The winners of the Charity Learning Awards 2015 were announced late last week, with inspirational stories of creating resources with little or no budget, and a clever use of blended resources catching the judges' eyes.
Every year the Charity Learning Awards judges are more than impressed with the stories of creativity and determination that entrants have used to create learning resources on a shoestring budget. But in this year’s submissions, two stories of creating ‘more for less’ really shone:
Stella O’Neill at CRI (the Crime Reduction Initiatives charity) was faced with a seemingly impossible task: with no budget for resources and a tight, two month deadline she had to ensure that 3,000 staff were compliant in information security. In a great example of collaboration, with practical help from mentors and support from the eLearning community, she created a module which scooped the prize for ‘Best eearning programme.’
Also with no budget, Nicola Tyzack from the National Autistic Society used her imagination to create a multimedia mix of online resources to engage and support elearners. Judges of the Charity Learning Awards 2015 were so impressed by her results, the charity won the award for the ‘Best use of resources’. The National Autistic Society also won the award for the ‘Most effective use of Moodle for blended learning’, after seamlessly integrating the online Toolkit for Managers into the charity’s learning management system, to great effect.
Other award winners also showed their prowess in using, creating and marketing elearning, to engage with learners and achieve demonstrable results:
Laura Skilton helped create an engaging elearning activity at Cats Protection, which is helping the UK’s leading cat charity save vital resources, empower staff and help meet the organisation’s vision. The short eLearning activity achieved all of that, and won the Charity Learning Award 2015 for the ‘Best elearning module design’.
At Shaw Trust, the UK’s largest provider of employment services for disabled and disadvantaged people, Anand Yagnik has established eLearning as an invaluable means of engaging hard to reach customers. The charity’s blended approach, which includes coaching and one on one assessment, also uses eLearning to successfully support its clients into the workplace. The charity won the award for ‘Organisational buy-in: Raising the L&D profile.’
Martin Baker, founder and CEO of the Charity Learning Consortium was full of praise for the efforts of everyone who took part: “It’s great to see our members really making a difference, with demonstrable results, not just in engaging staff but by changing their behaviours. Congratulations to all our winners, huge thanks to everyone who submitted an entry, and kudos to all the unsung eLearning heroes out there who don’t get the recognition they so richly deserve.”
This year's Charity Learning Awards 2015 winners:
- National Autistic Society - won two awards, one for 'Best Use of Resources' and the other for 'Most Effective Use of Moodle for Blended Learning'
- CRI – Best elearning programme
- Cats Protection – Best elearning Module design, a silver award was presented to Addaction
- Shaw Trust – Organisational buy-in: Raising the L&D profile, A silver award was also given to CRI.
The Charity Learning Consortium enables cost effective, quality eLearning to be offered to more than 500,000 staff and volunteers across the third sector in the UK – engaging staff that more traditional learning & development may not reach
