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West Nottinghamshire Wins Beacon Award for Innovation!

By Jay Watamaniuk

BioWare knew it was making something very special and revolutionary when it began development on Neverwinter Nights but we never thought a prestigious award for innovation in education would be among the accolades associated with this game. The creative and enthusiastic Computing Science team at West Nottinghamshire College has crafted Neverwinter into a learning tool that had the educational world talking even before winning one of the top awards in education in the UK. We interviewed Computing Science staff member Nigel Oldham back in October when the buzz had begun on this unique use of Neverwinter Nights.

Nigel Oldham and West Nottinghamshire Colleague Principal Di McEvoy-Robinson share their experiences with winning the Beacon Award and thoughts on the future:

When we spoke last Nigel mentioned you were nominated for a Beacon Award. He described that this is a sort of Academy Awards for education. Can you explain further?

Principal McEvoy-Robinson: Beacon Awards are like the OSCARS for the post 16 Further Education sector. There is a very robust application process, that includes a whole day of being interviewed and interrogated by external assessors. These people judge the standards and ensure that the winners really are offering excellence. Each award is sponsored. Following the application, we were short listed through to the final three colleges. The winners were announced at a national conference for the sector, where over 1000 people are present. It is a great honour to win the award and promote Neverwinter Nights and the Computing Science team. The actual trophy is presented on 10th May 2005 at a national awards ceremony in London. The Secretary of State for Education presents the awards.

You have won the Beacon Award for Innovation. What was the competition like and were you confident you would win?

Principal McEvoy-Robinson: We knew that the Neverwinter Night's development was an excellent product, but we could not guarantee that we would win. The competition is always very strong and there is a great deal of excellent and innovative work happening throughout the Further education sector. After the short listing and our interview we were confident that we had a good chance of getting into the top three. However, not until our success was announced were we able to really take in the fact that we had won. It is fantastic opportunity for the college and especially the Computing team to be recognised for the exciting and innovative work it is doing to help learners achieve and have fun!

What is the effect upon your school or program after this sort of recognition?

Nigel: The College and the Computer Science department have been thrust into the spotlight. The pressure is now on to deliver training to other colleges and roll out the initiative.

On a personal side we get stopped in the corridor and asked for autographs, don't get up till afternoon, and get paid $10,000 a lesson. (Sorry, getting carried away.) :)

The judges informed us we had won the award because of the way we had embedded the initiative in the culture of the learner rather than the curriculum. As you can imagine this is an unusual method of delivering learning that directly targets the interests of the learner.

The Computer Science area has moved our Key Skills delivery method to Neverwinter Nights (NWN) and has been approached by other areas in the College to do the same for them. We are delivering two Key Skills modules to Health and Social Care however the pressure is on to do the same for many other areas.

What are your hopes for the evolution of your program?

Nigel: We would like to see it evolve into more scenarios maybe move into new games. Ultimately we would like to see learning packages released alongside new games so that learners can work on them at college and play them at home.

Are you now drunk with fame and hoping to live like degenerate rock stars?

Nigel: We have been doing that for years.

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