Even though the doors are closed at all South West College campuses today, Tuesday 17th October, due to the aftermath of storm Ophelia, teaching activities at the College will continue throughout the day via the College’s Virtual Learning programme.
South West College is highly experienced in the delivery of Virtual Learning with an annual Virtual Learning Day scheduled for all staff and students for the past six years. This day was ironically scheduled for Wednesday 18th October this year, and was brought forward due to the storm closure.
Michael McAlister, Chief Executive Officer South West College, said;
“Despite the many difficulties that storm Ophelia has caused across the country, management and staff at South West College were determined to provide teaching and learning activities to all students via remote technologies.
This is nothing new for us, with all staff and students well prepared for this type of teaching and learning delivery. Everyone is highly trained in the use of Blackboard Collaborate and the roll out of interactive e-learning activities”.
He added; “I would like to highly commend our dedicated team of staff for their preparation and commitment to the delivery of this programme, not just over the past few days, but also over recent years as we have grown in confidence and ability as this key strategic plan has been rolled out in line with the Department for the Economy’s FE Means Success Strategy.
This policy highlights the importance of adopting international best practice in using flexible approaches in technological advancement to enhance learning, and we as a College are continually striving to achieve this to support and improve teaching and learning across Northern Ireland.
As always students, and their employers who play an integral role in the delivery of many of our courses, remain our number one priority, and we as a College aim to meet their needs through making their educational experience as flexible, enjoyable and engaging as possible.”
During the morning activities alone over 4000 users were logged in and engaged in learning activities, illustrating the strong ethos of virtual delivery and learning present at the College. Last December seven Zambian students graduated from the College’s Virtual Learning programme on a Higher National Certificate in Computing and ICT, further demonstrating the College’s experience and capacity to deliver teaching and learning to the highest standard via remote learning technologies.