==== please see below a message from JISC====

Dear colleagues,

Digital skills are essential in today’s workplace, as there are few jobs that don’t require these skills, yet employers report a shortage of digital skills. It is therefore vital for teachers to expand the digital skills of their learners.

Building on the highly successful Blended Learning Essentials series of MOOCs, the third course entitled ‘Developing Digital Skills’ has just been launched and will start in October. This course, commissioned and funded by the Ufi Charitable Trust is designed specifically for the Vocational Education and Training sector.

The course seeks to address the digital skills shortage by giving teachers and trainers the knowledge and the confidence to teach the necessary skills to their learners, thus enabling the students to bring much-needed digital skills to the workplace. It also enables teachers to train their learners to manage their digital footprint.

The course also includes examples of tools and apps that can help teachers to develop digital creation skills in their learners. The course covers a wide range of vocational education settings and all kinds of learners, with a variety of expectations and needs. It is based on the needs of employers and on the real experience of how digital skills are being used at work.

As the course takes places entirely online, it is flexible and can be completed at the participant’s own pace. It will be delivered on Futurelearn, the UK’s leading platform for delivering open courses. The course starts on 20 October and is free of charge.

More information: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/blended-learning-digital-skills.

Blended Learning Essentials is a free online course developed by the University of Leeds and UCL Institute of Education, supported by the Association for Learning Technology and funded by the Ufi Trust.

You can contact Blended Learning Essentials by emailing ble@alt.ac.uk, follow it on Twitter @BLECourse and #FLble3.

Best regards,

Sarah