Update

As requested by you we have a FREE Word 2007 update workshop at Reid Kerr College on Thursday 11 December from 9.30 until 12.30 with supporting notes for you to take away. This has been specifically designed to include a selection of the Word Processing features (some of the trickier ones) required in the HN Admin & and IT units - ITB: WP and Presentation Applications (DE1L 34) and ITB: Advanced Word Processing (DE2G 35). You can book online at http://www.sfeu.ac.uk/events/book/2845. This is an opportunity to update your skills for the latest software so sign up NOW as places are limited.

I've been invited to a seminar which will inform the development of a framework for assessment to support Curriculum for Excellence. The seminars are an early stage of an engagement process and the focus will be on -

- What and how do we assess?
- Planning for assessment
- Sharing expectations and standards
- Reporting and using assessment information
- Improvement and accountability
- Continuous professional development

Watch this space for feedback.

The subject mentors met recently to start planning next year's objectives and discuss how best we can make an impact. As always your input in invaluable so please let me have your thoughts and views on what you would like us to do that would make a difference. Keep your emails coming.

Delivering what you asked for

In response to feedback from subject practitioners we are offering a series of workshops in Business & Administration at various venues across Scotland's Colleges.

Dates for your diaries are - Thursday 13 November at Dundee College, Thursday 04 December at Inverness UHI and Thursday 11 December at Reid Kerr College. Each workshop will have the same content so you can choose which one suits your timetable and location.

The morning session will be dedicated to Games and an exciting new project to help achievement in the Graded Units. In the afternoon Business practitioners have a Business Graded Unit 2 workshop and Administration have training in Word 2007. View the complete programme and book at www.sfeu.ac.uk/events.

I look forward to seeing you at these events.

What's new?

We had our first mentor's meeting of the year at Scotland's Colleges last week. It was good to see everyone again and get down to some serious discussion and planning. The year ahead is very exciting and offers a variety of opportunities for practitioners to benefit from and contribute to their network via local workshops and training events.

The CfA Asssessor master Class Scottish event is in Edinburgh on Tuesday 30 September at the Apex City Hotel. The Assessor Master Class workshop is between 9.30 - 12.30 and Friend or Foe? - How to Manage your EV Visit is between 1.30 - 4.30pm.

Scotland's Colleges and SQA Academy are offering a free professional development course for all college staff delivering Higher Business Management. This blended learning course comprises both online learning (approx 2 hours participation between Wednesday 5 November to Wednesday 19 November 2008) and face-to-face learning (a full day at Scotland's Colleges on Thursday 20 November).

I am delighted to say that we have two new members to our advisory group from Central and Dundee Colleges so welcome on board. Still room for more!

Watch this space for more details on the Business and Administration network events.

Welcome back

The mentors are back and looking forward to new challenges.

I have been catching on a mountain of emails and giving some thought and planning to our calendar of events for next year. It looks promising with some great ideas so far including the offer of FREE workshops/events and more opportunities for collaboration. We also need new members for the advisory group in Business & Administration so if you are interested in participating and being at the forefront of new developments and initiatives in our subject area please contact me.

Last week I delivered a presentation on the Subject Networks to the Business and Computing Faculty away day held at the Novotel in Edinburgh. A captive audience of around 60 practitioners got news of the latest developments as well as a tour of our page on Practitioners Plus. Feedback was positive so hopefully some new converts. Watch this space.

Happy holidays

Thanks to everyone who attended the Business and Administration day at College People Week last Thursday. Great representation from our discipline with some good interaction and sharing of thoughts. Good to see and meet up with faces old and new and make new contacts - the informal networking is always a bonus.

The past few weeks have been spent preparing for the event and liaising with others involved. Many thanks to Jackie Graham from Coleg and Lisa from SFEU for their help and support.

This academic year is nearly over and we are all looking forward to our holidays. Thank you for your continued support and enjoy the Summer. See you all again in August.

Busy, busy

End of term beckons and the now mandatory chaos prevails. Is it really like this every June?

The subject mentors had a very productive and enjoyable meeting at SFEU last week when our main theme was evaluation and planning for next year. Much discussion on issues of employability and the way forward.

Keeping everyone up-to-date and communication continues to feature highly in the life of a subject mentor. Additionally this week I compiled and submitted my contribution for the latest e-zine edition and am preparing for College People Week. Looking forward to seeing you at the Business & Administration day at SFEU on Thursday 5 June.

Sorry to hear that Annamarie is leaving us for sunnier climes - so very best wishes - and thanks for all your support and encouragement.

Sunny Inverness

Business was a real pleasure last Friday as I spent a lovely sunny day in Inverness which, if you believe the press, was the hottest place in Britain. Fiona Williams, Curriculum Manager for Business at UHI Midmills Campus, kindly fitted me into her busy schedule when I did my bit to promote the subject networks and demonstrated the BlendEd resources.

Other issues within the Business & Administration framework discussed included the need for a bank of alternative assessments as Business Studies assessments do not necessarily fit with Administration or Marketing etc. Good point as the assessment scenario/case study should fit the discipline and hopefully our swop shop may provide this platform.

It was well worth the drive and I hope to go back sometime soon to a staff development event to speak with more of the staff - and hope it is equally as sunny.

Also did the usual round of information gathering, reading and disseminating as well as catching up and responding to a mountain of emails.

Looking forward

Most of this week was spent on our mind map evaluation task which required much time and consideration. Sent my thoughts and ideas to Colin but am also keen to hear the other mentors' perceptions.

Checking and corresponding to emails takes up much time each week. Although not so much time as trying to keep up-to-date with what's new in our sector and disseminating that information to practitioners in the most appropriate way. Added several new links and some latest news to Practitioners Plus - thanks Murray - and sent reminder to my contacts about College People Week.

Unfortunately not enjoying the same success as some of my colleagues in the advisory group stakes. Think I need to offer another incentive as the Sametime trial was not lucrative enough. Will need to give this some thought- suggestions welcome.

Back again

Hope you all had a nice holiday and some well deserved R & R.

I have been busy catching up with my many emails and responding to requests which have come in during the holidays.

We submitted our article for the SFEU e-zine to be sent out to our subject network contacts. The idea of the e-zine is to keep everyone up-to-date with what is happening within the network. Also submitted our article for the Broadcast 79 magazine which is to be published in time for College People Week. The Business and Administration day is Thursday 05 June so please register and come along.

Also spent time updating web links and resources on our subject web page – thanks again Murray. Please check this out and let me know what you think.
Wrote to my advisory group to gauge interest in a Sametime trial and hope we can arrange this sometime soon. Other than that I've been doing the usual contacts stuff and the different College holidays made that a challenge.

Information and stats

Got Colin's urgent request for stats and information for the funding council on Sunday so spent the afternoon working on my submission. Hope I made it in time.

Having difficulty getting my advisory group together so had dinner with one of my group (the sacrifices we mentors have to make) and utilised some (well I can't be too boring) of the pre and post dinner chat to further our cause. Interesting discussions about the universal time and workload difficulties and in particular how staff development operates differently from College to College.

Drafted some editorial for our Broadcast 79 article, caught up with blogs and emails and updated the web page with some new resource. Murray and I are working on how best to sub-divide the page for ease of accessibility for Practitioners as Business and Administration covers a wide variety of subject areas. This is Work in Progress so log on to see the latest changes and let me know if it makes it easier to find what you need.

Off to sunny (or snowy as the forecast predicts) Loch Lomond. Have good Easter breaks - next update in three weeks.

Another busy week

In order to help appraisal of the networks I compiled an Evaluation Form (thanks to Claire for the idea) to send to Colleges visited and to issue at future visits. This should give valuable feedback on our project and for for the Subject Networks in general.

I attended an Admin and IT College Consortium Meeting at Forth Valley College in Falkirk on Friday 07 March. Twelve practitioners from various Colleges attended and the demonstration of the Practitioners Plus site and the BlendEd materials seemed to go down well as the Evaluation Forms confirm. Practitioners seemed keen to get log ons so hopefully we have a few more converts. Z cards were distributed as well as a copy of a CD with the Office Administration and Office Management BlendEd resources so practitioners could see the materials that were relevant for their subject area.

This week I made email contact with my Advisory Group asking for their feedback and arranged a tentative date - Thursday 22 may - to visit Stow College in Glasgow.

I also kept Murray busy by checking and updating the Practitioners Plus site with latest news and developments in Business and Administration.

Spring?

Even if Spring isn't here the snowdrops are.

This week saw me promoting the Subject Networks at a Curricular Area meeting at Stevenson College attended by the Associate Principal, Head of Section and 7 practitioners. An update on our latest developments and the Z cards with all the project information was well received. The Associate Principal was particularly interested to learn about our links with the Sector Skills Councils and information about labour market intelligence.

The monthly Mentor's meeting was held Edinburgh's Telford College where we had a presentation from representatives of Coleg to discuss their latest developments and how we might collaborate with our 'Swop Shop' for the benefit of all practitioners. Coleg will be launching their new repository at the end of April so watch this space.

Christine, the Care Mentor, and I met to update and plan our College visits programme.

New name

We are now officially called Business and Administration which fits the curricular area well. Thanks to Murray and Penny for their help with this.

Spent time this week encouraging and enlisting recruits to my Advisory Group. Now have a good group of eight enthusiasts and look forward to working with them more closely in the near future. A bonus has been inviting those Colleges we have visited to join the group - was that clever or what? Thanks Genevieve for that good idea.

Requests for College visits are still coming in and Christine and I have been invited to Inverness College sometime in May - date to be confirmed. Updating the web site with latest news (thanks Murray) and checking that resources are still current.

After technical failure spent a few frustrating hours listening to a continuous collection of Creedence Clearwater Revival (remember them?) whilst trying to get a response from my ISP who will remain nameless but whose contract is about to be terminated! Now I am 'live' again I can get back to business.

This week

Enjoyed the Moodle demo at Cardonald last week - thanks Tony. Have been playing around with this trying to get familiar. Am getting more confident with the Blog and may try an upload soon!

Meeting at South Lanarkshire College went well. Met with Karen Cleary, Curriculum Manager for Business and two members of the Care team. They demonstrated where they are at with the BlendEd resources. A staff member has been seconded 2 days per week to work on this and has several units loaded on their VLE ready for use when they move to their new college in August.

We demonstrated the PP site and the Cookbook for the BlendEd materials where the methodology and templates can be accessed and staff found this very useful.

Thanks to Christine for driving in such awful weather conditions we got home safely with no further delays.

This week's activities

Another eventful week. Several accidents, flurries of snow and an overturned lorry on the Forth Bridge conspired against me today. However, following a 2 hour car journey from Edinburgh to SFEU to meet with Christine we eventually made the Mentor's Meeting at Cardonald College in Glasgow - only 1 hour late. Unfortunately we missed the tea and scones.

Going off to South Lanarkshire College this afternoon to spread the Subject Networks' word and discuss the BlendEd resources for Care and Business Administration. See next week's post for news on this visit.

This week

This week some of the mentors joined the Hairdressing and Beauty Advisory Group for Sametime training at SFEU.

Sametime is a secure system that can provide presence awareness, instant messaging and Web conferencing. Sametime helps speed communication and reduce travel expenses. Practitioners can immediately and easily interact with one another and collaborate in real time. For further information and to get involved log on to Practitioners Plus.

NQ Business Management event - Wednesday 6 February 08
SFEU and SQA Academy are holding a blended learning event for staff delivering NQ Business Management programmes. The event comprises an online component and a workshop at the Carnegie Conference Centre, Halbeath, Dunfermline.

Still practising

This has been another busy week with Blogs, Bloglines, Practitioners Plus and the Mentor's Forum providing sources of information and communication.

As part of our project Christine Mathers (Care) and myself visited Reid Kerr College to promote the subject networks, BlendEd and the other e-transformation projects at a Heads of Department Meeting. In addition we were able to plug Practitioners Plus, the Swap Shop, SameTime and Annamarie's workshops.

It was a successful session and there was genuine interest for the new initatives. Hopefully we have enlisted some new recruits.

Here goes

The promotional materials and e-zines have generated a lot of interest for the BlendEd materials which are the subject of the project for Christine and myself. This week we met to discuss and arrange our forthcoming visit to Reid Kerr College who have requested a visit to support the use of these resources and an information session about the Subject Networks in general.

Still trying to get to grips with the Blog and Bloglines so watch this space.