility has again been a Beacon Award nominee and has now developed ILT activities so that we have in excess of 330 staff on the VLE per day, and in excess of 4300 hits per day). Another objective will be to reflect upon the evaluation report at the end of the project to determine its success and sustainability for future students.