JISC RSC Northern e-Learning Group Meeting - 1st November

The JISC RSC Northern e-Learning Group meet each term.  This year I am chairing the group.  It is a very easy group to chair because all the hard work is done by the great people at RSC Northern and I just come along on the day and chair the actual meeting.  The membership is made up from representatives of the colleges and universities in the area.  It is usually eLearning technologists from the colleges i.e. Middlesbrough, Redcar, Stockton, Darlington, Darlington QE Sixth Form, Bishop Auckland, Hartlepool, Sunderland, Newcastle, South Tyneside etc.
We usually have a couple of demonstrations at the beginning.  This time it was an Interactive Whiteboard demo by Polyvision which was interesting as it is quite different to Promethean.  Then a presentation of an eLearning course by Newcastle College.  The best part of the meeting is when we go round the table and everyone contributes with what is happening at their institution and any new developments.  It is really good to share good practice and to find out what works and doesn't work and get suggestions for new ideas.  There is some overlap obviously but it is not the case that everyone is doing everything differently nor that everyone is doing the same.
The meeting was held at Hartlepool College - we go round the region and hold it at a different place each time.  Hartlepool have a new build which has just opened in September.  It is really great, not as big as Middlesbrough College but similar in some ways although it didn't seem as busy with students as us.  The LRC/library is now called the Learning Core which was good but split on three levels and you have to go out of each floor to get to the next.  We had a tour of the college including the vehicle workshops and the aircraft workshop!