The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is introducing a new Skills Capital Projects Fund and a new Regional Skills Capital Development Fund which will be accessible to providers that have not previously been eligible for FE capital funding, to support and encourage providers to specialise and innovate to meet the LSC priorities. The fund is intended to ensure that infrastructure is in place to support strategic skills priorities, so that businesses can access industry specific development for current and future employees.
In the prospectus ‘capital expenditure’ is defined as including buildings, land, the lease of buildings and/or land, ground works, building works, equipment or educational resources, including proprietary or bespoke software (but excluding those items usually funded from revenue expenditure) that adds significant value. Added-value can be in the form of genuine new learners, the upskilling of existing learners, increased employer engagement (including knowledge transfer and business innovation) and increased employer investment in training.
Skills Capital Projects Fund (SCPF) For the 2009–10 financial year, £20 million will be available on a matched-funding, pound-for-pound basis, towards the costs of qualifying projects. The minimum grant amount for any single application will be £500,000. The maximum grant amount for any single application will normally be £5 million.
Regional Skills Capital Development Fund (RSCDF) The RSCDF is for smaller projects with a total project cost of between £100,000 and £1 million, and will be managed within each region. Projects could include minor works, improved equipment, or adapting premises in order, for example, to reach more small employers and thus increase the take-up of Apprenticeships. For the 2009–10 financial year, up to £35 million will be available across the country. The minimum grant amount for any single application is £50,000. The maximum grant amount for any single application is £500,000. In addition, providers must contribute at least half of the total project costs from elsewhere.
The prospectus sets out what will be required of providers that receive capital funding. They include the requirement to have signed the Skills Pledge or equivalent and to have achieved or applied for the Training Quality Standard
Applicants are invited to submit an Expression of Interest form. This will help ensure that they are notified when the application material is available. Providers will not be able to apply for funding if they have not first completed an Expression of Interest form. RSCDF final date for submission is 31st January 2009 and for the SCPF 28th February 2009.
Applications for the Learning Innovation Grant, Phase 4 are due on 8th September. Application forms and criteria are available on the Excellence Gateway. I am visiting the networks over the next couple of weeks to talk about LIG funding and explore ideas for consortia bids and in some cases individual bids.
” is a subject better known through its constituent technologies, such as bar coding, two-dimensional coding, magnetic encoding and electronic coding, including the much vaunted radio frequency identification (RFID)”
The Centre puts these technologies in context by taking visitors through scenarios. Visitors can move unaccompanied through the demonstrations and use the equipment. There are a range of scenarios in which you can use the equipment including a hospital, airport, warehouse, retail outlet, manufacturing plant, town hall and they are planning to create a classroom of the future.
The LSC has announced a programme for 2008-09 building on a model pioneered by LSN in the Molenet project for colleges last year. NIACE has been asked to develop a plan which involves a financial partnership with providers.
Quite simply, providers who apply for capital funding will be asked to commit to pay NIACE a support fee equivalent to 10% of the value of the capital received. For example, in return for a grant of £30,000 a provider will pay NIACE a support fee of £3,000. The support package will include documentation and access to advice and guidance along with an online community and a dedicated online conference and a consultancy day.
Full details are not available until April 2008 but I will keep you posted.
Ali Marie and I tried out Brio last week. It is a free web meeting service with which you can you communicate and collaborate through an online personal meeting room.
Brio is built on Adobe’s Flash platform, and operates inside a web browser.
It allows you to:
Host unlimited online meetings with up to 3 meeting participants.
Interact through screen sharing, chat and whiteboards.
Access a meeting via a personalized URL.
Distribute documents and files to meeting participants.
Use integrated VoIP, teleconferencing and multi-point video.
We found that access to the meeting was quick and the screen sharing worked well but we had some difficulties with the sound. It’s worth a try even though the numbers who can participate are limited to 3.
We are planning to run E Guides forums to provide support for staff developing e learning solutions within Work Based Learning and Adult & Community Learning organisations. These will give E Guides the opportunity to share good practice, develop new skills in the hands on technology sessions and network with other providers. To tell us what kind of form you would like these forums to take you can fill out our survey.
Miro is a free open source video platform which enables you to play any video file, save Youtube videos etc. The Miro site says:
“Unlike tiny videos on websites like YouTube, Miro videos are usually very high quality and look great when watched full screen. Since Miro downloads videos completely before you watch, your videos will never skip or stutter while they are playing.”
When you download Miro you can then choose for the programme to find all the videos on your computer. I found some I didn’t even know I had.
On the Miro website there is also a guide on how to make internet TV and covers shooting, editing, publishing and promoting the film.
Have been playing around with myUdutu, an online learning authoring tool with which you can build your own courses. You can choose a theme, upload your logo, include assessments with audio and text feedback options, create slideshows, add & stream narration, add groups, scenarios, add flash, videos, documents and links.
You can extract the course into a zip file which has your self contained course in SCORM 2004 or SCORM 1.2 compatible format which can then, according to myUdutu, be:
loaded into your existing CMS
distributed via CD
hosted on your own webspace
kept for your archives
It is free to author, preview and pilot it but there is a watermark (which you click to remove) on the pages until you choose the publish live option. Then it appears to be that you must purchase screens for hosting which are $1 each. I’ll post a sample course when I’ve finished creating it.
WiZiQ is a free virtual classroom with live audio-video communication, chat, content sharing, and session recording capabilities. A demo is available on the site and from what I’ve seen it looks very straightforward. The video below also gives a brief outline of the features:
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