1a: An understanding of the constraints and benefits of different technology  

In 2022 I was working as Digital Learning Coordinator at CSM. The Digital Learning team at CSM is a small central team working at college level. We work closely with Academic and administrative teams across all programmes and courses to implement digital learning technologies in a way that will enhance the student experience. Often, we will be approached to work on projects that will address specific issues certain courses or programmes are facing.

The Diploma in Professional Studies (DPS) team are also a central team that supports the 7 undergraduate courses that have an integrated work placement year. They faced an issue that they were struggling to overcome. The inductions provided students with essential information, including how to stay safe on the job. However, attendance for this briefing session was extremely poor.

In January 2022 the DPS team consulted with me as a member of the Digital Learning team to see if we could find a digital solution. After a consultation exercise, I recommended that they replace their live inductions with an asynchronous learning module. They had two main requirements. They needed to be able to keep track of students to ensure they had completed the module. It also had to be accessible from multiple course Moodle pages.

I worked closely with DPS team to design, develop and implement two asynchronous learning modules that helps staff to track students’ engagement.  

It was important to me that we provide students with the opportunity to actively engage with the material. Students should not be passively told what it is that they need to know. To ensure learning occurs, students’ thinking needs to be stimulated.  

There are lots of tools available across the market that I could use to build an interactive learning experience. I looked at a few different options for creating such a module. One of the tools I considered was Adapt.  I had seen an example of a Health and Safety Module created for students at London College of Fashion. This was integrated into Moodle and had quizzes integrated throughout the module.  

Another tool I considered was the H5P content library. This could then be integrated into Moodle. The H5P plug in was integrated into Moodle and when H5P activities are submitted the result is recorded in the Moodle grade book. This meant that staff could see who had completed the activity.  

In the end I chose to develop the modules out of H5P. While you can achieve very similar things with these two tools, ultimately it was licensing that really made the decision for me. To get access to the Adapt builder I needed to get access to one of the UAL licenses or the programme had to purchase another.  While, however, the H5P library is freely available and integrated into Moodle already. 

Once I had decided to go with using the H5P Library another set of decisions opened. Should I add the content to a Moodle page and create the interactive elements using H5P or should I create something more self-contained by using a H5P book. The original requirements influence this choice. Students from different courses had to be able to access the module. Considering the student experience, I felt it would be easier for students to access the content from their current Moodle pages. This meant setting up the module as a self-contained book. Having the book contained in their current Moodle pages also made it easier  for administration teams working with certain courses to track the students that had completed the module.   

Once the module had been built, I recruited testers from the staff. I asked my Digital learning colleagues and academic staff to review it to ensure it would be ready to be released to students.  

Finally, I trained the administration staff connected with the DPS to track student completion.  

In April 2022, the modules were released to the students.  

The outcome of the project was two core Diploma in Professional Studies modules. Part 1: Introduction to the Diploma in Professional Studies and Part 2: Navigating the workplace.  

They are fulfilling their intended function; this is to ensure also students wishing to undertake the Diploma in Professional studies were given all of the essential information they needed in advance of applying to take part.  In 2021, about 25 students attended the core briefings for the DPS year. In 2022 we tracked 227 students who completed the module. They are also continuing to be used. This year 221 students completed both modules.  This is down to two things. Firstly, students can complete the unit in their own time. So, they are no longer at the mercy of timetable clashes, work commitments or even caring responsibilities. The second reason is that integration with Moodle makes it much easier to track students’ progress. If the student has submitted the module, then it will show up in the grade book. It gives staff the analytics that they need to help them keep track of students.

I do consider the modules to be a success. There is of course room for improvement. This has been identified from feedback from the DPS coordinator. One issue with the module is that it is embedded on 7 different Moodle pages. Ideally, to make it easier for the DSP team to track, they would like to see one central Moodle page for all the students preparing to take the DPS. This for me would need more consideration, as after all we had decided to keep the module integrated within the student’s course page. I think the creation of a single Moodle page would only benefit the students if there was a more centralized approach to the information and support the students received around the DPS and until that happens I don’t think it could work.  

 While I generally love working across the whole college. One of the downsides for me is that we are not embedded within the courses we work with. This means it’s much harder to follow up things in the longer term. I have been reflecting that while the data shows us that students are engaging with the module. What we need to know now is how useful that information was while they were undertaking their placements. As a next step for the module, I would like to undertake research with students returning from their sandwich year. To see if they found the information helpful, or to find out if there is anything else we should include.