icould: Digital career talks

Abstract

icould is a free service for schools and young people featuring over a 1,000 real-life career videos with over 1 million users a year. From accountants to zookeepers, the videos reflect the realities of life and give a first-hand view of jobs and career paths across a wide range of sectors and levels. Labour market information, details about pay, qualifications, and future prospects accompany each video.

Developed in the United Kingdom, icould has particular relevance to UK secondary schools and students but is also available to and used by a global audience.

Resource overview

Website: icould

Teachers can choose the videos that best meet the needs of their students or students can explore the site independently. There are practical guides covering GCSE options; college, apprenticeships or university choices; exams and revision; applying for jobs.

It supports a mix of individual, group, and whole-class learning in careers and subject lessons, as well as form times, assemblies, and careers events. It can also be used with alternative curriculum students.

Videos are around 3-4 minutes long. Each video features an individual talking about their job and sharing their career story straight to camera, in some cases intercut with workplace footage.

Description of technology

icould is an online library of real-life career videos and has over 1 million users a year.

Videos are served on the icould site via YouTube but are also available directly from the icould site for users without YouTube access.

The Labour Market Information (LMI) below each video is supplied by the LMI for All API and is updated automatically as new information is released. Data is matched to the closest available Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code (in some cases this will be a direct match for the job title of the video; in others, data will pertain to a broader category and will be labelled accordingly).

The library is searchable by key words. In addition, tags enable users to explore videos by job type, subject or theme.

How the resource makes career guidance more effective, efficient and/or equitable for students

icould uses the power of personal stories to help young people make choices about their futures. It combines authentic, first-hand insights with practical next steps and encourages young people to explore links between school subjects and jobs, and to find a fresh perspective on careers. It is free of cost to practitioners making it equally accessible for all.

Challenges or potential barriers to use

The resource relies on ability of pupils to be able to access and view the videos.

The resource is free of charge

Support for users

None is required.

Further advice for users

A number of organisations have embedded videos from the site - ranging from individual videos to the full library. icould videos are available through the icould YouTube channel , distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivative Works 3.0 Unreported licence. Videos are also licensed to other organisations via an API.

Additional details

 

Has the resource been…	Yes or No?	Description	Link
…informed by research?	Yes	Making use of icould: Learning by practice – University of Derby (2015)	https://icould.com/making-use-of-icould-report/
…funded by government?	No
…recognized by peers?	Yes	Making use of icould: Learning by practice – University of Derby (2015)	https://icould.com/making-use-of-icould-report/
…evaluated?	No

This resource has been endorsed by Castle View Enterprise Academy, Sunderland, England.

Disclaimer: This content is provided by the submitting organisation.