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Abasido Umoh: an Alison Contract Publisher based in Nigeria

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Abasido Umoh: an Alison Contract Publisher based in Nigeria

 

Experts from all over the world apply to publish courses with Alison. In order to meet this high level of demand, Alison employs Contract Publishers who transform expertise and knowledge into high quality courses. Last year, Alison invited 100 Graduates worldwide to train to become Contract Publishers. Abasido is one of our Alison Graduates who went on to become an Alison Contractor.

 

 

Abasido, tell us a bit about your background before Alison.

My name is Abasido Umoh and I’m from Nigeria. I’m a final year student studying Computer Technology at the University of Calabar.

How did you discover Alison, and what was your experience as a learner?

Sometime in 2017, I discovered Alison while searching for free online courses on the internet. I was amazed to find that 100% of the courses on Alison are completely free. That’s unlike anything I had seen on any other platform before. The courses are of very high quality and the interface is simple and easy to use. Anyone would enjoy taking online courses on Alison.

Why did you pursue the chance to become an Alison Contractor?

I got an email from the Alison publishing team late last year and they invited me to join their team as a contractor. The opportunity seemed like a good one since I only needed a PC and an internet connection to do everything, so I decided to apply and see how it goes.

How did you find the remote Contractor training?

I’ve benefited a lot from the training I received. I’ve learnt a lot of new things in such a short time and I did all of it from right here in my home country.

 

What was the first course you published on Alison?

The title of the course is Introduction to Blockchain Technology and Applications. It’s a diploma course. It’s live right now on the Alison platform and numerous people have enrolled. It was an interesting project, a little challenging in the beginning, much like most things we get to do for the first time. But it turned out to be great and I benefited a lot myself from publishing the course.

How has your decision to work for Alison affected your career path?

I’ve always liked the idea of working remotely and this was the perfect opportunity. I get to make an impact on people around the world from right here. What’s more, my digital skills have improved a great deal and I believe skills like these are in higher demand especially given the recent turn of events in the world right now.

What’s the best part of working as an Alison Contractor?

For me, there are two things. First, it’s the flexibility and convenience of the work. I get to work whenever I’d like to and for how long I wish, just as long as I finish up before the deadline. Secondly, the courses I publish can be from a variety of different subjects so I get to learn a bunch of new stuff from different fields of study along the way. And then thousands of people also get to benefit from my work. Plus, I get paid for it. What could be better than that?

If you could publish course that would teach the world, or yourself, anything, what would it be?

I think a course on personal finance would be just right. Most people know very little about how to mange their money wisely. I believe a course that presented important information in a simple but effective way would go a long way to help a lot of people get more financial stability and improve their standard of living, both in this part of the world and beyond.

Summer Reading Contest Winner Week 1: On ‘I’m a Black American. I Had to Get Out.’

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Summer Reading Contest Winner Week 1: On ‘I’m a Black American. I Had to Get Out.’

Ula Ekmecic, 16, from Roosevelt High School in Seattle chose an Opinion essay headlined “I’m a Black American. I Had to Get Out” and wrote:

Tiffanie Drayton fled to Trinidad to escape racism in America. All my friends have to do is re-curate their Instagram feeds.

I live in rich, white, North Seattle. Since the outcry following the murder of George Floyd and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter to the forefront of news, social media, and daily conversation, I have seen people come together for humanity in a way I have never before. But in the periphery of my vision, I can see the tide turning.

Classmates have begun to take down the links to petitions from their bios. Story posts highlighting their rage over the deaths of Oluwatoyin Salau, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks have become interspersed with pictures of their 3-course brunch and throwback photos for a friend’s birthday.

They took a bite out of real America, racist America, and decided that one piece was enough. They decided that 3 weeks of action was enough to compensate for 243 years of inequality.

Reading “I’m a Black American. I Had To Get Out,” made me feel momentarily suffocated. Drayton described “The brilliant American landscape…[being] ruined by anti-blackness” and it was overwhelming. I am a person of color, but I am not black. I don’t feel like I’m being pushed into becoming a refugee from my own country.

Even as I write this I have the urge to turn on Gossip Girl and hide. But I don’t. Because the difference between me and Drayton is that I feel discomfort with my shifting reality. Surface-level fear. Drayton is scared for her life.

_________

In alphabetical order by the writer’s first name.

Alexa Marsh on “Why Do People Love Games?”

Ava on “I’m Finally an Angry Black Man”

Benjamin Choi on “They Fled Asia as Refugees. Now They Are Caught in the Middle of Minneapolis.”

Bethany on “Doctors are Covid’s First Historians”

Elizabeth Hirschfeld on “America, This Is Your Chance”

Ellie Klibaner-Schiff on “New York Times Says Senator’s Op-Ed Did Not Meet Standards”

Moniola on “I’m Finally an Angry Black Man”

Rina on “Why I’ve Stopped Telling People I’m Not Chinese”

Samantha on “Silver Lining to the Mask? Not Having to Smile” (published in print with the headline: “How Emotions Play Out Behind the Masks”)

FutureLearn Festival of Learning June 2020

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FutureLearn Festival of Learning June 2020

Two weeks ago, FutureLearn’s first ever virtual conference took place. FutureLearn’s Festival of Learning took place between 22-26 June 2020 and explored how education, healthcare and business will evolve in a post-COVID world, how we can all collaborate to achieve great things in the wake of upheaval, and the importance of learning together.

The festival was divided into 4 key tracks – Teaching After COVID-19, Learning Together, Supporting Healthcare, and Future Proofing Business, with keynotes, panels, masterclasses and more taking place every day throughout the festival. 

 

Teaching after COVID-19

The week opened with a keynote from Lord David Puttnam CBE titled Education’s Darwinian Moment, so called because Lord Puttnam believes “just as after the publication of On the Origin of Species, there was no going back. People had to deal with the world as Darwin had revealed it. I think that the post-COVID world is going to be an extraordinarily exciting place, but a very very challenging place.”

The session was introduced by FutureLearn CEO, Simon Nelson, who discussed the changes we’ve seen in online learning behaviour over the last few months and speculated over what the future of education may have in store. Lord Puttnam then discussed a little of his experience of lockdown, how he’s managed to continue educating students remotely and his work over the last year as part of a parliamentary select committee looking at the impact of digital technologies.

Later in the week, we joined the second teaching session, a panel titled Educating the Educators chaired by Matt Jenner, Head of Learning at FutureLearn. This panel reflected on FutureLearn’s first ever own-branded course, a rapid response short course called How to Teach Online: Provisioning Continuity for Students. This course was built especially to support educators faced with the sudden shift to teaching online towards the start of 2020, and was built in just 10 days. In this panel, four mentors from the course joined Matt to discuss their experience of supporting the teaching community through this transition. Discussion was lively and saw many educators from around the world asking questions in the live chat, considering what the future of teaching may look like.

The final teaching session of the week was a Q&A, Mental Welling for Educators and Students, which brought together four brilliant partners involved in some of the top mental wellbeing courses on the FutureLearn platform. During the Q&A, panellists looked specifically at how we support students and teachers during this period of upheaval. The discussion was chaired by Finola Lang, Global Education Lead at FutureLearn, and covered topics such as spotting signs that a colleague or student needs extra support, working with different age groups, welcoming September intakes and more.

 

Learning Together

The Learning track was opened by Lord Jim Knight, Chief Education & External Officer at Tes Global. His keynote was titled Embedding the new realities of time and space for learning and offered a frank discussion around how technology can offer flexibility in where and when learning can take place. Lord Knight looked at the current situation in which many are home-schooling and considered how digital tools support this and empower learners and teachers to have more individualised experience. He believes one of the positives this challenge has presented is that “parents, those that have been able to get involved in their childrens’ learning, have been able to see how their child learns, they’ve been able to see the reality of how difficult it is for teachers, but they’ve also been able to see what sort of learning their child responds to and what they find disengaging.”

On the Wednesday of the Festival, FutureLearn’s own Learning Design team, made up of Matt Jenner, Monty King and Felicity Parsisson, ran Learning Design Masterclasses asynchronously throughout the day to over 500 attendees. During the sessions, these attendees had the chance to understand how our learning designers approach building online courses and were invited to take part in some practical learning design by participating in an online competition. You can watch one of these masterclasses back here and enter the competition here, the deadline for this is 10 July 2020.

 

Supporting Healthcare 

We had two healthcare sessions over the Festival of Learning, the first, a keynote by Dean Patricia Davidson from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, considered whether COVID-19 was a Watershed moment in Higher Education. Hosted by Holly Shifflet, Head of Partnerships at FutureLearn, Dean Davidson shared an overview of the university in contemporary society, outlined social, economic and political factors influencing higher education worldwide, discussed the impact of COVID-19 on the sector and presented approaches to invigorate the social contract of universities with society. At the end of her session she took questions from attendees and there was vibrant discussion around how the higher education sector must evolve to work more closely with industry amongst other things.

The second healthcare session came in the form of a panel titled Community through Crisis: COVID-19 and Healthcare Education, chaired by Helen Fuller, Global Healthcare Lead at FutureLearn. Helen was joined by representatives from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Edinburgh, St George’s and FIND. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare sector has faced a number of challenges beyond the obvious threat to public health. This session explored how these teams responded by rapidly building courses and panellists shared their experiences of working quickly and collaboratively in the face of crisis, building courses for frontline workers and the public on COVID-19.

 

Future Proofing Business

Our first business session of the week was titled How is Learning and Development Future Proofing your Business? Chaired by Catalina Schveninger, Chief People Officer at FutureLearn, who was joined by a panel of business brains from the Foreign Commonwealth Office, Visa and NilesNolen. The session was first introduced by Ron Kalifa OBE, Chairman of the Board for FutureLearn, who discussed the impact he himself has witnessed of COVID-19 on business and learning. He then handed over to the panel who considered the crucial role of learning and development in ensuring your business thrives through challenging times and offered tips and tools to help those struggling in the difficult climate.

The whole festival concluded with a keynote by Sherry Coutu CBE, who presented a review of the solutions available to small businesses and charities facing challenges due to COVID-19 dramatically reducing their revenues. Sherry, herself a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who serves on the boards of companies, charities, and universities, gave an inspirational talk looking at her activity during the pandemic and how we help businesses survive and thrive through digital. 

 

Overall FutureLearn’s inaugural festival was a success, and thank you to all those who attended the sessions live or have taken time to watch them back. Plans are already underway for the next Festival of Learning, so watch this space for more details of how we can celebrate the crucial role of learning together once again.

Category Research insights

The Role of MOOCs in Humanitarian Affairs

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The Role of MOOCs in Humanitarian Affairs

Author: Draego Zubiri, Project Manager, FutureLearn

The Partnership for Digital Learning and Increased Access (PADILEIA) aims to facilitate access to higher education for those displaced and affected by the Syrian crisis in Jordan and Lebanon, including disadvantaged local populations. It is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), through the Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education Innovation and Reform (SPHEIR) programme. 

Together, FutureLearn, King’s College London, American University of Beirut, Al al-Bayt University, and Kiron Open Higher Education provide a suite of online and blended learning educational offerings to target learners in Lebanon and Jordan, ranging from online short course (MOOCs), study-tracks, and certificate programmes.

FutureLearn and King’s College London work closely to deliver a range of foundational short courses, with topics ranging from English, Healthcare, Business to Digital Skills. These courses are available to any learner across the globe, who will be given a Certificate of Completion from King’s College London and FutureLearn upon completion of the course. 

As the project is now well into its third year, well-earned successes have been celebrated, considerable lessons have been learnt and acted on, and plenty remains in store for how the programme can continue to deliver even greater value to its target learners. As a key player in transforming access to education worldwide, FutureLearn must continue to posit the question: what role do MOOCs play in transforming and providing access to education for individuals affected by conflict and displacement?

 

What MOOCs have to offer

Firstly, FutureLearn’s social learning platform provides displaced people with a sense of shared learning, where learners are able to converse, tell stories, and share lived experiences with other learners, fostering a sense of community and identity which is often lost by these individuals. As two learners commented:

Thank you King’s College London and FutureLearn for this course. This is a great course, which has helped me improve my English. I enjoyed interacting with others in the chat. I made new friends and hope to see them again in the second week. See you soon!

I finally finished my first week and just wanted to thank my teacher for the support and for responding to my comments. I enjoyed meeting students from different parts of the world. This has been an exciting experience. Good luck to everyone in the second week!

Secondly, the affordances of MOOCs allow for themselves to be easily accessible to a broad range of learners. FutureLearn’s mobile-friendly programming ensures that the MOOCs are accessible to all learners across all smart devices. Similarly, courses can be designed to ensure they are accessible to even those with low bandwidths or slower internet connections. Language support may also be provided in digital formats for learners of varying cultural backgrounds on an as needed basis.

Thirdly, MOOCs are by nature scalable learning assets requiring minimal overhead from organisations while being able to provide learners with ongoing access to education anywhere in the world regardless of time and place. To date, 180,000 learners have accessed the FutureLearn MOOCs by King’s College London, with up to 3,700 learners self-reporting as refugees based either in Jordan, Lebanon, or worldwide.* It is also worth noting that more than 90% of these learners have reported a ‘positive’ learning experience with the MOOCs.**

 

Barriers and challenges faced

While MOOCs offer a number of powerful affordances that have been driven and enabled by the Digital Age, there remain barriers and obstacles specific to reaching these hard to reach audiences and displaced individuals. For one, in order for MOOCs to be successful they must be appropriately promoted to these audiences for them to be made aware of the offering. Refugees and displaced people may not always be directly accessible by conventional above the line marketing activities. And in such circumstances, stakeholders on the ground, such as governments, UN agencies (UNHCR), INGOs, educational institutions, and third sector parties, therefore play a pivotal role in promoting these MOOCs and ensuring they reach their target audiences.

MOOCs alone are also not always sufficient in providing the holistic support needed by these vulnerable populations. Learners may need additional face to face support and require additional scaffolding through their learner journey in order for such provision to be effective. PADILEIA has sought to set up study hubs, such as that in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, for example, where the MOOCs as well as other PADILEIA educational offerings are delivered and facilitated through the support of a full-time facilitator. Alongside the option to learn on the blended and facilitated model, the study hubs also provide learners with access to computer and mobile devices, a stable WiFi connection, potable water, and public restrooms.

 

The future of MOOCs in humanitarian affairs

What does this mean for the use of MOOCs in contexts of mass displacement? FutureLearn and MOOCs alone will not be sufficient to close the deepening educational divisions left by the Syrian refugee crisis, as it is evident that such targeted interventions require multi-level and multi-stakeholder support and collaboration in order to maximize this provision and deliver the holistic support needed by such populations.   

Programmes such as PADILEIA are fundamental in stringing together a wide range of stakeholders, with a variety of complex strengths, capabilities, and opportunities to reach the most vulnerable and displaced members of society. While barriers remain, the success of MOOCs in international projects such as PADILEIA, however, suggests that MOOCs will continue to play a greater role in humanitarian affairs in providing free access to education to those most in need. The way in which they are deployed, supported, and augmented by wider targeted international efforts and initiatives, however, must continue to be honed and refined over time. We are likely to see increasingly closer and more diverse forms of collaboration between private sector, government bodies, higher educational institutions, and non-profit organisations, in the wider quest to transform access to education for all, where MOOCs will undoubtedly continue to play a key role in achieving this.

* Based on an optional anonymised online survey on learner beneficiary status.

** Based on an optional anonymised online survey on learner satisfaction.

Category Research insights

How the University of York is using FutureLearn to support students and staff

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Author: Iain Barr, Head of Lifelong Learning/E-learning and MOOC developer at University of York

The University of York combines the pursuit of academic excellence with a culture of inclusion, which encourages everyone – from a variety of backgrounds – to achieve their full potential. Since 2017, York has worked in partnership with FutureLearn to help further this mission by offering a range of online courses, allowing people all over the world to study with leading academics to explore a new subject area or prepare for higher education. 

Designed by York academics, our online courses cover a wide range of subject areas, from nursing and the criminal justice system to modern sculpture and digital wellbeing, and we have seen over 100,000 enrolments across 15 different courses since the start of our collaboration. 

However, over the past few months, the COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the education landscape and online learning has become an essential tool for students and educators across the world. The entire sector has adapted quickly to ensure that students are still able to access a high quality education. The University of York has faced many of the same challenges, but like many of our peers, we’ve also been taking steps to adapt. Here’s how we’ve worked with FutureLearn to do so: 

Transitioning to university, online 

Earlier this year, we launched a new course on FutureLearn aimed at any students about to make the transition to university. ‘Next Steps to University’, helps students gain an insight into life and study within higher education and provides tips on how to make the most out of this experience. This course offers students the opportunity to prepare for and look forward to entering higher education. The pandemic has changed the traditional transition into university, which makes courses such as these a crucial way of engaging students before they begin learning in September. We have already seen that this course has helped prospective students get excited about starting university for the first time.

To support our prospective students, we are also offering exclusive online courses on FutureLearn designed to help students to feel part of York’s learning community before they arrive on campus. These courses will run over the summer, and content is tailored for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. It’s also part of a wider package we have to support new students and offer them meaningful engagement with the University, which is crucial at this time of uncertainty and self-isolation. 

FutureLearn Campus 

We’re also delighted to have signed up to FutureLearn Campus, an offering that provides the University of York community with upgraded access to our short courses on the platform until at least the end of September 2020. 

Through FutureLearn Campus, we are also able to open up our courses to not just York account holders, but also students and staff from other leading universities partnered with FutureLearn. As all universities face challenges at the moment, being able to share online materials via short courses is just one way we can collaborate and keep our virtual doors open. 

FutureLearn Schools 

Students of all ages have been impacted by the coronavirus outbreak and although we are a higher education institution, we also wanted to find a way to support school children. The University of York was among the founding partners involved in the launch of FutureLearn Schools, meaning that students aged 13 to 18 whose schools sign up to the initiative have free access to all of our relevant short online courses currently available on the FutureLearn platform. 

The University of York remains committed to opening up access to education for students across the world of all ages and backgrounds and we are proud to continue our work with FutureLearn to build on the foundations already laid. 

Category Research insights

June’s industry round-ups

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Opinion: What predominantly white colleges should say amid Black Lives Matter protests

Courier Journal, 9 June

In this piece Ricky L. Jones points out that companies and universities should not be praised at this moment for simply putting out statements regarding the Black Lives Matter movement as this is “the easy, popular and convenient thing to do right now.” Jones argues that institutions must back statements up with promise of action and says that what is most important is “being honest about where we’ve gone wrong, asking for forgiveness and then attacking the problem with an unparalleled ferocity.”

 

Editorial reporting: Calls grow for black history to be taught to all English school pupils

The Guardian, 8 June

Pressure is mounting on the government to review the national curriculum and make the teaching of black history mandatory for all pupils in schools in England. Campaigners are collecting signatures for an open letter to be sent this week to Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, calling on him to make the teaching of black history compulsory in primary and secondary schools and across a range of different subject areas. The campaign, led by a group called The Black Curriculum, has attracted widespread support in the wake of the recent Black Lives Matter protests, and in light of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on black and minority ethnic groups. The letter states: “Thousands of us, the British voting public, are grief-stricken and concerned about the existing status quo in the UK, which disregards the lives and contributions of black British people.”

 

Editorial reporting: Australian government to build AU$4.3 million online microcredentials marketplace

ZDNet, 22 June 

The Australian government has announced it will spend AU$4.3 million to build and run a one-stop shop online marketplace for microcredentials. According to the federal government, this marketplace will be designed to provide a nationally consistent platform to allow students to compare course outcomes, duration, mode of delivery, and credit point value. Currently, 54 providers have created 344 short online courses. As of June 22, IT short courses are the third most popular offering with 68 courses. “The microcredential marketplace will be a platform for job-seekers to see what skills they can gain by further study to help them get a new job or to get ahead in their current job,” said the Minister for Education, Dan Tehan.

 

New research: Looking Beyond the College Degree

Inside Higher Ed, 24 June

As the pandemic wreaks havoc on the job market, a quarter of American adults say they plan to enroll in an education or training program within the next six months, according to the latest results of a national poll conducted by the Strada Education Network. That share was 37 percent for 18- to 24-year-olds and 23 percent for 25- to 64-year-olds. But the survey also found most of the workers who said they would change fields if they lost their job due to the pandemic (35 percent of all respondents) are more interested in non-degree skills training (62 percent) than pursuing a college degree (38 percent).

 

Opinion: Students are the generation most affected by Covid-19. Universities must respond

THE, 17 June

This piece argues that a substantial challenge for universities across the world in the 2020s will be how they engage with a “Covid generation” who have seen their lives disproportionately disrupted by the pandemic. It argues that universities need to double their efforts to support students and engage them in university planning processes. It claims that higher education should be open to how young people might be able to re-envision universities’ purpose and practices in ways consistent with the new situation.

 

New research: Latest Ucas figures ‘welcome news’ for universities

University Business, 25 June

Enrolment figures released by Ucas will be “welcome news for universities”, the organisation’s chief executive has said, as it was revealed that deferral rates are lower than at this point last year. Applicants had until Thursday 18 June to choose if they wanted to accept an offer to study at university. According to Ucas, the number of applicants that hold a firm offer for an immediate start in September has risen by 1% compared to this point in last year’s admission cycle – 500,340 applicants have confirmed an offer to start their course in September, up from 494,530 at this point last year. The number of applicants choosing to defer their place has fallen by 1% this year. Deferral rates could climb in the coming months, but for now the anticipated drop in student figures has not materialised.

 

Opinion: Covid-19 has ushered in a paradigm shift in upskilling

HR Director, 14 June

This piece argues that rather than press the pause button on closing skills gaps, COVID-19 has created an unprecedented urgency to ramp up upskilling interventions. It also argues that companies that would otherwise be business competitors need to work together with governments and learning providers to deliver public/private-backed upskilling and reskilling opportunities to rapidly get people back into jobs. Accenture recently described this collaboration as building ‘shared workforce resilience’. It claims that before the pandemic, there was demand for professionally-oriented credential offerings such as microcredentials, nanodegrees and coding camps, however COVID-19 has accelerated this. 

 

Category Research insights

How Lauren turned a hobby into a successful IT career

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How Lauren turned a hobby into a successful IT career

My name is Lauren Parker and I am an IT Specialist at Sage Software in Oregon. When I began college a few years ago, I thought I wanted to be a mechanical engineer. After two very difficult terms, despite my best grades being in engineering courses, I discovered that mechanical engineering wasn’t really what I wanted to do and dropped out of school to move home. My very first job was working in a manufacturing facility for a well-known sports brand. When I saw what the engineers did day in and day out, I was sure that this field wasn’t for me.

I had always been interested in IT and was the go-to IT person amongst my family and friends. However, I  had never viewed the field of IT as an option for a long term career. I knew I wanted to work with computers, but I wasn’t sure how. When my mom showed me the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, I was interested, but I didn’t realize just what I could do in IT and how many companies needed it. Upon taking the program, I realized that IT, which I had previously volunteered in and done for family and friends, could be my career. Needless to say, this changed the course of most everything in my life.  Instead of being a hobby that I learned bits and pieces of, it became a skill set I could use in the field. I was able to explore more of what the field actually was, as well as put myself out there as a possible candidate for a new position.  This course helped me with all of those goals, many of which in ways I would never have imagined.

After completing this program, I interviewed with Sage Services in Oregon for the position of Technical Support Analyst. My manager specifically asked about the Google IT Support program in my interview. The certificate helped me make a positive impression and show I was competent. I got the job, and I love it! There isn’t a single person on my team that I don’t love working with, and I am incredibly passionate about the work. I help accountants and IT people install, migrate, and troubleshoot systems issues over the phone. I also was just trained additionally to assist with data issues within the Accounts Payable module. 

I love the feeling of a tricky case being completed, and knowing that I’m helping small businesses succeed.

The company is amazing, and I couldn’t be happier with how this turned out. The certificate improved my hireability and helped me decide that this was the career path that I was interested in.

I am working with an enrollment counselor to begin my Bachelor’s in IT at Western Governors University as soon as I complete my A+ certification. I will be receiving credit towards my degree from this as well as from the Google IT Support Professional Certificate. 

I wouldn’t have gone after this job or degree at all without the Google IT Support Professional Certificate.

My advice to other students taking the course would be to dive all in and be curious. IT is fascinating and always changing, and you can really learn a lot just by being curious. It can be frustrating to try and learn what you need to, and it’s easy to get upset and give up. However, it’s just as easy to find something inspiring about the tech field. Focus on that, and learning about this subject becomes much easier.  At my previous job, I worked twelve-hour shifts, and would be physically exhausted at the end of the day. I worked on the course during my lunches and breaks. Since I loved the subject matter, despite being exhausted, I still felt like it was a break to work on the course. I completed it in just over two weeks. Had I looked at it as another chore or had I not been as determined to complete it as I was, it would have taken me much longer and not been something that I enjoyed as much as I did.

Furthermore, put yourself out there. Even if you don’t see results right away, it never hurts to keep making a name for yourself. You never know. I’m still getting emails about dozens of opportunities that found me from applications from over a year ago!

 

Meet Abu KS – a Contract Publisher based in India

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Meet Abu KS – a Contract Publisher based in India

 

Experts from all over the world apply to publish courses with Alison. In order to meet this high level of demand, Alison employs Contract Publishers who transform expertise and knowledge into high quality courses. Last year, Alison invited 100 Graduates worldwide to train to become Contract Publishers. Abu is one of our Alison Graduates who went on to become an Alison Contractor.

 

 

Abu, tell us a bit about your background before Alison

I hail from Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu, India. I did my undergrad in Physical Education and I then moved on to complete my master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Alagappa University. I then pursued my PhD in the same discipline from Bharathidasan University. I worked as a librarian at Murugappa Polytechnic College, Chennai for nearly four years. At present, I am working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Library and Information Sciences, Central University of Punjab, India. I am also a qualified umpire for the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association.

How did you discover Alison, and what was your experience as a learner?

My PhD topic was concerned with e-learning for library and information science students. I needed to create an e-learning platform to deliver my course content to the target audience and to be able to assess their performance, as well as the effectiveness of the course. I started looking for existing e-learning initiatives across the globe. This is where I came to know about Alison. I fell in love with the interface and started using it to enhance my knowledge on certain topics and skills. As a learner, the interface is well designed and easy to use, the content is specific and the use of multimedia is enriching. As a whole, I would rate this platform highly.

Why did you pursue the chance to become an Alison Contractor?

As mentioned, my PhD topic was related to e-learning and I am a great fan of open access resources because not many people can afford the cost of accessing scholarly content. Hence, when I received the email regarding the chance to become an Alison contractor, I liked the idea and thought I would give it a try. I thought that, if I get selected, I can contribute something beneficial to learners across the globe. This is the least I can do as researcher, teacher and lifelong learner. 

How did you find the remote Contractor training?

To be honest, I thoroughly enjoyed each and every phase of the training. The training was so well planned, starting from the basics of e-learning, an overview of the publishing tool and finally designing a test course that meets the standards of Alison. I enjoyed all the phases and took it one at a time. In the end, I learned a lot about different aspects of e-learning and course designing. 

 

What was the first course you published on Alison?

My first course published on Alison was the Diploma in Effective Writing Skills. I followed the instructions given to me and formatted the contents according to the requirements of Alison.  I have to thank Kieran [Alison’s Instructional Designer] here because this was my first course and whenever I had a query, he was so friendly and would guide me accordingly. This made me feel relaxed and helped me to focus on the course. When the course appeared on the Alison website, I was filled with joy. It came out very well and has a good number of learners enrolled in it.

How has your decision to work for Alison affected your career path?

It has been a dream come true for me. As a researcher and teacher myself, it was a god-send as I learned about e-learning in-depth – the principles to follow while creating e-content and how to use different media to make the course livelier. In this pandemic, most teachers have to resort to the use of online platforms. With the knowledge and experience I gained and am still gaining from Alison, I relish designing online content and online teaching now.

What’s the best part of working as an Alison Contractor?

I have a doctorate in the field of library and information sciences, but I have designed courses on thermodynamics, service marketing and so on. While designing a course outside my discipline, I learn about these concepts. Alison has exposed me to different domains of knowledge and as a library professional, I love that. For me, this is the best part and I’m looking forward to working in more diverse disciplines. 

If you could publish course that would teach the world, or yourself, anything, what would it be?

As a teacher, researcher and library professional, I see different types of learners with diverse information needs. In this digital era, anyone can access information with the help of the internet and most users just rely on Google and Wikipedia. This can result in plagiarism among students and researchers as they lack the knowledge in crediting the owner of the original source. Hence, these are the course I would like to bring into the world: Information Literacy Skills in the Digital Era (The ability to identify, locate, use, and evaluate information); Academic Writing and Search Strategies (The differences between assignments, term papers and research papers. How to search the internet, various types of searching techniques, how to ensure the information is authentic and so on); Plagiarism and Publication Ethics. (Concepts of plagiarism, types of plagiarism, need for referencing and citing, tips to avoid plagiarism and ethical practices of research.)

Commuting, and Confronting History, on a Remote Canadian Railway

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Commuting, and Confronting History, on a Remote Canadian Railway

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, with travel restrictions in place worldwide, we launched a new series — The World Through a Lens — in which photojournalists help transport you, virtually, to some of our planet’s most beautiful and intriguing places. This week, Chloë Ellingson shares a collection of photos from a remote railway in Canada.

In 2015, as I drove through my hometown, Toronto, a radio documentary came on the air describing a remote railway, the Tshiuetin line, that runs through rural Quebec.

Named after the Innu word for “wind of the north,” Tshiuetin is the first railway in North America owned and operated by First Nations people. Its southern terminus, I would soon learn, is about 15 hours east of Toronto by car.

Canada was built by rail. The country’s early railway system was a vital tool for economic growth, but it also abetted Canada’s colonial mission. In addition to carrying goods and services, trains in Canada disseminated disease among the Indigenous communities on whose land this country was built. And while the country’s railroads offered the possibility of expansion to some, for others they were harbingers of forced relocation.

Tshiuetin has a different history. The company operates on the 360-mile line between Sept-Îles, a city on the northern shore of the Saint Lawrence River, and Schefferville, a remote town on the verge of the tundra in Quebec. (Tshiuetin owns 132.5 miles of that track — the stretch between Schefferville and Emeril Junction in Labrador — and manages passenger services for the entire line.)

Schefferville was built by the Iron Ore Company of Canada to facilitate mining in the 1950s. After the closure of the area’s I.O.C. mines in the 1980s, the company had no use for the northern portion of its railway. Since 2005, it has been run by the three First Nations that it connects: Uashat Mak Mani-utenam, Kawawachikamach and Matimekush-Lac John. With a mandated 85 percent Indigenous work force, Tshiuetin is now a symbol of reclamation and defiance for those it serves.

Andy-Greg Jérôme, an Innu employee who joined Tshiuetin in 2012 at the age of 22, said the company gave him leadership experience. “Best thing I did in my life,” he said of his job. “I am proud to work for a local company. I hope that in the future we can have more employees who come from the three communities.”

The combined population of Schefferville and Matimekush-Lac John is around 800, and the Tshiuetin line plays a central role in the community. The passenger train normally completes its round-trip journey twice a week, with its estimated arrival times announced on the local Schefferville radio. (Since the town lies outside the country’s provincial road network, a costly plane trip is the only alternative way in or out.)

During the coronavirus pandemic, the frequency of trips has been limited, and restrictions have been placed on passengers’ reasons for travel.

On any given trip on the Tshiuetin train, most passengers are regulars. Some are heading to hunting grounds — like Stéphane Lessard, whom I met en route to his friend’s cabin, which he has been frequenting for 17 years.

Others are residents of Kawawachikamach or Matimekush-Lac John, near Schefferville, traveling south to appointments, or to shop in Sept-Îles, where goods are less expensive than they are up north.

Passengers might also be setting off on a holiday, with Sept-Îles as a point of departure — like Elayna Vollant-Einish and her family, whom I saw several times on the train, including after a celebratory trip to Québec City to mark her brother Shane’s high school graduation.

On my many trips aboard the Tshiuetin train, I have met passengers like Gary Einish and Cynthia Pien, traveling with young children and equipped for the long day ahead. They bring whatever comforts they need to transform their seats into their own temporary living rooms.

There aren’t exactly formal stops between Schefferville and Sept-Îles; the only passengers who board or depart en route are either railway workers or those who have been at their hunting cabins, and who catch the train at the sides of the tracks. Along the route, the train becomes a sea of patterned sheets and blankets; passengers know the surrounding seats will likely be theirs for the duration of the journey.

“I feel like Kawawachikamach wouldn’t be where it is today without the train,” says Shane Vollant-Einish. “It’s the lifeblood, the main artery for here.”

Shane will soon set off on a cross-country trip to study in British Columbia, on Canada’s West Coast. “The train won’t be as important for me as it used to be. Instead of waiting every Thursday for fresh fruits and vegetables, they’ll be available readily, and instead of waiting over two weeks for mail, it’ll be next day,” he said.

“I guess the train will symbolize how willing we are to live in ancestral lands and walk on the same hills and ice covered lakes as our forefathers did,” he added. “The train always will mean home for me.”

Chloë Ellingson is a documentary photographer who lives in Toronto. You can follow her work on Instagram and Twitter.

The future for education technology in schools: reflections on the Westminster Education Forum policy conference

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The future for education technology in schools: reflections on the Westminster Education Forum policy conference

Author: Isabel Drury, Partnership Manager

According to UNESCO, more than 1.5 billion students and 63 million primary and secondary teachers have been affected by the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Meanwhile in the UK, the Office for the Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast that the education sector would be the hardest hit sector by the coronavirus crisis, leaving the sector worse off than even transport or hospitality. 

Despite these bleak statistics, I was inspired to hear of the innovation, dedication, and optimism of the speakers at last week’s Westminster Education Forum, which examined ‘The future for education technology in England – EdTech strategy implementation, supporting teachers, and learning from the experience of the COVID-19 crisis.’

During the conference, a range of speakers across school, higher education and EdTech settings shared what they had learned from the rapid pivot to online teaching during lockdown, and their hopes for the future. Across a morning of rich presentations, three key themes emerged:

High-quality online learning can be produced at speed

We heard some excellent examples of how EdTech has been used to support home learning in the midst of school closures in the UK. Ian Bauckham, for example, spoke about the establishment of the Oak National Academy, a collective response from teachers to address the ongoing challenges posed by coronavirus. Oak Academy was launched in April and has already amassed 14 million online lessons, from early years all the way up to Year 10, and will provide ongoing support into the next academic year for teachers and school leaders. 

Another example of innovation came from Helen Foulkes, Head of Education at the BBC, who shared her experiences of setting up Bitesize Daily in only 5 weeks. Bitesize Daily offers a range of content including 30 daily lessons on iPlayer for years 1-10, weekly podcasts and parent toolkits. This Bitesize Daily content was designed for pupils to be able to access easily without their parents or carer, after the BBC found that in 2 in 5 households, children were working in a household where adults continued to work from home.

In both examples, teachers provided feedback that it was necessary to have more advanced notice of the content, so that this could be factored into lesson plans.

Schools need support in deciding which EdTech solutions are right for their setting 

Alongside the recent surge in interest in EdTech, there was much debate across the forum about the need for evidence and evaluation of the growing number of EdTech platforms and providers. 

Professor Cathy Lewin, who co-authored an evidence review of ‘Using Digital Technology to Improve Learning’ at Manchester Metropolitan University, shared some insights from her research into the efficacy of online learning. One interesting finding was the importance of teacher presence in remote learning for effective learning outcomes, which was reinforced with anecdotal evidence from the Oak Academy that this visual presence of the teacher was particularly important for younger learners, even if the pupil had never met the teacher in a classroom setting before.

The forum also heard from Dan Sandhu, Chief Executive at Sparx, about the newly formed EdTech Evidence Group (EEG). The EEG seeks to provide schools with advice about factors to consider when investing in EdTech, as well as to provide an evidence-based approach to EdTech. This was complemented by a presentation by Toby Baker about NESTA’s EdTech Testbed, which offers schools and colleges a toolkit to test and evaluate EdTech resources, developed in partnership with the Department for Education. 

EdTech has a role to play in narrowing educational attainment

Lord David Willetts, chair of the forum, challenged the sector to consider how EdTech could be used to support school or college leavers this summer. In the context of a widening attainment gap, Lord Willetts emphasised the urgent need to provide support to young people on the cusp of leaving education for an uncertain jobs market, for example by providing a few months’ more educational support online. 

Indeed, we heard of the real challenges schools face in supporting pupils to study at home. Emma Darcy, Director of Technology for Learning at Denbigh High School, highlighted that many children did not have access to their own laptop or desktop in order to learn from home.

There was also much discussion about how school settings could change for the better as a result of the recent upheaval. Tony Cann CBE, founder of Learning by Questions, presented a vision of a future where teacher time is not spent marking work, but instead is freed up for quality student interaction and support. 

Overall, while there were significant challenges for schools and parents in adjusting to remote teaching, the forum provided much optimism for the future of EdTech as a force for good. Overwhelmingly, there was a sense of recognition that a national fall-back plan was needed to support long periods of blended learning, and the past three months are a great testament to what can be achieved in a short space of time to support teachers, parents and students alike.

Category Research insights
Related to BBC, FutureLearn, Edtech, online learning, Westminster Education Forum, Isabel Drury, Oak National Academy, Helen Foulkes, Dan Sandhu, Sparx, Lord David Willetts

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