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Guest Blogger: Simon Brookes – A content capture policy for the University

January 13, 2020 / Simon Brookes / 0 Comments

For several years, the University has provided staff with the technology to record video and/or audio for the purpose of extending teaching and learning activity beyond the confines of the classroom. This has included the provision of limited lecture capture technology in some large lecture theatres, as well as providing access to software that allows staff to produce learning materials on their computers.

The content captured in these ways is of particular use for revision purposes, for scrutinising difficult concepts, for students with caring responsibilities, and for students for whom English is not their first language.

In response to growing demand from our student body, the University has been investigating the possibility of expanding the availability of content-captured materials. This investigation was co-ordinated by the Content Capture Working Group, and included a full consultation with all University staff and students, via online surveys, as well as in-depth discussions at a series of “town hall” meetings, which were attended by staff and students from across the University.

This consultation informed the development of a Content Capture Policy, which is now available here, in draft format, for further scrutiny. This Policy aims to promote inclusivity and increase the accessibility of our teaching whilst reducing any potential barriers to learning. By implementing these adjustments, which would benefit all students, it should reduce the need for individual adjustments, promote good practice and maximise learning opportunities. If you would like to provide feedback please email it to Harriet Dunbar-Morris, Dean of Learning and Teaching, at DeanLandT@port.ac.uk.

The Policy will go to the University’s Student Experience Committee, before making its way, via the University Education and Student Experience Committee, to Academic Council for final approval. It will then be published in time for the start of the next academic year.

We will be introducing staff development sessions prior to implementation. Please look out for these.

Image Credits: Photo by Forja2 Mx on Unsplash

Engaging students with online assessment feedback

January 13, 2020 / Mike Wilson / 1 Comment

An Exploration Project

Technology Enhanced Learning and Academic Development are leading an exploration project centered around engaging students with online assessment feedback. We’re specifically exploring an assessment platform called Edword.

It’s worth mentioning that we’re taking a more scientific approach to this project, you could almost imagine it as an education lab experiment.

Academics and educational technologists within our team have evaluated the functionality and advanced workflows that Edword offers. We think that it offers some real tangible benefits to students and staff. The platform has been designed based on some pedagogically sound principles, that’s really what’s most exciting about it. I’ll demonstrate some examples of these in action later in this post.

It’s not enough that we’re excited about a new assessment tool though. We need to explore and test whether our students and staff actually do experience a benefit from using Edword when compared to one of our existing assessment platforms such as Turnitin or the Moodle assignment.

In order for me to explain what Edword allows us to do, I need to explain what’s missing from our existing assessment systems.

Current feedback workflow

Turnitin / Moodle assignment

When an online assignment is handed back to a student via Moodle or Turnitin students see their grade immediately, before they’ve had a chance to read any inline or summary feedback added by their lecturer. The grade is often seen by students as the end point within their assessment, their grade is a students entry point to the next stage of their course. What we actually want students to engage with is the meaningful and constructive feedback their academics have produced for them. This will help students improve their next piece of work. Unfortunately many students don’t read their assessment feedback and miss out on the benefits to them.

Edword has a ‘lock grade’ feature which means students can’t see their grade until after they’ve read their feedback and potentially also submitted a reflection on how they will put their feedback into practise. In this way, Edword supports the feed forward model of good academic practise.

The Edword workflow looks more like this:

Edword workflow

We also hope the feedback provided within Edword will be more engaging. Academics can enrich inline feedback with learning objects such as videos or H5P interactive learning objects. Rather than the flat text based feedback comments within Turnitin and Moodle, feedback in Edword helps students understand the mistakes they are making along with an immediate way to re-test their knowledge. The platform supports assessment for learning concepts.

A H5P interactive learning object within feedback in Edword

Edword records how long a student spends engaging with their feedback and allows students to rate the usefulness of the feedback they receive. These metrics are presented to staff as a way to evaluate how engaged students are and which feedback comments could be improved from a student perspective.

We will make Edword available to staff and students during teaching block two with an on-boarding event for staff happening in early February. If you would like to take part in the project or ask some questions, please get in contact:

Mike Wilson

Ext. 3194

michael.wilson@port.ac.uk

A video introduction to Edword can be found here

New year, blank page, fresh start!

January 6, 2020 / Marie Kendall-Waters / 0 Comments

The festive season can be a hectic time for us all, rushing here there and everywhere, feeling that you’re constantly racing against the clock to get things done at home and at work. The last minute dash to the shops to buy your loved ones gifts for Christmas, the big food shop to get the all important ingredients for your Christmas dinner (the most eagerly awaited meal of the year!) and the work deadlines that seem to be ongoing and need to be met before everyone breaks up for annual leave – it can be relentless and can easily become overwhelming.

At this busy time, it’s important to take time out not only to recharge your batteries but also to take stock of what you’ve achieved over the last year, time to reflect and to look ahead to the coming year. The beginning of a new year brings with it a fresh start and blank page for all our hopes for 2020.

So, before we start thinking about the Tel team’s hopes for 2020, and all the things we want to achieve and work on, I would like to spend some time practicing ‘reflection’ (for tips on reflection visit my post: Through the mirror – learning through reflection) and look at what we’ve worked on in 2019. It’s easy to forget what we’ve achieved in a year and that’s why it’s so important when actively reflecting to make sure you have recorded your achievements and things you would like to improve on in some way or another. Our blog site, Tel Tales, is a great way of keeping a record of the Tel team’s work over the year and by contributing to the site it helps us take stock of what we have learnt, whether bad or good, collaboratively.

A whistle-stop tour of a year in the life of the Tel team

Accessibility was at the forefront of our minds in 2019. We wanted to ensure staff were aware that we, as a university, have a legal requirement to provide accessible content to our students. We developed Moodle Baseline and, to help with accessibility for digital content, we installed a plugin called Ally into Moodle. We looked at Grackle for accessible Google Docs and Slides, Automatic Media Transcription and how we could convert Print-based booklets to accessible online resources.

We attended conferences such as Remaking Marking Conference, Digifest 2019, a Adobe/Higher Times forum called: Making digital literacy a pillar of education, the 19th EAIR Forum, TED Global Conference and Wonkfest 2019.

We looked at Scenario Based Learning, Wikipedia, Online Exams in Moodle, Videos in Higher Education, Content Capture and Digital Badges. We revisited topics such as Copyright and the all-important informative Did you Know? posts for Moodle. Moodle was upgraded to 3.7. We explored the increasing interest in Audiovisual in Education.

Assessments and feedback were also running topics of 2019. We looked at the different types of online assessments we had to offer and looked at feedback and shifting culture in the way we provided feedback to our students by ‘feeding forward’ to students using Edword.

We started to think about 5G and how this may affect us, by looking at Education 4.0 and Natalie 4.0. We looked at the pedagogy behind practice in learning and how visual note taking such as doodling could aid concentration and memory.

We revisited our social media platforms and looked at ways we could revamp them a little to increase our followers on Instagram and Twitter. So far this has worked and we are now advertising Tel and AcDev workshops, which again has helped increase the number of attendees.

We made time to reflect and looked at the importance of reflection. We explored change particularly in our current climate at the university and how we react to change. We looked at technology and our mental health and wellbeing.

Our regular guest blogger; Adrian Sharkey, kindly contributed to Tel Tales to tell us all about the new Linkedin Learning and Julian Ingle told us all about his writing retreats.

Stuart Sims and Andy Clegg joined the AcDev team and I returned from maternity leave.

We said a fond farewell to Jerry, who was seconded to IS.

Finally, we finished the year by looking at Three Useful Apps in Learning and Teaching. The 12 apps of Christmas had a make-over and was revamped into 12 days of Christmas – Learning and Teaching Advent Calendar.

Phew! I think that was everything! Surprising, when you do take the time to reflect, just how much you can achieve in one year. As you can see, for us it’s quite a lot!!

What’s in store for 2020?

As you may have been aware we have had a few internal promotions within the team: Mike Wilson has been seconded to a Senior Lecturer In Digital Learning & Innovation for part of the working week and Senior Educational Technologist for Tel the rest of the week. Shaun Searle has now been seconded into Jerry Collingswood’s post as a Senior Educational Technologist and Tom Cripps seconded to back-fill Mike’s role when he is working with AcDev.

The new year will therefore welcome Jo Fairwood, seconded to Shaun’s original role on eLearn as an OCD, and Abigail Lee seconded to Tom’s OCD role.

Content capture will continue to grow organically and, following a staff–student consultation, the university will be introducing a Content Capture policy in 2020.

Accessibility will continue to be a focus for the Tel team. We will also be looking at best practice when it comes to external examiners.

We will continue to explore Edword, an online platform that will allow richer feedback to students. And we will be working much more closely with the AcDev team in 2020, which we are very much looking forward to!

We intend to carry on blogging away – so please, when you have a spare five minutes, check in with us to see what we’ve been up to. And feel free to follow us on our social media platforms! Please leave comments – we appreciate any feedback you have for us.

Finally – we are always looking for guest bloggers! So if you have something of interest that you would like to share on Tel Tales then please contact me at marie.kendall-waters@port.ac.uk.

So from myself and all the team we hope you all have a very happy 2020!

Image credits:

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash
Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash
Photo by Justin Luebke on Unsplash

Three female students kicking at laid snow, so that it covers the image

Moodle – Teaching Block 2 Modules

December 9, 2019 / Mandy Harcup / 0 Comments

One query which we often receive from students here in TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning), is a concern that one or more modules are missing from their Moodle homepage. This is usually because the modules they are enquiring about, are for Teaching Block 2. Teaching Block 2 modules are normally hidden from student view until students return from the Christmas vacation.

Teaching Block 2 starts this year on Monday 20th January 2020. However, this is not always the case as some modules have two different cohorts of students attached to them. These modules may have a short name that looks similar to this: UXXXXX-19SEP & UXXXXX-19JAN. Depending how the module has been set up, both cohorts may have access to the unit in September, or maybe the January cohort have been put into a group and won’t be able to see the module until the lecturer releases it to them at a later date.

Lecturers decide when to release their Teaching Block 2 module(s). Some prefer to release them when the students leave for the winter vacation so that they can start looking at them, while others wait until the first day back or when the first session starts. Some students may be able to see their Teaching Block 2 modules now. It really is up to the individual lecturer.

We’re often asked; ‘Why does the January code not reflect the new year?’ – for example, ‘Why does the code say 19JAN and not 20JAN, as the year would now be 2020? This is because the code is taken from the academic year in which the course started, so as this academic year started in 2019, the code you’ll see is 19JAN. However if your course starts in the new year, it will have the 20JAN code.

It can be confusing, but as long as you can see your module(s) when the lecturer says you should be able to see them,then there is no need to worry. If you can’t see your module(s), please email us at servicedesk@port.ac.uk and we can investigate this further for you

In the meantime, the TEL Team would like to wish everyone season’s greetings and a healthy and happy New Year!

Image Credit: Photo by Naitian（Tony） Wang and Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Is it time to give doodling an image makeover?

December 2, 2019 / Marie Kendall-Waters / 1 Comment

Like the majority of people, I’m a doodler, whether I’m chatting on the phone, writing my list of food shopping for the week or at a meeting at work, if I have a pen and paper in hand there will be doodles. Some of my doodles are just swirls and rough shapes and some have given me inspiration for other creative ideas which I have put into practice. I even follow Mr Doodle on Instagram as I find the art of doodling fascinating! (If you’ve not heard of him then check him out!)

When we think of doodles, they are normally made up of squiggles, they are rough drawings that are made absent-mindely. When I think back to school days, doodling was often seen as a bad thing in class, students are perceived as not paying attention if they are seen doodling. However, what if doodling wasn’t the distraction we all thought it to be but actually had real cognitive benefits that perhaps could aid concentration and memory?

The importance of doodling – aren’t they just squiggles?

The need to draw is hardwired into the human brain. From our first scribbles at infancy to industry; doodles to explain complex theories and equations from scientists and mathematicians. In fact, it could be argued that graphic images predates verbal communication, when we think of parietal art or cave drawings by our primitive ancestors. Doodling can help communicate meanings to our ideas by giving them visual representations. When we put pen to paper, we open up our hearts to ideas, insights and inspirations.

Diane Bleck, an idea catcher and co-founder of the Doodle Institute, has taken doodling a step further and is on a mission to unlock insights, inspiration and ideas for large and small companies and schools through doodles. Diane shows how doodles can be used as a tool for strategic thinking, brainstorming and business planning. It can also be used for health and healing to relieve stress.

Visuals at Work – Episode 12: Brainstorming Mind Map
https://youtu.be/9pG_izfsgdU

How can we use doodles in the context of education and learning?

Bleck explains how doodles can be used for brainstorming and business planning, in the context of a lecture, doodles or sketches could be used for visual note-taking. Visual note-taking is a way to synthesize information; carve out the most important points and use images to convey the message simply and effectively. Studies show that note-taking enables recall and the synthesis of new information. Doodling can significantly increase the amount of retained information, according to a 2009 study. It says that even if doodling is not intentionally related to the listening task, more recall occurs. If you would like to know more about retrieval practice, check out Achieving Mastery – How Important is Practice in Learning?

Doodling put into practice

Instructional coaches, Shelley Paul and Jill Gough explored how ‘doodling while taking notes could improve memory and concept retention’ [1] in class. Before approaching their academics about using the idea of doodling, Paul tested out this theory by sketching her notes from a 2 day conference; ‘it causes you to listen on a different level’ [2]. By the end of the conference Paul found that her drawings had improved and she was able to remember the information that was communicated from the conference just by looking at her sketches. These experiences convinced Paul and Gough that ‘something powerful happens when auditory learning is transposed into images’[3]. In fact, ‘when ideas and related concepts can be encapsulated in an image, the brain remembers the information associated with that image’[4] and therefore aids memory and learning.

Doodle or not to doodle? There’s no wrong way!

We know as educators and from our experiences that we all learn in very different ways, some people are more focused when they are being creative. Doodling may help unleash our creative sides when learning and help us to retain new information and keep us focused. Who’s to say it’s a bad thing if it works? Doodling worked for children’s author; Dave Pilkey!

Like all new skills, or even old ones which we haven’t used for a while, we don’t know how effective they will be until we put them into practice – maybe this is something you could trial out with your students or yourselves the next time you attend a conference! I do think doodling does need an image makeover as it can lead to really engaging and imaginative creativity, especially in education!

I’ll leave you with this amazing ‘doodle’ by RSA Animate of a talk ’Changing Education Paradigms’ given by Sir Ken Robinson – world-renowned education and creativity expert, which shows how ‘doodling’ really can aid concentration and memory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

References:

[1]Katrina Schwartz, 2015: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39941/making-learning-visible-doodling-helps-memories-stick

[2]Jill Gough, 2015: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39941/making-learning-visible-doodling-helps-memories-stick

[3]Katrina Schwartz, 2015: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39941/making-learning-visible-doodling-helps-memories-stick

[4]Katrina Schwartz, 2015: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39941/making-learning-visible-doodling-helps-memories-stick</P

Credit image: Photo by Lucas Lenzi on Unsplash

12 Days of Christmas – Learning and Teaching Advent calendar

November 29, 2019 / Alana Aldred / 0 Comments

So… December is almost upon us, and this year the TEL team, along with AcDev, have decided to create a ‘12 days of Christmas’ Learning and Teaching Advent Calendar, full of useful resources to support you in your practice as you countdown to Christmas!

We will be releasing a new advent window every working day – We hope you enjoy our festive offerings, and if so please share!

NEW Add-on for Grackle – Now Available for all UoP Students and Staff

November 28, 2019 / Alana Aldred / 0 Comments

You’ll be pleased to hear that Grackle – an accessibility checker for Google Docs, Slides and Sheets – is now easily available for you to use when creating documents so that everyone can enjoy your content.

Grackle is simple to use – login to your UoP Google account, select the Google document that you want to check for accessibility issues. Once you have your document open, select Add-ons from the toolbar and then Grackle > Launch from the drop-down menu.

Grackle’s accessibility checker panel will then appear on the right-hand side of your screen and produces a checklist of common accessibility problems and highlights any of these issues in your documents.

The example below illustrates where Grackle has identified missing Alt text. However, the add-on offers so many more useful tips to improve the accessibility of your documents.

Take a look at this website to find out more about the handy features of Grackle.

Yellow background, with black items on it, including a mobile and an orange book titled Change by Design

LinkedIn Learning – Change

November 25, 2019 / Mandy Harcup / 1 Comment

The definition of the word change says: “an event that occurs when something passes from one state or phase to another”, other words that could be used are adjustment, development and modification. These are all words used daily in our vocabulary and are words that reflect what is happening within the university as a whole, but mainly within our roles.

Who else looks at their original job description and specification and can only see a few responsibilities that look similar to the work that you’re carrying out now? For me, some areas have disappeared altogether, whilst others have been replaced by new processes and procedures. People are all different, some seem to embrace change easily, whilst others stick their heads in the sand and hope it doesn’t affect them or their role. I’m one of those people who like to digest (in my own way) what’s been said and then find out more information e.g. Where do I fit into the change? What part will I be expected to play in making the change happen? What knock on effect will it have elsewhere? Is there training that I’ll need to undertake? etc. etc.

During this period of adjustment when we find our responsibilities have changed and we’re expected to ‘step up to the mark’ and embrace whatever is required to make these changes happen, this is described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross as a ‘Change Curve’. Kubler-Ross ‘Change Curve’ explains the emotions that most people go through when change is in the offering, although the original theory was in relation to the grieving process and describes 5 stages (see image below). In business it is now applied to any kind of change.

Stage 1, Denial were we blame others, which is preceded by blaming ourselves, “What have I done wrong?” and “Why me?”

Stage 2, Doubt follows quickly afterwards causing self-doubt, uncertainty and confusion, this happens normally when you’re at your lowest ebb.

Stage 3, Acceptance, the turning point, when you start to accept the change, think more rationally about everything and can start to work to solve problems that may arise to make the change work for you and others in your team.

Once you’re through the ‘Change Curve’ it’s only then that you can start to move on, and it soon becomes the norm. The length of time it takes for an individual to experience the ‘Change Curve’ varies from person to person and can depend on what the change is and how much this change is going to affect the person.

(https://www.cleverism.com/understanding-kubler-ross-change-curve/)

I bet you’re wondering what all this has to do with LinkedIn Learning? Well I’m not talking about the change from Lynda.com to LinkedIn Learning, although that has happened (see blog post Goodbye Lynda, hello LinkedIn Learning) but about the courses that may be of benefit that provide an insight into the processes that happen when change occurs. The courses (or individual videos if you’re short on time), look at change from different angles and perspectives, giving you the techniques to help you cope with change, before it happens, while it’s happening and how to come out the other end and to keep altering and growing until the process produces the end results.

When you have time, just type ‘change’ into the search box, you’ll see a list of over 48,000 items will appear, this can be filtered down by using the block on the left-hand side, to make it more manageable and tailor made to your requirements. Of course the university hold workshops on this subject as well, but we don’t always have the time to attend.

In case you were interested in the courses that I looked at, here they are:
Building Resilience by Tatiana Kolovou
Embracing Change by Todd Dewett
Managing Stress for Positive Change by Heidi Hanna
Leading Change by Gary Bolles

So go on, have a go, log into LinkedIn Learning today!

Further Reference: https://www.cleverism.com/understanding-kubler-ross-change-curve/
https://www.definitions.net/definition/change
Image Credit: Photo by Krisztian Tabori on Unsplash

pink painted finger nails going to tap a mobile phone which is laying down an a surface

Three Useful Apps for Teaching/Learning

November 18, 2019 / Andy Taggart / 0 Comments

In this blog, I want to introduce a couple of apps that could be very useful additions to any lecturers’ teaching toolbox.

Screencastify

The first is Screencastify. Screencastify is a lightweight screen recorder that can be used to capture your desktop and webcam allowing you to create videos that can be uploaded directly to YouTube and, at the same time, saved to your Google Drive. Being a Chrome extension means that there is no heavy weight software to download and it can also be used offline. There is a free version that limits the number of videos you can make to 50 per month with a maximum length of 10 minutes per video. However, you can upgrade to a paid for version, approximately £20 (it comes priced in dollars), which has no such limits.

Anyway, enough reading, here is a short demo of Screencastify in action

https://youtu.be/VwU-kwFzVHk

It does lack the functionality of a product like Camtasia, but if all you need is a quick easy screen recording it is well worth a go. You can also keep the videos on YouTube private by setting them to unlisted so they cannot be found in searches or as recommendations, students would just need the URL which can be made available via your Moodle pages.

Once you’ve made your video using Screencastify, you can have it as a stand alone resource available via YouTube or you could use it to produce an enhanced learning object by combining it with Adobe Spark.

I can see this having a variety of uses from giving video/audio feedback to forming part of a set of flipped learning sessions.

Screencast-O-Matic

An alternative to Screencastify is Screencast-O-Matic. As with Screencastify, this app also comes in free and licensed versions. The free version of Screencast-O-Mantic will record videos of 15 minutes which can then be saved as MP4 files, this version also comes with some limited editing functionality but does require a software download and does not work quite as seamlessly with YouTube or Google Drive.

Brainscape

The third app, useful as a revision aid, is Brainscape . Brainscape is an online flashcard system, you can either create your own flashcards or use a pre-made set. Unlike other ready made flashcard systems I’ve seen, Brainscape does have resources suitable for HE and not just in traditional academic disciplines. This system is free (though you can pay to release a larger number of cards) and can be accessed through your Google account.

As students work through the set of cards, they can rate how confident they are in their knowledge and understanding. Staff can create classes to which they can invite students, thus allowing you to view how many cards the students used and how they themselves rate their learning.

Brainscape says that its system is grounded in proven techniques that help improve learning and understanding. Not having used this particular platform myself with learners I can’t comment on the veracity of the claims made but as flashcards are a popular learning technique this online system is worth looking at, especially given the range of topics it covers.

Credit Image: Photo by Rob Hampson on Unsplash

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – University of Portsmouth LinkedIn Seminar

November 11, 2019 / Adrian Sharkey / 0 Comments

LinkedIn Services to Support University of Portsmouth Students and Staff

On Friday October 25th we had a visit from Ralph Blunden the Relationship Manager for LinkedIn. Since 2017 the University has been using Lynda, an online resource with thousands of courses on business, creative and technical skills. Lynda had been owned by LinkedIn for sometime and this summer, Lynda moved over to the LinkedIn Learning platform. Ralph offered to present on how LinkedIn Learning and LinkedIn could be used to support both students and staff and we had a great turnout from all around the University willing to listen.

There are now over 30,000 courses on LinkedIn with up to 40 new ones being added every week. The new platform personalises learning by making recommendations a lot more relevant, these are based on previous learning, on what is popular in the University and if a LinkedIn account is connected – recommendations are based on the skills shown on the user’s account. When courses are completed a badge can be added to a LinkedIn profile, which is particularly useful for students in order to show employability skills to potential employers.

LinkedIn have 23 million accounts in the UK, while only around 10% of these are active at any time it represents a significant section of the working population. Around 70% of employers recruit using social media showing a professional presence for employability and making connections is essential. With Industry 4.0 and changes about to happen because of emerging technologies like AI – skills requirements are increasingly fluid – Linkedin data shows the average skill having a shelf life of 5 years. While hard skills are still important, the most in demand skills for employers is creativity along with other soft skills such as critical thinking, being able to learn, teamwork and adaptability.

LinkedIn are aiming for their services to compliment learning for students and staff in HE. LinkedIn Learning can supplement in class learning, allow opportunities for flipped classrooms, support accreditation and professional development for staff. It can promote employability and placement skills for students and encourage engagement with alumni, allowing students to make important professional connections.

There a number of ways we could leverage LinkedIn Learning to target certain areas by packaging courses and creating collections/playlists or utilising the existing learning paths. Teaching excellence could include blended learning, flipped classrooms, instructional design and VLE training. Digital capabilities can be packaged, staff development and employability for students also. LinkedIn offer a mapping service, where if we supply the competencies we’re looking to develop they will map the appropriate courses against them, allowing the creation of collections/playlists.

For further support/assistance with LinkedIn Learning contact:

adrian.sharkey@port.ac.uk

Twitter: @adrianjsharkey

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adrianjsharkey/

Image Credit: supplied by LinkedIn

Tel Tales

Page 11 of 26

Guest Blogger: Simon Brookes – A content capture policy for the University

Engaging students with online assessment feedback