Developing, Using Organising Resources Within the lifelong Learning Sector Essay

1. Understand the purpose and use of resources 1.1 Explain the purpose of resources in teaching and learning Different types of resources are used in lifelong learning process so that the knowledge of the learners can be practiced and their learning can be progressed. The learners’ level of understanding and the areas they find difficult can be assessed and identified by providing them with the resources. Moreover, the learners with learning difficulties can be provided with differentiated tasks and additional support by providing resources. The additional explanations that are not explained by me during the class can be provided to students in detail by giving them resources. Also, a vital role is played by the resources in avoiding bias and in increasing focus in the process of learning. The main advantage of utilizing resources in the learning process is that it will make the learners actively engaged in the learning activity as the tasks provided by the resources are planned interactively. Utilising the resources in the process of learning enables learners to develop their learni ng skills and achievements. Expertise knowledge of the tutors can also be developed as preparing materials for resources provide them training as well as the understanding of effective resource materials that can be used in teaching activity. 1.2 Review the effectiveness of specific resources in meeting individual learning needs in learning and teaching contexts Strengths and individual needs of all learners have to be identified by tutors as a part of their  responsibility and the needs of the learners have to be satisfied accordingly. Learners have to be motivated and encouraged by me so that they can reach their maximum potential in their learning activity and feel inclusive in the learning environment. The weaknesses of each learner have to be identified and I have to help them strengthen their weaknesses by working together with them and support them in their learning progression. Varieties of resources are used in my learning environment in order to make sure that the needs of the learners are met and satisfied. Resources such as interactive whiteboards, PowerPoint presentations, worksheets, textbooks and hand-outs are used in my learning environment so that each learner can get the benefits out of those resources. Using interactive whiteboards and its different features make my learners stay focused and engaged in their learning activity. It draws the attention of all the learners. Certain topics can be understood by reading various textbooks that are provided to my learners. The PowerPoint presentations again draw the attention of my learners and help them understand what they are going to learn in the class every day. The worksheets given to students are a way of assessing whether learners understood the topics and the teaching methods used by me are effective. The learners and peers are always encouraged to provide feedback on my teaching methods and resources so that the effectiveness of my methods and resources can be analysed and developed. Feedback forms are often provided to my learners so that they can express how useful did they find my teaching methods and resources provided. Regularly scheduled standardised meeting are attended in order to cope up with the standards as feedbacks will be provided in these meeting on the effectiveness of the resources I use by internal verifiers and my peers. External sources such as external examiners and verifiers also who come to assess the works of my learners also provide me with their feedbacks and comments which help me to improve my skills. 2. Be able to develop and use inclusive resources 2.1 Review sources which inform resource development A teacher has to also play the role of a resource developer. A resource developer can be referred to a person who is in charge of preparing and developing resources that can satisfy the needs of learners and help them achieve their full potential in their learning activity. The duties and roles that have to be carried out by a resource developer are explained by the figure above. Individual needs of every student have to be identified and plans have to be developed in order to satisfy the learning needs of all learners. The next step is to design the resources according to the individual needs that are identified and deliver those resources to the learners. Once the task in completed by the learners the resource developer then can assess their performance which will automatically enable the resource developed to identify the effectiveness of his resources. According to the information given by Turkish online journal of education technology (2009), two student groups are surveyed where one group of students provided with the lower level of teaching resources while second group of students are provided with the higher level of teaching resources. The surveys identified that the students who are provided with higher level of teaching resources have got muc h more positive outcome comparing to the other group of students. ‘We have found that when technologies are thoughtfully integrated with a sound pedagogical vision, students’ views of teaching and approaches to learning can be positively affected.’ The LeTUS report series (2003) also shows how important it is for the teachers to understand their educational capacities and utilise and organise educational resources in their teaching environment in order to develop an organised teaching environment. It recommends that the teachers should develop and plan resources that help learners to improve their knowledge and skills in various methods rather than developing a ‘one size fits all’ types of resources. Developing resources in such a way helps the teachers to enhance their utility and professional development which will then help them to create a deeper connection with their learners to make them feel inclusive in their learning environment. The advantages of providing personalised resources either via technology or textbooks are shown and proved by many research studies and articles where all of them stress the importance of providing learners with personalised resource documents in order to help them reach their maximum potential. Downloadable resources such as PowerPoint slides, eBooks, worksheets, Podcasts and word documents that can bring many benefits in the learning environment. All these resources have their own advantages and disadvantages. Online downloadable E-journals and article are available instantly and available for free most of the times. Knowledgeable and portable information are provided by the online journals and articles. However, the information provided in these resources will not be reliable if they are not updated regularly. Another resource that can be easily used and accessed is PowerPoint which is portable as well. But, as the information given are in a point based format and brief some students might find it difficult to understand. Especially learners with learning difficulties may not find it useful. E-books are another type of resources that are portable and useful as it is has a feature of audio speaker especially when it is accessed through Kindle. However, the limitations of E-books can be its limited battery life and expensive. There is a chance that the learners might get visual issues when it is used for a long period of time. Worksheets can be downloaded online so that the time spend in preparing new worksheets can be saved and it can be easily adapted. But by easily downloading worksheets online can make the tutors very lazy and the tutors will be demotivated. The worksheets available online might not suite the requirements of learners with learning difficulties. Another problem with downloading worksheets online, it can be time consuming if the tutor has got no proper searching skills in the internet. 2.2 Explain ways in which resources can be adapted to enable an inclusive approach It is important for me as a tutor to analyse and understand the strengths and weaknesses of  each learner and identify their learning needs in order to work together with them and help them overcome their learning difficulties and weaknesses. Learners have to be constantly motivated and encouraged by me in order to make them inclusive in the learning environment and enable them reach their full potential. There were many situations where the learning resources had to be adapted according to the learning needs and requirements of each learner in my class. The resources had to be adapted and differentiated for the learners with hearing impairments, visual impairments and dyslexic students according to their personal needs. The size of the fonts has to be changed to a bigger size, the colour of font can be changed to black and relevant pictures can be used in order to meet the needs of visually impaired students so they can easily follow the slideshows. In order to make my hearing impaired students inclusive in the learning environment the Podcasts can be downloaded for them so they will be able to understand the learning outcomes and lesson plans. Local care coordinators or specially trained and qualified staffs will be carried out some assessments according to the personal circumstances of these kind of students with hearing and visual difficulties (NHS and Community Care Act 1990). Learners with weak written skills will be provided with the voice recorder so their answers can be recorded verbally. A mentor can also be arranged for them to write their work. Specially trained and qualified staff members can also be arranged in order to help them with their learning activities. Another challenge that can be faced in my teaching environment is dyslexic students. First the level of their dyslexic has to be identified and then referred to qualified specialists in order to guide them properly. The resources and their contexts also have to be personalised and modified in order to suite their learning requirements. The resources have to be simple and easy so that they will be able to understand and achieve their learning achievements. 2.3 Design resources, including resources which involve new and emerging technologies, to engage and meet the individual needs of learners in own specialist area Please refer to attached Worksheet and PowerPoint Slides. 2.4 Justify the effectiveness of own design and use of resources to engage and meet the individual needs of learners in own specialist area In order to satisfy the learning needs of my visually impaired, auditoria and kinaesthetic learners, the personalised resources are prepared and designed. Slides are prepared and provided to my learners so that they will be able to effectively follow the lesson and attain their learning targets by the end of the session. Learners who have hearing difficulties and visual impairments can be benefited by the PowerPoint presentations I provide. Lessons can be delivered to the visually impaired learners effectively by the clear and big fronts used in the slides so a clear perspective of lessons can be provided to them. Objectives of the learning sessions can be elaborated and explained effectively by presenting them in PowerPoint slides which will be beneficial to the hearing impaired and audio learners as well. In order to encourage team working skills I provide my learners with pair and group activities which will encourage them to share their knowledge and skills with each other. Group activities also motivate and encourage learners to progress in their learning targets. Personalised and different worksheets are provided to my learners with different learning needs so that I can examine their knowledge and test the effectiveness of my teaching methods. I always keep my students occupied by providing them various activities and tasks. Knowledge and level of understanding of students can be tested and examined by the adapted worksheets provided at the class which will also help them apply what they have learned. 2.5 Employ resources to engage and meet the individual needs of learners in own specialist area Please see set (SOW, Lesson plan, Self-evaluation & assessment observation) and session feedback form 3 Understand how to organise and enable access to resources 3.1 Explain ways in which resources can be classified and stored Learning resources are available in many forms in different sources and formats. There are various ways such as scanning and photocopying available  to reproduce learning resources. According to the different learning requirements of each learner resources will be amended. After amending the resources, tutors can reproduce and save those in the format of PDF or save the audio files in the format of mp3. In order to store these resources carefully a hard drive with a proper password can be used so others will not be able to access it. Ownerships of resources can be owned, reproduced and stored by an individual in different ways which is mentioned clearly in the Copyright Law 1976. Data are stored in variety of formats by different programs. Certain formats of files can only be supported by only certain programs and applications. Usually formats of file can be appeared in 3 letter format such as jpg, pdf, psd, tif, gif, ppt and doc which illustrates the different formats of files. Fi les can be stored in Adobe illustrator in different formats as follows: .ai — Adobe Illustrator, its â€Å"native† format .ait — Adobe Illustrator Template .pdf — Adobe Portable Document Format Although there are variety of file formats available to store resources, PDF can be considered as the most suitable and appropriate file format. PDF refers to Portabe Document Format which can also be called as ‘Paperless Office’. Documents can be developed and transferred without printing each files. In order to create PDF file Adobe Acrobat Reader have to be downloaded which is available for free download in the internet. Both bitmap and vector graphics formats can be represented by PDF file. Any applications can be converted into PDF formats, but unless other users have Adobe Acrobat it is impossible to edit the file. Additional it provides the option to merge files with other formats of applications and it can easily be transferred to the printing machine. Another format that is commonly used is Vector-Graphics. Files can be easily created, saved, transferred, printed and archived in the native format of the illustrator which is .ai. It has to be converted into the f ormat of EPS or TIFF file in order to transfer it to a PostScript Printer or to be able to use in a page layout program. The format that is most appropriate to save images is JPEG which has got best compression ability. Blackboard and Moodle are well-known resources that are widely used in learning environments to redevelop access and upload learning materials. Moodle platforms have got many educational aspects which stress the importance of interactive learning and inclusive learning environment. It is a useful platform for learners to access learning materials that can help in achieving their learning goals. Friendly and supportive user groups are available in the Moodle platform which can help learners to get support in their learning activities lively. Moodle platform is available to view in three different ways which are weekly view, topic view and social view. Combinations of various file formats and scheduling is available in Moodle. Different features such as chat, assignment, dialogue, choice, journals, glossary, forums, workshop, wiki and lesson are available on Moodle for the access of learners. However, it has got some disadvantages as well. The privacy of these platforms is questionable and these are very transparent. Initiative is required in terms of gathering support and it is timely. 3.2 Identify ways of sharing resources with other learning professionals Teaching resources can be considered as crucial tool in the process in teaching and learning. Formation of resources can consume more time and money when trying to connect them and present them with the use of technology. But it is not possible to carry out a teaching process without the use of teaching resources and materials. The learning needs and requirements of all learners are observed and the resources will be prepared and utilised to the maximum in order to achieve the learning targets. In order to reduce the financial burden, the financial costs of all resources can be shared among various teaching institutions. It is very common to share teaching resources between educational organisations, teaching organisations, subject fields, publishers and libraries as it provides benefits to learners and tutors. Mostly teaching resources are shared between various institutions to utilise varieties of resources available. Resources can be shared among professionals using different tech niques such as LAN (Local Area Network), VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), File Sharing and Published Journals. LAN can also be referred as Intranet which is a well-known technique of sharing resources inside the organisations. In  order to share these resources via Intranet, it is not necessary to have internet within the area and it will always have access within the organisation. Computers and systems that are connected in the LAN network will be connected with the same hard drive so that the resources can be accessed easily even without internet. File Sharing is a similar method of sharing resources thus the teachers within the institution can get access to all learning resources regardless whether it is created online or not. As different varieties of resources are available in File Sharing and LAN everyone in the organisations can be benefited by using these platforms. The individuals with learning difficulties will find it very useful as varieties of personalised resources by different resource developers and available instantly. Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) also another technique used to share resources online. It is very easy and convenient to share resources using VLE because all the learning materials and resources will be uploaded in the online portal and learners will be given the access to it which enables them to access the resources anywhere and anytime they want. But it is necessary to have an internet connection to get access to VLE. Another effective technique of sharing resources is through Published Journals. Published resources can be found in many copies whether on a newspaper, blog, textbook or magazine. For some published journal resources only a controlled access is allowed by the publishers. Valuable resources are published and shared in a large amount of numbers where the protection of the sources has not been given the importance it requires. However, this can be considered as very a valuable and useful study aid. 4 Understand legal requirements and responsibilities relating to the development and use of resources 4.1 Summarise legal requirements and responsibilities relating to the development and use of resources Development and use of educational resources need to meet several legal requirements and responsibilities. The current copyright law available in UK is Copyright Act 1998 – The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The owners of the materials will be given the rights to decide in which ways their resources can be used and controlled by other users. Areas such as  public performance, broadcast, adapting, photocopying, renting copies to public and issuing are covered by this act. The owner will be given the right to call himself as Author. When a work is created by an individual and it can be considered as original and a degree of skills will be exhibited then the person will get the rights to acquire copyrights to his work. For example, the creator of a book cannot get the rights to protect the book itself, but the content of the book will be protected by the Copyrights. Another individual will be given the rights to get some idea of some particular book to create his own work, but the content of the book cannot be directly copied or adapted. However, if an individual creates a work as a part of his job, then the copyright cannot be acquired by him, thus the company or employer who hired will have the rights to hold the copyrights of that work. An individual still can have the copyrights for his work when it is created under a commissioned or freelance work, if there is no agreement exists between the individual and the company. Regarding any infringement the proceeding can only be brought by the owner of the work or his exclusive license. Intangible assets such as literary can be obtained with certain rights using Intellectual Property Act. The areas such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, some trade secrets and industrial design rights are included in the Intellectual Property Rights which can be used by individuals and companies in order to protect their work. Majority of the countries put this law in commonplace in the late 20th century although the principles of Intellectual Property Act have been in existence over hundreds of years. Rights of processing the data on public will be determined by the Data Protection Act 1998 which is created by the UK Act of Parliament who makes most of the law in the country. Although the term privacy is not mentioned in the Act, it determines the privacy every individual has to be given with respect to processing the personal data. In simple words, an individual can have the rights to decide to which extent his personal data can be used and processed. Thus, individuals and companies have to comply with this law and keep the personal information confidential when required. Disabled people are protected by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 against discrimination against them related to employment, provision and disposal of good and services and management of premises. This act will decide provision about disables people’s employment and it will also help to  form a National Disability Council. All the above regulations have to be followed when creating and publishing the resources for educational purposes. Regardless of the learning difficulties faced by learners, the resources have to be created in a fair manner. 4.2 Review the implications of intellectual property rights and copyright for the development and use of resources It is both teachers’ and learners’ responsibility to enforce Copyrights Act 1998 and Intellectual Property Rights in the learning and teaching environment. The original authors of each resource have to be mentioned and cited in my work when using information from research materials, books, e-books, articles and journals in order to support my thoughts. The source of the information has to be mentioned briefly in my work and my learners’ work so other users will be able to refer that information when needed. The companies and organisations also have to comply with these laws. Some educational institutions will have the copyrights on their materials and work where their employees created the work and they must comply with existing law. If someone else’s work is claimed as an individual’s own work that will be called as Plagiarism and this is totally not accepted. Various books, journals, e-books and articles are used when creating resources for my tea ching. I always make sure that I have mentioned proper in-text and full referencing for the resources I used in my work. I always stress my learners on the importance of mentioning originality of the resource by citing proper referencing. My own work will be indicated with my name and my organisation’s name when needed in order to show that this resource is created by me or on behalf of my company. The original source of the information must be mentioned even though there are some adaptions made in relation to the learning needs of my students. Furthermore, it is not accepted to share the work with others when it is prohibited. When reading through materials and article to use them in my work it is important to make sure that it is acceptable to use them in my work as some books and resources do not give the permission to use them in others’ work. The permission from the owner of the work has to be obtained before using their resources. 5 Understand how to evaluate own practice in relation to  development and use of resources 5.1 Review the effectiveness of own practice in relation to development and use of resources In my teaching and learning environment resources are considered as valuable tool. Learners can be kept engaged in various class tasks and activities and they can have a clear progression in their learning with the use of appropriate resources. The resources such as worksheets, PowerPoint slides and Interactive whiteboards and used in my teaching environment. I use PowerPoint slide to give my students a view of the lesson objectives and what is going to be taught in class. The slides will be in simple and brief format. Font sizes of my slides are usually kept between 14 to 16. My learners and I find this resource very effective as it is pretty straight forward and convenient. It can be considered as an effective technique of guiding the lesson and explaining the lesson objectives. The knowledge and understanding of my learners can be examined and tested using the worksheets provided at the end of the session. The effectiveness of my teaching methods and techniques also can be assesse d using the worksheets and changes can be made to the way I teach if needed. Most of the students complete the worksheets I provide which indicates that they understand what they are being taught in my class and achieve their learning goals. 5.2 Identify own strengths and areas for improvement in relation to development and use of resources 5.3 Plan opportunities to improve own skills in development and use of resources Action Plan: development of resources (5.2 and 5.3) Strengths Areas to improve: Resources Objectives Methods used to improve By when My learners are always kept engaged by giving them varieties of challenging  activities and tasks Worksheets: For the different level of students in my class room two variety of worksheets have to be prepared for both higher ability learners and lower ability learners Develop the ability to create two varieties of worksheets for higher level of ability students and lower level of ability students. More worksheets can be obtained online and permission can be obtained from owners to adapt those materials in my class which will enable me to differentiate tasks depends on the learners’ needs 10st April 2014 At least one learner task will be included in my teaching session using the interactive white board resource Interactive whiteboard: Group activities have to be planned that can be practiced using the interactive whiteboards rather than providing activities based on whiteboards. To provide the opportunity to work with team so they can interact to share ideas for their own presentations and assignments. Online research can be done on effective ways of using interactive whiteboards to engage my learners in the learning activity and training can also be attended. 30th April 2014 My learners will be always guided properly with the learning outcomes, objectives and summary of the lesson PowerPoint: Lesson objectives have to be broken down to the different tasks that are going to be provided in the class Develop the ability to create tasks effectively for both individual and group activities so they will be aware of what they are learning More time can be spent in creating more slides in my PowerPoint presentations to make sure that all the learning outcomes and objectives are explained to my students 30 March 2014 BIBLIOGRAPHY Reece, I. and S. Walker (2007). Teaching , Training and Learning: A practical guide, Business Education Publishers, Limited Gravells A (2012) Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector London Learning Matters Gravells A & Simpson S (2012) Equality and Diversity in the Lifelong Learning Sector London Learning Matters A Contextual Guide to Support Success in LLN Provision: Embedded Learning. DfES (QIA 2008) Websites http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1995/50/introduction http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ875780.pdf http://www.inquirium.net/people/matt/teaching_as_design-Final.pdf http://laeremiddel.dk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Quality_principles