Dundee and Angus College ESOL Online Student Magazine (Arbroath Campus)

Transcription

1 Dundee and Angus College ESOL Online Student Magazine (Arbroath Campus) Summary ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) courses are primarily aimed at developing English language skills, delivered at three different levels (three different classes in the Arbroath Campus) within the College, but they also provide the opportunity to develop an understanding of differing cultures, as the students have a rich background and range of experiences, and a method to capture this was sought. It was agreed that producing an online magazine would be an ideal way of publishing the students work and also allow them to showcase their interests and talents. Joomag.com provided the students with the tools required for producing and publishing online magazines and currently two magazines have been created, and the aim is to continue to produce them on a monthly basis. Technological, time management and team working skills are also being developed as the students take the lead in the production of each magazine where they are responsible for writing and submitting all the articles to deadlines and then constructing and editing the magazine. About the Institution Dundee College merged with Angus College on the 1 st November 2013 to become Dundee and Angus College. The newly merged college has three main campuses, two in Dundee, one in Arbroath, and is supported by several satellite learning centres in surrounding towns, offering all types of courses, high quality facilities and services to help meet the needs of the diversity of learners in the 21 st Century. As the new college moves forward, the aim is to build on the strengths of the two former colleges, and deliver enhanced and extended opportunities for all, ensuring that students have a wide range of choices and that employer and industry needs are well served. The Challenge The ESOL students are learning English but also have a rich background of experience, interests and skills. A method was required to allow the students to have an audience for their written English that could incorporate the use of visual media, which would highlight a range of course specific skills, as well as allowing them to

2 explore and present their personal interests and develop essential skills in communication and technology. The student group included excellent photographers, others who are creative with video, and it was hoped to give these students a method of displaying and improving these talents in tandem with developing their English, which an online magazine would provide, by way of creating a purpose for writing and the opportunity to use different media to display their work in a professional way. The students would be responsible for all content and editing, increasing motivation and engagement for the whole group. Suitable tools/ software would have to be sourced and the students would need to learn how to use it effectively. An editing team would need to be established and they would need to have good IT skills, as well as time management skills, and the other students would need to consider the type of articles they wished to write and submit for publication, and how to create or source the imagery they would want to include. Researching copyright implications would also be necessary to ensure that any images used would not infringe any intellectual properly rights. The Activity When the idea of creating an online magazine was being explored, expertise from the college IT Support team was required to find suitable software, which had to be relatively straightforward to use and be capable of meeting the content and production requirements. Joomag was suggested which is a free web based tool, and an educational account was set up to enable access to it. The students were asked for ideas on content and started to gather material and gauge who was interested in working on the editing team and who wanted to contribute material. Editors from all three classes volunteered to work on collating content and started learning how to use the technology and edit the pages on the magazine. The main challenge was developing the technical knowledge and skills as this was the first time the editing team had encountered the joomag software and they had a great deal of difficulty doing relatively simple things like learning to upload documents correctly. The IT support team offered help at various stages but most of the learning was self-taught happening by trial and error. After the initial account set up and learning the basics of uploading documents, the student editors began to

3 collate and edit the pages, and they also started to use the editing tools to improve the appearance of the pages. This stage was very time-consuming as the editing skills were not proficient which then impacted the meeting of deadlines as these initial technical issues had not been foreseen and caused time management problems. The articles were submitted in varying states of completeness, with some well formatted, including relevant imagery and in the required PDF format but others required sourcing and adding of imagery, general formatting and saving in to an appropriate file format. However, the hard work, dedication and determination of the team resulted in the first edition being published only three days after the deadline that had been set. All the students were delighted with the first edition, and very proud of their eye-catching, colourful and fun online magazine that boasts a wide range of interesting articles, sharing insights into the non-college side of life that they all experience individually. This has strengthened the group dynamics as they have all shared a greater awareness of each other s interests and facets of their personal lives, building on the existing peer relations throughout all three ESOL classes. The first edition was a huge learning curve technically, but the development of these skills has enabled the production of a second even better edition, which has the inclusion of some multimedia elements which can be created using some of the more advanced joomag tools. The design aspect has also improved with the addition of one student with design skills in the editing team (see learner perception quote), and all in all the students are again very proud of their online magazine. The Outcomes The magazine has had a very positive impact on classes. The newly established audience is encouraging more creative writing and a variety of different articles, including interviews, e.g. a speaker from the Red Cross was in college delivering a training course which was viewed as an opportunity to undertake an interview. Working in a team, the students used speaking skills to interview the speaker, recorded the interview, took photos and turned the interview into an interesting

4 article that was included in the second edition, which was an extremely effective way of learning and developing English language skills, in both oral and written forms. Some more reticent students have felt sufficiently comfortable and confident to submit written articles giving them the opportunity to share information about themselves which they would not have done orally, and this in turn has provided a catalyst to engage in discussion with the wider class, making them feel more included in the group and bolstering their confidence. The editors are gaining great technical skills and showing fantastic creativity, as well as showing off improved responsibility and time-management skills, and are set to become joomag champions and mentors, to ensure that the next editing team is waiting in the wings, readily equipped with the necessary technical skill, to keep the online magazine in production when the current editing team articulate to other courses. The class pride in the magazine has been a huge motivator and this could certainly be rolled out to other curricular areas that could benefit from using this free web based tool. Currently the ESOL staff and editing team based at the Arbroath campus are sharing the idea with the Dundee campus and will be happy to help the Dundee ESOL team adopt this online magazine initiative. Learner Perceptions Thank you for the link to the magazine. I read everything and I really enjoyed that. I'm very proud for ESOL students who were involved, and huge thanks to you and Jean for this opportunity. I don't want to offend anyone, but I have some suggestions what could be improved. I know it's just first one and the hardest one, therefore, it's a wonderful job anyway. I'm in anticipation to see the next one. Alina ( sent to Linda Archibald from a current ESOL student, Alina Vinagradova)

5 Lessons Learned Learning new technology can be time consuming and it would be beneficial if the staff have a basic understanding of how to use the software before introducing it to the students, so that you can assist the students at the beginning, before they take off and fly with it themselves, which is ultimately what happened as their confidence grew. The first edition was in essence a practice run in terms of the technology, the contents and the process and issues such as ownership of images was not a priority, but through consultation with a Jisc RSC Scotland Advisor and the college copyright advisor they are aware of copyright implications and are now following guidelines to ensure they do not breach copyright rules so they can freely publish all future editions. Useful Links Contributors/key contacts Contributors : Linda Archibald, ESOL Lecturer; Jean High, ESOL Lecturer Date of creation 6 th February 2014 Disclaimer The Jisc Regional Support Centre Scotland supports the development of educational e-learning. We may refer to specific products, processes or services. Such references are examples and are not endorsements or recommendations and should not be used for product endorsement purposes.