Our research and consultation with FE stakeholders identified a number of challenge areas around student’s digital experience (see below). We’re now looking for FE case study examples of how your college is addressing these challenges and want to hear from you!
How to take part
Taking part is easy and should only take around 30 minutes of your time. All you need to do is write a short outline (2 – 3 lines) of how your college has enhanced students’ digital experience in any of the challenge areas below and email Clare Killen (cjkillen@btinternet.com) by Friday 5 June 2015 using the subject ‘FE Digital Student’.
We need ideas at all levels, from small-scale projects to institution-wide initiatives. They don’t need to have been fully evaluated to be useful – you just need to be confident that you have supported students in some way to make better use of digital technologies and have made a positive contribution to their digital experience.
Contributions are welcome from all FE staff and students – you might be a practitioner, head of service, strategic leader or a student. Individuals and institutions will only be identified with your permission – but please make sure you’ve asked everyone involved if they are happy to be included before you get in touch.
Sharing effective practice
We’ll make sure everyone gets a mention here on the digital student blog, and some examples will be selected for a full write-up and promotion by Jisc to extend the range of examples of good practice already available on the digital student blog. Some will also be selected for inclusion in the Jisc guide to Enhancing the student digital experience: a strategic approach when this is updated later this summer. Together these resources will help us build a more comprehensive picture of effective practice in FE.
Challenge areas
1. Deliver a relevant digital curriculum
What support do curriculum teams receive to adapt their teaching and assessment practice? How do you ensure that the content of courses is kept up to date? How are students encouraged and supported to develop digital skills and use relevant digital tools in the curriculum?
2. Deliver an inclusive digital student experience
How do you use technology to promote equality and inclusion? What role does technology play in helping to remove barriers to learning?
3. Deliver a robust, flexible digital environment
How well do your systems and networks meet students’ rising expectations of connectivity? How do you deliver safe, robust systems while meeting the needs of different subject areas, campuses and student groups? Are you committed to providing an ‘open’ and ‘flexible’ student experience and if so how do you manage the conflicting demands on your digital environment?
4. Empower students to develop their digital environment
How do you collect evidence from students about their digital experience and expectations? How is this information used to make things better? How are students involved in designing the digital environment? Do you have any student change agent or student partnership projects that you would like to share with us?
5. Develop coherent Bring Your Own policies
Do you have a policy you would be happy to share with us (perhaps with some elements redacted)? Do you have evidence that ‘Bring Your Own’ is changing the student experience or student expectations? How are you working to redress the digital divide which ‘bring your own’ may enhance? How are IT services leading and responding to the BYO agenda?
6. Support students and staff to work successfully with digital technologies
How do you prepare students for the digital elements of their learning experience and to use digital technologies throughout their learning journey? How are you developing student and staff digital literacies? What are you doing to expand awareness of the role of technology in academic and professional life? How are you using technology to make learning more engaging and rewarding?
7. Take a strategic approach to developing the digital student experience
Do you have an institutional (or large-scale e.g. school/department) strategy or initiative you can tell us about? Is someone at your institution identified as responsible for the student digital experience and what difference does that make? How are you working to bring different stakeholders together to improve the overall student digital experience?