Aihearkisto: osaaminen

Digitalisation in Northern Ireland

henkilöstö, koulutusjärjestelmät, osaaminen, rahoitus, seuranta

Money is tight and in all our development work the motto is ”more for less” – there is an increased need to find new, efficient ways in organizing VET provision with the help of ICT and learning technology and all supportive services around them.

VET qualifications in Finland are fully competence based and in no way linked to any input elements anymore. With the exception of comprehensive school leavers for whom there is a targeted, national joint application process, also intake is now more or less non-stop which means that new learners can start their studies basically every week. This also means that VET providers are required to make learning plans for each learner individually.

With the above in mind, a team of Jyväskylä Educational Consortium staff members – including  Hanna Rajala, Chief Information Officer & Quality Manager, Jaana Virtanen, Learning Technology Expert, Vesa Pulkkinen, IT designer, specialized in student information systems and learning technology and Minna Ahokas, Programme Manager, guidance counselling, libraries – set out to investigate how our partners in Norther Ireland are using digital tools to improve and make their processes more effective.  The visit took place at three of the six NI VET providers, all members also of The Network of Networks (NoN) led by The Dutch Alliance (TDA).

Keith Kilpatrick, Assistant Director for ILT Development and ILT Systems

The group had with them a long list of question such as

  • How are ICT services organised; what is done internally, what is co-created with partners and what services, if any, are bought from a third party? Where client-software / cloud-software are used and what kind of support services are provided for college staff and (VET) learners?
  • Virtual learning policies and strategies; what is the procedure, how are decisions on eLearning tools used/ supported made? How is the support for teachers organized so that they can efficiently use learning technology in their teaching? What kind of virtual learning tools are used and how and how is the use monitored?
  • Guidance; how are guidance and career counselling processes organised? Who are responsible for various stages of guidance and career counselling (recruitment, student admission, guidance during and at the end of the studies? What kinds of digital or other tools are used in guidance?

Glen McMahon, International Manger, Belfast MET

More often than not, we find out that there are more similarities than differences between our practices and those of our partners, and this is also the conclusion of this benchmarking visit. In some areas we are a little bit behind, in others perhaps a step or two ahead. Although all hosts, Southern Regional College, Belfast Metropolitan College and Northern Regional College are operating in a relatively similar context, they had all solved some of the issues in slightly different ways or started their implementation process from a slightly different angle. These contrasts made the 3-day visit very interesting and not repetitive in the least.  Having said that, perhaps the most important outcome of the visit was the message of cooperation. Although all VET providers have their own processes and various things are created and provided for local use, they also benefit greatly from cooperation not just on regional but on national level as well.

The Northern Irish VET providers are all members of Jisc – the UK higher, further education and skills sectors’ not-for-profit organisation for digital services and solutions. Jisc champion the importance and potential of digital technologies for UK education and research; and do three main things: operate shared digital infrastructure and services, negotiate sector-wide deals with IT vendors and commercial publishers and  provide trusted advice and practical assistance for universities, colleges and learning providers. The research and development work done by Jisc is integrated across these three areas.

A relatively cheap Jisc annual membership provides its members a significant advantage by pooling resources and sharing expertise nationally.

Discussions on this issue will continue at the Network of Networks Annual Meeting in the UK in September 2017.

Jaana Virtanen, Hanna Rajala, Damien Caldwell, Minna Ahokas, Vesa Pulkkinen and Irvine Abraham at NRC Ballymena campus.

The JEC team wishes to thank the hosts Southern Regional College, Belfast MET and Norther Regional College. Hopefully we can return the favour to you all sometime in the not too distant future!

ECVET and entrepreneurial mindset in Wien

ECVET, kielitaito, koulutusjärjestelmät, opiskelijaliikkuvuus, osaaminen

Learners from the project partner colleges from Macedonia, Slovenia and Finland had an extraordinary opportunity to participate in the workshops for VET learners in Vienna, Austria, organised by IFTE organization.

IFTE is an Austrian association that promotes entrepreneurial attitudes of young people for their professional and entrepreneurial independence in order to create a culture of entrepreneurship. http://www.ifte.at/

The training activities during the blended learning activity  will enable students  to gain new experiences of entrepreneurial learning and  development of the students’ entrepreneurial mind. Challenges trigger brain activity and they provoke development of the essential entrepreneurial skills such as self-motivation, leadership qualities, innovative mind and competitive spirit.  The training workshops were held by IFTE’s professionals and they inspired students to work towards broadening their entrepreneurial minds and developing logical and skills of negotiation.

The Finnish participants Veera Romppainen, Milja Lahdenvesi, Saara Vänni and Taija Nuorgam from the surface treatment programme (painting and decorating) were especially impressed by how sustainability and environmental issues were always at the core of all activities and presentations no matter what the sector was in question. CSR – corporate social responsibility is a corporation’s  initiatives to assess and take responsibility for the company’s effects on environmental and social wellbeing. The term generally applies to efforts that go beyond what may be required by regulators or environmental protection groups.

Participating staff (Maja, Brigitta and Mimi) discussing implementing ECVET into curriculum planning for the next and final PEEISS blended learning activity in Macedonia in May 2017.

More information  about the project http://peeiss.com

Storytelling in Lisbon

ECVET, opiskelijaliikkuvuus, osaaminen

Commercialpolis project off to a flying  start in Lisbon, Portugal, 20-24 March 2017

“Creativity is increasingly perceived as a strategic driver for economic growth and a real asset for improving competitiveness in a knowledge-based economy. The Creative Industries are knowledge and labour intensive and foster innovation, so the sector is perceived to have a huge but largely untapped potential for generation of employment and export expansion (CIGN, 2015).” Not surprisingly, the creative industry is recognized as a high growth sector in the EU and its member states.

Nearly 50 learners and staff from Netherlands, Spain,  UK,  Switzerland,  Belgium, Finland and Portgual came together for a 5-day workshop on ’storytelling in marketing’. Jyväskylä College was represented by students Santeri Nikkinen, Susanna Ranta and Juha Raivio and teachers Tiina Hiekkaranta and Raimo Kosonen. 

As a marketing tactic, storytelling is based on the premise that people remember information better when it is told as a story rather than presented as a list of facts because it involves the audience in the process by engaging their brains at multiple levels. This is largely because stories are more relatable and inspire an emotional reaction in an audience. Any marketing campaign that rouses an emotional response – whether it be empathy, sympathy, outrage or laughter – is more likely to be remembered (www.zideate.com). It makes consumers more receptive to marketing efforts than through encouraging them to buy a product or service.

Storytelling is increasingly recognized as a key discipline and activity to bring ideas to the market and to build customer loyalty. As a result, both new media storytelling and new media advertising (e.g., mobile advertising, leveraging social media, creating virals) have become an inclusive part of a new marketing strategy, presently barely covered by the existing curricula in many schools. The way of storytelling in commercials, how they are produced and distributed with all the technical possibilities the sector provides, evolved profoundly to meet changing consumers preferences and needs.

Next workshop will be arranged in Newcastle, UK in the autumn term 2017.

More info about the project here: http://www.commercialpolis.eu/

The project is partly funded by ErasmusPlus KA2 funding.

 

LINK 2 becomes LINK 3

ECVET, kielitaito, koulutusjärjestelmät, opiskelijaliikkuvuus, osaaminen

LINK 2 project has been running for almost three years and it is the time for analyzing the results and submitting the final report. During the project seven transnational meetings and five blended learning activities were arranged with participants from all five partners and the associated partner from Switzerland. The blended learning activities gave the possibility to work together during  five working days combining the teaching activities and the other areas that are covered in this project – administration of the project, meta theme and frame theme.

The project had three major areas to cover in the project:

  1. The basic theme on packaging design and production should result in the planning and description of 5 week courses with different focus on topics in the area of ‘packaging’.
  2. The meta theme should result in inspiration, guidance of best practice and experience on pedagogic practice and the education of teachers in each country. The possibility of blended learning and digital classroom should be investigated.
  3. Theframe theme about how to prevent dropout from the VET educations should likewise result in inspiration, guidance of best practice and experience of effective actions.

The major achievements of this project are as follows (in no particular order of importance):

INSPIRATION – A great inspiration for all participants – both staff members and students- to work together and share knowledge and methods. The staff members have been almost the same persons in all meetings and the possibility of learning other professionals working in the graphic area of education and work together have produced a lot of good ideas and along the way developed the way teachers work in their own environment. The added value of being together and see each other work as coaches in the students working groups has produced new ideas and knowledge to each teacher.

JOB-SPECIFIC AND TRANSVERSAL SKILLS – The students have learned a lot about the specific topics of the activities they participated in. Apart from that the challenges of working together in groups where each group member represented a different level of skills and knowledge and with different levels of language skills  have been rewarding and a positive experience to almost all. During one week of intensive learning and with intensive social life aside transnational friendships has developed.

CULTURAL LEARNING – Each of the participants – students and staff members – have learned a lot about the ways of living in the participating partner countries, learned about design and production traditions in the area of packaging in the counties and first of all the language skills (in English) has improved during the project-period. For the staff-members because we have had the opportunity to develop a common language, and for the students we have experienced that the level of English skills have become better and better.

INNOVATION –New curricula in the field of packaging design and marketing has not formerly been running. It has been innovative to develop these curricula’s alongside with the two other themes on pedagogic and didactic aspects in teachingin the area of graphic design and production and politics to prevent students drop out from the educational systems. The awareness of having a focus on the to last themes when performing educational activities have produced new ideas and developed new methods of teaching.

DIGITAL SKILLS – New software skillshas been introduced – unknown to both teachers and students – like ESKO and EngView for cad/cam production of packaging and Balsamiq, Sketch and Invision for design of e-business homepages.

SUSTAINABILITY – LINK 2 is a testament of the effectiveness of long-term partnerships. Less time is spent on getting to know each other and more is spent on co-creating, peer learning and producing results. The network is strong enough now to also evolve into completely new vocational areas and themes.

From the start of the project the participants have had two sayings in their minds: “thinking out of the box” and “looking over the fence” to express the idea of leaving habits and as-usual’s back home and be innovative and bring in elements that are complementary to the ways things are normally done.

The project team is convinced that the project has brought new ideas and methods to all of the partners and that the results that achieved will bring inspiration to other schools and organizations working in the field of graphic education.

Learn more about the project here: https://thebestlink.org/

A follow-up project, LINK 3  – Quality of digitalization in VET, with a slightly wider focus will be submitted by HANSENBERG, DK in March 2017.

More information:

Jyväskylä College – Vesa Iltola and Markku Tiihonen (at)jao.fi

NEXT, Copenhagen – Project Leader Claus Bojsen Pedersen cbp(at)nextkbn.dk

EMEU learns to fly

ECVET, koulutusjärjestelmät, opiskelijaliikkuvuus, osaaminen, saapuvat opiskelijat

EMEU – Engineering mobility in Europe KA2 project final report has been approved with distinction by the Dutch National Agency. EMEU was given a high score of 88/100 . 

The evaluators stated that the final report, products and outputs of the EMEU project demonstrate that the original objectives of the project were met and the project did even more and better than indicated in the application. The learning outcomes and innovative impact for participants’ staff are significant and relevant. Capacities for good quality and attractive mobility opportunities for students , developing study modules and applying ECVET principles have been strongly reinforced by the project. All participating organisations increased and widened their international scope.

The feedback further mentions that partners were selected carefully and contributed according to specific expertise. Altogether partners brought a wide variety of expertise and educational fields and all were involved in developing the study modules according to ECVET principles.

With regard to ECVET, the project’s final step in the process – validation and recognition – was the focus during the last year of the project.  The final evaluation recognizes that  this step is usually the most complicated and challenging one as reflected in the ECVET manual published on the EMEU website. In some cases the learning outcomes assessed at the hosting institute have been validated and recognized fully at the home insitute, in others only to some extent depending on the national systems. It further states that ”EMEU’s experience and practise in ECVET concepts on this wide scale is highly valuable for further implementing ECVET in Europe.”

The EMEU project created a sustainable network for various sectors in technology and it’s flight  continues in the new EMEU4ALL project where the concept is transferred to e.g. social and health care and hospitality sectors.

More information visit  http://em-eu.eu/

Rea Tuominen (at) jao.fi