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#216 – VocTech Now: three college stories, responding to the pandemic

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Welcome to the latest episode of our The Voctech Podcast: learning continued series, supported by the Ufi Voctech Trust.

What’s in this episode?

VocTech Now was part of Ufi’s response to support the vocational learning sector in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It addressed the immediate barriers being faced by supporting vocational learning providers to rapidly transition to remote teaching and training and deliver accessible learning at a time of significant change. This was done with small grants of between £10k and £25k.

In this episode, you’ll hear stories from three colleges; Lancaster & Morecambe College, the Isle of Wight College and South West College in Northern Ireland. Our guests talk about some of the Further Education challenges they faced during 2020, how their collaboration with VocTech Now had a positive impact and we delve into some of the lessons they have learnt along the way.

Enjoy and follow the conversation using #VocTechPodcast and #VocTechNow.

People

Kev Jones, Project Account Manager, Ufi VocTech Trust | Twitter: @tweetkevjones

Experienced Learning Technology Manager with a background in education technology.

Louise Woods, e-Content Designer/ Digital Learning Developer, South West College | Twitter: @l_woods82

Melissa Grimes, Learning Resource Centre Coordinators, South West College (Dungannon site)

Ian Grayling, Project Account Manager for Ufi VocTech Trust and Executive Director at thelyceumpro

Ian has now notched-up 40 years working in the Education and Training Sector. In this time, he has taught in every part of the sector, from voluntary organisations (WEA), independent training provision and further education colleges through to higher education at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has also trained teachers, trainers and assessors working in each of these sub-sectors.

Originally trained in psychology, Ian retains a passion for achieving ‘human potential’ whether in the classroom, the workplace or in life, in general. Over the last fifteen years, he has been at the centre of national developments in the teaching and learning, as executive direct of the East Midlands Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Training (emCETT), the CETTacademy and now ‘thelyceumpro’. In these roles, he has led, designed and delivered a significant number of national improvement programmes on behalf of the Education and Training Foundation and its predecessor organisations (LSIS, LLUK, IfE, QIA, etc).

As vice-chair of the national Education and Training, Trailblazer group for five years, he was the chief architect of the new standards for Educational and Skills Teachers, Assessor Coaches and Learning Mentors.

Dawn Smart, Contracts and Performance Manager, The Isle of Wight College | Twitter: @iwcollege

Iain Parkinson, Head of Faculty: Sport, Care, Art, Media and Public Services. Lancaster & Morecambe College | Twitter: @LMCollege

Mark Berthelemy, Independent digital problem solver, | Website: https://mark.berthelemy.net/

Having spent 11 years in a mixture of teaching and church support roles, Mark found his niche at Capita, where he developed his skills as a learning technology solutions architect. This allowed Mark to grow in all sorts of directions – developing sales propositions, managing online communities, building websites, running projects, designing systems, and working closely with technology suppliers.

Twelve years later, in 2012, Mark was ready to spread his wings and jump full-time into running an independent consulting business – helping all sorts of organisations find, design and use appropriate technologies to meet their training, education and communication needs.

Mark is now living in France, still doing similar things, but as a French “auto-entrepreneur” – the approximate equivalent to the UK’s “self-employed”. His clients are mostly English-speaking, either in the Euro zone, or in the UK.

Ty Goddard, Director & Co-founder of The Education Foundation and Chair of Edtech UK | Twitter: @ty_goddard

Sophie Bailey is the Founder and Presenter of The Edtech Podcast | Twitter: @podcastedtech

Sophie is the founder of the iTunes new and noteworthy, The Edtech Podcast. The mission of The Edtech Podcast is to improve the dialogue between ‘ed’ and ‘tech’ for better innovation, through storytelling. The podcast is downloaded from over 145 countries with the UK, US & Aus in the top 3. Sophie has spoken and moderated at a variety of events including SXSW EDU, Yidan Education Prize, ASU GSV Summit, and the Next Billion Edtech Summit. She is an industry mentor and advisor, including to the UCL Knowledge Lab initiative EDUCATE, a Reimagine Education, GESA Awards, Bett Awards and XPrize Adult Literacy judge, and previous Edtech50 and Edtech Digest winner.

Sophie is passionate about lifelong and everyday learning. If she’s not interviewing a University Vice-Chancellor, Edtech Investor, School Leader, or StartUp about education innovation, she’s engrossed in Teach Your Monster to Read or wrestling her lockdown baby. A keen cyclist, she has recently relocated to West Devon which she considers the English version of the Pyrenees. She is very lucky to work with a distributed team on The Edtech Podcast.

 Quotes from this episode

References from this week’s episode

Thank you to the Ufi Voctech Trust

The Voctech Podcast Series is produced by The Edtech Podcast and supported by Ufi Voctech Trust.

Our aim is to help improve vocational skills in the UK’s workforce by funding digital solutions for vocational learning. We only fund activity that is ‘scalable’ through technology, ie projects that use digital methods to widen access to vocational learning. While digital learning solutions are potentially open to all, we are especially keen to assist digital projects which involve post-school age vocational learners that have failed to be engaged by the education system. Contact: kate.atha@ufi.co.uk, Head of Communications, Ufi Voctech Trust.

Tell us where you are listening in from

We’d love to hear about innovative technology or approaches you are developing or using in adult education. Leave your stories in the comments below. Alternately, record a quick free voicemail via speakpipe for inclusion in the next episode. Finally, you can post your thoughts or follow-on links via twitter @podcastedtech or via The Edtech Podcast Facebook page.

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