POCKET

This week was focused on getting the board meeting action points completed and the relevant documents sent out.

The meeting minutes were typed up and formatted to the University of Derby standards and submitted for review before circulation.

The Consortium Agreement was amended and submitted to Julie Stone so the legal team could look over the document.

The project plan was revised and any external revisions were chased up to allow the final version to be completed.

The visits highlighted as urgent at the project board meeting were arranged and necessary travel arrangements confirmed. I will be travelling down to Exeter on the 30th January to meet with Mike Jeffries and Maarten de Laat. A meeting with Tina Wilson and Patrick McAndrew at the Open University was also confirmed to discuss the process guide document and the proposed staff workshop.

A project journal document was also created acting as a timeline establishing key milestones and encompassing all relevant documents such as meeting minutes and JISC deliverables. This was created to both support this online journal and be used as a guide when writing progress reports for the project.

The week began with a visit to the Open University site in Milton Keynes to meet with Patrick McAndrew and Tina Wilson, the main points of contact for the project. We discussed the project plan and drew up a number of revisions for me to action before the board meeting.

We also identified the need for an Open University led workshop for all the partner institutions to learn about the current Open Learn processes and this was proposed for mid February 2008.

The first board meeting was held on Tuesday 8th January and as nearly all board members were present, the meeting went very well. The Consortium Agreement was presented and discussed, and on the grounds of revisions being made, formally adopted by the board. The project plan was also reviewed and again it was agreed that minor revisions were to be made.  It was agreed that the board would recieve the revised documents within a week and I left the meeting with lots of action points. Overall I was very pleased with how everybody contributed at the meeting and it was great to finally meet all the board members.

On the Wednesday I attended the University of Derby BDCG Meeting and delivered two short presentations on The POCKET and E-APEL project. As my first real experience of presenting at the University I felt it went very well and I recieved lots of good feedback about the POCKET project in particular.

I had a number of important meetings with the finance department at the end of the week and worked with them to prepare the finance forecast for the POCKET budget next year. This involved contacting all the partners regarding upcoming invoices and informing the finance department of all anticipated expenditure.

I also finished writing the Learning Technologist job specification and ended the week making sure all the necessary paperwork was completed and handed it in to the head of department for approval.

This week was spent mostly catching up on emails recieved over the christmas holidays and confirming details at the University of Derby for the board meeting.

I recieved the additional documents from Patrick McAndrew at the Open University and revised the project plan accordingly. I prepared the documents for the Open University visit and confirmed the meeting time with Martina Wilson.

I spent the remainder of the week contacting board members to confirm their attendance at the upcoming board meeting and circulating any required documents. I also began to prepare two powerpoint presentations for the upcoming BDCG meeting.

Christmas Vacation - Merry Christmas!!!

Monday began with my driver training at the University of Derby, which thankfully went very well and I am now able to utilise the pool cars for any necessary project travel.

I had my first meeting with David Young, Head of Flexible Learning at the University of Derby to discuss the project and also to properly introduce myself.

On Tuesday I had my official settling in review with Dave O’Hare and we discussed the project and my role in more detail. I now feel much more aware of my responsibilities and it was agreed that I had settled in to my new role well.

I recieved the project plan back from Andrew McGregor at JISC and after reviewing his feedback, made the necessary revisions to the plan. His comments also provided me with some discussion points to address at the first board meeting.

I also spent some time working on the project budget and met with Julie Stone again to discuss this.

I contacted the Open University regarding their input to the project plan document and confirmed this was to be recieved after Christmas due to staff illness. I also arranged a visit to the Open University site for the 7th January 2008, to introduce myself and talk over the quality plan and the evalutor position.

My final task of the week was to create the Learning Technologist post job specification with guidance from Dave O’Hare, which I left with Dave to take to a meeting with Neil Williams to discusss.

After careful consideration it was decided to reschedule the first POCKET board meeting to the 8th January 2008 . This was decided as the contant developers at the University of Derby were unable to make the original date and it was greed that their presence was crucial at the first meeting.

This week was spent mostly attending events such as courses and meetings.  On Tuesday I attended the JISC workshop held at Aston University on “Using Technology for Effective Project Communication”. The workshop gave me lots of ideas on how to maximise communication within the project and I found it both helpful and very informative. It gave me the confidence to create this project blog and develop my own communication strategy.

Later in the week I attended a University of Derby Staff Development session on “Time Management”. The course again was both very informative and helpful and I left it with lots of practical ideas on how to manage my time better and a promise to myself that I would get my filing system in order.

I also attended my first E-Learning sub commitee meeting, in which I presented a progress report on the project. It gave me a great opportunity to discuss the project with my peers and also gain an insight into other work taking place in this area.

The remainder of the week was spent reorganising the upcoming board meeting and finalising the project plan, which was emailed to JISC for review at the end of the week.