A strategic approach to developing e-learning capability for healthcare

Objectives: This article examines a strategic approach to developing e‐learning capability to enhance learning opportunities for the workforce of a healthcare organization. Emphasis is given to the procurement of a bespoke Managed Learning Environment (MLE). Strategic organizational issues impacting on future e‐learning developments are considered. Methods: The 2‐year implementation plan was evaluated through a two phase external research project. The first phase focused on the effectiveness of a training programme designed to build capacity for e‐learning within the Northern area and also included a virtual learning environment usability study which informed the MLE specification. The second phase evaluation is ongoing during 2005 and interim findings are presented. Results: The MLE has been piloted and on‐line learning packages have been acquired. There has been a phased take‐up of e‐learning opportunities and e‐tutor training. Some virtual Communities of Practice have been established. Key organizational issues have been identified and ongoing findings are informing strategic planning. Conclusions: The healthcare MLE is offering enhanced learning opportunities and assisting area healthcare providers in training their dispersed workforces. Blended learning strategies are most successful. The need for protected time for e‐learning is a key issue, financial savings are available. Progress has been slowed by identified organizational constraints—the MLE's benefits are widely recognized.     

Disability and the restructuring of welfare: the problem of partnership with parents

Parent Partnership Services are now required in every local education authority (LEA) in England and Wales. Research has documented parents' experience of dissatisfaction when engaging with services responsible for providing for children's special educational needs, and differences in priorities and assumptions between parents and professionals. Analysis suggests that Parent Partnership Services have the potential to make the system work in a more understandable, friendly, respecting and involving way for parents. Evidence is drawn from interviews in Newby LEA with 24 parents and both LEA and voluntary agency Parent Partnership Officers. However, tensions and assumptions were identified that suggest a limit to authentic partnership possibilities. The political nature of the discourse of partnership continues to be ignored. There remains little awareness of the need to negotiate the meaning of partnership. Partnership was assumed to be ‘good’, with little understanding of the need to work in ways that avoided its potentially disempowering effects. Parent Partnership Officers represent a further tier of ‘professionals’, which for some parents remove them from those who are the decision-makers. Parent Partnership Services remove from schools the arena of parent partnership when a child is undergoing statutory special needs assessment. Such services move this area of partnership into a space between schools and the LEA—which may distance responsibility of schools to take seriously the need to engage with parents as partners.     

Current conceptions of literacy – insights from work with children and older learners with sensory needs

There have been many efforts to conceptualise literacy, both in terms of its essence and component parts, but it has proved difficult to define. This paper considers work that is undertaken with children and older learners with sensory needs in order to promote the early stages of literacy. Recent government initiatives aimed at fostering literacy development have caused teachers of children with sensory needs to re-examine their practice. The paper discusses early literacy as part of children's attempts to communicate and describes children with sensory needs engaging in a range of activities that are termed 'literacy' by those working with them. By taking into account these activities, the authors endeavour to throw light on the broader questions around concepts of literacy.