Banff and Buchan College
Sylvia Beattie, full time hairdressing Lecturer, Banff & Buchan College has been subscribed to SmartScreen since October 2005 supporting Hairdressing, Beauty Therapy and Hospitality qualifications and at present their centre supports a total of 17 tutors and 110 learners...
'We first heard of SmartScreen at the Scottish Education and Teaching with Technology (SETT) conference in Glasgow, and thought it would be good for tutor and student learning and preparation resources. I find the tutor resources on SmartScreen of a very high standard and immensely useful when preparing lessons. The lesson plans, scheme of work, handouts, worksheets etc, cuts tutor preparation time in half. It is also an invaluable resource for tutors acquiring a teaching/learning qualification. I have incorporated SmartScreen when developing ICT packages for students and find it most beneficial in giving the learners interactive material and enabling them to work at their own pace and level. I especially encourage the students to use the section on study skills and presentation and hope to develop this more in the coming year.
So far this year it has taken our staff some time to use SmartScreen thoroughly but we are hoping this will improve next session. To encourage this I am offering staff development sessions within the sector on the usage and benefits of SmartScreen within their working environment, I hope this will further the usage of this resource especially to the tutors who are not so confident with ICT usage. I have seen an improvement in the motivation of students especially when undertaking project work and research.
I have only started using the Tutor Forums and found some useful questions and answers, and will find it especially beneficial when the perming unit becomes optional. I would fully recommend the subscription of SmartScreen to centres, it is very user friendly, excellent value for money and I hope the website grows so as to benefit further areas of learning. I would be interested to see a section on pre-exit guidance - interview skills, CV writing etc'.
Allan Wilson, Curriculum Leader, Motor & Marine Engineering at Banff & Buchan College tells us the benefits derived from using the GOLA system…
Qualifications currently testing using GOLA: Automotive; 9402-14; 4100-01; 4101-01; 4101-02
'The centre first became approved to use GOLA for testing some of our automotive qualifications in May 2003 - we have since tested over 140 candidates using the system.
Online testing using GOLA has assisted our centre in reaching its ILT/ICT targets and means we can now assess our candidates whenever and wherever we want and receive instant results - this has definitely helped in reducing candidate anxiety and means that candidates can sit the test again almost immediately, if they so wish.
The system was easy to implement and administer and has reduced the amount of administration, marking of papers, collating and couriering of scripts proving an excellent time and money saver. We had a few initial teething problems when registering, downloading and uploading tests but these were quickly overcome in conjunction with the GOLA technical support helpline. I would definitely consider using GOLA to assess further qualfications in the future'.