And so, after a sun-kissed seven days in Sicily, it was time to head home. A nightmare return journey saw us almost miss our coach ride back to Portsmouth. I was grateful to get home, even if it was not until 2 am when I got there!

Looking across the “Valle del Bove”

As previously mentioned, the trip coincided with an extraordinarily busy time of year for me, so I was unable to work on the videos for a few weeks after returning home.

However, I am glad that I had done some prep work, renaming all the files on the day I shot them. This meant I could come into the editing cold, but get back into the process without too much difficulty.

Some of the resources I could make exactly as planned, such as the one from Aci Costello (as mentioned in Part 2).

Fig 1. The first resource I’d planned with the hotspots

My prior knowledge of H5P in this particular setting proved to be really useful. I was even able to add another feature as a bonus (see Fig 3.) because I managed to find some 360-degree views on Google Maps.

This really added to the immersiveness of the resource – students could feel as if they were actually there!

Fig 2. One of the hotspots has been clicked on, giving a narrated video for students to watch and a link to a Google 360 view

Some other resources required a change from our original plan. For example, we had organised one resource so that a student would have to make some decisions using the H5P Branching Scenario tool.

The idea was that the student would look at measures taken to manage certain rock formations and its impact on the local population, and come up with a recommendation for future action. But because of the nature of where we had to park the vans, it was impossible to get close enough to this particular site to get some close-up shots of the measures that had been taken. So, in the end, I created an animation from Google Earth.

It was almost as if it were a satellite view of our location before bringing up a still photo with a voiceover on top. See Fig 3 …

Fig 3. A draft version of a resource I made

Fig 4. An example of one of the Google 360 views I found of the location

Overall, I am happy with what I was able to produce for the department. I pushed myself both personally and professionally. I had never worked abroad before and I had never climbed an active volcano either! I hope this is the start of something new, something bigger and better, where I can go on these types of field trips more often. I believe that the “new normal” will see many more online interactivities. I can foresee an inclusive future in which students who might never have dreamed of studying practical courses, because of their own personal barriers, get a chance to do so through high-quality, engaging resources in an ABL approach.

Credit Images: All photos within this blog post were taken by Jonathan Bell

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/

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