East Antrim Institute of Further and Higher Education, Community Development Day – Thursday 22nd March 2007

We would like to thank Brenda Crotty and Keith Kilpatrick from East Antrim Institute of Further and Higher Education for hosting our recent Community Development Day and for the delicious catering provided.

The day was attended by staff from nearby colleges whose roles were predominately to raise awareness and support the usage of e-learning. Thank you to everybody who came along and shared their thoughts and ideas with us.

Many delegates agreed that teaching staff are increasingly confused and overwhelmed by the number of websites and e-learning providers they have access to, and that there is a real need within colleges for staff to have just one easily accessible portal for all their teaching and learning needs. It was identified that the customisable FENC infrastructure can be used as a portal and within it our content management system supports users in creating, adapting and managing their own learning materials, as well as promoting sharing and good practice within the college. In addition, we can provide detailed data on the usage of resources within this system to help support the implementation of e-learning.

As well as facilitating sharing within colleges, we discussed the benefits of our online ‘Swapshop’ allowing tutors and colleges who have produced their own vocational resources, schemes of work etc to share these across the whole of the FENC Community, as well as view and use resources that others have shared with us. Further information regarding how to access and use Swapshop can be found on our website.

At the end of the day, delegates expressed how much they had enjoyed the opportunity to meet and discuss ideas with people from different colleges, and find out more about promoting and embedding FENC at their college.