STEEL Project

Dissemination event

lauradean1 — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 23:50:21 +0000

I’m really pleased to announce that we have the structure for our dissemination event in place. The event which will be on 9th December to be held in our new Rose Bowl building should prove to be really interesting. It will showcase some of the projects we have gathered and be interactive, so we shouldn’t lose participants to the delights of the German market being held outside the building in Millennium Square that day! Further details are available at the HEA site http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2010/jointevents/09_Dec_10_STEEL_ and we’re accepting bookings already.

After a fruitful day’s meeting analysing and interrogating the case studies we’re now heavily into writing up the work and I’m really pleased to have been involved with the project. Some interesting themes have emerged.

Post by Shakiya Nisa

Janet Finlay — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:10:27 +0000

Posted on behalf of Shakiya Nisa:

This was my first group meeting for the STEEL project. It was a very interactive session with Janet’s mind maps. A lot of preparatory work was undertaken at the session. Clear themes were identified from the case studies. Some case studies do need to be followed up by me and Linzi. We were trained by Colin on how to use the Wiki. Some good recommendations were made on how to take the project forward. There is a lot of good practice which is evident in the case studies. Every one in the group was reallocated work.

Post by Shakiya Nisa

Janet Finlay — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:04:25 +0000

Posted on behalf of Shakiya Nisa:

I have had my first meeting with regards to the literature review for the STEEL project. This went really well. I am interested in the concept of embedding employability into the curriculum. My research for my doctorate is based on the employability agenda . It is great to use some of the existing knowledge and literature in other areas. There is quite a bit of information out there on employability. However there is not much information on how technology can be used to enhance the employability agenda in terms of employee learning. My colleague is currently writing the literature review: it sounds like it is going to be a great read.

Starting on the STEEL project

linzianderson — Sun, 30 May 2010 14:13:29 +0000

Having been brought up to date with the STEEL project, I have just started collecting case studies of good practice in the use of technology enhanced learning in employability and employee learning. As technology is considered in its widest sense, we have gathered a wide range of examples from across the UK. It is fantastic to see the way people are making good use of the technology available such as VLEs, e-portfolios and blogs, and using them in diverse and innovative ways to enhance student employability. It is also great to see the enthusiasm people have for their projects. However, it does seem that most projects have only one or two champions who do the bulk of the work and there is a clear need for this good practice to be collated and shared amongst colleagues. I am looking forward to gathering more case studies and exploring them in more depth in the next few weeks.

Support from HEA

baldar01 — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:09:24 +0000

Our contact Isla Brown at the HEA has publicised the STEEL project to its Employer Engagement Exchange Group and Work- based Learning Research Network who have both had recent meetings.

These groups consist of HE practitioners (academic/ research/ professional) from a range of UK institutions, employability & employee learning staff from HE organisations such as HEFCE, QAA etc. and representatives from across the Academy.

Information will also be included it the next Academy Update which is a sector- wide newsletter about activity and other opportunities. The next issue is out in the next few weeks.

Information about STEEL has also been shared with Subject Centre Communications teams who will publicise it to all Academy Subject Centres in their next update.

Project progress 15 March 2010

baldar01 — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:04:41 +0000

We have come a long way since we first met to put the bidding document together and it has been valuable having inputs from people from such diverse areas. So far we have already:

Completed a preliminary literature review on technology in employability and employee learning.
Used this information to create a standard template to gather and analyse case studies.
Created a questionnaire to gather the required data from the case studies and piloted this.
Raised awareness of this questionnaire via postcards, staff development events and email lists.
Received several case studies back, and many expressions of interest.

We are currently in the process of:

Collecting more case studies
Attending seminars and feeding back (a requirement of the funding)
Completing quantitative and qualitative analysis of the technologies students own/use in order to assess case studies based on these findings.
Continuing with the literature review.

You will be pleased to hear that we plan to have the support from two additional people on this project in the coming months. Linzi Anderson, a Graduate Trainee who joins us with considerable research skills and Shakiya Nisa; who is already undertaking research on employability issues and so will bring knowledge in this area.

STEELtheShowcase: share your experiences

baldar01 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:28:09 +0000

We have now compiled a short survey to gather the relevant data to create a searchable collection of case studies which can be used by others who are interested in making similar developments.

The survey should take around fifteen to twenty minutes to complete. Only two of the questions are compulsory in the survey, these are the first questions which gather contact details and overview of the intervention you have made or technology you have adopted. Your contact details are necessary in case you need to be contacted again to clarify points or gather further information as we move towards publication of these case studies.

The survey can be found at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/steeltheshowcase

Project progression

baldar01 — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:46:30 +0000

On the 14 January, Leeds Met’s Employability Office hosted a learning lunch exploring the use of e-portfolios in the context of employability and employer engagement. Varying types of technologies and contexts were presented, sparking debate amongst academic colleagues from a range of subject areas. The benefits of e-portfolios, web 2.0 technologies and the ability to use social media tools to develop and enhance employability skills were discussed.

Since then, I have met with Iwi (Faculty of Business & Law), Laura (Head of Employability) and Sally from the Policy Research Institute to discuss the focus of the literature review. Sally has recently been involved in a research project, Reviewing Evidence on Best Practice in Teaching and Assessing Employability Skills – a fantastic foundation to the STEEL literature review.

I have also met with Jackie Rabie, Graduate Trainee / Postgraduate student, Jackie is supporting the literature review.

The team is working towards the development of a case study proforma or is it proformas? It may prove more useful to develop targeted proformas; directed at learners, practitioners and employers. Is the information that different?

We have also, with the assistance of Leeds Met Graphics, designed a postcard to distribute to practitioners and employers. The postcard outlines the project and will hopefully inspire the sharing of case studies and good practice

If I received the postcard I’d want to, STEEL the showcase!

Institute for Enterprise symposium

susansmith1 — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:10:45 +0000

The Institute for Enterprise CETL held their enterprise project symposium on Wednesday afternoon.(21.1.10) The event was facilitated by Karen O’Rourke, a STEEL project team member and the Institute’s Academic Developer. From the work done so far and the outputs which will be generated for the CETL webpage we identified a number of suitable projects which could contribute to the good practice identified for the STEEL project. I have sent outlines to Becky Baldaro. So much enterprise work links directly to employability skills in HE….. it is difficult to choose

Institute of Enterprise support

susansmith1 — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:47:53 +0000

I have had a lot of interest from our graduate trainee in the Institute for Enterprise in helping with this project. She has expertise in literature reviewing and project management and is very good at meeting tight deadlines and working in an organised way. I am going to link her in with the rest of the team as she has specific skills she can bring.It is also really good experience for her to see educational research in action.

Sue Smith
Director, Institute for Enterprise Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning