This webinar focused on how Abingdon and Witney College has used research funding to embed a range of digital literacy skills in induction and in teaching. It focuses on what we learned from our JISC Students4WebEs project where we taught students how to set up and run a webinar. Employers participated in student run webinars on employment skills that they were looking for. The presentation highlighted some of the issues of engaging students in research in a further education setting as well as identifying students as change agents. Elesig stands for 'Evaluation of Learners; Experiences of e-Learning Special Interest Group'.

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Evolving Digital Literacies:
inductions to
employment skills
Ellen Lessner and Emma Procter-Legg
JISC Advance Students for Webinar Employment Skills
(Students4WebES) Project
Abingdon and Witney College

2. How many of you are working (or
have worked) in a Further Education
college?
How many of you have done
research in a FE college?

3. Evolution of our recognition of digital
skills for education and employment for
the 21st century

4. This presentation gave us the opportunity to reflect on our evolution into the digital
literacy age, which includes making sure that our students have the digital skills they
need for education and employment for the 21st century. We are a normal FE college
with 5 sites and we offer a broad range of courses – SLDD, BTEC, Community
Education, A level and Foundation degrees.
We have been influenced by the outcomes of the JISC Learner Experience Projects from
2006-2010 (as well as the Demos report and the Google Gen report) whose findings
showed that many students used technology well but were dependent on their tutors and
institutions to be shown how to use it appropriately in educational settings. These
projects highlighted the importance of the student voice and experience.
We put in place an online Digital literacy induction for all new students 4 years ago,
covering systems, plagiarism, Moodle, backing up your work, and other features we
wanted to make explicit to new students. We learned not to assume that young students
knew more than we did about technology and how it would be used in the college. This
was our thinking when we put together the application for this project.

5. I CAME TO YOU IN 2010 ASKING FOR HELP WHEN WE PUT
TOGETHER OUR DIGITAL LITERACY INDUCTION PROJECT,
FUNDED BY LSIS

6. YOU PROVIDED MANY GOOD IDEAS….
•Face to face contact makes a difference
•Go to where the students are
•Use Student Mentors
•Organisational culture is an important
influence on student involvement

7. •What is the changing relationship that
students have with their institutions?
•FE students don’t often do anything unless
there is an assessment attached
•Engage the tutor, engage the student
And….

8. JISC FUNDED STUDENTS FOR WEBINAR EMPLOYABILITY
SKILLS PROJECT: OCT 12 – APRIL 13
We intended to run a student – led project which
aimed to:
• Develop employability skills for L3 students in video
conferencing and webinars
•Train core group of students to set up and run 7-15 short
webinars with employers
•A guide to running a webinar
•Student led conference

9. TO ENCOURAGE STUDENT PARTICIPATION
THIS TIME:
•We went into tutorial sessions and spoke to 400 students
•We used the Performance Managers on the Professional
Futures programme to identify good students
•We felt that the PF programme had changed the college
culture and students would be happier to get involved.

10. Professional Futures programme includes at all Level 3 students across the
college who work together in core sessions such as tutorials. This provides a
more real-life experience than segregation into subjects.

11. •We thought the project would take
the place of the final PF project
(students working across subjects)
•Tutors were enthusiastic about the possibilities of
the project
•Year 2 had a common timetable
And….

12. RECRUITMENT OF CORE STUDENT GROUP
Overview:
•Wider cohort
•Recruited 14 – retained 6
•Timetable constraints
•Communication
•Certificates

13.  Had to recruit across timetables
 Students had no previous experience of research
 Only met for 45 minutes each week
 Communication issues - responding to emails, texts and phone
messages - use of Moodle
 Took a while before they understood what they were involved
in
 Couldn’t take the lead some activities as there wasn’t enough
time and they were reluctant to do anything in their own time
initially

14. RESULTS FROM STUDENT EVALUATION OF THE
PROJECT
Overview
•Prior knowledge
•CVs & Uni applications
•Understanding of employability skills
•Improved confidence and public speaking
skills
•High level of self-assessed webinar skills

15.  5/6 no prior knowledge of webinars
 Took a while before they understood what they were involved in
 3/6 students stated that they joined the project to improve their CV. 3/6
students
 stated that it would enhance their application to university. 5/6 students
talked about wanting to learn more about the concept/skills /experience of a
webinar.
 Couldn’t take the lead some activities as there wasn’t enough time and they
were reluctant to do anything in their own time initially
 5/6 students felt that their opinion had changed, 4/6 of them felt their
understanding had significantly changed through participating in the project
and listening to the employers involved talk about the skills they were
looking for.
 Summary: 5/6 students talked about gaining skills in running a webinar. 5/6
students said that they gained confidence specifically in speaking or
communicating. They spoke about being able to talk with employers and
using appropriate language.

16. THE ROLE OF WEB CONFERENCING TO
BOOST EMPLOYABILITY
•Aaron Scott – Why I joined the project
Aaron gained
an
apprenticeship
after
participating in
the project

17. STUDENTS AS CHANGE AGENTS
•Abi Head – Why I joined the project
Abi participated
in several
dissemination
events having
gained
confidence in her
abilities.

18. Students as change agents:
• Project responds to changing employability needs of students in
the 21st C.
• Students changed through participation in the project but since they
are 2cd year students, they won't influence new students. However
2 have gone on to use it in their own work and are likely to take
what they learned to their next educational institution.
• Students changed the employers' perceptions of webinars and the
skills needed to run a webinar.
• Project changed staff perception of webinars and having students
who participated in the project. Now training staff to use it.
Students as change agents

19. DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS
1. Students participating in research in FE
2. Students taking the lead in a project
3. What do FE students value/ motivation?
4. Students as change agents

20. THANK YOU!
For more information on the project:
•Students4WebEs Website:
https://sites.google.com/site/students4webes/
•Students4WebEs Blog:
http://students4webes.blogspot.co.uk/
Contact: ellen.lessner@abingdon-witney.ac.uk
Emma - emma525989@hotmail.com