Archive for the ‘education’ Category
Sold - but needs immediate updates?
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011
Over the Christmas break thousands of people will have been opening Christmas presents and seeing a computer or laptop or a mobile phone. Amongst all of those people how many of them will know how to use them?
I helped buy a laptop for a family member this year. As a computer user since I can remember I didn’t really think of the fact that it came with no instructions. Nothing. Just a laptop and a power cable. Once I completed the windows setup I then had to update the computer with 44 updates. Yes - 44 updates. Sold as new and then I needed to spend an hour updating it. I can’t imagine many other shops getting away with that.
Another family member had a mobile phone, a fantastic piece of technology with a 5mp camera. Not set up to receive or send images. On the supplier website the phone was no longer listed so it was a trawl across the web to update the settings.
I read that apple have sold 50 iphone since 2007. Walk into the local apple store and see the number of people who are taking classes (old and young). Here is all our equipment - try it, don’t worry if it breaks and if you want we have training sessions.
I bought a new digital camera from canon - amazing value, but I needed to get on the website to download the manual to actually how to take pictures. You might think that I could use the manual settings but sometimes you just need to know the most basic features.
We sometimes wonder why we can’t get people interested in using computing, the internet or technology but after this Christmas I think we need to make it a little easy for people who are coming along to the technology party for the first time.
The 10 rules of painless procurement - from both sides
Monday, November 15th, 2010
The 10 rules of painless procurement - from both side
A few weeks ago I picked up on a tweet about the tender process from @
As we had all been involved in the procurement process (from both sides) we decided to come up with a few tips on how to manage the process - if you are looking to submit a tender or if you are looking for a supplier.
We used a shared google doc to come up with several ideas, tips, experiences and these are our top 10 for both! I hope that you find it useful.
by Scott Hewitt, Tim McShane and Kevin Mulryne
scott.hewitt@realprojects.co.uk
kevin@mulryne.com
tim@fluffyclouds.co.uk
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Rules for bidders (tendering for work and filling in the forms) |
Rules for clients (writing the tender docs and running the tender process) |
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1 Make sure you are in possession of all the available facts
Ask to see the grid the team will be using to judge the bid so you can make sure you have each area covered. |
1 Know what you want
Ideas cost money and time. If you don’t know what you need it’s a specification that you should write, not a tender. |
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2 It’s all in the preparation
Read the given criteria carefully and plan to match what you are producing as closely to the requirements as you can.
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2 Tell bidders if they are likely to be wasting their time
If you are going to have a threshold based on company turnover (or some other criteria which will automatically exclude bidders) let people know.
Why allow people to write a whole tender when they are never really able to be a supplier? |
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3 Be sensible with your time - and money
If you don’t like the tender, project or the idea behind it - don’t submit a response! |
3 Be open about your requirements
If you want environment, QHSE policy etc. explain why you want them and the relevance to the tender.
Provide bidders with a scoring matrix so they can concentrate their efforts on what you think is important. |
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4 Pay attention to the process of filling in the form
Make sure you have plenty of time to write the whole return - uneven sections read badly and create a bad impression.
If it’s an online form, go in and get the questions then create answers offline to copy and paste in later - don’t try and compose answers ‘live’ on the system. |
4 Give bidders some guidance on word count
Consider limiting the number of words for each question - this will make returns easier to compare and focus bidders’ attention on what you think is important. |
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5 Be a bit pedantic about language
Check spelling, punctuation and grammar - mistakes can put off the more exacting employers - or those who are looking for ways to differentiate between close competitors. |
5 Make it simple
The PQQ is meant to be an introductory, pre-qualification process. 40 page documents are not helpful to anyone. You will get stock answers.
Why not have an initial, high-level PQQ that covers the main important issues? If you pass that then provide the more detailed PQQ. |
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6 Answer the questions which are asked, where they are asked
Answer the questions which are given - don’t give ‘stock’ answers copied from elsewhere.
In multi-part tender returns, write a new answer for each section - don’t copy and paste between sections as they will probably be read by the same rater and this can give a negative impression.
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6 Be transparent about money
While you want best value, providing an indicative budget allows clients to be innovative within a framework.
If you have a budget of £20k and then receive ideas which cost £60k that you can’t use everyone has wasted their time and effort. |
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7 Keep it real
Only use real evidence - exaggerated or invented experience can be checked - especially when you are in a small area of work - the rater may well know the situation you are exaggerating/inventing details about! |
7 Keep it real
Don’t run a procurement process and ask for tenders if you don’t have the budget to do the project.
Also just getting quotes for comparison and having no intention of using the client for a real project is unfair. |
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8 Raters are people too!
Remember that if a team are looking at a bid then some of them won’t be experts in every area so write for them as well as for the experts. |
8 Use realistic and fair timescales
Be sensible about your time deadline. People need time to put a tender together.
Also if you set the tender make sure that you meet your own deadline for feedback and decisions. |
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9 Use your best people
Each section of a bid will be reviewed - potentially by an expert. Get an expert at your end to look at the bid so it isn’t obvious that sufficient time hasn’t been spent on key sections.
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9 Respect your bidders
Provide detailed feedback on successful and unsuccessful tenders.
Respect ideas and concepts within a tender response. If you want to use them, you should pay for them! |
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10 Check it…and then check it again
Make sure you check the document you are sending out. One of us found someone’s comments left in saying, “No one will read this section so just put anything in.” Needless to say….
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10 Play nicely
It’s a relationship - you both need each other. Be clear about what you both want from the project. |
Testing, testing, testing - what is more important the test or the content?
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
I’ve have just finished reading a book at the British Cycling team and their meteoric rise over the past 10 years. As a keen cyclist the book provides a number of insights into how the team operated. There is one section in particular that raised a number of questions.
Sir Chris Hoy started to compete in an event called the Keirin several years ago when the Kilo event was removed from the Olympics. For those of you who have caught a bit of track cycling on the TV it’s the one where they all ride behind a motorbike at increasingly high speeds. The cycling aficionados amongst you will know that Keirin originates from Japan and is remains hugely popular. Kieran riders earn vast sums and enjoy celebrity status due to the massive amounts that are bet on the outcome of races. Increasingly overseas riders saw the money on offer and wanted to compete in Japan, to date without a great deal of success. Before any overseas rider can compete in a Japanese event they have to undertake a rigorous 2 week training camp, where one of the tasks involves taking a bike to pieces without dropping a tool and re-assembling it in a set order.
At the end of the 2 week course there is a test. Pass the test and you can ride in events, fail and you can’t. Simple.
It was the test aspect of the course that interested me the most. One of the cyclists commented on the monotony of the course and the sheer basic nature of the course content…but…he remained ‘switched on’ at all times as if you didn’t pass the test you couldn’t ride. The rider attended all of the sessions, took everything on board, put up with the monotony to ensure that he was ready for the test. He took the test, passed and rode in events.
Reading this particular chapter really made me think of all the courses where the qualification is vital to future success and progress but the learning experience is often disappointing for those involved. I’ve spoken to my friends who have attended courses that have not been challenging and focused purely on getting the badge. I’ve also got my own experience to share. Over 5 years ago I took my PRINCE 2 exams; the first 2 days pretty much consisted of highlighting pages from the course book. I was somewhat disillusioned by this and in the revision periods at the end of the day I actually tried to gain a deeper understanding of what the course was about. It was only at the first multiple choice exam that I realised what I was being prepared for. Each of the sections I had highlighted had been linked to potential answers in the multiple choice exam. Once this was passed the whole teaching style changed as we approached an open book written exam. I’d not thought about this course until after I’d finished reading the Keirin chapter and it all came back to me!
Accessibility in e-learning design - time for some standards?
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
I might be missing something here but after spending the last 15 years working in e-learning and new media it is still far more common to have a conversation about accessibility when talking to a client about a website than a piece of e-learning. Website design has made great strides in supporting usbaility standards, although it still has work to do. With all the different platforms, browsers and technologies it is difficult to achieve complete standards compliance but it does appear to be a common theme in the web design areas. Within e-learning its just doesn’t seem to have the same importance at the moment.
We have worked with e-learning teams where we have created levels of content to provide as much access as possible. NCSL is a fine example of an organisation that has a really clear set of guidelines for developers that includes their position on accesible content. These guidelines help everyone involved are opened up for developers to suggest improvements and also to challenge.
I’m sure that accesibility is a consideration for lots of learning providers, developers and trainers but it doesn’t seem to have the same weight within e-learning. A simple google search saw these results for the term accesiibility e-learning (7,280,000 results) website accessibility (64,500,000) - quite a difference. There are clearly a number of practitioners and researchers carrying out a great deal of work in this area and my google search is hardly a thorough piece of research but I did find the numbers interesting. I’ve got lots of friends and colleagues in the industry who are looking at accessibility but does the industry really discuss what’s needed?
Has the time come for the e-learning industry to look a set of standards relating to accessibility for e-learning design could help? A set of design standards and good practice might also bring some balance to the tender process where so much of the evaluation process is based on price. I know that lots of e-learning practitioners are carrying out great work in this area but isn’t time we all come together?
Thoughts?
During my web searches I found several interesting links and articles:
http://www.skillsforaccess.org.uk/
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningpedagogy.aspx
top 10 website resources
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Following on from our top 10 e-learning resources here is our top 10 website resources. These are the sites that we find useful and we use them most days. Everyone in the office has a favourite site and they all feature in the list. Today I’ve been on the Edge website and found out that the sequel to wii sports is the fastest selling game in Japan and Futurelab have more free resources that you can download….and FWA have uploaded their site of the day.
Enjoy!
This website has a design focus but is packed full of free resources and tutorials. This is a great place if you are looking for ideas and inspiration. The free resources that have been submitted cover a wide range of uses from Wordpress themes to Icon sets.
The images are not free, but the prices are low and the image quality is good. A vast range of images, icons, videos and stock assets that come in useful.
TED comes up on a number of our lists but we keep on finding it useful! A great website to view some inspirational thinkers and to get inspired. Our favourites is still the Jonny Lee remote control.
A whole host of videos for a range of subjects. Our current favourite is the Royal Navy using computer games during submarine training courses.
You’ll need an iphone or an ipod touch but if you are ever on the move and need to find something out there will be an app for it. We’ve downloaded GPS devices, flight trackers, games, training apps, News feeds and something that turns the iphone into a torch.
The home of Edge magazine, if you want to find out something about the videogame industry this website has all the news alongside some great articles.
Innovation in Education
Offering a host of whitepapers, articles, links and a lot more. Futurelab also have a range of printed support materials including posters. We’ve just got hold of the their game based learning poster
Harvard Business Working Knowledge
Subscribe to the email for details of the latest papers or download the podcast to listen to interviews. Covers a wide range of business topics and all in manageable chunks.
Ok, we are a little biased with this one! We are able to get some great speakers to come along to our events, some of who you might never have heard of but they all provide us with great resources from their presentations.
The favourite website awards. Every day they upload a new website for you to look at. Not strictly anything to take away or download but this site will provide you with a whole host of ideas if you are stuck on your next design project.
e-learning top tools for 2009
Monday, June 29th, 2009
I thought that I would share with you my top ten tools for 2009. These are the tools that I find really useful, I might not use them every day but they really help out week by week! I’ve linked out to all the websites so you can go and find out more about them for yourself.
A great piece of software for rapidly developing virtual environments, simulations and game based learning. Our games designers are building learning objects in days!
You’ll need an iphone but this software lets you update your account when on the move as well as getting your own twitter feed. Get the Pro version to update multiple accounts.
We’ve been using Basecamp since it first came out and we still love it! Great for using with clients and it keeps things nice and easy.
Open Source - used by many, lots of commercial support if you need it and a great user community.
Time tracking software, links with Basecamp and it has an iphone app. Easy to use and brilliant for time management on projects.
Can be used for a range of uses including blogs and websites. There is a wide range of plugins available to support your development work. It is also very easy to set up!
A wide range of videos for download from the BBC on a range of subjects and topics.
Online meetings and much more. Very useful for working with clients, showing work and minimising travel. NCSL have made great use of web-ex over the past year.
A great web app where you can generate world clouds from the text that you provide. Paste in text, rss url or del.ico.us username.
A whole host of brilliant lectures on a range of subjects, well supported by an iphone app. There are some inspirational lectures available for you to view.
Award Winning ICT Evangelist comes to Game Based Learning Event on 13th May 2009
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
Real Projects are delighted to announce that Russell Prue is going to be the keynote speaker for Game Based Learning Event on May13th.
Russell Prue said “I am delighted to have been asked to come and support the Real Projects Games Based Learning event on 13th May. There has never been a better time to take a closer look at this kind of technology and with plenty of evidence and case studies that confirm the learning benefits of games based learning this has to be at the top of your agenda. I will be showing a new concept in PE and Dance Exercise education with a Virtual PE Teacher system, pulling a “Bollywood” or “Salsa” instructor out of thin-air is something that technology can do in the C21st. There are plenty of competitive dancing competitions that really get you moving and with the ability for over 30 users to compete simultaneously on wireless dance mats this is a winner. More information from www.virtualpeteacher.co.uk
I am also planning to demonstrate the Kinaesthetic Interactive Teaching System (KIT), a 30 multi- users playstation style gaming system that develops cognitive and higher level thinking skills through the use of competitive game play. The camel race is my favourite and I am sure that you will get a chance to experience this amazing gaming system. More information from http://www.kinesthetic.co.uk I am also including a “how to use a Nintendo Wii Fit” to improve your concentration skills guide – this event simply cannot be missed.”
Russell Prue is an Award Winning ICT Evangelist and has presented to HM The Queen, members of the Royal Family, Heads of State and Ministers from the UK. He is well reported and enjoys a high profile as the best known ICT Evangelist in the UK. There is time in Russell’s session for some hands-on experience of these new uses of technologies and colleagues are urged to engage, dance, and explore. More information from www.andertontiger.com.
The Games Based Learning event is invitation only. For more information about the event please call Real Projects on 01603 762772
games based learning
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
May 13th 2009 - Norwich
We are going to be holding the next e-learning forum event on Games Based Learning. After posting on the blog about our PSP trials and other games based development we decided it would be a good idea to make it the next topic for the e-learning forum.
The response to the event has been really positive, we are planning to have a number of speakers over a few hours making it a little longer than normall events. We’ll have a games area where people will be able to try all types of consoles and devices. We have some speakers in mind but are interested in talking to anyone who might have something interesting to talk about during the event.
The event will be free and we will be hoping to see some new faces amongst the regular people who attend. I’ve been talking to lots of businesses and educators about games based learning and the possibilities. Last week the Games Based Learning conference (Tom Watson Speech) took place and futurelab have announced the are running a research project on games and learning. As some readers might know we have a link with the NUCA Computer Games Degree and it is interesting to see how games design, learning and learning technologies are becoming ever closer.
Last week I saw a superb session by Russell Prue on how games are being used in the Classroom. You can take a look at some of the resources http://www.andertontiger.com/norfolk/