Prsentation by Peter Kilcoyne at ARLG 2016 Conference

1. Blended Learning
– A whole college
approach
Peter Kilcoyne – ILT Director
pkilcoyne@howcollege.ac.uk

2. Why Blended Learning?
Our reasons to start
• Make use of engaging learning
opportunities offered through
technology
• Develop independent learning
and digital literacy skills
• Maintaining range of study
programmes in challenging
funding environment

3. Why Blended Learning?
Impact at HOW College
• Improvements in learner
success rates (12% in four years)
• Improvements in learner
independent learning skills
Increased flexibility
• Increased geographical reach,
especially on HE provision

4. Overview - Key Features of SOLA
• FT Level 2, 30 hours per year, FT L3, 60 hours per year
• Moodle course
• Clear instructions and structure
• Learning outcomes
• Range of learning resources, text, interactive and video.
Where possible save time by using what’s already out
there (e.g. NLN, YouTube, slideshare, Open Educational
Resources, everything out there on the www)
• Learning activities through Moodle tools (e.g. forums.
glossaries, journals, databases etc)
• Assessment through Moodle tools (quiz and assignment)

5. Roles– The Whole College Plus Approach
• SMT and Governors – strategic lead and drive from the top
• SOLA Coordinator – lead SOLA in the course team
• Blended Learning Advisors (part of ILT team) – Provide CPD, support lecturers
in developing SOLA. monitoring, SOLA observations , QA
• Lecturers – plan content with coordinator, build SOLA with SOLA Team
• Learners – doing the SOLA and feeding back on ways to improve
• Personal tutors and PLCs – monitor engagement and follow up in individual and
group tutorials
• Learning Centre staff –support SOLA in Learning Centres
• CRQ (Curriculum) Managers and Leaders – lead and monitor implementation
within their teams
• Quality – support with development of quality framework and improvement
• IT and Estates – Co-designing and maintaining virtual and physical infrastructures
for blended learning
• Partners Colleges – Sharing best practice and co-development

10. See for yourself
http://showcase.howcollege.ac.uk/

11. Why a consortium?
• Problems with free content –
usually not exactly what you want
• Commercial content can be
expensive and restrictive
• Developing high quality content
too expensive for individual
colleges
• Benefits of sharing costs
• Developing capacity
• “For the sector by the sector”

12. Blended Learning Consortium
How it works
• Led by HOW College with democratic decision
making on what content is developed
• Annual membership fee of £5K
• Members propose and vote on content to be
developed
• Staff in member colleges paid to write and
develop content. Involvement in this is optional
• Sharing existing quality content with other
members

13. Voting Consultation
Curriculum
writing
Editing
E-learning
production
QA & user
testing
Development process

14. Blc-fe.org

15. Progress to date
• 63 Colleges have joined. This is approx. 25% of all UK
GFE Colleges
• More joining every week
• Three rounds of content development underway.
Making up over 750 hours.
• Existing college content to be shared includes
Construction, Tutorial, Maths, English, Psychology and
SOLA courses

16. Blended Learning Consortium – current members

17. and some more…

18. 64 colleges and counting…

19. First round of development
• Digital Literacy L2
• Employability L2
• Employability L3
• English L2
• Engineering L2
• Engineering L3
• Health and Safety in
Social Care L2

20. Second round of development
• British Values Prevent
• Health and Social Care L3
• Business Studies L3
• Sports L2
• Sports L3
• E-safety – Anti Bullying
• Beauty L3
• Travel and Tourism L2
• Enterprise L2

21. Third Round of Development
• Study Skills
• Public Services L2
• Hair and Beauty L2
• Travel and Tourism L3
• Early Years Childcare L3
• Interview Preparation
• Maths Contextualised for Vocational Areas
• Hospitality and Catering (L2)
• Hospitality and Catering (L3)
• Health and Care (L2)

22. What kind of content is being built
and sharedExamples
• Construction
• English L2
• Digital Literacy
• Engineering L2
• Health and Social Care L2

23. Sharing existing content
• Maths
• English
• Construction
• Governance
• Plus SOLA Courses

24. The power of the consortium
Digital Economics or buns vs bytes
• Each College getting
£320K plus of content
development for £5K
• Leveraged efficiency
saving of £315K per
College
• £315K x 64 makes
£20.1 million efficiency
saving across the
consortium colleges

25. The power of a consortium
Digital Economics or buns vs bytes
• Does not include resources
being shared by member
colleges (presently over 200
hours)
• Does not include resources
developed through
sponsorship
• Cost of one hour of online
learning resource less than
£7 per college
• Resources that can be
reused over several years

26. The power of a consortium
• 40% off Cengage e-books and textbooks
for members
• 70% off Articulate Storyline for members
• 25% off Skills2Learn resources
• 20% off ALT Membership and CMALT
• 20% off lumici state learning platform
• Sponsorship from City and Guilds
• Other negotiations in the pipeline

27. Future Plans
• Continued growth of FE Consortium
• Sixth Form Colleges Consortium
• ACL Consortium
• Professional Development Consortium
• HE Consortium
• US Consortium

28. Blended learning support from
HOW College
• SMT workshop
• Curriculum Managers workshop
• Online, blended and F2F training for
lecturers
• CPD for Support staff
• Bespoke training
• Content development

29. Any Questions?
pkilcoyne@howcollege.ac.uk