Open College Network Credit4Learning, one of the UK’s national accreditation services for learning and skills, has announced that Gigajam’s Essential Skills Courses for the guitar, bass, keyboards and drums can now be studied to earn credits to gain entry into further and higher education courses.The courses contain learning outcomes, detailed lesson instructions that are supported by ‘how to’ videos by professional musicians; play-along and record software to encourage practice; and Analyser, Gigajam’s eAssessment software. This provides students with a graphical representation of their performances and a score out of 100. Students can then store their Analyser files in a personal e-portfolio.The OCNcredit4learning credits will be awarded to students who complete each Gigajam lesson. Students have to reach a required percentage score for each exercise to gain the credits; and each lesson has been awarded a ‘credits score’ based on the number of hours the average learner would take to complete the lesson. All students have to do is present their performance to the required standard and have certain key exercises witnessed by an approved assessor, who could be their school teacher, a private music tutor, or by submitting performances via webcam to Gigajam.Brian Greene, managing director at Gigajam said: “Gaining accreditation from OCNcredit4learning is a major step forward for us. Studying and learning to play a musical instrument is enough for many students, but giving them the recognition for their hard work that can be put forward for future studies is a great incentive to continue learning. Many of our students are school-based and a number of schools have expressed an interest in some form of qualification or certification from us.” Katherine Gillard, chief executive, OCNcredit4learning said: “We have worked closely with Gigajam to establish the correct levels of attainment. For each completed Gigajam level, students will be able to accumulate 14 credits at the corresponding National Qualifications Framework level. Completion of each level is the equivalent of 140 hours of study recognised by the National Qualification Framework. Students completing all three levels of a Gigajam course will now have achieved 14 OCN credits at each of Entry Level, Level One and Level Two, forming part of the credits required for entry into Further and Higher education.”Schools, colleges and other organisations are able to register for accreditation of the Gigajam Essential Skills courses through OCNcredit4learning. More details are available on schools.gigajam.com or www.credit4learning.com
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