Adventures in Technology Enhanced Learning @ UoP
Click on our blog posts below to view what the team have been up to, where we’ve been and what inspires us in learning and teaching. We are always looking for keen bloggers to contribute to our site, if you are a University of Portsmouth member of staff and interested in writing a post for Tel Tales then please get in touch with your ideas.
This is the final part of a series of four blog posts conceived by Tom Langston and Rugaiya Ally as part of Rugaiya’s work placement within DCQE’s Academic Development and Technology Enhanced Learning teams.
Tom and Rugaiya wanted to explore students’ feelings about higher education and their expectations about life at university, and therefore devised a set of questions to ask students about their experiences. Rugaiya then interviewed 14 fellow students from across the university faculties (with a predominant number studying in the Science and Business faculties) with most studying at Level 5. This series of posts constitutes a condensed summary of the thoughts and opinions of those 14 students.
In part one we investigated what areas of their course students found to be a strength and where they struggled with the progression through their course. In part two we explored student expectations prior to coming to university. In part three we examined students’ attitudes toward their future careers. Finally, here in part 4, we focus on the student’s university experience and how proud they are to be University of Portsmouth students.
The first question I asked was: What makes you proud to be affiliated with your university?
The students said that many areas of the university offer them the chance to feel part of Portsmouth; they referred to “its diversity and inclusivity”.
“The history of the university; it feels good to know I am part of a long chain of people who passed through the same buildings.”
The university provides a space where being part of something bigger than the individual is important: “Recently, the university was in the top 40 for student satisfaction. I agree with that and it makes me proud to be part of this university that’s willing to help the students.”
It is not just the name of Portsmouth that is recognised, but also the people who work here and who offer a sense of community – there is a sense in which they are the true heart of Portsmouth.
“The dedication that some of the lecturers have with the students and how willing they are to interact with them during lessons.”
“I am proud to be affiliated with this university since it made me develop a lot of skills from studying different courses to how they are applied in real life cases thus being confident to what is coming on careers and all programs concerning careers.”
“It’s a great University, top 100 and the architecture course is very well known around the world.”
Ultimately, the support that many students receive through personal tutoring, ASK, their tutors and fellow students is a key point of pride to many: “The help I get from the university is beyond imagination!”
I then asked: What is something you would change about your university if you had the opportunity?
Current students have a very similar and shared opinions concerning COVID and the pandemic.
One student pointed out how important it is for new students and even current students to be introduced to the Student Support Services – Wellbeing, ASDAC and many others – as these are extremely useful: life at university is not easy! So instead of promoting all those discos and clubs, a major topic during inductions and orientations should be an introduction to Student Support Services.
“I think especially to first years (freshers), the university should make a great effort to introduce them to the different clubs and student support services that are held at the university. This would not only help them with their social skills but it’s a great addition to their CV for placements”.
Another student commented on the feedback system after assignments. Sometimes the feedback is not really helpful, which is why some students do not even turn in their formative assignments for feedback. (This example highlights that the feedback for a group assignment can vary depending on the student.)
“If had to change anything it would be their feedback system, it is not quite efficient for me and also stops giving students different feedback for the same projects”
The final question I asked was: Considering your complete experience with our curriculum being taught, how likely would you be to recommend your course to a friend or colleague?
Overall feelings were positive: most students replied with “yes, very likely” and there were some great responses about their university experience.
Each student will have a range of experiences, however. The complete picture they build is a key conclusion to the time spent at university.
“Yes, I would recommend it because, during my two full years at the University of Portsmouth, I have come to appreciate and enjoy modules like finance that I never expected to enjoy.”
While COVID was a major part of the university life of many students, there was a general understanding and appreciation of the work put in by academics. Although one student ranked the overall experience as 5/10 they were clear that the support provided by the university and their tutors was important.
One of the students would recommend the course to others due to the tactics used by the teaching staff at the university, which were helpful in making harder modules and disciplines easier to understand: “I would highly recommend biomedical science to others, pathological science is the main part of biomedical science and the teaching team here at the University of Portsmouth are amazing with incredible teaching tactics which makes it enjoyable and easy to understand, especially haematology and microbiology.”
“I would totally recommend international business and management to my friends and colleagues”.
Another student pointed out how helpful the Psychology department is and that is why the student will recommend others to join psychology at UoP: “I would recommend it and I’d recommend the university because the psychology department is very helpful”.
These comments demonstrate how supportive the University of Portsmouth can be for the students, giving them a sense of pride to be part of something bigger than themselves.
Throughout this series of blogs, Rugaiya interviewed students from a variety of faculties but found that they all had a shared sense of what being part of Portsmouth means. There are of course areas that should be continuously worked on and developed or enhanced but overall the experience that Portsmouth offers is one that elevates the individual and helps them to achieve a sense of personal success and pride.
Credit Image: Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash
(Co-writer: ChatGPT)
In 2022 the TEL team said “goodbye” to some valued colleagues, who moved to take up different roles within the University, and we said “hello” to new colleagues who joined us. Chris, Jo, and Mike have already introduced themselves on TEL Tales, so I would like to use this end-of-year post to discuss a couple of work-related highlights: our implementation of Moodle 4.0 and, regarding the key area of assessment and feedback, our pilot of the WiseFlow end-to-end assessment platform.
Moodle 4.0 is the latest version of the Moodle learning management system, and it includes many new features and improvements that aim to enhance the user experience and support better learning outcomes. Some of the key improvements in Moodle 4.0 include:
Overall, Moodle 4.0 is a significant improvement over previous versions of the learning management system, and it offers many new features and enhancements that can support better learning outcomes and a more engaging and effective learning experience.
At this point I would like to ask the reader: did you notice anything unusual about my discussion of Moodle 4.0?
Moving on, another major project for the TEL team has been to support a pilot implementation of the WiseFlow end-to-end assessment platform. Our hope is that a dedicated platform will allow us to improve our practices around assessment and feedback. Let’s explore that idea below in a little more detail.
There are many different ways to assess students, and the best approach will depend on the specific learning goals and objectives, as well as the context and needs of the learners. Some key principles and strategies that can help to ensure effective assessment of students include:
Overall, effective assessment of students requires careful planning, the use of a variety of assessment methods, timely and meaningful feedback, and student engagement in the assessment process.
Again, at this point I would like to ask the reader: did you notice anything unusual about my discussion of assessment and feedback?
I inserted those italicised questions above because I (Stephen Webb) did not write any of the text in the two subsections. My “co-author” (ChatGPT) wrote the text.
In 2022, GPT3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3) became a mainstream technology. At least a dozen apps are available that can provide clear, comprehensible text-based responses to prompts provided by a user. An app such as ChapGPT can write essays (and poems, and computer code, and much else besides). And many of our students will know this.
Similar technology can generate artwork. The artwork accompanying this blog post is an original by DALL-E, from a prompt I provided. DALL-E is a much better artist than I can ever hope to be.
I hesitate to call this technology Artificial Intelligence because it is neither artificial nor intelligent; I prefer the term Assistive Computation. Whatever we call the technology, though, I believe that in 2023 we need, as educators, to start grappling with its implications. Can we reasonably assess students by setting them essays to write, when apps can spit out the essays for them? What does the technology mean for notions of authorship and plagiarism? (You will notice that I have credited ChatGPT as being the co-author of this blog post; is that reasonable or meaningful?) What are the best strategies for learning with this technology?
Of course, teachers as well as students can use Assistive Computation. As an experiment, recently, an academic asked ChatGPT to generate a question in a particular knowledge domain that could be set for a first-year undergraduate essay. (The question it generated was entirely suitable.) The academic then asked ChatGPT to generate a rubric for the question. (The rubric was acceptable.) Then the academic asked ChatGPT to write an essay based on the question it had set. (The essay showed no insight, made no new points but would have received a passing grade.) Finally, the academic asked ChatGPT to mark the essay according to the rubric. (The feedback, if nothing else, was at least provided in a more timely fashion than human teachers can provide.)
This experiment suggests to me that either (i) we cut out the middlemen (students and teachers) and let AI do whatever it wants; or (ii) we work together – both students and teachers – to understand how to use Assistive Computation to improve teaching and learning.
There are many questions here. And I believe 2023 is the year we all need to start grappling with them. Another question: should educators be concerned about this technology? I’ll let my co-author answer:
It’s natural for educators to be concerned about the potential impact of technology on their profession. However, it’s important to note that systems like ChatGPT are not capable of replacing the role of a human educator. While they may be able to generate text, they do not have the ability to understand or evaluate the content of that text in the same way that a human can. It’s also worth considering that the use of such systems may actually highlight the importance of critical thinking and analysis skills, which are vital for success in education and beyond. In the end, the role of educators will continue to be important in helping students develop these skills and prepare for the future.
I (the human, not the AI) would like to wish you an enjoyable festive period and a happy New Year!
Credit Image: An original by DALL-E
So the time had come to pack my bags, charge my batteries and wipe my memory cards clean ready for a week on the Mediterranean coastline. We caught a coach from Portsmouth to Gatwick and I was introduced to the students at the airport. One thing I noticed was how weird it felt that things were becoming more “normal” again! We had faced two years of social distancing and restrictions, but most of these had faded away into the ether (although many people were still wearing masks in indoor settings).
I got to my seat and settled in to watch a couple of films I had pre-loaded onto my tablet. As I mentioned in
An old Lava trench, looking up towards the erupting summit in the background.
Part 1 this was the first time I had been abroad in more than five years, so it was hard to get used to sitting in a confined space for a few hours. Fortunately, I was distracted from this as we flew over Sicily: Mt Etna, in all its imposing glory, dominated the skyline – to see how much of it stretches across the island was tremendous!
We touched down in the early evening and, following a (lengthy) delay in getting our hire vans, we arrived at our accommodation at about 9 pm that night. We were housed about an hour’s drive from the airport and on the way there we got our first real look from the ground at Mt Etna itself. I count myself incredibly lucky that it was erupting the whole time we were there. Plumes of ash spewing from the top and yet everyone was going about their normal business…
View from the rooftop of our hostel, Mt Etna erupting in the distance.
We stayed in a hostel in Giardini Naxos, a small town on the east coast. The owner was most welcoming, offering us local delicacies and some sweet wine upon our arrival. But it had been a long day of travelling so, after indulging in some Italian culture (it would have been rude not to!), I went to catch some much-needed sleep. In the morning I went up to the rooftop balcony to familiarise myself with my surroundings. This picture shows just how close we were to Mt Etna: the volcano was constantly erupting and in the evenings we were lucky to see some pretty striking lava flows with the naked eye. I could not wait to get closer to the action. If you would like to see more, please check the daily vlog that I began recording almost immediately.
On our first full day, we went to Aci Costello, which is another small town about a 40-minute drive down the coast. It was here that I could start filming for the first resource we had planned: a satellite image with hotspots that students could click on to get a better idea of the area in question.
The Aci Costello castle, I remember it was baking hot that day (as it was most other days!)
We walked around this Norman-era castle, looking at different interesting viewpoints. On this particular shoot, I was left to my own devices. This was fine but, because I lacked the subject knowledge, it was hard to know what was “interesting” to film and what wasn’t. I did not want to waste my time so I referred back to the lecturer for some guidance at appropriate points. I shall talk more about editing this resource in Part 3.
On day 3 we tried to climb Mt Etna. Unfortunately, a bank of clouds rolled in as we began a two-hour trek towards our stopping point. The trip leaders decided it was not worth going all the way and abandoned the trek about an hour in. It was disappointing but we were fortunate enough to scale it another day! More of that later…
Each of the following day’s activities, because they were weather dependent, were confirmed the night before. We were fortunate that most days it was sunny, with a temperature in the high 20s/early 30s. That certainly made the trip more bearable!
Hi Viz jacket and helmet were compulsory in most locations!
Some of the activities required standing next to the main road, which meant filming was slightly precarious – but I had my high-viz jacket and hard hat on at all times!
As the days wore on, I got more familiar with the routine, the sketchy Sicilian driving styles, and the environment in which I was working. Each night, back at the hostel, I spent an hour or so renaming all of my files so that when it came to the edit, it would be a much smoother process.
The scenery was utterly breathtaking – but, as I shall describe later, nothing could have prepared me for what was about to come as we scaled Mt Etna once more.
During the day we drove up to one of the base camps and the students went off for a large portion of the day on a mapping exercise they had been preparing for.
Derek Rust, Trip leader explaining about a field mapping exercise the students had to undertake.
During that time I managed to film a short video with Derek Rust, the trip leader, who was able to describe exactly what the mapping exercise was so that future students would be even more prepared for their trip. I also spent some time getting some B-roll (Background) footage that I could use to cut in with other videos I had filmed over the previous few days. I was distinctly aware of the explosive nature of the volcano – a loud bang occurring every 15-20 seconds – but nobody seemed bothered! So I decided not to worry about it.
Later that afternoon we drove around the side of the mountain to another “Rifugio” (Literally meaning refuge, but in this case was a small bar/cafe with a big car park) where we tried to scale the mountain once more. This time the weather conditions were more clement and we took a slow, steady walk to one of the ridges. The distance was perhaps only one or two miles, but because the gradient was so steep we took a couple of hours to get there! The ground surface was quite bizarre – neither soil nor mud, but a material called “tephra”, a gravel-like substance that had been ejected from the volcano years previously. It made our legs work that little bit harder. On the way up we stopped for photo opportunities and a deserved breather!
We finally reached our destination, just after sunset and I was surprised to find that we were not the only group there. A group of about 50 other people, a mix of locals and tourists, had also slogged their way up to see this magnificent view.
Mt Etna erupting in all its glory, a life-changing moment to capture this eruption.
The term “speechless” is often overused, but I genuinely was speechless! The scale was incredible. I had never experienced such a view. We could see for miles, across the Valle del Bove right down to the coastline; mainland Italy was in the distance. At this point I was ravenous so I sat against some rocks and ate my dinner whilst watching lava shoot hundreds of feet up into the atmosphere. It felt surreal!
I was surprised by how quiet it was. Compared to earlier in the day, where you could hear bangs constantly, this was much more subdued – although there were plenty of oohs and aaahh’s, almost like watching a firework display without the noise. Then, back to work: I took some photos and footage to feed into the bonus resource that we had planned.
After a couple of hours of admiring the power of mother nature, it was time to make our descent. It was pitch black by this point so the descent took almost as long as the ascent. We drove down the mountain, and back to the hostel, and I reflected on what was a long but thoroughly enjoyable day.
A couple of days later, it was time to head home. I was sad to be leaving – I had met some wonderful people, tasted Italian/Sicilian culture, and woken up to some of the most spectacular views I had ever seen! But I was excited to get back. I knew I had captured some great content and I knew that I could make some great resources from the footage.
In Part 3 I shall talk about the editing process, and how I turned the footage into Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs).
Credit Images: All photos within this blog post were taken by Jonathan Bell, except The Aci Costello castle which was taken from https://www.typicalsicily.it/
Hi, I’m Mike Taylor and since mid-September, I’ve been a Senior Learning Technologist (Assessment) with the TEL team on floor 3 of Mercantile House. In 2001 I was on floor 7 of the same building studying Maths and Astronomy.
After graduating and stepping out of Mercantile house for what I presumed was the final time, I began my first job in education as a library assistant at South Downs College. There, I was tasked with developing a website to promote an annual equality and diversity festival. I taught myself basic web design, which gave me my first insight into the power of using this kind of technology in education. Although most of the apps I relied upon are now defunct (Adobe Imageready, Flash and Fireworks… remember them?), it made me curious as to how this can be used to enhance learning. In hindsight, it also taught me the important lesson that the skills of an online developer must remain current!
I spent the next 11 years at South Downs teaching A level Maths and BTEC/HND Music Performance, along with a multitude of other roles (Course Manager; Lead Internal Verifier; Trainee Teaching Mentor; plus many more), all the time gathering skills and experience, and spotting opportunities to improve college life via the use of technology.
The move toward a career in online development came six years ago when I joined the Online Course Developer Team at St George’s, supporting the online learning of the Schools of Education and Criminal Justice. In 10 short months, the team taught me an invaluable amount and provided me with excellent opportunities such as obtaining my HEA Fellowship and giving me the freedom to learn and experiment with programming tools such as JavaScript and jQuery.
Five years in the two Schools of Engineering provided a more direct experience with HE assessment. This, along with everything we have learnt from our rapid response to the pandemic, has reinforced my confidence in the value of weaving tech into education. I took a deep dive into the world of automating workloads with Google Apps Script and built ethics review systems centrally and for the faculty. I generated an enormous question bank of auto-marking Maths questions for the Mathematical Principles modules, greatly easing the marking burden of the assessment team.
Now, 21 years later, I’ve returned to Mercantile house. A lot has changed. It looks a lot nicer, and I’m 99% sure no one uses Netscape anymore. But my trip down 4 flights of stairs has taught me that we are in a great position to enhance the student experience, improve our colleagues’ work lives, and innovate across the board.
I now have the incredibly difficult job of filling Mike Wilson’s shoes, a tough act to follow. Fortunately for all of us, he’s not going too far so the transition should be a smooth one, and I’ll be assisting him in the delivery of the trial of the end-to-end assessment platform WiseFlow.
In my personal life, I love playing the guitar, ukulele and singing (there’s nothing as satisfying as a bunch of disparate musicians coming together to make a melodious racket) and camping with the family (and dog!) in our DIY converted campervan (see attached image generated by DALL-E!).
I look forward to working with you all over the next year. If you have any questions, drop me an email at mike.taylor@port.ac.uk.
Welcome to the team, Mike!
Hi everyone, I’m Maria Hutchinson and I joined the Academic Development team back in June as a Learning Designer. One of the projects I was given early on was to create a professional development module to support the pedagogical upskilling of our Online Course Developers (OCDs), Seniors OCDs, Learning Technologists, Educational Technologists, Learning Support Tutors, Associate Lecturers, or other relevant roles related to supporting student learning.
The aptly named Teach Well: Principles to Practice module has been approved and we are actively recruiting for TB2 Jan-May. This new 30-credit L7 professional development module is FREE for UoP and will run TB1 and TB2.
Join us on a pedagogical journey through 3 pillars of practice for teaching well in higher education, and gain the confidence to critically evaluate learning and design approaches and reflect on what it means to teach well across different modes of study.
On completion of the module, you will be able to support colleagues in the fields of learning design and wider pedagogic practice, including supporting workshops such as enABLe, the University’s framework to support innovative team-based learning design. You will also engage with the UKPSF and be able to work towards an appropriate level of Fellowship.
This practical module focuses on learning design, teaching practice, and assessment and feedback, in the context of a solid pedagogic framework linked to blended and connected learning. A significant component of the module content and associated skills is practical teaching.
You will learn via a mixture of face-to-face away days* and online synchronous sessions, including workshops, discussions and guest speakers, where you will be encouraged to engage. Guided learning will include asynchronous online activities, in addition to which, you will be expected to engage in assessment activities and independent study. Key dates of online sessions and away days.
*NOTE: Attendance at face-to-face away days are mandatory, therefore, you should ensure that you have prior approval from your line manager to attend them.
For more information and for details on how to enrol, please contact: maria.hutchinson@port.ac.uk
This is part three in a series of four blog posts conceived by Tom Langston and Rugaiya Ally as part of Rugaiya’s work placement within DCQE’s Academic Development and Technology Enhanced Learning teams.
Tom and Rugaiya wanted to explore students’ feelings about higher education and their expectations about life at university, and therefore devised a set of questions to ask students about their experiences. Rugaiya then interviewed 14 fellow students from across the university faculties (with a predominant number studying in the Science and Business faculties) with most studying at Level 5. This series of posts constitutes a condensed summary of the thoughts and opinions of those 14 students.
In part one we investigated what areas of their course students found to be a strength and where they struggled with the progression through their course. In part two we explored student expectations of their courses and modules and what could be changed and what should continue. Here in part three, we examine students’ attitudes to their future careers, and how their taught modules helped them develop the life and employability skills needed to achieve their goals. Finally, in part 4, we will look at attitudes to university life in general.
The first question I asked was: How do you feel what you have learned on your course has helped you develop your career?
One student focused on how learning on their course helped in finding passion, even if they are still uncertain of which careers to go into:
“It has helped a lot, even though I’m not yet sure what I want to do. I know that I like psychology and I like being able to link it to different parts, e.g. art/design/business.”
Another student found that their continued desire for the course has shaped how they approach the career that they want, and it helped develop useful relevant skills:
“The fact that it has been a course I have always wanted to study and practice, and so it improved my physical and mental skills in the field.”
Some students developed extra skills and knowledge of their future careers:
“What I have learned has helped me develop my career in a significant way, most especially in business management and when it comes to decision making.”
Similarly, a Pharmacy student explained how their course helped them to interpret data and practical applications for the components that make up medicine:
“The information about drugs has helped me understand and interpret the excipients in it a lot.”
Many students develop their passion over the duration of their course, and what they expect for their career can evolve and change over time:
“The different modules I have undertaken exposed me to different kinds of knowledge and career paths. In my Sixth Form, I wouldn’t have considered taxation as a career path but after my second year I realised that I do have a passion for the module and, luckily, I do understand it well.”
The next question I posed was: How has your university experience in general helped you to progress into a career?
One student commented on how helpful the Careers and Employability team are in guiding students with extra information about the job market: “The placement team significantly helped me progress my career because of the guidance they were always ready to offer. They not only helped me with constructing a CV but the different techniques required to progress.”
However, while some found their placement to be a success, others had a slightly more challenging experience.
Another student mentioned how good and unique the University’s learning environment is in providing learning and teaching services with cutting-edge resources: “The University of Portsmouth provides hands-on simulation sessions, lab classes, dispensing sessions, and placement, which has helped me gain practical skills. As an international student, I appreciate that a lot, since in my country, there’s a lack of that.”
One student is now sure of what career path to follow, and this is possible due to the help of personal tutors and course lecturers: “During the first year, I was quite unsure what to do but now I have a bit of a clearer idea on what I want to do once I graduate. Talking with my tutor and lecturers when I was in my second year has helped me decide as well.”
Another student commented on the University’s alumni body, which is very helpful as you get support and guidance from people who are already in relevant careers or who have much relevant experience:
“The university has an alumni body that is accessible to all graduates for career advice, where I am given guidance on how to embark on my career.”
“It has opened a lot of opportunities I didn’t think I had.”
The third question I asked was: Did this course help you develop professional skills (e.g. written or oral communication, computer literacy, teamwork)?
Some students found the learning in their courses helped them develop important life skills, such as writing and communication skills:
“Yes, the course helped my writing skills, because it is part of the course itself, to be able to express legal concerns and other different actions.”
“DLLP, particularly presentations, have helped me improve my communication and problem-solving skills, and therefore, I’m looking forward to improving more as I progress into the course. Meetings with personal tutors is also a factor which has improved my communication as well as writing lab reports, which have improved my writing skills.”
One student pointed out how course group work helped them gain useful employability skills, such as team-working skills: “3 out of 6 of the total modules we did in the second year required us, the students, to carry out a presentation as a group. This helped me with my team-working skills and intellectual skills. This is because some of the presentations required us to present them to the class face-to-face while others required a lot of research in order to come up with a well-detailed business plan”.
The goal of a university is to provide a student with opportunities to progress both educationally and personally. These experiences will be the building blocks for their careers and it is often not just the taught content but the wide variety of skills that are developed over their entire university life that help provide a strong foundation for employability after graduation. As demonstrated through the feedback of the students interviewed, employability should not just be something undertaken in the final year, but a culmination of all the time spent at university.
Credit Image: Photo by Luis Melendez on Unsplash
It has been almost six months since I travelled on my first field trip abroad with a group of Masters students (and a couple of academics…), an expedition to Sicily during which I helped create some video-based learning resources. I thought now might be a good time to reflect on my experience in terms of planning the trip; filming the resources, and editing the videos once I got back. This will be a three-part blog in which I talk about each of those stages individually.
The trip was certainly a humbling experience for me, and I count myself fortunate to have been supported by my team and my manager and been allowed to travel to Sicily in what is usually an extraordinarily busy time of year for me in my role as an Online Course Developer.
So, where did it all begin?
Well, in September 2021 I delivered a workshop to a group of academic staff from our School of Environment, Geography and Geosciences. I talked about best practices in online learning within a Moodle framework and, at the end of the workshop, I asked – half-jokingly! – whether anyone had any field trips planned that year and would they consider taking me? (As I have posted in other articles, I have a passion for creating video-based resources. Up until that point I had worked on some great video projects, but all of them had been UK-based – mostly Portsmouth-based, though I did have one short day trip to West Sussex! After two years of Covid restrictions, and having not personally travelled outside of the country since 2016, I was desperate to spread my wings and push myself both in a personal and professional sense. So although my question was part in jest, I had good reasons for asking!)
Back to the workshop: an academic did indeed pipe up and said he was taking some students to Sicily in May for one of his modules. I arranged to meet him afterwards to discuss this further, and he told me he was keen to get some of the activities recorded (particularly if the resources could also be used for marketing material). We met on a Zoom call to decide on a plan of attack: he told me the planned dates and a rough outline of the itinerary, and from that, I had to determine whether there was enough scope for me to stay a whole week 1647 miles from home!
In terms of conceptualising resource development, I decided that I would like to make the best use of the tools that I am familiar with in Moodle. Recently, I have had a lot of experience with H5P and all of the 
activities that the software has to offer. On the other hand, I did not want my preferences to restrict the academic’s ideas too much: it is important that pedagogy comes first and the tool is chosen to support it, not the other way around.
So, to be able to bitesize this potentially mammoth project, we agreed to meet once a month to discuss one location and one resource. That way, we could focus our thinking on how to develop each activity. We took it step-by-step, first formulating a skeleton idea and then using a shared Google document to flesh it out in the time between meetings. I thought this was a great strategy to drive this project forward.
We came up with plans for three solid resources, plus another one involving climbing Mt Etna (although this was weather dependent as conditions are not always conducive to climbing a volcano). These resources were to feed into an Active Blended Learning (ABL) approach that we are fostering here at the University of Portsmouth. Our approach to ABL is to give students similar experiences in either a synchronous or asynchronous format. By filming and creating resources, students who were unable to attend the trip would still be able to have a meaningful experience and gain some knowledge from engaging with them. Additionally, if for some reason the trip had to be cancelled the following year, these resources could be pulled in with little notice to create a “virtual” field trip; students would thus not miss out as much. The hope for me is to be able to attend field trips each year and build a library of resources that academics can dip in and out of.
After making these plans, now was the time to run them past senior management. I needed to get some financial backing and the authorisation to be out of the office for a week at, as previously mentioned, the busiest time of year for me. Perhaps surprisingly, I got a green light with relative ease. There was still the threat that a major reappearance of Covid might cause the field trip to be cancelled and all that planning to be undone. So right until the week, we were due to fly I was not really getting my hopes up…
(Obviously, the field trip went ahead! In my next article, I’ll talk about the trip itself and my initial observations of working in a different country.)
Feature Image: Looking up towards an erupting Mt Etna from its lower ridges Credit: Jonny Bell
This is part two in a series of four blog posts conceived by Tom Langston and Rugaiya Ally as part of Rugaiya’s work placement within DCQE’s Academic Development and Technology Enhanced Learning teams.
Tom and Rugaiya wanted to explore students’ feelings about higher education and their expectations about life at university, and therefore devised a set of questions to ask students about their experiences. Rugaiya then interviewed 14 fellow students from across the university faculties (with a predominant number studying in the Science and Business faculties) with most studying at Level 5. This series of posts constitutes a condensed summary of the thoughts and opinions of those 14 students.
In part one we investigated what areas of their course students found to be a strength and where they struggled with the progression through their course. Here in part two, we explore the student expectations of their modules and courses. It will look at what made the module interesting, what should academics continue to do for their students and what areas should be changed or stopped. (Note that some quotes have been slightly edited to anonymise the academics who are referred to.) In part three we examine the students attitudes towards their employability skills. Finally, in part four, we look at university life in general.
The first question I asked was:
What do you think the instructor/lecturer did the best and made the module/course interesting and enjoyable?
One response highlighted the positive aspects when the lecturers use their own reflection and life experience to highlight the content and teaching material:
“Some did well in making us have a clear understanding of their modules by always providing enough examples and scenarios to understand firmly; however, with other lecturers, the reverse was the case”
Another student appreciated the group discussions organised by the lecturers:
“Group discussions and talks through forums made the course enjoyable”
When lecturers put in what the students considered to be “extra work and enthusiasm” learning was easier and study became a positive experience both inside and outside of the classroom.
Within the Faculty of Science and Health, the students reflected that:
“Lecturers within Pathological Science 2 made haematology interesting for me and the way they delivered their lectures online and in-person with interactive sessions with quizzes and case studies. Meanwhile, others made learning microbiology much easier with small quizzes they would put at the end of the video. It helped me with retaining what they taught during the lectures much faster”.
“The lectures of some lecturers … were really interesting since they explained well and answered our questions accordingly. Also, the presence of dispensing and lab sessions, as well as a practical simulation session enabled us to gain hands-on practical skills and knowledge and was very enjoyable”.
Within the Faculty of Business and Law, students had an equally positive experience when scenarios and interactive demonstrations were used to provide context for the theoretical teaching:
“The second term of my second year, we did a module called Critical Issues. The module coordinator that taught us managed to make the lessons interesting by letting the students discuss the notes in class in a creative and memorable way. For example, in order to learn more about inflation, she printed out fake money whereby we the students got to understand that having more money doesn’t solve the problem”.
My next question expanded on the area of the enthusiasm of the lecturers that were teaching the course. Responses were about how the lecturers made the classes more engaging as we all know how hard learning can be sometimes.
“Instructors were completely immersed in this course and made sure every student understood everything that was taught and were quite enthusiastic about the course, which gave it a lively feeling.”
“Yes. Some of them were really keen to deliver the lectures and were always willing to answer the questions whenever I emailed them”.
“Yes, some of my lecturers were good at explaining, ‘lecturer 1 for instance’ who does so in a way that everyone can understand.”
One student felt there was a split between how the lecturers delivered their materials:
“The lecturers mentioned in the previous question above were enthusiastic while others… made it seem like they weren’t. They couldn’t explain or answer our questions well and it seemed like all they were doing was just reading off the PowerPoints.”
It is important to consider the good practice of academics within the University so I asked:
“What do you think lecturers should continue doing?
One student found the revision sessions conducted by lecturers really helpful:
“They should continue to have more revision time. For example, I managed to uplift my grade in taxation during the speculated revision time we were given by the lecture. Since the lecturer wouldn’t be teaching, they will have enough to explain concepts in the pace more acceptable to the student”.
Another student liked the drop-in sessions and found them to be helpful since the lecturers mainly supported students with the specific academic problems they are facing:
“Helping students’ drop-in sessions on face-to-face classes should definitely continue”.
Another student felt that providing context to their learning really beneficial:
“They should continue explanations with real-life scenarios.”
One student found the material uploaded on Moodle useful as it provided guidance and supported preparation ahead of the lectures:
“They should continue to give more help and guidance to everyone through platforms like Moodle, continuing to record their lectures and giving relevant materials for extra reading lists”.
Moodle can be seen as a positive force for many students, although having a variety of external tools can also be overwhelming. Where academics feel they are providing choices or alternatives for engagement, they may be increasing a barrier to the learning experience.
Finally, what students found to be less positive is an important part of the reflective process. I asked:
“What do you think the lecturers should stop doing?”
Lecturers should stop simply reading the words on a slide. Instead, they need to provide context to their content and offer explanations of the information being presented:
“Some lecturers should stop merely browsing through the topical notes and then head straight to the questions but instead they should explain to the students what exactly is being required and the deeper meaning to the notes given”.
Another student replied:
“[Stop] holding revision classes very close to exam time and teaching contents 2 weeks before the exams”.
This answer provides insight into the notion of tight deadlines and issues of workload.
One student commented on how repeating exams (or past papers) is just testing their memories rather than their understanding of the concepts:
“Some exams were a complete copy of the past papers. I believe this forces students to just memorise answers from past mock papers instead of understanding more from textbooks. Exams should have past questions I agree; however, the paper should not be a complete copy of a past paper and rather should have different questions from different papers/books”.
With the university acutely aware of issues with awarding gaps, this area was important to students too.
Research suggests that lecturers are impacted by implicit bias and this can impact all areas of teaching, learning, interaction and marking. One student highlighted what they felt was evidence of an implicit racial bias, suggesting that all black students in their class were given the same mark in the assessment of 50/100.
Every student experiences university life differently, with some seeing a wider range of problems than others. As this blog highlights, there are areas that students feel academics can improve on but other areas that demonstrate a strong and positive experience in learning.
Credit Image: Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash
Hi everyone 😁
I’m Joanna Clarke and I started in the Technology Enhanced Learning team as an eLearn Support Analyst this summer. I did my MA in Applied Linguistics and TESOL here a few years ago, and my favourite module was on the use of technology and corpora in language teaching. Now I’m thrilled to be joining the team here, learning even more about technology and pedagogy, and applying what I already know.
I’ve taught EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and trained teachers for over 20 years (as well as having some pretty varied earlier work experience including a data assistant for clinical trials, a receptionist in France, and a thankfully short stint in a chicken factory).
Back in 2000, photocopiers and OHPs were the extents of the technology available in my college – and laminators if we were lucky, but you had to fight for those! I loved experimenting with new tools and finding new ways to engage students with lesson content. This led me to take on an ILT training role at Chichester College to find ways of supporting my colleagues in the use of technology. Initially, I was focused on how Moodle and other online resources can support individual study. As technology has evolved, it’s been fascinating to see the emergence of a wealth of resources for highly motivating competitive and cooperative activities, as well as new ways to help students express themselves and become more comfortable with sharing their ideas.
The pandemic took me to a new role at Chatterbox, a social enterprise that provides employment opportunities for marginalised people such as refugees in corporate language teaching. I was responsible for online content development and it was here that I really started to be interested in the data available for measuring student engagement and progress. In a classroom, I could always adjust my lesson content in response to students’ needs and reactions, but it’s very different from online material. At Chatterbox, I loved exploring the data available and then conducting user testing to investigate my hypotheses about student experiences. Working within the TEL team at Portsmouth will hopefully give me plenty more opportunities to use user data to inform module development.
What else can I say? You can probably predict from my work experience that I love languages – I’ve variously had passions for French, German, Greek, Czech, Japanese, and Spanish, although French is the only one that really stuck. My love of languages has also extended to programming languages. If anyone else out there is interested in learning these, I’d thoroughly recommend W3schools as an amazing resource for things like HTML, CSS and Javascript.
In my free time, I love going to the beach – particularly snorkelling around looking at the weird and wonderful underwater world. I’m lucky to have joined a very musical department. I used to play the piano and accordion, and the conversations around me now have given me a much-needed push to start playing again (and to take up the guitar – just have to toughen up my fingers first 😬).
Anyway, that’s plenty for a first introduction. If you want some company diving into the data on your Moodle site, please get in touch – we can go snorkelling for stats together 🤿😊.
Joanna is based in Mercantile House within the TEL team.
Welcome to the team, Joanna!
This is part one in a series of four blog posts conceived by Tom Langston and Rugaiya Ally as part of Rugaiya’s work placement within DCQE’s Academic Development and Technology Enhanced Learning teams.
Tom and Rugaiya wanted to explore students’ feelings about higher education and their expectations about life at university, and therefore devised a set of questions to ask students about their experiences. Rugaiya then interviewed 14 fellow students from across the university faculties (with a predominant number studying in the Science and Business faculties) with most studying at Level 5. This series of posts constitutes a condensed summary of the thoughts and opinions of those 14 students.
Here, in part one, we investigate what areas of their course students find to be a strength and where they struggle with the progression through their course. In part two we explore student expectations prior to coming to university. In part three we examine students’ attitudes toward their future careers. Finally, in part 4, we look at university life in general.
I asked: “What are the major strengths of this course”.
The general feeling from most students was extremely positive. One response was: “Being in the second year made me realise how much this course was not only theoretical based. This is because of the placement team that is always there to offer its help. Even though I did not manage to land a placement, the placement team helped me learn more about my future career.”
Another student mentioned that providing a safe space to learn is key: “To be able to practice in a simulated environment and the availability of many placement opportunities for gaining practical knowledge and skills.”
A couple of students found positives in the content but also found that the course developed their wider skill sets: “The major strength of this course will be that it covers a lot of areas regarding management and business. It also investigates different perspectives of decision making.”
In the next 30-second clip of audio, a student mentioned that developing their skills, both subject-specific, as well as more general, transferable skills, was important to the course. Strengths (0:29)
For some students, their subject interest was enhanced when they could see instant real-world implications: “Being able to learn about the patterns people have and apply that to real life immediately … I like how psychology allows me to explore different fields and learn about different ways of associating those fields, for example, perfumery and psychology: psychology helps us understand the emotions perfumes trigger and the moods each perfume may create on different people.”
For other students, the opportunity to engage with the subject was a key advantage: “It gives you the ability to relate to all global political and diplomatic affairs.”
An obvious strength is the role the lecturer plays in engaging the students: “The lecturers are really good and some of them make the lectures more enjoyable to listen to and pay attention to.”
The next question related to the potential negatives of their experiences. Asking “What were the major weaknesses with your course?”
Several students noted that they identified the weaker areas of their course to be when they struggled with specific skills or places where they might need help and support. For example: “The weakest aspect of this course will be the financial area, mostly because the calculations are quite different.”
The idea that students are required to have a certain level of self-efficacy is important, but not to the detriment of well-being: “… it is the student’s responsibility to keep track of their studies, but the university needs to also follow up on students’ performance – especially those that wouldn’t normally do well.”
It should also not be taken as a given that a lecture or seminar space provides complete clarity of the subject: “Having a lecturer who lacks the ability to explain his module explicitly in lectures.”
A common problem raised by students (as heard in the next 45-second audio clip) relates to the structure of not just one module, but multiple modules, and how their assessments are often grouped together. This can increase the pressure of a student’s workload. Weaknesses (0:45)
Some students found that Covid led to difficulties (as everyone expected). The transition to online working, however, raised problems not only with the loss of face-to-face interactions but, more importantly for the future of the blended and connected experience, how online activities were structured into the learning process. The following 27-second clip highlights the issue that students faced. Weakness (0:27)
As demonstrated above, there were many positives to a student’s experience at the University. In particular, students liked to see that they were learning more than just content but how the overall experience of university life was developing them personally. Despite the positives, however, the students identified areas for improvement, particularly in how courses and modules are designed and structured to create a manageable and achievable workload. Students wanted to achieve good grades and have a great social experience at university; inevitably, Covid impacted this.
Credit Image: Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash
Hi, I’m Chris Wood and I am one of the new eLearning Support Analysts for the Department of Curriculum and Quality Enhancement (DCQE).
In my previous role, I taught Music Technology and Media Studies at Portsmouth College for nearly 12 years. I also lead the College’s 1:1 “creative and curious” iPad project, resulting in Portsmouth College becoming one of only two colleges in the UK to be recognised as an Apple Distinguished School. In 2019, I became an Apple Distinguished Educator – a recognition of how I continued to use Apple technology to transform teaching and learning. This has taken me all over the world and I have met so many amazing friends and colleagues because of this. Over the past few years, I’ve had many incredible opportunities to present my work at worldwide events such as ISTE, Apple Distinguished Schools events, Mobile Learning Conference, JISC, and BETT as well as local education technology events within Portsmouth.
I have thrived on creating a culture of teaching, learning and innovation. A place where staff and students are risk-takers, sharers of good practice and digital advocates. I believe that providing a safe environment for teachers to share, explore and be brave can lead to incredible moments of learning. 
Last year, I released my first book “Throw away your whiteboard”, which documented my journey of switching from a traditional whiteboard to using an iPad, Keynote and an Apple Pencil. This revolutionised the way I taught and more importantly, the way my students learnt.
The book has achieved great success worldwide and has been featured in many online book talks/events. You can download it from Apple Books for free.
I’m hoping that I will be able to bring this experience, passion and innovation into my new role at the University of Portsmouth.
I believe we are in an exciting time for education, particularly as we emerge from the pandemic. The pandemic has taught us that we can transform education for all and develop new ways of teaching and learning. The modern classroom should no longer consist of rows of desks: technology allows students to design their own learning path and allows educators to push the boundaries of their work by extending the classroom beyond the physical institution. Having supported many teachers throughout the pandemic I strongly believe in the importance of equipping students and staff with the correct tools, resources and training to deliver effective lessons. We still have a lot to learn about the impact the pandemic has had on learning, but I am sure that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach will not work. We must adopt a ‘no-one left behind’ approach and offer students differentiated paths to the same outcomes as we move forward into this new normal.
Outside of work I have played the guitar for over 22 years and also become a successful music producer. I sit on the governing board at Leesland School in Gosport, which is incredibly rewarding and allows me to give back to these amazing schools that I attended as a child. I enjoy days out with my family; taking our whippet “Twiggy” for a walk (although, not when it’s raining as she refuses to go out without a coat!); paddleboarding; snooker; DIY; and getting up at the crack of dawn to chase sunrises.
If you’d like to connect and share ideas around technology-enhanced learning, I’m always open to talk! Feel free to connect with me and follow my adventures on Twitter @ChrisWoodTeach
Chris is based in Mercantile House within the TEL team.
Welcome to the team, Chris!
The Technology Enhanced Learning team, probably to a fault, doesn’t usually talk much about our in-house development of Moodle. A new version appears around the same time each year, bringing with it improvements either in performance, security or interface, or sometimes all of those. We also understand that these updates can occasionally be unwelcome, especially if things that worked before are now different for seemingly no reason. Those changes can be frustrating, to say the least.
What I’d like to do here is lift the lid a little on the Moodle development process, to highlight some of the work that goes into these yearly updates at the University, and also explain some of the choices we have had to make this year in order to improve the experience for as many of Moodle’s users as possible.
Moodle comes as a complete off-the-shelf system. It’s a working system from the moment it’s installed, containing many useful features and a serviceable visual appearance. Why, then, does the University need to do anything to Moodle before it gets used for learning?
The work we do to the off-the-shelf version of Moodle can broadly be categorised into three areas:
The TEL team first started discussing Moodle 4.0 slightly before the software was initially scheduled to be released, in December 2021.
Unfortunately, the initial, stable, version of Moodle 4.0 was not released until 9 May 2022. As you can imagine this delay was far from ideal. Whilst we could start some development on early code, the platform changed often – and sometimes drastically – so we held off as long as we could. This five-month delay was enough for us to question whether we would have to stay on the last version of Moodle for another year.
Normally a May–August development window would not worry us too much, but Moodle 4.0 had changed enough from the previous version that we wanted to look at our own theme, plugins and all the extras that we had added to Moodle over the years and give it all a review and refresh. We knew all of this would take time, so we were keen to get going as soon as we reasonably could.
We made the choice to develop a new theme, removing any technical debt from previous years. We also decided to review all plugins/extra features that we have added over the years: we wanted to know whether the requirement for them still existed, and in some cases whether a better solution existed. After all, if Moodle itself was getting an overhaul it seemed timely for us to review our own work!
After several discussions we identified what we needed to develop over the standard Moodle release in the 4.0 upgrade. These developments included:
To make the most of the new interface in Moodle 4.0 we needed a new theme. The theme is what you see when you log in to Moodle – and for many people this is what they think of when they think of Moodle.
This was to be a brand new start. Rather than starting with the old theme and undoing things we did not want, useful features in the old theme would be brought over to the new theme. Many of the other features listed below also required development in the theme to support them: the feedback and accessibility tools are good examples of this.
We identified that some of our help and support pages could be improved, and they were less visible than they should be, so we decided to overhaul them. The first part of this work was to put our existing support resources in their own tab and then create more directed support, depending on whether the user was a student or a member of staff.
Moodle users will also notice that links to useful resources are now also on a page of their own, rather than being available via a dropdown. We made this change because we felt it was necessary to provide some context around the links – previously, it was not always obvious what resources the links were sending users to. We hope this new layout will encourage users to explore some of the great resources we have available.
In addition to these tabs, we are also working on an additional feature that gives users insight into their use of Moodle. The “My Activity” tab will give facts, figures and insight into a user’s own data, so they can more easily see how they engage with the platform. This feature is currently still being developed but should be ready around the start of term.
We identified the need to implement a way for users to view contextualised help, report problems or make suggestions from within Moodle itself.
Such a feature would help us in three ways:
After analysing the problem, we developed a system whereby a user can click the help button from anywhere in Moodle, fill in a few simple details, and have a Servicedesk ticket logged and assigned to the correct team within seconds. Furthermore, all of the details of where the user was and what they were doing at the time are logged and included in the ticket. There will no longer be uncertainty about which module is not working or which page resource is missing crucial links.
The Dashboard is an area that, up until Moodle 4.0, was primarily for the display of enrolled modules and courses. Moodle 4.0 introduces a separate courses page, which frees up a lot of room on the dashboard to provide more information and insight into the content and resources a user has available to them. The focus of the dashboard is now on personalised learning, offering insights that aim to improve a student’s engagement – for example, showing a student a list of resources they haven’t viewed that are currently popular with others in their cohort. We have introduced or developed several other widgets that aim to achieve a similar level of personalisation, and intend to introduce more as the year progresses.
We have developed and integrated a new user bookmarking system. This allows any user to simply “star” any resource or page in Moodle, where it will be added to their personal bookmarks list, accessible from almost anywhere in the system. We hope users will employ this feature both as a way to keep track of useful pages in the long term, and also highlight resources they wish to look at later in the short term.
This year we are providing space to add system notices to the dashboard, and have made it easier for our student survey links to be added (in past years this was a process that involved some manual work; it is now a form on the site admin section in Moodle). Students will be able to see links to the SITS ‘Student View’ system to view their timetable and other personal information.
These features combine to increase the usefulness of the space to users. We have also changed the layout from a single column to an adjustable grid, which should allow more flexibility when users choose what items they want to see on this page.
The existing off-the-shelf accessibility tools were now several years old and we identified the need to improve the offering. After looking at the Moodle plugins available for these types of tools it became clear that the best experience for users would be if we developed something in-house, as these types of tools benefit from being closely tied in with the Moodle theme. We have therefore been able to create and add the following features this year:
These features are all created specifically for the University of Portsmouth Moodle and they work because of the custom theme we have produced. The way these have been developed will also allow for easy expansion and improvement of these features based on any feedback we receive during the course of the next year.
Moodle Baseline has continued to provide a standard for all Moodle modules and, following the introduction of the in-course or secondary menu in Moodle 4.0, we decided that this would be the best place to house the Moodle Baseline options. Users will now find reading lists, assessment information and the rest of the content from the tabbed block in this secondary menu. Moving the information to separate tabs allows the course content to come first, with administrative information still easily available, but not taking up screen space all the time.
In 2018 the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations were introduced. As part of this legislation we were charged with providing a site-wide accessibility statement to communicate which areas of our website are fully accessible, which areas need work and, most importantly, what work we were doing to improve the areas that did not meet the standards set.
Supporting this statement in a virtual learning environment, which contains largely user-generated content, has proven to be extremely difficult for all universities. Although we provide advice and training, we have a challenge in publicly stating that all of our content meets any specific standard and, without checking every site every day, we simply are not in a position to know whether we are meeting specific standards.
This is where the module level statements come in: this year, in addition to the platform-level statement, we have provided an accessibility statement for each module, editable from within the module settings by those who are producing the content itself. This will allow content producers to communicate which areas of their content are accessible, which aren’t, and how users can gain accessible versions of any content that they are unable to access.
It is important to note that in the 2022–23 academic year there is no expectation that these statements will be modified by staff. If staff do want to modify the statement then they can certainly do so, and we would encourage them to make the statements as useful as possible for users.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, we found we lacked ways to easily communicate more than a few words to Moodle users via Moodle itself. The implementation of a more robust notification system was essential. We now have the ability to post notices:
Many of you will be familiar with the rollover mechanism. This is a bespoke development by the TEL team to allow administrators to rollover modules for the new academic year with the click of a button. This feature had to be updated to take into account the changes from last year to this year, including changes in course formats and the offering of a different set of options for non-standard modules.
The rollover mechanism now includes a new “Quick roll” feature, which allows Online Course Developers to roll-over large numbers of modules in a single batch, with minimal manual input required. Not only is it quicker than before, but by interfacing more closely with SITS the mechanism also ensures data is more accurate, meaning fewer enrolment queries at the start of term.
I have not mentioned every addition – we have made many little adjustments, from adding header images to the top of course pages to ensuring Moodle communicates with our student systems correctly. This means the Moodle you see and use has been created for you as much as possible.
Inevitably, some people will be unhappy with how Moodle now behaves or how certain things have been implemented: Moodle has to work for everyone, which in turn means it is probably no one’s perfect system. Nevertheless, although we shall concentrate on bug fixes for the next few weeks, development of all of these features will be ongoing and you can expect to see new functionality throughout the year. Please keep feeding back to us on your experience of Moodle. We can – and do – make changes based on your feedback.
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