Since April 2012 Sero has been playing a key role in the development of the Open Discovery Space (ODS). ODS runs from 2012 to 2015 and is one of the European Commission’s largest technology-enhanced learning projects. The ODS consortium comprises over 50 partner (Universities, government agencies, educational networks, private sector research and industry) organisations from more than 20 countries.  More importantly, during the main phase of the project, ODS will support 2,000 pilot schools; the evaluation and validation process will involve 10,000 teachers and 30,000 students. There are already well over 200 active pilot schools across Europe.

The Open Discovery Space has three core objectives

• to empower stakeholders through a single, integrated access point for eLearning resources from dispersed educational repositories.
• to engage stakeholders in the production of meaningful educational activities by using a social-network style multilingual portal, offering eLearning resources as well as services for the production of educational activities.
• to assess the impact of the new educational activities, which could serve as a prototype to be adopted by stakeholders in school education.

ODS is very much a ‘user-centred’ undertaking with the emphasis on bringing teachers together and helping them to access and/or create the resources, tools and services they require to enhance the way they want to teach. The initial ODS focus has been on Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) but it is only natural that this extends to other areas of the curriculum and to cross-curricular activities. Students, parents and policymakers have all been engaged in the initial phases and will continue to be valued members of the ODS community. Several European-wide (and indeed global) ODS activities have already taken place. These include:

• the virtual linking of rural schools,
• a pan-European, ”Space Exploration Competition”,
• a live virtual tour of CERN and
• numerous summer schools and workshops for teachers.

Sero’s role is to coordinate many of the research, foresight and horizon-scanning activities and to provide the reports that will inform the future shape of the Open Discovery Space project.  Amongst the many important research issues already covered are Open Educational Resources, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), Emerging Business Models, Responses to Austerity, Learning Object Repositories and Open Learning Management Systems.

‘Making IT Personal: Joining the DOTs’ was a highly successful EU-funded project which we ran, on behalf of Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, from 2009-2012. Many such projects cease to operate once the EU funding has expired.  Not so the DOT scheme!

Although external funding stopped in September 2012, the project has refused to lie down because the model (mobilising the digital expertise already present in the community to help others) is such a compelling one.  Digital Outreach Trainers know enough about technology to help others make the first steps in a way that responds to their individual needs, whether that be using Skype to see and talk to distant relatives, shopping online or using BBC iPlayer to watch TV programmes when they missed the live broadcast.

The Sheffield College continues to use the scheme, with volunteer students helping peers and members of staff to make better use of technology.  Game2Engage, an offshoot of the DOT scheme where iMedia students introduce digital games to students with special needs, is making a huge contribution towards better integration of special needs within the mainstream of student activity.  This voluntary work by DOTs also helps them: it improves their chances of finding work after college, since their CV can describe the positive contributions they have made.

Beyond the College, Sheffield Adult Education’s Community Learning Trust is using the DOT model to help their teachers and learners make better use of technology in lessons, homework and administrative tasks.  By using online learning, it should be possible to reach more learners than is currently possible without extra funding.

Similarly the NHS in Sheffield is using DOTs in its outreach Therapy Services to help those with mental illness to find jobs and accommodation.  But the non-hierarchical nature of the scheme means that service-users who feel comfortable with technology are also becoming DOTs and helping members of staff, thereby improving their own self-esteem, which is so critical for recovery from mental illness.

Too often externally-funded projects provide bright sparks of innovation which quickly die down once the funding runs out. Happily this has not been the case with the DOTs scheme, thanks in part to strenuous efforts by members of the Sero team to maintain and share the model, which we’re convinced has much to offer for the Digital Inclusion agenda.

The past few weeks have been especially busy for Sero team members involved in writing projects.  The backcloth for these publications is our work in two different but connected areas.  Firstly, our involvement in research to identify and appraise Virtual School and College provision around the world.  Secondly, in the Higher Education domain, our work on the potential of analysing activity data – the record of human actions in the online or physical world that can be captured by computer – to inform provision of new and enhanced services for education and research.  Two very different themes in different domains but linked by their common search for the basis of innovative approaches using technology.

So here are details of the relevant publications:

1) Paul Bacsich: Alternative Models of Education Delivery – UNESCO IIET report:

http://iite.unesco.org/pics/publications/en/files/3214709.pdf

2) Paul Bacsich, Giles Pepler, and Barry Phillips with a range of co-authors from the VISCED Project team

Virtual Schools and Colleges – Providing Alternatives for Successful Learning

Volume 1: http://www.virtualschoolsandcolleges.info/sites/default/files/VISCED_Handbook-Volume-1.pdf

Volume 2: http://www.virtualschoolsandcolleges.info/sites/default/files/VISCED_Handbook-Volume-2.pdf

3) David Kay with Mark van Harmelen (illustrated by Tahninial)

Activity Data: Delivering benefits from the data deluge

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/reports/2012/activity-data-delivering-benefits.aspx

Two contributions to the CETIS Analytics Series as follows

http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/c/analytics

4) David Kay with Naomi Korn and Professor Charles Oppenheim

Legal, Risk and Ethical Aspects of Analytics in Higher Education

http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/2012/500

5) David Kay with Mark van Harmelen

Analytics for the Whole Institution

http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/2012/513

We would welcome your thoughts on any of these pieces.  To get in touch with the authors, email

Paul.Bacsich@sero.co.uk or

David.Kay@sero.co.uk.

Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for 2013

From Everyone at Sero!

We’ve spent quite a lot of the last few months cutting out and making 3D paper mascots as part of our recruitment work for the University Technical College Sheffield so when Christmas came around we naturally thought of a 3D Sero Christmas tree.  Here it is, thanks to Dan Moat of Tahninial. If you have the odd moment in the holiday period when the urge to make something comes over you, or festivities have ebbed, you can print off this template, cut out and fold – but beware, it can become compulsive.

… and this is what your completed Christmas tree should like

The Making IT Personal: Joining the DOTs scheme continues to receive plaudits long after the EU funding ran out last summer.

At the Local Government Yorkshire and Humber Awards event on December 6^th, the MITP:JtD project won the Outstanding Contribution to Strong and Harmonious Communities award.  It also came overall second out of all the award-winners for Outstanding Achievement and third in the International category.

The project is continuing without external funding in a number of organisations that recognise its value in improving digital skills.  The Sheffield College is using student DOTs to mentor fellow students as well as staff.  It is also continuing with the Game2Engage project, using volunteer mainstream students on the iMedia course to introduce digital games to students with special needs.

Sheffield Adult Education’s Community Learning Trust is using some of its Learning Champions as DOTs, helping colleagues and students to get more out of digital technology and online learning, while Sheffield NHS is planning to use DOTs in its 35 Therapy Centres to help staff and service-users to make better use of technology.

The latest film about the project can be viewed at http://www.makingitpersonal.eu/resources/films/dots-celebrate-three-years-of-innovation-2/

If you’re interested, please get in touch with me: nick.jeans@sero.co.uk.

A half day meeting of the VISCED International Advisory Committee took place on the morning of Wednesday 28 November in Berlin.

VISCED is an EU project on virtual schools and colleges with the aim of producing guidelines and recommendations for their further development across Europe. The project management is led by Sero and two key pilot sites are in Sheffield; The Sheffield College and Notre Dame School.

The meeting was chaired by Paul Bacsich of Sero. The agenda for this meeting (the final one in a series of four) included a presentation and discussion about Key and Critical Success Factors for virtual schools and colleges. It also provided an opportunity to review teacher training – and most importantly, policy challenges, opportunities and recommendations for the future in a session led by Barry Phillips the policy analyst at Sero. Also at the meeting was Dr Maggie McPherson of the University of Leeds, the evaluator of the projects

Delegates to the meeting included four virtual schools and a senior manager from the International Baccalaureate team. Two of the schools were from the UK, Interhigh in Wales and Pamoja Education in Oxford (an online provider of International Baccalaureate courses).

There was also a representative of the vendor community, from Desire2Learn, who are one of the industry leaders in the supply of virtual learning environments to virtual schools, supporting many virtual schools in US and Canada – and also providing the Virtual Learning Environment for Pamoja.

Excellent meeting support was provided by the Palace Hotel, Berlin.

The traditional IAC dinner was held the evening before in the charismatic “Cafe Einstein”, with a new innovation of a Guest of Honour – in this case Professor Gilly Salmon, a leading  international light in online learning. She was formerly based in the UK at the University of Leicester where she built up the Beyond Distance Research Alliance – she now hails from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, where she is a key force behind Swinburne Online. The dinner guests may not have discovered the successor to relativity but there was a lively discussion on global aspects of online education.

Professor Gilly Salmon is pictured in conversation with Dr Maggie McPherson, the evaluator of VISCED

Several members of VISCED also attended the Online Educa conference in Berlin later in the week. In particular, Nikos Zygouritsas presented the VISCED project on the afternoon of the final day (Friday) of the conference. In a session, chaired by Paul Bacsich, entitled “Distance Learning and the Virtual School”, Nikos described the project and its key case studies. There were just three presentations in the session and this allowed an extensive range of questions to Nikos and the other two presenters at the end. A large number of brochures and all the Handbooks we had brought with us vanished off the desk at the end and we were surrounded by people wanting more information. There were over 60 delegates in the audience and we made several useful UK contacts. The two-volume handbook which is a key output from the project is now available online.

In other news, Paul was invited to the French stand to discuss virtual institutions with them and also met delegates from Oman, Egypt, Namibia and Austria at their stands to discuss the latest information on virtual schooling in their countries.  As yet, there are no virtual free schools in England, but we are keen to advise anybody interested in setting one up and in continuing discussions on policy aspects with our collaborators in Wales and Scotland also.