Tel Tales

Adventures in Technology Enhanced Learning @ UoP

Page 14 of 26

Did you know? - creating new modules 2019-20

New Modules for Moodle 2019-20

June 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments

As one academic year comes to an end, it’s time to start planning ahead. Do you have approval for any new 2019/20 modules?  Would you like to start creating them now?

Take the following simple steps to setup your new Moodle modules.

Step 1

Complete the New Moodle Module Request form on the Service Desk Landing Portal, click on the Log a service request icon.

Three icons each with a different title 1. Report a Fault. 2. Log a service request. 3. My Authorisations

This will bring you to the My Services page, firstly make sure that you are on the All My Services tab, then select the Moodle link.

This screens shows you the All My Service page with the different icons for different services in the university

Step 2

On  the Moodle service page, click on blue Moodle Request on the lower half of the screen.

Three boxes the last one saying Moodle Request

Step 3

From  the Moodle Request page, click on the drop-down arrow alongside What would you like to do? Select Request a new module to be created on Moodle, then click Next. Use the page that appears to input the details of your module. Please make sure that all mandatory fields (denoted by a red asterisk) are completed.

A form to request a new modules to be created in Moodle

Step 4

When you’re happy with the information you have supplied click Finish. Once the form has been submitted you’ll receive an email confirming your request and a reference number.

We’ll get to work creating your site for you and then we’ll send you an email to confirm when it’s ready for you to create. Don’t forget to ask for help from your faculty Online Course Developers, should you need it.

You’ll notice that Moodle modules look a little different this year, as we’ve incorporated a Moodle Baseline template. The Moodle Baseline template features five tabs: welcome, module overview, learning outcomes, reading lists and assessment.  For more information about the Moodle Baseline there is a dedicated website for guidance and help.  Or you can attend one of our TEL Training Moodle Baseline workshops, see our full schedule here.

Credit Image: Photo by Raphaël Biscaldi on Unsplash

cartoon tablet with a hand pointing at the start arrow

Print-based booklet to accessible online resource

June 13, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Introduction

As an online course developer I recently had the task of creating an accessible online version of a print-based Wellbeing information booklet which Marketing had produced, which as one might expect, was quite heavy on graphics and styling.

The first page provides a good idea to what the 28 page PDF copy looks like:

Wellbeing PDF booklet front cover

What is an accessible document?

An accessible document is both simplified in the literal sense in terms of visual presentation and in a technical one to meet specific criteria for accessibility software. The former involves making sure things like making headings and fonts clear/bold and images have proper alt text to explain what they are. Technical concerns are things like making sure the document has proper metadata, has a logical ordering of text for screen readers, and is properly tagged. These concerns can be addressed using common word processing software, such as in this case, Microsoft Word 2016 and Adobe Acrobat DC.

 

Checking for accessibility

To check the document, the Blackboard Ally plugin for moodle was used. The original document had a score of just 8%:

However, it should be noted that this number is derived purely from the number of occurrences of problematic instances,  rather than a rating of how readable it is per se. The Ally tool does provide some useful guidance on how to fix the errors, such as explaining what each issue is, what it means, and how to practically fix it.

 

Converting to alternative formats with Blackboard Ally

A great  key feature, as used on this task, is the ability to automatically attempt to convert the document to an accessible version of your desired format.

The HTML format was exported  in this case, and the result was a fairly good rendition of just the basic text with foreground images kept. However, there were some critical errors in the conversion which meant that more than simply a post editing tidy up was needed. For example, the information from the table cells in this document didn’t export in a structured format and so the information was completely unreadable.

Original (left) versus Ally conversion to HTML:

As a result the document would need some manual re-entering of text to finish it off.

 

Editing with Word 2016

To begin with, the Ally HTML output was opened in Word 2016 as good starting point. The first job was to just go through and make sure all text had been properly converted. This was the most time consuming part of the whole processed, followed by subsequent proofing.

With that done, it was then down to solve the technical issues using Word’s built in accessibility tools.

This tool checks things such as whether tags are added, and more subtle things like whether a table has a heading row, and/or whether it’s properly marked up as such for screen readers. This is mostly a case of clicking each fault and either automatically fixing it (as in the case of meta tags) or manually fixing (the table headings had been stripped by the Ally conversion and so had to be manually re-entered as heading rows).

Once everything has been checked/ticked off, it’s then a case of exporting it as a PDF document.

At this point the advanced saving options panel was used to make sure the PDF would have the correct accessibility features by adding structure tags:

Now, in an ideal world, this would be the end of the process. However, Word 2016 falls short right at the final step here as for some bizarre reason, it fails to add a title in the metadata. You can certainly add a title in Word, however, it seems to be ignored when converted to PDF. Due to this Adobe Acrobat DC had to be used to finished it off, but this was partly the original intention anyway in order to ‘run it by a 2nd pair of eyes’ so to speak.

 

Finalising with Adobe DC

To finish off, the outputted PDF was opened with Adobe Acrobat DC which has its own accessibility tools.

This flagged up a few more problems and was able to auto correct them. It also enabled me to add the title metadata and then finally export the finished PDF.

 

The finished result

A 100% perfect score in Blackboard Ally!

The resultant document should now be 100% compatible with related accessibility assistive software. The image shown here has been properly tagged with alt text to explain what it’s representing, and so is perfectly acceptable in an accessible document.

It’s important to remember that accessible documents do not necessarily have to be pure text. And whilst the focus here is ultimately making visual content accessible for the visually impaired, there’s no harm in adding a little well conforming colour.

 

Image credit:
Header Banner, https://www.jisc.ac.uk, taken Feb 2019

A person in jacket with lots of different badges pinned on it

Digital Badges

June 3, 2019 / / 0 Comments

This blog post links, indirectly, to my previous post on gamification. While gamification can help promote learning and engagement in a ‘fun’ way, digital badges can be used to reward and encourage learning. So – what are digital badges?

Digital badges are an excellent way to recognise student achievement and engagement. Badges can be awarded via Moodle on completion of an activity, for example, or after the attainment of a specific grade/mark in a quiz. Upon graduation, students can take their badges with them via Open Badges and export them to a ‘backpack’ service such as Badgr. The badges can also be linked to LinkedIn.

In the words of Dr Joanne Brindley (Senior Lecturer in Education): “The Academic Professional Apprenticeship is delivered via blended learning. As such, it was important to me that I was able to effectively monitor the engagement and development of the course members, on an individual basis. Digital badges were an obvious choice, as they would enable the course members to have the flexibility  and autonomy to focus and work on tasks that met their individual learning needs, in a structured way, whilst also providing the course member and myself with an opportunity to gauge their personal progression.

The other benefit, was the ability to identify and set the criteria for each badge. In this instance, the badges were designed to reflect the values, knowledge and areas of activity in the UK Professional Skills Framework (UKPSF). By using this approach I can be assured, that upon completion, the course members have engaged with the dimensions of the framework required for Fellowship.”

For those new to digital badges here’s a quick ‘how to..’

Before issuing a badge you first have to create it. A variety of tools are available to do this such as Adobe Illustrator or sites such as Accredible Badge Creator (https://www.accredible.com/badge-designer/)  and Openbadges.me (https://app.openbadges.me/) both of which are free to use, Openbages.me is the better of the two.

User interface for creating badges in Openbadges.me

Figure 1 – user interface for creating badges in Openbadges.me

Figure 2 - Moodle Badge created using Open Badges

Once a badge has been created, you will need to download it so it can be uploaded to Moodle for issuing to students.

 

Figure 2 – Moodle badge created using Open badges

 

In Moodle badges are added via the ‘Administration’ menu, which is available by clicking on the cog icon on the top-right of your Moodle page, then clicking on More to access the Badges section (see Figure 3 below) which will allow you to manage and add new badges.

Figure 3 - shows what you'll see in the administrative area in Moodle to create new badges and manage the badges

Figure 3 – Moodle badge manager

In the Badges section, choose ‘Add a new badge’. This will allow you to upload the image for the badge and set various basic details such as a description, issuer and badge expiry date. You can manage your badges here as well

Once the badge has been added, you will need to set up the criteria for the awarding of the badge. To do this, click on ‘Manage badges’.

You can award badges according to one of three criteria: manual by role; course completion; activity completion. (Note: for activity completion you will need to make sure this is enabled via Course settings).

Badges are automatically issued once the set criterion (for example, achieving a certain grade in a selected quiz) has been met. Students can view the badges they have been awarded on the Moodle course page. You will just need to add a Latest Badges block from the ‘Add a block’ menu.

The Mozilla Backpack, which allowed badge recipients to ‘store’ their badges online has now been replaced by badgr (https://badgr.io/recipient/badges) Students would need to download their badges from Moodle and then upload them to badgr. The reason for doing this is so any earned badges can be shared with an employer for example. At the moment badgr is not linked to Moodle but hopefully it will be added in the near future.

Students can view their badges via the ‘Latest Badges’ block in Moodle (this can be added by anyone with editing rights on your Moodle Unit/Course page).

Figure 4 badge details accessed via latest badges block. This images shows student details

Clicking on the badge icon in the Latest Badges block opens up full details of the badge such as recipient and Issuer. From here the student can download the badge to add to their online backpack which will be badgr. It is hoped that once badgr is integrated students will be able to add it to the backpack directly from Moodle.

So, are badges worth having?

One concern often raised regarding the use of digital badges is that, well, aren’t they just a bit inappropriate at university level? Will university students take them seriously?

To overcome the possible scepticism of students it is important to be clear what the badges are being used for. If badges form an element of gamification and/or are linked to assessment then the badges are more likely to be seen as something worth acquiring as argued by Samuel Abramovich (Abramovich, S 2016). The badges can be linked to the acquisition of specific skills required as part of an assessment or awarded based on the achievement of a certain grade. Greater value can be placed on the badges if they are relatively difficult to obtain: there needs to be an element of genuine challenge before a badge can be earned. Badges can also be awarded for completion of a task – however, the effectiveness of this approach is something that would seem to need further research. A project carried out by the University of Southampton (Harvey, F.2017), whereby Geography students were awarded badges as they completed course milestones, found that only 25% of students actually claimed badges as they progressed. The reason for this relatively low take up was not clear.

Outside education, digital badges are now being used by companies such as Dell as part of their assessment programme (see https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2016/9/digital-badges-and-academic-transformation). The more digital badges are recognised by major employers, the more likely students are to view badges as worthwhile. Indeed, a recent case study (Anderson, L. et al (2017) Open Badges in the Scottish HE Sector: The use of technology and online resources to support student transitions. Project Report July 2017. Universities of Dundee, Aberdeen and Abertay) found that that 40% of students would value digital badges if employability were to be enhanced by their use. For lots more useful information on digital badges visit

https://elearningindustry.com/guide-to-digital-badges-how-used

References

Abramovich, S Understanding digital badges in higher education through assessment, On the Horizon, Vol. 24 Issue: 1, pp.126-131 2016, https://doi.org/10.1108/OTH-08-2015-0044

Harvey, F Journal of Educational Innovation, Partnership and Change, Vol 3, No 1, 2017

https://journals.gre.ac.uk/index.php/studentchangeagents/article/view/549

Photo by Melinda Martin-Khan on Unsplash

Melinda Martin-Khan

Women holding a hand-held video recorder

Types of content capture

May 24, 2019 / / 0 Comments

In September 2018 the University established a working group in order to better understand what the future of content capture should look like here at Portsmouth. The group wanted to know what sorts of content should be captured, what types of media were important, and how students and staff would feel about having their contributions to different types of session recorded. Once the responses from the online consultation exercises and “town hall” meetings have been fully analysed, the results will be made available through a variety of channels (including this blog). Until then, however, I wanted to advertise the recording of a webinar – one of the Future Teacher 3.0 series of webinars – which took place about the same time we were launching our working group.

In this webinar Graham Gibbs, a National Teaching Fellow and Reader in Social Research Methods at the University of Huddersfield, looks at the use of various different types of video in a higher education setting. He identifies “21 in 12” – twenty-one examples of educational video which you can see in just twelve minutes.

As the accompanying blurb states, these videos vary in approach, pedagogy, and production value – but all of them contain some educational value, and many of the techniques could be replicated at Portsmouth using existing technologies. Graham wrote a guide for the HEA’s Innovative Pedagogies series, entitled “Video creation and reuse for learning in higher education”. The guide is well worth reading, but if you don’t have time just check out the Future Teacher webinar – it lasts only 12 minutes!

Jed Villejo
Credit Image: Photo by Jed Villejo on Unsplash

Art Gallery
Photo by Luana Azevedo on Unsplash

Copyright for a Digital Age

May 16, 2019 / / 0 Comments


Copyright is a complex subject. It is also not a particularly exciting subject. It is, however, an important subject. In this post I am going to break it down into three sections that will hopefully get you to understand a little bit about why we all need to worry about copyright material. The three questions are:

  1. Why should I bother with copyright?
  2. What am I really after?
  3. How can I achieve my aims while adhering to the rules?

Firstly, before I answer these questions, I’d like to direct your attention to David Sherren’s article on copyright. David is the University copyright guru and should be able to offer advice and guidance for all specific questions on the subject. So onto the first question.

  1. Why should I bother with copyright?

I can think of at least two good answers. Firstly, how would you like it if someone stole from you and infringed your copyright? Secondly, there’s a chance of suffering financial loss.

A. How would you like it?

Suppose you have worked hard on something (an article, a piece of creative writing or audio/visual project perhaps) or you have simply uploaded a photo onto a social media platform. That piece of work is yours. If someone takes your work and uses it without permission, that would surely strike you as a little unfair. What if they then made money from your source materia

B. Financial loss.

If you take other’s work and use it the original authors might consider themselves entitled to payment for the reproduction of their work. Many times I hear the response “but it’s for educational purposes”. This argument only holds true in a limited number of situations and areas. The problem comes down to the wording of “educational use”. Education use generally allows any image to be used as part of a lecture or seminar; however, if the image is in a PowerPoint presentation that is then placed into Moodle or the web as a file (native or PDF) then this is classed as distribution and is no longer covered by the educational licence. This is a terribly grey area, as the British Library highlight with their explanation of fair use of works.

“A statutory definition for fair dealing does not exist; it will always be a matter of fact, degree and interpretation in every fair use case. Nor is there a percentage or quantitative measure to determine fair dealing.”

Essentially, as the user responsible for infringing copyright, would you take the risk of being the person financially liable for infringement?

For further information around real-world copyright cases and why it is important to maintain copyright please refer to the cases listed below.

  1.  German school sued for copyright
  2.  5 Famous copyright infringement cases
  3.  List of copyright cases
  4.  Exceptions to copyright within education
  5.  Further details on fair use of copyright material

2. What am I really after?

When I run my training session on copyright I pose the question of specificity: how specific does your search need to be? If you are really after a particular photo from the Pontiac Correctional Center 1978 riot then you might be unable to find something that is copyright cleared. However, if you really just need a photo to illustrate the police or a prison maybe even the situation following a riot these can all be found using a Creative Commons or royalty free image database.

      3. How can I achieve my aims while adhering to the rules?

This can be a tricky question. I suggest that the first step is just to ask yourself: “Should I really be using this resource?” If you are unsure of the answer then contact myself or, for a more comprehensive answer, David Sherren. We will attempt to clarify if you are able to use the material. It helps if you can provide us with all the information of where, when, and how you acquired the material.

Tips on copyright

  • Keep a Google Drive folder that contains all of the material and as Spreadsheet with all the information needed to demonstrate the nature of the copyright.
  • Use a search facility that provides royalty free and copyright clear material. (Flickr, Unsplash and Creative Commons) Remember to filter Flickr searches to be creative commons otherwise some of the images may not be royalty free and infringing someone else’s work.
  • Linking to material directly rather than downloading it.
  • Refer to the Library materials on copyright.
  • Refer to the Library catalogue for relevant databases of useable material.
  • Find legitimate streaming services for streaming TV programs.
  • Remember, there are a lot of myths that need debunking around copyright.
  • If you have an image that you are trying to find the source for, use something like TinEye.
  • If you are ever unsure – just ask.

Image credit.

Luana Azevedo

Looking at the back of a person who is looking out to sea as the sun goes down

Technology and our mental health and wellbeing

May 7, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I am very fortunate that I get to walk to work daily (okay, except on really rainy days, then maybe I’m not so fortunate!) and I am obsessed with listening to podcasts on my journey. On my walk in this morning I stumbled across a podcast episode from Ctrl Alt Delete with Emma Gannon who was talking with Dr Megan Jones Bell, the Chief Science Officer at Headspace.

Headspace, in case you haven’t heard of it, is an app that promotes positive mental health and wellbeing through the practice of mindfulness. The app takes users through guided meditations and shares techniques in dealing with, for example, a busy, overthinking/negative-thinking, mind – a state that can impact on sleep, performance and relationships, which of course can in turn lead to feelings of stress, anxiety and depression… basically all of the things preventing you from being your best self!

Dr Megan Jones Bell was, interestingly, talking about how businesses are buying into meditation apps such as Headspace for their employees, because employers are starting to recognise the value of nurturing a sense of positive mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Listening to this got me to thinking about our students and colleagues University-wide, as I have recently been working closely with personal tutors and support services at the University. Through these encounters I have heard first hand how mental health issues are a real concern, and they appear to be on the rise. I’m sure this is not just an issue within our institution.

Our University freely provides staff and students with software licenses and accounts, such as Lynda.com, for free online training to develop our academic and professional skills. However, knowing what we know about the current situation regarding mental health and wellbeing, I wonder whether we are doing enough in this area? Is it time for Portsmouth and other institutions to invest more in access to products such as Headspace (and other apps are available – I’m using this just as an example), which encourage self-care and have a more preventative approach to mental health and wellbeing? In other words, should employers be helping to embed practices such as mindfulness and meditation, potentially via apps, into people’s daily lives so that we are all armed with tools to deal with difficult and challenging experiences when they arise? Surely this can only be a good thing for staff and students? What are your thoughts?

Note: I am by no means forgetting that mental health and wellbeing is a very complex subject and that apps alone cannot ‘fix’ things in times of crisis! If you or a student are experiencing any mental health issues please seek support from either Occupational Health or refer students to the Student Wellbeing Service.

Resources

Brown, D. & Triggle, N. (4 December, 2018). BBC News. Mental health: 10 charts on the scale of the problem. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41125009

Economides, M., Martman, J., Bell, M.J.  & Sanderson, B. (2008). Improvements in Stress, Affect, and Irritability Following Brief Use of a Mindfulness-based Smartphone App: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-018-0905-4

Mental health and wellbeing apps:

https://www.mindcharity.co.uk/advice-information/how-to-look-after-your-mental-health/apps-for-wellbeing-and-mental-health/

Emma Gannon (2019). Ctrl Alt Delete. #189: Dr Megan Jones-Bell: How To Invest In Yourself (California Innovation Tour #2). 3, April. Available at: https://play.acast.com/s/ctrlaltdelete/-189-drmeganjones-bell-howtoinvestinyourself-californiainnovationtour-2-

 

coloured labels with different areas covered in our workshops

TEL Training Sessions – Update

April 29, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Can’t spare 2 hours (let alone 3 hours) to attend TEL Training sessions, but would like to . . . . . well you can now!  

We’ve reviewed our sessions and have been able to reduce the running times of our longest sessions to make them easier to fit into the already busy working day. We’d like as many of you as possible to be able to attend our sessions, so in reducing the running times (in some cases by 50%) by keeping content relevant but concise, we hope more of you will be able to join our sessions in the future.

How do I find more information on TEL Training Sessions?

You’ll find our calendar with all our new times and full description on the sessions we run by going to the Department of Curriculum and Quality Enhancement (DCQE) website and clicking on the TEL Training Calendar.

Where else can I book onto the sessions?

The calendar on our blog pages also indicates the training sessions with a dot underneath the date, just click on the dot and the session information will appear. You can also book yourself onto a session here; just click the button at the bottom. Feel free to switch through the months to see what training sessions are coming up.

Who are your training sessions for?

Primarily, the workshops are for lecturers and PHD Students, but they can be adapted for professional service members of staff too. If you’re not available at the times of our training events, or if the programme does not cover a specific area you’re interested in, we can offer a 1-2-1 session tailored to your needs. In addition, if there’s a group of people in your department who would like a session to update their knowledge in a certain area, we can also arrange that.  We have a meeting room here in Mercantile House, but we can always come to you. To arrange these bespoke sessions, firstly complete the Bespoke Training Request form, click here give us a brief outline into which areas you’d like the training to cover and for how many people, someone will then contact you to discuss your requirements.

So if you’ll looking to embark on a project involving technology, or if you would simply like some support or advice on how to use the various elearning tools available at the University, the TEL team are here to help.

We look forward to welcoming you at one of our training events in the near future.

 

Happy 2 years to us!

April 18, 2019 / / 0 Comments

It’s Tel Tales birthday today and we’re celebrating 2 years of blogging. 2 years – that’s a big achievement for us, in the past blogging was never our forte as a team – but this time, with Tel Tales, we’ve stuck to it – so what have we learnt in the last 2 years as a group of novice bloggers and how has this time been different from our previous attempt?

Raising our profile

In early 2016, we were thinking of ways to raise our profile within the University. We are a long standing central service, but we offer much more than Moodle support, as a bunch of talented individuals with an array of experience and expertise, we felt this was often unknown and we also weren’t too good at voicing our achievements.

Building a blog site seemed like the perfect platform where as a team, we could all contribute and write posts journalling our adventures in technology and education.

Reservations

As a team we had reservations, we had quite a few failed blog attempts in the past and this had knocked our confidence, which I talked about in my first blog post Why Blog? For some members of the team, blogging came naturally and were able to write posts with ease. For others writing a post for all to read was quite a scary concept and putting pen to paper was difficult. As this was a team blog and we wanted everyone to feel comfortable and happy to post, we knew that the project would need planning, organisation, ongoing management and time to be a success.

Tips for setting up a team blog

Here are some of our tips for starting a team blog:

  • Communicate the goals and focus of the team blog – from the offset, as a team, we discussed what we would like to include in our blog site, things such as events we’d attended, projects that we were working on, useful information about the technologies people in the University were using, and topical news that had interested us.
  • Develop a team blog style guide and author guidelines – we put together some guidelines as to the style of the posts i.e. sizing of headers, images, copyright, referencing etc so that the posts were consistent although written by multiple people.
  • Choose an appropriate team blog tool – we choose WordPress as our blogging tool and created each member of the team their own user account so they had ownership of their own posts.
  • Have team editors/proofreaders – we delegated the proofreading and editing of the posts to 3 members of the team – so all posts after written in draft were checked by them before going live.
  • Create an editorial/blog post calendar – we created a calendar so that we could organise and schedule when posts were going live and keep an ongoing spreadsheet of all posts to keep track of what stage they were at.
  • Offer collaboration and communication tools to contributors – all members of the team have access to Slack where we can discuss the blog posts and Google Drive where we structure and manage all the posts. Everything is clearly structured in folders and everyone has access to everything.
  • Provide feedback to contributors – feedback regarding the blog site as a whole and feedback regarding posts are either discussed on Slack or directly to the contributor.
  • Recruit guest bloggers – we have had several members of staff from other departments contribute to the site which has been great in networking with other departments.
  • Repurpose content without losing quality – when times have been a little quiet we have been able to repurpose content that is topical – so we are never short of finding content for our site.
  • Remain flexible – I think flexibility is key to running a team blog site, nothing is set in stone, so we are able to accommodate for any obstacles that we’ve come up against over the last 2 years.

Build it and they will come

We did build it and they did come, but slowly. It’s easy to assume with blogging that once you’ve built the site then that’s it, ta-dah job done. We’ve learnt however that this isn’t the case and we’ve had to be patient and continue to be, building an audience doesn’t happen overnight.

What’s in store for the next 2 years

It’s uncertain where Tel Tales will reside in the future, we may become part of the University of Portsmouth website, however we still hope to have a presence in one shape or form. We continue to raise our profile in other forms of media, Tom L has created some Podcasts on Tel Tales, so if you haven’t listened to those yet then check them out. Tom is also looking at our YouTube channel and will be providing some new videos on there. Shaun is working on our Instagram account, so make sure to follow us if you’re a keen Instagrammer.

I’m immensely proud of the team and everyone that has contributed to the site, especially those that have found it difficult to write for an online environment but have still given it a go! Big thanks to Mandy who’s our team organiser and keeps us informed of who’s doing what and to Stephen, Alana and Tom C for being our team proofreaders, Tom L and Shaun our social media bods and for Will and Mike for all their help behind the scenes with the ‘techy stuff’ and thank you to everyone in the team that has contributed to Tel Tales. Thanks to all our followers too – we hope you enjoy reading our posts!! Cheers everyone!

Wishing you all a very ‘Happy Easter’ from the TEL team.

Happy Easter

If you would like to feature as a guest blogger on Tel Tales then please get in touch and we can discuss ideas with you 🙂

Image credits:
https://pixabay.com/images/id-72160/
http://www.quotesvalley.com/quotes/failure/page/443/
https://pixabay.com/images/id-2406452/

Lady wearing a blue top looking out of a virtual reality headset

Natalie_4.0

April 17, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Software developers and user interface designers often use storytelling techniques to help them make sense of different features of their system and to help them communicate and explain their work to others. Software developers, for example, write “user stories”: descriptions of system features written from the perspective of an end user of the system. User interface designers often develop “personas” – a written description of a fictional character who represents a particular type of end user.

Jisc, in trying to understand what Education 4.0 might mean, have adopted a similar approach. They have created a fictional character, called Natalie_4.0, who represents a student taking a university course in geography in October 2029. What might a typical study day look like for Natalie_4.0? What opportunities will technology open up for her? By writing a story – “A day in the life of Natalie_4.0” – we can try to get a feel for what the future of educational might be like. Our story would not say that is is how education will turn out; but it can say how education might turn out.    

The twist here is that Jisc have written Natalie’s story not in the form of a written story, as is usual in the software development and UI world, but in the form of a virtual reality experience. I checked out the Natalie_4.0 VR experience at the recent Digifest conference. So – what was it like?

Well, the first thing to say is that the VR technology itself is improving at a rapid rate. Increasing numbers of VR content developers are entering the market and the hardware is getting cheaper and better. The Natalie_4.0 VR experience itself builds on this foundation: it is immersive, and while you are sharing Natalie’s day it is easy to imagine how VR technology could have real educational benefits. (Personally, I don’t believe that those benefits extend to all subject areas. Indeed, in many cases I believe the introduction of VR would be detrimental – it would be a gimmick. Nevertheless, in some niche areas I can see how VR could deliver tremendous benefits.)   

But what about the story itself? Does Natalie_4.0 provide a reasonable guess as to what the student of 2029 might experience? Well, of course we won’t know definitively for another ten years. But for what it’s worth I believe that some guesses will likely prove accurate; others won’t.

The influence of AI on daily life is one aspect of Natalie_4.0 that will, I think, come to pass. The story suggests that Natalie will have access to a personal AI that will help her throughout her day – in her learning as well as in her everyday life. But other aspects of the story seemed to me less convincing. For example, Natalie’s AI organises a live feedback session with her (human) tutor. Well, it will be terrific if turns out that every student has access to a personal tutor; if every student can sit down with a teacher and have a one-on-one session to discuss a piece of work. But how is such a thing possible in a mass education system? Most universities can’t offer that luxury now – why should that change in the future? (It might be that Jisc have underestimated the rate of progress of artificial intelligence; perhaps Natalie’s personal AI will be able to play the role of tutor as well as general assistant?)  

Another AI-related thought struck me as I sat through Natalie_4.0. In the feedback session mentioned above, the tutor uses some gee-whiz technology to provide feedback on … a written essay. Well, technology has already reached the stage where an AI can generate reasonable text in a variety of styles; in ten years time I’m sure Natalie would be able to get an AI system to write an essay for her. (Who knows. Perhaps AI systems will be able to mark essays. Why not cut out the middle-man and have an AI write an essay and a different AI mark it! All untouched by human hands!) In such a world, authentic forms of assessment will become crucial: tutors will need to assess skills that are uniquely human – judgement, creativity, leadership, teamwork, communication. That is the main thing I took from the Natalie_4.0 experience.

Image credits: Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

5G - Are we ready?

5G – Are we ready?

April 10, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I watched a very interesting documentary from Panorama the other day, called ‘Can we trust Huawei?’, which explored 5G and the Chinese tech-giant Huawei. Our government are currently in talks with Huawei and will soon decide if the company will be allowed to build our next generation mobile network that will transform the way we live.

So what is 5G and what does it mean to us?

5G is the next generation of mobile technology. It is envisaged to bring a ‘Network Society’ which will provide an unlimited access to data and information at anytime, anywhere by anyone and anything. 5G is expected not only to interconnect people but to also interconnect and control machines and devices too, and in this way will take on a much larger role than previous generations of mobile technology.

5G is different to previous generations in the following ways . . .

  • 1G – was about the analogue phone which allowed us to make calls to one another.
  • 2G – allowed us to send sms messages and use voice recording.
  • 3G – the promise of a smartphone, allowed us to access video broadband services.
  • 4G – (since 2009) allowed us to do all of the first 3 things but much faster.
  • 5G – will not just change how we use our mobiles but how we connect our devices to the internet. The improved capacity and speed of the network will signal ‘Internet of Things’ (loT) trends, such as connected cars, smart cities and loT in the home and office.

In the Panorama documentary, Dr Stephanie Hare, Technology Consultant, describes 5G as ‘like going from Earth to Mars, it’s not a faster world, it’s a different world. It is going to be a world where we are connected, machines will be talking to each other and talking to you’.

At the moment we instruct and control our machines and devices, however 5G will mean the way we communicate with machines and how they communicate with us and each other will completely change. ‘We will be able to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human to computer interaction’ (https://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/definition/Internet-of-Things-IoT) – everything will have a unique identifier (UIDs)

How will this affect us in our everyday lives?

To achieve 5G, the idea is that more and more antennas will be attached to lamp posts, buildings and pretty much everywhere you can think of. This will help us and machines/devices to talk to each other and make our lives easier then we probably can’t quite imagine yet.

One of the examples in the documentary mentioned that your fridge would be able to tell you when you run out of groceries and then it could re-order them for you via a self-driving truck! It sounds good to me, as a busy working mum of two I’m always looking for easier, more convenient ways to do things around the house so 5G surely will make everyday chores a thing of the past, right? Or should we be concerned? Does this mean judgement day is upon us and machines will take over the world?

Moral panic and Huawei

Huawei claim to be 18 months ahead technologically of any other 5G manufacturer. Whoever supplies 5G to the UK will be everywhere, so is this a cause for concern especially if we do choose Huawei who are hugely controversial? The US calls Huawei the enemy and claim that China will use 5G for cyber spying and want the UK to ban using the company.

The other concern is when it comes to warfare, future warfare will more than likely be cyber, unlike traditional warfare when we think of armies in the past. With the idea of 5G highly embedded in our infrastructures, the fear is that the whole country’s systems could be taken down at one flick of the switch leading to a cyber attack.

Therefore should we embrace 5G or fear it?

To summarise, as with all new technologies there are fears, fears of the unknown and how life will be changed from what we are used to, to something we can’t quite understand or imagine yet. However, technology also brings development and opportunity, ways to better society and our everyday lives. All technologies bring with them their own risk and these will need to be managed, however the use of 5G could also lead to an exciting transformation of the world that we are all used to. I’m interested to see the role it will play within HE – how do you think 5G will have an impact on education?

If you missed the documentary  ‘Can we trust Huawei?’ – I would recommend catching up with it on BBC iPlayer.

Image credits: https://pixabay.com/images/id-3443540/

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