Students and staff at City of Wolverhampton College have been using the college’s current shutdown to improve their digital skills.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the college closed its doors on Friday 20 March and, as well as all lessons now being delivered online, students and staff have been encouraged to develop their digital skills through the Duke of York’s national Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (iDEA) programme.
The scheme aims to equip people with digital and enterprise skills to help unlock their potential and inspire them for their future careers, with participants completing individual online challenges to earn digital badges. Each badge carries a number of points and, when participants reach certain thresholds, they receive bronze, silver or gold iDEA awards.
Latest figures, covering the period from 18/3/2020 to 27/4/2020 show that the college’s students and staff have earned a total of 1,234 digital badges in a range of areas including cyber security, online safety, social media, digital research, animation, graphic design, and video editing.
Conrad Taylor, e-learning manager at the college, said: “Our iDEAs programme means that all students and staff have the opportunity to develop skills and confidence to use technology effectively, which will enable them to live, learn and work in a digital society.
“They have the opportunity to develop their digital skills no matter what qualification they are studying or what role they have within the college and it’s really encouraging to see that so many have been embracing this opportunity during the current shutdown.”
In May 2019, the college was awarded Pioneer status by the iDEA scheme in recognition of its commitment to ensuring students have the necessary digital skills to be successful in the future.
The college is currently accepting applications for full-time and part-time courses starting in September, as well as free online distance-learning courses that people can complete at home. Apply here
