Using Technology to Support Tourism and Events

Using Technology to Support Tourism and Events taking Level 4 Communication is an entry level course that feeds into courses in Tourism, Events and Business.

This is the second time Stephen Welsh has taken the class after having a very successful first run through last term (the first time the course was run). Stephen sat down with Kirsty-Anne Nicholson (Travel and Tourism Lecturer) at the beginning of semester one to look at ways the students' communication work could be contextualised.

One of the outcomes for their Tourism course was to produce a factsheet on a tourist destination. Kirsty-Anne provided them with a list of 13 research questions to find out relevant facts about St. Andrews which would provide the basis of the factsheet. After having completed a formative report with Stephen, he asked them to take the research they had done with Kirsty-Anne and turn the information into a factsheet that would work as a guide for tourists visiting the town, focusing on the relevance of the content, clarity of language and practicality of layout.

Last time round the students submitted their factsheets to Kirsty-Anne on their own, but the first drafts needed a lot of work. Many of the class are not native English speakers and so there was a lot of tidying up of grammar and work on clarity of expression needed - so this time round they agreed that they would complete a final draft with Stephen. It was decided that he would collect them in and then pass them on to Kirsty.

Hopefully this will make her job a bit easier! It's been a great learning experience for Stephen and the students as having them do the research with Kirsty-Anne has freed up a session for him which has allowed him to focus more on issues of grammar and writing in a foreign language he would not usually have as much time to go into. They're just finishing up their final drafts at the moment, and so far both lecturers are very pleased with the results. The brief is noted below for reference.

Task 2: Produce straightforward but detailed written communication

You are required to produce a factsheet about St. Andrews. This should be aimed at visiting tourists who need information about the area. Think about:

·         The kind of information you should include (see below)

·         The kind of language you should use

o   how formal or informal should it be?

o   Should it be kept simple or can it be more complex?

o   Should it be straightforward and informative or more interesting?

·         How it should look – use of pictures and layout on the page

·         How the information should be organised – should you use headed sections?

The total number of words must be at least 300.

You should have prepared notes in your tourism class using the questions overleaf.

To pass the assessment for your Tourism class, you must include the following information:

·         Brief description of St Andrews

·         Transport to St Andrews

·         Description of a couple of tourist attractions and the appeal of St Andrews

·         Include a couple of photographs.

Feel free to include further information if you would like to.

Note: When your work is marked, it is likely to pass the assessment for Core Skills Communication Level 4 if it:

·                    presents the essential information and ideas in logical order

·                    uses a suitable structure

·                    is written in a way that suits your purpose and your expected reader

·                    uses mainly accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar

Researching, reflecting and reviewing within the HNC Applied Science cohort

All members of the teaching team are keen to embark on new challenges within the curriculum and this semester we were asked to teach a new SQA HN Unit entitled 'Presentation Skills in Science' to the HNC Applied Science students. It has been a number of years since we have serviced this Unit and as the lecturer timetabled for the job I was keen to find out more about the task in hand. The unit is split into four sections: 

• Produce a scientific laboratory report
• Edit scientific text
• Produce a scientific poster
• Deliver an oral presentation on a scientific topic

This post concerns the fourth outcome, where learners  were asked to deliver an oral presentation lasting no shorter than 5 minutes on their progress in the Graded Unit with Keith Hoisington, SL within the Science section.

Students were asked to structure their talk using the following guidelines from the brief Keith and I devised:

Slide 1 – title slide (this will include your name, title of your Graded Unit project, date of delivery)

Slide 2 – structure slide (this should state what each section of your talk will be about)

Slides 3-7 -  the amount of slides will be variable depending on the focus of your talk but should include the following headings: a clear overview of what your project is about, why you chose the topic, what you knew about your topic before you started the project, what you have found out in your research, what sources of information you have been using and a clear outline of what you intend to do for the remainder of the project (content, resources and timeline).

Slide 8 – conclusion (bullet point 3 or 4 points you would like to re-emphasise)

Slide 9 – a slide with the heading ‘what I have learned’. This could include info on subjects such as difficulties encountered with research, problems encountered, time management strategies, content based etc.

Slide 10 – sources used (this is important and if you are noting websites, please ensure that you include the hyperlink as we may ask you to see this in the q and a session)

Slide 11 – thank you for listening. Do you have any questions?

I held a series of meetings with Keith who was extremely helpful in providing ideas to cement the 'science based' learning and we were keen to ensure that the students were not only reviewing what they had done, but what they still had to do to ensure their Graded Unit work was on track. I was impressed with the level of work produced from the students and as way of preparation for the summative work the students were given a series of oral presentation classes covering a variety of 'nuts and bolts' type learning, as well as evaluating recorded talks as well as delivering a series of formative presentations which certainly helped their delivery. I ensured that all students received feedback from me, from their peers as well as self reflecting on their performance, balancing the good with providing an agenda to improve for the summative delivery. To help the students I constructed a mock talk about my own learning which the students found helpful and those slides as well as a couple of student presentations can be seen below as way of example.

The following themes were fedback to the stduents after their presentations:

• Reflecting on thier time management and organisational skills as well as their research methodology is VERY important
• This brief was devised to strike a balance between what they did know, didn't know, what they now know and how they processed the info and dealt with problems.
• These skills are of great import if students have aspirations to study at University.

I have used the D2L to reflect on the classes we have had and the collegiate approach shown by Keith and Joanne (Mitchell) has been very helpful to the learning process so far. Students are quite clear what is being expected of them, how it will be of benefit to them and see very clearly that the three lecturers are working together harmoniously. Now all I have to do is figure out what a scientific poster is and work some magic around the structuring and purpose of that for the next assessment and we will be on track for further success!

Graded unit exemplar presentation

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Student Exemplar #1

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Student Exemplar #2

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Vocational oral presentations on 'home turf'

As part of the curriculum for the NQ Sports and Exercise students we are working on the 'Oral Presentation Skills' Unit. One of the assessments is to plan for and deliver a talk which provides information and/or instruction. When I discussed this brief we looked at possible topics related to their vocational area that the students could talk about.

Some students wished to deliver their talks in the classroom using PowerPoint and those topics were on the following broad subjects: nutrition, how to take a corner at football, first aid focusing primarily on the recovery position, tumbleturns, the rules of dodgeball, trampolining techniques, the rules of flag football, the kayak roll, how to putt successfully, touch rugby rules, kung fu techniques and free kick taking.

Five of the students wanted to present their talks in an environment where they felt very comfortable and this was identified as the Games Hall. The final five talks covered the following subjects: cover drive techniques in cricket, volleyball smashes, taking free kicks, badminton smashes and penalty kick techniques. In these presentations the students were not reliant on PowerPoint but rather, they were able to physically demonstrate their techniques, involving everybody in attendance whilst still adhering to clear structure.

Student feedback was delivered to all students verbally and the feedback from the learners themselves was very positive. Learners identified that both methods could be equally successful and the final scoreline was 17-17. That's 17 students sat and 17 students passed! Below is an example of one of the PowerPoint presentations and also some photos that were taken in the Games Hall.

Kayak Roll - instructional talk

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Sixty second pitches and how learners evaluate their skills

Sports and Exercise students were given a chance to speak for 60 seconds on what makes them a good student as part of an exercise in their Oral Presentation Skills classes and what follows are the words and phrases that they came up with. Pretty impressive I'd say:

appetite for learning, enjoyable classes, cope well, passed all assessments so far, competitive, developing my communication skills, bring so much to the class, ideal student, hard working, achiever, represent at a high level, first person to..., aspire, confident, coaching experience, helping young people to progress, passed everything and keen to learn more, up for a challenge, well behaved, ever present, pay attention in class, show respect at all times, offer new ways to do things, ask questions, good communicator, effective presentation skills that can be improved further, voluntary work, captain of the college football team, adaptable, keen on theory as well as practical elements of the course, need to work on prioritisation, eager to seek new goals, got 100% in the mystery shop at my work twice, excellent timekeeping skills, reliable at all times, have a desire to progress to the HN level and realise my potential, smart, industrious, enjoy the classes and SCE in general, passionate, achieved my level 3 SFA coaching badges, maturity, leadership skills, dignified, never missed a Communication class, charitable work.

Wonderful words and music to our ears by the way!

Presentation karaoke and a 60 second pitch!

Sports and Exercise students are currently enrolled on the 'Oral Presentation Skills' Unit and we have been looking at ways for learners to present and think differently. To this end, a series of slides were put together for the students to try and talk on an unknown subject. Effectively they were stepping up to the plate and delivering a short 60 seconds pitch where they had to give a structured talk mentioning the two words on the screen. The topics were a mixture of sports, health, citizenship and vocational ideas and the students enagaged enthusiastically and performed really well. Ali in the Sports Faculty gave me a few pointers on the anatomical side of things and this will most definitely be used again next session. The onus was on structure, articulation, projection and timing. The slides are attached below.

Presentation karaoke!

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February round-up of GP from the team

Stephen has been incorporating group reading and textual analysis team work into lessons his English class. It was suggested that Joyce could lead a staff development session on this participatory exercise some time in the future.

Madeleine has been using YouTube successfully with her HN Complex Oral Presentation Skills class for developing some of the more technical aspects of delivery.

Isobel has also been using YouTube to show famous speeches to her COP class, which has proved successful for developing analysis skills.

Mark is producing magazines with his CPC classes and noted the wide range of topics that students have chosen for their articles. Mark and Stephen are also contributing articles to the magazines. One of Mark's articles will be on the topic of why he believes the voting age should be lowered in the UK.

Mark and Scott are planning to use the sports hall and weights gym to assess presentations delivered by Sports and Exercise students for the Oral Presentation Skills unit.

Mark has found the integration of assessments with the Presentation Skills in Science unit valuable.

Caroline has been using recorded presentations delivered by the TV and Broadcast Production class for assessment.  These presentations are an existing aspect of their course and are delivered in the lecture theatre.

Scott reminded the team about the past paper questions for Higher English that have been organised by genre and which are saved on the S Drive in the Higher English/Exam folder. These have been particularly useful for preparation for the prelim. In relation to this, Deborah pointed out that there are good resources on the SQA website aimed at students to provide guidance on exams.

Current affairs, interesting articles and adapting themes for the classroom

The team are very keen for students of all levels to engage with topical subjects and they are used in many ways, from discussions to essay titles and informative report writing to oral presentation delivery. This may be of a formative and/or summative nature. A few recent subject areas with the newslinks are noted below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16415584  - networking as a core skill?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16089232 - 2011: The year when a lot happened!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16119375 - after the fame has gone...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-16177725 - trouble on the train.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16076471 - inquiry into 'unfair' exam advice.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15619543  - how did people get so 'disgusted'?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-15171830 - University of Wales degree and visa scam exposed by BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15253215 - fonts as the new handwriting?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15060411 - understanding financial words and phrases.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15066957 - has the iPod made us anti-social?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-15063136  - SQA figures show exam cheats let off with warning