ACCESS NEWS

In This Issue

**NEW** Online

Resource Portal

Chichester Science

Fair 2015

Conference 2015

Access to HE Quiz

results

LASER Access to HE Annual Conference and LASER Learner Prize 2015 - Keynote Speakers confirmed

The 2015 conference is rapidly approaching and we are delighted to confirm Mr Richard

Nelson as our keynote speaker this year. Richard is a ‘Teacher Education and Learning Technology’ advocate, as well as a lecturer at Bradford College. He also hosts various blogs detailing the effective use of technology in teaching and learning. Richard is a leading expert in “flipped classroom” learning and will be discussing the benefits of this teaching technique when applied to Access to HE. We are also looking forward to hearing from Mr Robert Gale, Director at Portico Consulting. Robert has kindly agreed to give a talk about the benefits of using our Quartz Web Portal to support the administration of Access courses. Both speakers will be offering an interactive session for questions and queries. The LASER Access to HE Learner Prize 2014/15 will also be presented at the conference in the afternoon, followed by an interactive “Roundtable” Q&A Session with our Access Panel Members, including representatives from UCAS, various universities and Access Providers, as well as some of the LASER Management team. Tickets for the conference are still currently available, although places are booking up fast! If you wish to book a place and take advantage of the invaluable Q&A sessions and networking opportunities, please contact Sarah for a booking form.

LASER Access Providers’ Newsletter May 2015 Issue 4

Earlier this year we invited

colleagues working in various Access related roles to try our online quiz about the QAA Access to Higher Education Diploma.

We received 30 entries from a wide range of individuals from tutors in colleges offering Access courses, through colleagues working in higher education to our own Access external moderators.

The winner of our £30 prize draw for entering the quiz is Julie Luckin who is a Moderator and Private Tutor - congratulations Julie!

Only one entrant scored 100% but overall over three quarters of entrants scored 70% or above.

Some of the questions were deliberately a bit tricky and needed to be read carefully to avoid making a mistake.

Thank you to everyone who took part. We will try and organise another quiz before the end of the year as a way of raising awareness of the details of the Access Diploma.

If you have any queries please contact Sarah.

Applied Ecology at Chichester: Science fair a huge success

On 15th April, Chichester College held their annual Biodiversity and Ecology

Conference 2015. The event was originally intended for Access to Science

students but has now expanded to include students from across different

pathways including Geography and Animal Management.

The Biodiversity and Ecology Conference

is a poster event which forms the

assessment for the Access to Science

Biodiversity module (WIY761). Students

are instructed to produce an A2 poster on

an aspect of biodiversity that interests

them and the event gives them the

opportunity to engage with staff, students

and members of the public about their

chosen topic.

The purpose of the assignment is to prepare students for the university poster

conferences that they will encounter in their second year, as well as giving them

a field-test for their research skills and application of data.

This year there were approximately 80 Access to Science, Geography and

Animal Management students taking part in the event, exhibiting on a range of

issues including Biodiversity and other sciences.

Here we see some of the students that took part—Sam (above, right) is an

Access to Science student who is heading on to the University of Surrey to study

Paramedics. Kayleigh (below, left) is studying an HND in Animal Management.

Congratulations to all participating students and many thanks to Graeme Elliott

for arranging the event and to Julie Corrie for the photos.

UCAS Access

Results 2015-16

Next year, Access students

applying for a university place via UCAS will be required to enter the details of each unit they are studying on their Access Diploma.

They will have to choose their Access Diploma title and each unit from drop down menus in the UCAS Apply system.

If they register against the wrong units then this could cause problems with their offers from universities.

This will be a new responsibility for Access students and is likely to cause a fair few queries and questions for Access tutors!

LASER is helping by working with the developers of our ‘Quartz’ database to provide every student with an individual login to ‘Quartz-Web’, whereby they will be able to see and print off their Access Diploma/unit registration details.

To do this LASER will need to have a valid email address for each student so that we can provide them with a secure login.

The inclusion of a student email address will be a NEW LASER student registration requirement for 2015-16 – more details will follow.

Colleges where students do not have a Quartz-web login will need to provide students with an accurate list of the units they are registered against.

We will provide a full update and guidelines with the start of

year information for 2015-16.

Advertisement Feature

University College London

Open Days over Summer 2015

Event 1: Discover UCL: University College

London: a summer school for deaf and hard of

hearing students:

The Discover UCL Summer School is an exciting

opportunity exclusively for deaf and hard of hear-

ing students in Year 11 and Year 12. The three

day residential Summer School gives students the

opportunity to experience life at a world-leading university, explore a subject that interests them in

greater depth and develop the study skills and independent learning that admissions tutors will value in

their application.

Two British Sign Language Interpreters will work on the summer school each day and we will provide

staff who know British Sign Language in the evenings and overnight.

All of our sessions will take place on the UCL campus, in the heart of central London, and we will in-

clude fun activities in the evening, such as a visit to The Shard and to a Signed West End Perfor-

mance.

The Discover UCL Summer School is free of charge for students and includes free accommoda-

tion at our halls of residences. UCL will also provide travel costs for all students.

Dates: Monday 10th to Wednesday 12th August 2015

How to apply: Please visit the following link to apply - http://www.tfaforms.com/366391

Deadline for applications: Friday 22nd May 2015

Academic criteria: Applicants must have achieved or be on track to achieve at least 5 GCSE’s.

For further information about Discover UCL Summer School for D/deaf and Hard of hearing students,

please visit: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/widening-participation/prosp-students/post-16/

year12-summer/DiscoverUCLSummerSchool2014/#support or email Farhana Ghaffar at

f.ghaffar@ucl.ac.uk

Event 2: UCL Looked After Children & Care Leavers’ University Day

UCL will be hosting a Looked After Children & Care Leavers’ University Day on Saturday June 27th

from 10.30am-3.30pm. The event is for young people in care in years 9-12 with sessions including:

• An introduction to university and university life

• GCSEs, A level choices and study skills (year 9/10s)

• UCAS, university fees and finance skills (Year 11/12s)

• A hands on taste of university

• University courses and a campus tour

• Career options and pathways

Participants are welcome to bring their friends, guardians/carers and/or siblings. The event is free and

includes lunch.

Please submit your application form:http://www.tfaforms.com/371760

Please contact Farhana Ghaffar (f.ghaffar@ucl.ac.uk) for more information or visit http://www.ucl.ac.uk/

prospective-students/widening-participation/about-us/care

HOLD THE DATE!

The LASER Access

to HE Annual Conference will take place on Friday 10 July 2015 in Central London.

The theme for the

day will be ‘Using Technology to Support Access’

Please contact

Sarah for bookings or if you have anything you would like to be considered for inclusion on the day.

More details to

follow.

Contact Us:

Laser Learning Awards

Innovation Centre

University Road

Canterbury

CT2 7FG

T: 01227 811827

accessenquiries@laser-

awards.org.uk

Visit us on the web at

www.laser-awards.org.uk

The Digital Student: Exploring Digital Literacy

Whether you are a technophobe or technophile — the technological revolution is most definitely upon us. Digital

technology has started challenging traditional methods of conducting everyday services such as banking, shopping,

and even buying your weekly groceries. With a digital sector worth an approximate £58 billion each year, the UK has

been a substantial driver for technological growth and development in recent years. However, lately it has been

suggested that we are in danger of becoming a “branch economy”. As the UKs grasp on the reins slips, countries such

as Switzerland, Singapore, Finland, Germany, the USA, Japan, Hong Kong and the Netherlands gallop out in front of

the straggling British tech industry by upskilling their population in “tech expertise”, digital capability and driving

universal access and usage. Some fear that big tech companies based here will relocate elsewhere, giving us a far

less influential lead in the digital derby. However, science and research centres such as Tech City UK, The Hartree

Centre and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory are holding strong and keeping the United Kingdom at the forefront of the

digital age.

“The Digital student”: a term coined by Jisc - click here for website - tackles the ongoing issue of it becoming

necessary to consider the skills and competencies of those at the receiving end of the never-ending deluge of

products provided by the ICT industries. Paul Gilster was the first to coin the phrase “digital literacy” and in his early

efforts to find suitable definitive statements, he identified 4 key competencies: Assembling knowledge, evaluating

information, searching and navigating in non-linear routes. “The great physicist Ernest Rutherford, frustrated by the

self-important airs of his peers, once told a colleague that a scientist who couldn’t explain his theories to a barmaid

didn’t really understand them. An idea, in other words, should correspond to a recognizable reality, explainable to an

audience larger than a handful of specialists. Digital literacy – the ability

to access networked computer resources and use them – is such a

concept. It is necessary knowledge because the Internet has grown from a

scientist’s tool to a worldwide publishing and research medium open to

anyone with a computer and modem.” - Paul Gilster, 1997

According to Mark Prensky, there are two, clearly defined groups of digital

students: Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants. Natives have grown up within the Digital age, whereas Immigrants

grew up before the Digital age. “Todays students think and process information fundamentally differently from their

predecessors” Prensky, 2001.

As well as the encompassing Native vs. Immigrant concept, we turn to

the Digital Resident vs. Digital Visitor construct. (See chart to your right).

This distinguishes between occasional, cautionary internet-users that

would be wary of putting too much out there, and no-holds-barred, long-

term users that are happy to divulge their bank details or shoe size.

Beatham and Sharpe’s framework (2010) describes Digital Literacy as a

development process from access and functional skills to higher level capabilities and identity. In a recent report from

the House of Lords, it is suggested that students should be taught Digital Literacy as a key skill, alongside Maths and

English. “At the higher education level, there is an urgent need for industry input, so that graduates are learning job

relevant skills.” - Lady Morgan. The “developing digital literacies programme” (2011-2013) sought to explore

institutional approaches to digital literacy development in universities and colleges. For example, the University of

Exeter’s CASCADE Project explores the role of digital technologies in scholarly research in HE by examining the

digital capabilities of students via this iTest.

So; smarter use of existing money, identifying the level of digital literacy of the average student and implementing

well-structured reallocation of current funding strategies without necessarily having to siphon funding from other key

areas, is paramount to the UK rising up to remain with the fore runners in the technological revolution

“Creativity is a strength of the UK’s economy. Digital Education that fosters creativity and innovation,

providing students with the opportunity to test and experiment with technology with help support this” -

Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future. A Report from the House of Lords 2015.

Thanks to Scott Hibberson from JISC for inspiring this article following his presentation at the QAA

Access to HE Quality Development Network Event held at Leeds Beckett University 30 April 2015