Pioneers become Wakelet Student Ambassadors

A pioneering group of students have become the first at Bradford College to complete a new course developing digital and leadership skills.

English for Speaker of Other Languages (ESOL) students have celebrated at a special ceremony. The event honoured their success in the Wakelet Student Ambassador Programme.

The 18 Entry Level 3 students have each earned the Wakelet Student Ambassador certificate and badge. 

The successful students

Students achieving the award were: Dermosesian Maryam, Leena Sadiq, Usman Ghani, Malaika Ikram, Humza Muhammad, Mariam Khakhel, Ilona Vasilachi, Rukhma Khaqan, Muhammad Ali, Minh Tuan, Ramadan Salih, Zeeshan Ahmed, Hani Mergany Ahmed Naser, Tanees Sattar, Sudes Iqbal, Senda Zigova, Daniel Chetroi and Fatima Ashraf.

The Student Ambassador course helps students gain valuable digital citizenship skills to enhance their future prospects. A wide range of exciting activities and tasks are embedded in the course. These enable them to gain Wakelet badges to help them track their own progress and increase motivation in learning. 

The course aims to:

• Improve key digital skills within students and promote awareness and the benefits of digital citizenship. 
• Enable them to use digital tools and Wakelet to demonstrate critical thinking skills. 
• Allow educators to enrol their students onto the Wakelet course to improve their autonomous skills, digital and citizenship skills
• Help students become great student leaders
• Build teamwork relationships in class and online  

The lessons and tasks combined face-to-face instruction and tools such as Microsoft Teams. Seima Mahmood, an ESOL Lecturer and a Digital Champion, said: “I would like to express my gratitude to the IT team at Bradford College, especially Fraser Wight who allowed Wakelet to be set up and have accounts on MS Teams. The course ran smoothly due to having an easy access to Wakelet classroom. This allowed me to monitor and review students’ work.” 

Gaining confidence

There were six tasks for the students to complete, equipping them with modern, dynamic learning skills.  Seima added: “Having digital literacy skills is always essential. However, blended learning has become even more important now than ever, due to the pandemic and lockdown. Digital skills allow students to have the ability to navigate through various digital platforms, explore a variety of digital tools and apps to improve their learning and communicate through them. Eventually, students will become better digital citizens!”

Paul Richardson from the Learning Teaching and Assessment Department (LTA) who attended the award ceremony said: “The Wakelet Ambassador programme has been a fantastic opportunity for students to demonstrate both their digital skills and creativity, whilst better preparing them for future learning and/or employment” 

All ESOL Entry Level 3 students were extremely proud of their achievement. One said: “The award would make a real difference to their future prospects. It has helped me to gain confidence and explore any digital tools and apps to improve my own learning”.

New ways of learning

Francesco Angrisani, Curriculum Area Manager for the Adult and Community Department, commented: “It’s great to see ESOL students exploring new digital apps and engaging in their learning. Completing short digital courses which involves blended learning is certainly beneficial for all students and will equip them for future studies and employment.”

Monika Worthington, an ESOL Lecturer and a Digital Champion who is also using Wakelet in her teaching and learning, stated: “My students were extremely motivated after witnessing the award ceremony. It has definitely inspired them to be the next Bradford College candidates to complete the Wakelet Student Ambassador Course.”