I spend a lot of time at the moment looking at how we can interpret and explain labour market data, especially for use in careers. Universities are a sensitive area of policy in the UK, and particularly in England, with an increase in fees of up to £9000 a year from this September. Inevitably, young people – and parents, are increasingly wondering if it is worth it in terms of future careers.

Strangely the big fall off in applications is from mature students who will be less effected as many of them will not hit the ceiling for repayments of the students loans being made available to pay the fees.

Thus, I suspect, it is perception rather than immediate hard economics which is driving people to apply or not.

Yesterday, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published a new report – Graduates in the Labour Market 2012 – based on the latest statistics from the Labour Force Survey. And in a very welcome development, they published a video on Youtube to accompany the PDF report. The Guardian newspaper highlighted the main results of the4 report:

More than a third of recent graduates are employed in low-skilled jobs, official figures show.

In the final quarter of 2011, 35.9% of those who had graduated from university in the previous six years were employed in lower-skilled occupations, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. This compares with 26.7%, or just over one in four, in 2001.

In the same period, the number of recent graduates in the jobs market has grown by 438,000 to around 1.5 million in 2011.

Jobs categorised as low-skilled by the ONS include hotel porters, waiters and bar staff, and retail assistants.

The report may be masking the extent of graduate unemployment however, as the unemployed figure excludes those on work experience or internships many of which are short term and, controversially, unpaid.

The one figure which surprised me in the video was the concentration of graduates in London and the South East. I suspect this reflects the role of the London and the South East as the centre for banking and finance, most of which jobs require a degree. Conversely those regions with a lower percentage of graduates are mainly focused on manufacturing industry. Whilst these industries require skilled workers, degrees may not be so important. I would be very interested to see a comparison between pay and employment of graduates and skilled workers (without a degree – for instance with an apprenticeship). Unfortunately the way in which The Labour Force Survey collects data around qualifications makes it very difficult to make any meaningful comparisons. Yet, especially for young people from working class backgrounds, that may be a key choice for them in coming years.

And whilst the present English government is attempting to increase the number of apprenticeship places, there have been persistent criticism over the quality of those apprenticeship places (see this recent BBC report), with many so called apprenticeships consisting of short courses in the retail and service industries – just those very areas where so many recent graduates are ending up!

Many of you have ordered copies of the Taccle handbook which should have been delivered to you by now. The handbook was produced as part of the Taccle project. TACCLE or Teachers’ Aids on Creating Content for Learning Environments, is a project funded by the EU under its Lifelong Learning Programme. Its aim is to help teachers to develop state of the art content for e-learning in general and for learning environments in particular. It tries to achieve this by training teachers to create e-learning materials and raising their awareness of e-learning in general.  According to the project application “TACCLE will help to establish a culture of innovation in the schools in which they work.”

What exactly does TACCLE do?

• Train teachers to create content for electronic learning environments in the context of an e-learning course.
• Enable teachers to identify and decide which ICT tools and content are most useful for particular purposes.
• Teach teachers how to create learning objects taking into account information design, web standards, usability criteria and reusability (text, images, animations, audio, video). This will enable (inter)active and cooperative learning processes.
• Enhance the quality of e-learning environments in education by training teachers how to use them effectively and by creating resources to help them do so.

The Taccle course

In October this year we are organising a one week course in Belgium. The tutors will be Graham Attwell and Jenny Hughes. The course will focus on the use of Web 2.0 and social software for learning. It will be learner centred and hands on, developing and building on participants existing and future practice in this area. Although teh day to day programme will be negotiated with participants the EU requires us to provide an outline programme in advance. This programme may provide you with some flavour of what the course is about 🙂

Sunday, 17 October 2010

• Arrival, welcome, dinner

Monday, 18 October 2010

• Introduction to programme and working methods
• Design of personal and group workspace
• Introduction and design of online working spaces
• Online session with local schools—discussion on use of technology for learning in schools
• Group work: establishing base line of competence in group
• Group work: identification of group learning needs
• Market place and skills swap shop—sharing skills and knowledge in using technology for learning

Tuesday, 19 October 2010

• How to use social software in the classroom
• Identification of issues, application or problems in participants’ own practice
• Practical workshops to include Developing and using cartoons, Podcasting, Video and videocasting, Blogging, Microblogging, Web quests, Wikis and Digital Repositories
• Guided tour in Oostende
• Interactive online sessions with students from local schools to explore how they are using web 2.0 and social software in their own learning
• Developing and maintaining Digital identities—input, exploration of issues plus group work session
• Teaching online safety -Plenary session: identification of problems in participants practice + developing solutions of the problems identified
• Preparation + exhibition of posters based on personal experience

Thursday, 21 October 2010

• Parallel sessions: using mobile devices in education, using games in education
• Using social software in practice

Friday, 22 October 2010

• Presentation of real learning experience for local experience students using either blended learning or online
• Change management, introducing new ideas
• Open forum with school managers and advisors

Saturday, 23 October 2010

• Day trip to Bruges
• Course evaluation

Sunday, 24 October 2010

• Departure

The course costs 1300 Euro (675 Euro for full board accomodation + 625 Euro for tuition and course materials). However for both participation fee and travel expenses to Belgium participants from Europe can request a grant from the Life Long Learnming programme National Agency in your country, which will cover all costs.
You can find the address of your national agency here. You can also find out more details about the course on the Socrates course database – address to follow shortly. The deadline for applications is 30 April.

Or you can get more information from Jens Vermeersch Tel.: +32 2 7909598 jens [dot] vermeersch [at] g-o [dot] be

Through the Mature project I have been invited to submit a proposal for a lecture or workshop for the JTEL Summer School to be held in Ohrid in June. The JTEL summer schools, the publicity claims, usually attract about 80 researchers, providing an exciting forum for cross-disciplinary dialogue, fostering new research collaborations and partnerships, and an opportunity for the next generation of TEL researchers to gain insight from leading experts in the field.

The summer school is being organised by the Stellar network and proposals were asked to explain how they contribute to the network’s three Grand Challenges:

• Connecting learners
• Orchestrating learning
• Contextualising learning environments

So here’s my proposal. I enjoyed writing it and if anyone else is interested in us running such a workshop juts get in touch.

Short description

The workshop will focus on the use of internet radio in education.

1) An exploration of the use of media (and particularly internet radio and television) for learning and shared knowledge developmentThis will include looking at issues such as:

a) The appropriation of media

b) The change from passive media to interactive Web 2.0 supported media and the changing distinctions between broadcaster/program planner and listener/consumer.

c) How media such as radio can support the development of online communities

d) The use of media to bridge contexts and provide spaces for exploration and shared meaning making.

2) A practical hands on session on how to plan develop and broadcast live internet media. This will include storyboarding, interviewing, finding Creative Commons licensed music, making jingles, mixing and post processing, directing and producing and using the technology for live broadcasts.

3) The third session is planned to take place in a lunchtime or evening session. This will be a live 45 minute to one hour broadcast “Sounds of the Bazaar – Live from Ohrid”. It is hoped to involve all summer school participants in the broadcast. The broadcast will be publicised in advance through iTunes, Facebook, Twitter and other social software platforms. It is also intended to use the boradcast to link to other researchers in TEL from around the world not able to be at the summer school. The programme will be recorded and made available through the Summer School web site, the Mature project web site, the Pontydysgu web site and through iTunes.

Contribution to the Grand Challenges agenda

The workshop is primarily designed to contribute to the Grand Challenge of Contextualising virtual learning environments and instrumentalising learning contexts.

Live internet radio provides both a shared context and space for learning, with universal reach outside of institutional or national boundaries, whilst at the same time allowing individual to collectively contribute to the development of shared artefacts, which in themselves can become part of the repertoire of a community of practice. Radio also offers a means of actively engaging learners in a community and through appropriation of what was a push (or broadcast) media, through merging with Web 2.0 tools and standards allows community participation and self expression.

Community Capacity Building

• Social Auditing
• Planning and carrying out a Community Audit
• Community Advocacy
• Setting up a Community Group
• Effective Meetings (several modules – Chairing, Minute taking, Participating in etc…)
• Action Planning for Community Groups
• Working in Partnership
• Working with Groups
• Working with the Media
• Applying for Grant Aid
• Evaluating Community Projects and Social Enterprises
• Equal Opportunities and Diversity
• Mentoring
• Tools for community capacity building

Soft Skills Training

• Performance Appraisal
• Logical Framework Analysis
• Customer Care
• Leadership & Management
• Delegation
• Teambuilding
• Time Management
• Evaluation Skills
• Quality Systems
• Benchmarking
• Evaluation skills

Counselling Skills

• Introduction to Counselling (accredited programme)
• Stage II (WJEC) Counselling
• Transactional Analysis
• T.A for Managers
• Introduction to Gestalt Counselling

Teaching and Learning Skills

• Training the trainers
• Evaluating teaching and learning
• Reflection and self evaluation
• Part –time teachers (accredited course)
• Facilitating Groups
• Teaching and Learning Methods (several modules)
• Coaching and Mentoring
• Facilitating Action Learning Sets

Technology Enhanced Learning

• Training trainers in Technology Enhanced Learning
• Developing and implementing e-Portfolios
• Training teachers and trainers for the use of e-Portfolios
• Podcasting
• Web 2.0 and learning
• Personal Learning Environments