Tel Tales

Adventures in Technology Enhanced Learning @ UoP

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Student writing at a desk

Guest Blogger: Rugaiya Ally with Tom Langston – Student Opinion of the University

October 24, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Introduction:

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. 

Strengths and weaknesses of the course

Strengths

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.”

Weaknesses

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)

Conclusion

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

View of the Solent
View of the Solent

Introduction for Tel Tales

September 26, 2022 / / 1 Comment

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. Throw Away Your WhiteboardLast 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.

View of the Solent

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!

learning design

TEL in 2021

January 10, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Twelve months ago I reviewed how TEL had navigated 2020, the strangest year I guess any of us have experienced. The TEL team, by implementing several new technologies and enhancing existing technologies, helped support the University’s pivot to what the literature now refers to as “emergency remote teaching” (ERT). Now, at the start of 2022, it is worth reflecting on what we learned during 2021 – a year in which Covid carried on posing problems.

The first point to make is that technology continued to be used heavily. As the University’s “blended and connected” approach to teaching and learning bedded in, and we experienced the welcome sight of students once again milling around on campus, I expected Moodle use to drop compared to last year. September 2021 did indeed see a drop in monthly users compared to September 2020. But almost the same number of users accessed Moodle in October 2021 as in October 2020. And 10% more users accessed in November 2021 compared to November 2020. In part this use pattern will have mirrored the waves of the epidemic, with online offering a safe environment for teaching and learning. But in part it shows, I believe, that technology has become embedded in teaching and learning, in a way that was not the case just two years ago.

The increasing use of Panopto provides another example. The last time I looked (which was six weeks ago; these figures will already be outdated!) staff had created 87,410 videos and recorded 35,442 hours of content. Students had racked up 2.23 million views and downloads. These are large numbers, and again they demonstrate that staff and students are engaging with technology in a way we could not have predicted two years ago.

Nevertheless, we need to ask: in 2021 did we fully embrace the opportunities offered by a blended and connected approach to teaching and learning?

I suspect the answer is “no”: to a large extent we were all still operating in ERT mode.

The reasons for this are understandable. It takes time to redesign a course or module so that students can get the most out of a blended and connected environment. Effective redesign takes the skills and experience of a mix of people. And the process requires support from professional services. That broad, team-based approach to the redesign of courses and modules has not been part of the culture at Portsmouth – so although it is possible to point to numerous individual examples of good, innovative practice, I believe the University as a whole has been unable to take full advantage of a blended and connected approach.

One of my hopes for 2022 is that we will see a much more considered use of technology in teaching and learning. In some cases that will mean more technology, in some cases different technology, and in some cases less technology. The key is to identify the best blend of activities to ensure students can learn and can demonstrate mastery of that learning. In other words, I hope in 2022 we will see much more emphasis on learning design.

In order to further this ambition TEL, AcDev, and Faculty colleagues, working under the leadership of Professor Ale Armellini, are developing enABLe – a framework based on well established and well researched principles, but one that is new to Portsmouth. The intention is to offer structured and collaborative workshops, at the course or module level, around learning design (and learning re-design). These collegiate, student-focused, needs-driven workshops are flexible: they can be used for new programme development, for programmes needing attention around learning and teaching as flagged in the EQUIP process, and for programmes simply requiring a refresh in a specific area such as feedback. In each case, the workshops are founded on the key principles of Active Blended Learning. If you would like to learn more, please contact Sarah Eaton.

At some point the pandemic will become endemic and, as politicians tell us, we will “learn to live with the virus”. But when that happens we should take care not to forget the lessons – both positive and negative – of 2020 and 2021. It would be foolish for us to try to return to our teaching practices of 2019. Amanda Gorman, the poet who read at President Biden’s inauguration, ends her latest poem, New Year’s Lyric, with the following lines:

“So let us not return to what was normal,

But reach toward what is next…”

I think that is a perfect sentiment for education in 2022.

 

Co-Creating Expectations with Vevox

Guest Blogger: Co-Creating Expectations with Vevox

October 18, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Introduction by Tom:

I was asked by Vevox (a company we work closely with that facilitates audience response) to run the first session in their autumn webinar series. I was happy to do this and you can watch the recording of the session on Youtube.

After the session, Joe from Vevox was asked if I would mind someone writing a blog relating to the session. I was flattered and said of course. Dr Rachel Chan from St Mary’s University in Twickenham wrote her blog and shared it with me and I asked her if we could re-publish it here on TelTales. She was happy to let us use the blog…so this blog is a short reflection from Rachel after attending my webinar on “Co-Creating Expectations with Vevox”.

Co-creation Blog

St Mar's logoMy name is Rachel Chan, I am a Senior Lecturer – Clinical Specialist Physiotherapist teaching on the BSc in Physiotherapy at St Mary’s University in Twickenham. Throughout my academic career, I have always been hugely committed to Teaching and Learning. I recently listened to a talk by Tom Langston from the University of Portsmouth about co-creation and thought it might be valuable to write a short blog to share some of his key messages.

Tom began by asking us a question ‘What is co-creation?’ We were all on the right track, people suggested things like ‘student partnership,’ ‘collaboration’ and ‘support.’ Bovill and colleagues(2016) define it as ‘…when staff and students work collaboratively with one another to create components of curricula and /or pedagogical approaches.’ Great, so, Where does it work? Tom showed us that co-creation can work in many areas of pedagogy including setting expectations, assessment criteria, curriculum content and assessment design. I was already sold by this point but there are many, less obvious benefits, to adopting co-creation in your pedagogical practice.

  1.  It enables you to better meet expectations (the students’ expectations of you, your expectations of the student and more subtly but equally important, the students’ expectations of each other). An important tip Tom shared was setting these expectations as early as possible so that everyone knows the playing field from day 1.
  2. It facilitates a dynamic approach to your teaching practice, encouraging you to reflect on what you do and allowing you to evolve as an educator. CPD in action!
  3. It gives the students’ a voice – of course, it is impossible to accommodate all of their suggestions, no one is suggesting that you do. Phew! But listening to students, and showing them that you will try to accommodate some of them, opens the channels of communication – they know that you care and that you have heard them. This is SO important.

The idea of co-creation may make some educators feel anxious and, in some areas, it will be easier to implement than others (assessment design may be more challenging for example) but you can and should start small. Bovill and Bulley have created a ladder that models co-creation, it shows dictated curriculum at the bottom and an anarchic level of students in control at the top (ttps://eprints.gla.ac.uk/57709/1/57709.pdf). Tom wasn’t suggesting you aim too high but believes adopting some co-creation in your practice will have huge benefits for all.

How to adopt this principle of co-creation? There are many ways in which you can successfully include co-creation in your teaching such as using an EVS to make quizzes or simply creating a collaboration space to stimulate discussions with students.

My take-home message…Step 1. always try to engage your students in your teaching, and perhaps more importantly…Step 2. respond to that engagement. Thanks, Tom, I am inspired!

If you have any questions or would like to know more about co-creation, please contact Tom at:  tom.langston@port.ac.uk

Various device's PC, tablet and mobile, plus another mobile being held in a hand. All have the same image Username, Password and Sign In. The other hand is positioned to touch Sign In button

Digital Accessibility in Teaching and Learning – What is it?

March 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

‘Digital Accessibility’ or ‘Accessibility’ is a heated topic at the moment. Public sector bodies like us have the obligation by law to comply with Accessibility Regulations 2018 with a series of deadlines to meet. It is also an important part of our University Vision 2030 and Strategy 2025 where it says we should ‘respect and celebrate diversity and equal opportunity through an inclusive culture’. 

But what does ‘Digital Accessibility’ mean and how does it apply to us in teaching and learning? 

Before we look into that, let’s first find out what is ‘Accessibility’. 

What is ‘Accessibility’?

Accessibility is about removing disability. 

What is disability? Disability happens when there’s a barrier between people and their environment. It is commonly seen as a condition or a problem of the body or mind (impairment) that requires medical treatment. However, UK Equality Act 2010 recognised and acknowledged that disability, or barriers, can be caused not just by the impairment(s) but also by the way society is organised. This is defined in the social model of disability. According to the social model of disability, these barriers can be physical, like buildings not having accessible toilets, or they can be caused by people’s attitudes to difference, like assuming disabled people can’t do certain things [3]. For many people with impairment(s), the main barrier they experience does not stem directly from their bodies, but rather from their unwelcome reception in the world, in terms of how physical structures, institutional norms, and social attitudes exclude and/or denigrate them. [4]

This is where ‘Accessibility’ plays a part. 

Accessibility is about finding and dismantling these social barriers, creating an environment that adapts to the needs, ideally as early as possible in the process. For example: accessible toilets, lifts, wheelchair ramps, braille on printed materials, even simple things like left-handed scissors etc. When barriers are removed, disabled people can be independent, autonomous and equal in society.

Accessibility supports and celebrates inclusion; it should be ok to be different, with impairment(s) or not. It is about ending exclusion and oppression so that people with impairment(s) are not required to change who they are in order to be entitled to the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. 

What is ‘Digital Accessibility’? 

Digital accessibility is ‘Accessibility’ in digital media. 

It is about making digital products like websites, mobile apps and other digital tools and technologies accessible to everyone. It is the ability for all users to have an equal opportunity to access and benefit from the same services or digital products, regardless of any impairment(s) they may have. 

So, what is ‘Digital Accessibility’ in Teaching and Learning? 

Digital accessibility in teaching and learning is ‘Accessibility’ in digital teaching and learning products – the courses’ contents and activities, and the service we offer to our students.

It means all students are given access to all teaching materials and the ability to participate in all teaching and learning activities, regardless of any impairment(s) they may have. 

Taking digital accessibility on board in teaching and learning is very much about understanding that, if we’re creating inaccessible learning materials or activities, then effectively we’re responsible for creating barriers. These kinds of resources often lack structure, written and designed with a set of assumptions. It is about having the realisation when we create resources that fail to accommodate a certain group of students, effectively we have disabled them.

What ‘Digital Accessibility’ is not.

Now we know what digital accessibility is and its role in teaching and learning, let’s have a look at what it is not.

Misconception 1: digital accessibility is just about disability.

It’s not. Digital accessibility in essence is about inclusiveness and universality. 

It’s about having good design and making resources that can be used by as many people as possible.

I believe every student, in fact, everyone was once in one or more of the situations below; maybe even more than once:

  • In different cultural environments e.g. in a foreign country 
  • In a noisy environment or a public place where you can’t hear properly
  • Using many different devices e.g. desktop computers, mobile phones, tablets etc
  • Are temporarily or situationally impaired e.g. from injuries or with caring responsibilities
  • Have age-related cognitive decline.

In these situations, everyone can benefit from the flexibility brought by materials and activities designed with digital accessibility in mind. In fact, many of us use elements of them without particularly thinking about them. We might think that only disabled students use assistive technology, but, in fact, we are walking around with a kind of assistive device in our pockets all the time – our mobile phones. Have we not used and enjoyed its built-in accessibility functions like voice over, browser enlarge, colour changes, speech recognition, screen reader etc ever? When digital accessibility is put in place, everyone benefits including ourselves; inevitably everyone grows old and will eventually be impaired by age. So, essentially, we are just helping ourselves.

This video from the Web Accessibility Initiative shows a variety of ways that content produced to be accessible is beneficial for all users regardless of their ability or disability.

Misconception 2: digital accessibility is not my problem. 

Yes, it is. Digital accessibility is everyone’s responsibility. 

We’re all in this together. As mentioned before, it is required by law and it is the University’s Vision. More importantly, as an educational institution, we are responsible. We are the teachers and role models, what you do makes a difference. We can change and have the responsibility to lead the change in society’s perceptions and practice. We can create a society that accepts and celebrates that everyone is unique, recognises and encourages the strength and talents of people with impairment(s).

The whole purpose of providing education is to give the young the things they need in order to develop in an orderly, sequential way into members of society; to impact and change lives. Digital accessibility helps us fulfil that purpose. It provides us with an opportunity for education to reach everyone who needs it, in a way that can benefit as many people as possible. It gives us an opportunity to improve our teaching and learning materials to fulfil their purpose of existence. It is our responsibility to make that change. 

Misconception 3: digital accessibility is hard. 

No, it’s very easy. All you need is empathy and consideration. 

What you do at the start makes it easier at the end. Follow these good practices when designing and adding your content. When you start doing it, you will realise that most of them are really just common sense! Information should be consistent and easy to find, easy to read, and easy to navigate; documents need good structure and colour contrast; images and graphs are described well; videos have captions or transcriptions etc, just to name a few. It is all a matter of common sense. eLearning Tools website has all the support and information you need to create this kind of accessible content.

Remember that when you design and create your content with digital accessibility in mind, you will not only create better learning materials, you will have content that can be more easily reused and repurposed – saving a lot of time in the future!

References

  1. Codeacademy: What is Digital Accessibility
  2. Equality and Human Rights Commission: UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
  3. Social model of disability
  4. Rethinking disability: the social model of disability and chronic disease

Credit Image:Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Starting page to the course, image of mature lady in a blue chair, in what looks like a hospital cubicle

H5P Branching Scenario: Students as Decision Makers

February 22, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Adapting during Covid

Due to covid, students have unfortunately missed out on a lot of practical aspects of their courses, which may have been the main reason they decided to take the course in the first place. The Branching Scenario tool in H5P can be used as a substitute of sorts to allow students to have a more meaningful learning experience.

How have we adapted since last March to try and make our courses more content-rich? The use of videos is far more prevalent than before. Videos are great! BUT we need to also use them in conjunction with other learning tools. If you’re asking students to watch video after video it becomes a passive experience and then we fall into a similar situation when we ask them just to read ppts, notes, etc.

How can we show there is “added value” to our courses? 

Interactivity is key here, good synchronous sessions can help engage students, but often there are issues that mean students are unable to attend or the experience of the session is spoiled by a student’s connectivity issue. It’s important not to neglect asynchronous resources. A mix of both makes for a good module and better student feedback! 

The following branching scenario is more of an asynchronous activity but you could also deploy it in a live session if needed. 

In late October 2020, I was approached by a member of the nursing academic team to film some scenarios within our own simulation suite, to be used as an online resource/substitute for activities that could not go ahead due to covid restrictions. The three scenarios involved a student nurse and a patient (played by actors) and covered various aspects of Patient focussed care. 

Being interested in filming (Read my previous blog post), I jumped at this opportunity but I further suggested that we make certain elements interactive, to put the student in charge of making decisions. They would play the role of the student nurse and based on how the scenario panned out they were given 3 key decisions to make with one “good” and one “bad” choice at each decision point.

Set up and execution

The filming was set for the end of November in Covid secure conditions and two of the three scenarios were scripted to have these decision elements within them. In terms of filming style, I decided to go with a three-camera setup, one on the patient, one on the student and a wide-angle also so that students could see the whole environment these characters were in. If I could do it again I might go for a POV (Point of View) style which might give an even more immersive experience.

The editing process was interesting as I had to be creative in some places where audio quality was not as good as I’d hoped and splicing the scenes to make them run more smoothly.

Creation of the H5P object was in itself very easy to do. Once I had exported the individual video files, it was a case of dragging and dropping them into place within the Branching Scenario editor. I would certainly advise anyone who’d like to do this, to map out exactly how you think it will look beforehand so it makes the actual building of the resource much quicker. 

Did it work? 

I received some fantastic feedback from both the academic in charge and the students who used it. I honestly believe that this could be a way forward in bridging the gap between practical elements and online learning. Whilst these types of resources lend themselves well to medical courses where students will need to take important decisions in their future careers, I can also see that this has a broader appeal in Languages, Law, Criminology, Coaching/management and many others.

If you want to have a go at one of the resources I’ve made, check out this link:

https://portsmouthuni.h5p.com/content/1291197333648269337

(You don’t have to be a student nurse to complete this! There’s no difficult terminology or complicated procedures to understand.)

TEL in 2020

TEL in 2020

December 18, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Well … 2020 has been quite a year. The most extraordinary 12 months any of us have experienced. Although 2020 has had its stresses (to put it mildly) I’m proud at how the TEL team has helped the University maintain its mission. Our existing students were able to progress and new students have been able to start their University career. Without technology, that would have been impossible.   

Like many people, we understood the disruptive potential of Covid-19 in late February. By early March we started thinking about the support we could offer if the University had to deliver teaching remotely. We thus had the elearning Tools website ready to publish when the VC sent his email about home working.  

That move to home working affected the TEL team less than many other teams in the University – partly because many of us already had some experience of home working and partly because we work with technology on a daily basis. All we need to do the basics of our job is a fast, stable internet connection. (One team member, stuck abroad when airlines began to remove scheduled flights, spent several days working from Australia. For a while we truly were providing around-the-clock service!) It helped the team enormously that we used SLACK: the platform held a record of our thinking and enabled people to catch up on discussions they might otherwise have missed.  

That’s not to say working at home (or living at work?) was without challenges – especially for those of us who were homeschooling children or who had other caring responsibilities. One lesson I think we learned far too late was this: when we’re working at home we don’t need to be available all the time. Too many of us jumped to respond to a SLACK message immediately or to answer an email the moment it reached our inbox. It’s nice to know our team members are conscientious – but that “always-there” mentality is ultimately self-defeating. And although SLACK enabled us to work efficiently while we were remote, it’s undeniable that face-to-face communication is quicker and less prone to misunderstanding than text-based communication. All that raises an interesting question: when we get back to some sort of normality, will we all rush back into the office? Not many people miss their commute, but some do miss the office environment – so will we work more flexibly, with one or two days spent in the office and the rest working at home? Or will some of us become full-time home-workers?  

Returning from speculation on future events to events that happened back in the spring of 2020: the University started to develop its “Blended and Connected” approach to the new academic year. To support that initiative, the TEL team created the website Preparing for teaching in a blended learning context, with content coming from across the whole of DCQE. We also worked closely with our colleagues in Academic Development to put on the TEL Tales Blended Learning Festival (and more recently a Blended Learning Mini-Fest).

The “Blended and Connected” approach allowed us to address a long-standing complaint from students. In response to our yearly Digital Experience Tracker, students regularly criticised the lack of consistency across their Moodle modules. We now had the chance to develop and implement a templated approach to Moodle. The TEL team also improved the Moodle theme, in light of co-creation work with a group of University computing students studying UX/UI design.

Of course, all those other tasks involved in running a large Moodle installation did not go away because of the pandemic. Integrations with other systems (more of which below) had to be managed, the upgrade to Moodle version 3.9 had to take place, and all of this took place as the University moved from Quercus to SITS. (Can anything be more stressful for a university than changing Student Record systems in the middle of a pandemic?) The SITS project touched most aspects of University life; for us, it required the development of new feeds into Moodle. 

Moodle itself has performed robustly since the start of the academic year, despite routinely serving numbers of students that in previous years would have been considered extraordinary. By the start of December our new Moodle had clocked up 1,264,306 logins and students had engaged in 14,088,187 activities (read/writes). Phew… 

Throughout 2019, discussions and consultations around content capture had taken place (and a new policy on content capture was eventually agreed). We entered 2020, however, in a difficult place. We were concerned about the technologies we had available to support content capture: our existing platforms had reached end-of-life. The team facilitated a number of supplier demonstrations early in the year, with the last demonstration taking place just before the work-from-home directive took hold, and UoP chose Panopto – the most widely adopted video platform within universities. The implementation and roll-out of such a platform would normally take place over the course of a full year, but we made Panopto available (complete with Moodle integration and a support website) within six weeks. Quite an achievement! And the platform is being heavily used: by November, we had 29,793 videos created; 10,464 hours of video created; 736,081 views and downloads; and 97,759 hours of video delivered. Again, phew…    

To support synchronous delivery for the new “Blended and Connected” approach, the University purchased Zoom. And, of course, we were quick to integrate this with Moodle. One useful feature in Zoom, which at that point could not easily be replicated by existing options such as Meet and WebEx, was the easy creation of breakout rooms. (Offering a plethora of technologies that do similar things – Zoom, WebEx, Meet – has the potential to lead to confusion for staff and an inconsistent experience for students. It can be difficult to take options away from people; in some cases, it might be technically impossible to remove options. But – in the interests of a consistent student experience – perhaps we need to be firmer in our recommendations of what tools to use?)

We invested in other tools, too: Padlet to facilitate collaboration; Vevox as an audience response system; and we continued to push Nearpod for interactive lessons. For all of these, we continued to provide our usual training support for staff, and offered face-to-face and small-group sessions – mediated by Zoom, WebEx, and Meet! 

Throughout the pandemic, the TEL team has been active on social media – and the stream of positive, uplifting, motivational messages from TEL accounts were well received during the lockdown. More than one member of staff said the posts cheered them up!

We worked with staff across DCQE to help them create support sites (for example the Wellbeing and ASK sites) and with staff across the University in workstrands, workstreams, and elsewhere. We supported departments in adapting to an online alternative to their usual ‘go-to method’ of face to face presenting such as the Staff Induction Welcome Event for new staff members held by HR. I hope that cross-institution working carries on when we return to some form of normality because everyone agrees it has been beneficial.

What else? Well, we have kept abreast of accessibility issues and our responsibilities under PSBAR. This is a difficult issue for all universities: the legislation was written, I believe, with static content in mind. But a VLE contains rapidly changing content from thousands of users. The sector as a whole is grappling with the implications of this.

We hope to develop our (externally hosted) CPD Moodle. As more people become aware of the platform, more courses are going on there. And we are working closely with CEG Digital, the University’s partners for expanding our DL offering. 

Questions around analytics and data have been of interest and, when we’ve had any spare time (hah!), we’ve tried to make progress in this area. We have liaised with a Business Analyst on the creation of a Student Engagement and Monitoring dashboard; locally, we have started to look at how to surface useful statistics on the Moodle dashboard. Watch for developments over the coming months! 

I could write much, much more about the team’s attainments – but I’ll leave it there.

We have encountered many setbacks and challenges – inevitably so, given the amount of change that has been implemented over such a short period of time – but the team, as part of the wider University, has achieved so much this year. We can leave the plague year behind us and enter 2021 knowing we have a bright future.

A cartoon drawing of a person sitting at a desk with a screen in front of them. The screen has people in different small boxes and a teacher in a larger box with a screen with writing on behind her

Zoom vs Webex vs Google Meet: Important Features to Compare and Consider

November 23, 2020 / / 0 Comments

There is a growing need to deliver lectures online and capture online live lectures with the new Blended and Connected learning approach, which was recently introduced by our University to help our students in this challenging time. The Blended and Connected learning approach is driven by our Content Capture policy which emphasizes that “…all students should have access to learning from all formal teaching sessions regardless of whether they are able to physically attend.” Furthermore, with the regulatory requirement that our content needs to meet the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications)(No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018, it is now more important than ever to ensure that our online taught content is captured and captioned. 

The University has a few online conferencing tools available to meet this need. They are all easy to use with some differences between them. This document compares and considers important teaching and learning features in each tool to hopefully help you find the best tool to use for your needs.

On top of that, the University has acquired Panopto which helps to pre-record lectures and has a built-in auto caption facility. It is advisable that all formal teaching sessions, including online live lectures, are captured, uploaded and stored in the Panopto server for caption, security and storage purposes.

But of course, it is almost impossible for any caption, generated by automated speech recognition tools, to achieve 100 per cent accuracy. So, please do check and edit your captions to ensure the accuracy, and add a disclaimer to the video or module site. 

The following text has been officially signed off by Harriet Dunbar-Morris, Dean of Teaching and Learning.

“Currently our video content, delivered via Panopto, uses closed captions generated using automated speech recognition. This is about 70–80% accurate depending on the topic, audio quality and lecturer. We advise you not to rely solely on the captions when reviewing your video content. Make sure you check the captions against the PowerPoint and readings to ensure you have a good understanding of the topic and the terminology used. If you are reliant on these captions due to a disability or additional learning need then please contact ASDAC for advice on additional support for your study.“

Below is the list of online conferencing tools available in the University and their important learning and teaching features to compare and consider.

Zoom

Zoom is the new online conferencing tool that the University has acquired to support our Blended and Connected learning environment.

Screen or application sharing

  • Zoom allows hosts to easily share their device screen with meeting participants. There’s an option to choose between sharing the complete screen or to share a specific app or document such as Powerpoint or MS word. 
  • Hosts can enable or disable the participant’s ability to share audio, video, and the screen in the meeting.

Mute/Unmute

  • Hosts have a distinct level of control during the meeting. As the host or co-host in a meeting, you can manage your participants, including muting and unmuting participants, to manage background noise and distractions.

Breakout rooms

Remote control

Storage and Caption

  • All Zoom sessions recorded with the ‘cloud recording’ option are automatically uploaded to Panopto and captioned. Please check your captions to ensure the accuracy and add a disclaimer to the video or module site. 

Webex

Webex is a web conferencing and video conferencing application by Cisco Systems.

Screen or application sharing

  • Hosts can easily share their device screen with meeting participants. There’s an option to choose between sharing the complete screen or to share a specific app or document such as Powerpoint or MS word. 

Webex Meeting Center

    • Participants can share the content in the meeting by simply selecting ‘Share’ on the Quick Start tab, Menu Bar and Floating Icon Tray. This feature is enabled by default to make it easier to change presenters in a meeting and improves the overall collaboration experience. If hosts want more control over sharing, they can disable this feature while the meeting is in progress by selecting ‘Participant’ -> uncheck ‘Anyone Can Share’.

Screenshot showing that anyone can share

Webex Training Center

    • By default, the host has to designate participants as the presenter before they can share contents or screen. Hosts can reclaim the presenter role or change the presenter at any time by right-clicking the name on the Participants panel, including the host themselves, then select Change Role To -> Presenter.

A screenshot of how to change the role to presenter

Mute/Unmute

Webex Meeting Center

    • For Webex Meetings, you can choose to prevent attendees from unmuting themselves until you grant them permission to. 

Webex Training Center

    • When you mute participants in Webex Training, only you can unmute them, they can’t unmute themselves.

Breakout rooms

Remote control

(To assign this privilege, while in the session -> select ‘Participant’ -> ‘Assign Privileges’ -> Control shared applications, Web browser, or desktop remotely).

A screenshot of the label showing where to assign privileges

To remote control another participant’s screen in the meeting, the host needs to assign them the presenter role then request them to grant remote access control to the host.

Storage and Caption

  • All recorded Webex sessions should be downloaded and uploaded to Panopto for storage and captioning. Please check your captions to ensure the accuracy and add a disclaimer to the video or module site. 

Webex Meeting Center 

Webex Meeting Center session is recorded in mp4 format. It can be easily uploaded to Panopto.

Webex Training Center

Webex Training Center session is recorded in a Cisco specific .arf format. It needs to be converted to mp4 before uploading to Panopto.

Google meet

Previously known as Hangout, is Google’s video conferencing solution.

Screen or application sharing

  • By default, all participants can share their whole screen or a specific window, or chrome tab during the meeting. Through screen sharing, one can share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. When you share a Chrome tab, it shares the tab’s audio by default. Hence, you can play an online video as well.
  • Hosts can prevent participants from sharing their screen but they need to update this setting for every new call, even if it is a recurring event. 

To prevent sharing:

  1. Join a Meet video call.
  2. At the bottom, click ‘Host controls’.
  3. Turn off ‘Share their screen’.

Mute/Unmute

  • Anyone in a Google Meet conference can mute anyone else.
  • If you mute someone, no one in the conference will be able to hear them.
  • When you mute someone, everyone will be notified that you have muted the person.
  • You cannot unmute someone once they have been muted. They have to unmute themselves. Google says this is for privacy reasons.

Breakout rooms

Remote control

  • Google Meet does not have a built-in option to give remote control over to another person. However, Google has provided a tool that can be used right alongside Google Meet to accomplish this. That tool is called Chrome Remote Desktop.

Storage and Caption

  • All recorded Google meet sessions should be downloaded from Google Drive and uploaded to Panopto for storage and caption. Please check your captions to ensure the accuracy and add a disclaimer to the video or module site. 

 

Credit Image: Image by Hatice EROL from Pixabay

A person holding a tablet with the view over their shoulder of them holding something in their hand touching the screen

A different way of welcoming students

November 16, 2020 / / 0 Comments

For both staff and students, the start of a new academic year is, even in normal times, an exciting (and sometimes stressful) occasion. With this year being far from normal, departments are having to adapt to a more virtual environment and for some degree apprenticeship courses, this is going to mean welcoming new students online. On top of the barrage of information all new students have to deal with, our apprentices have additional requirements to meet such as creating an ePortfolio. Indeed, degree apprenticeship applicants to the School of Civil Engineering and Surveying had an online welcome to the department in mid-August while applicants to Business and Law Leadership and Management and Project Management were also welcomed online rather than face to face.

Welcoming and inducting new students is an essential part of starting out on a new educational adventure and moving online does not have to mean losing out completely on the experience of face to face sessions. Applicants to our surveying degree apprenticeship programme were able to ‘meet’ the staff long before they set a foot on campus through welcome videos hosted on a Google site.

Screenshot of the Google Site containing the Welcome page for the School of Civil Engineering & Surveying

Screenshot from the SCES pre-applicant site.

The SCES pre-applicant site provided a user-friendly platform allowing the department to offer prospective apprentices with a wealth of information, helping to create an early connection with the University. Through this site, the pre-applicants could be made aware not just of the demands of the surveying course but also the requirements of the apprenticeship aspects of the course such as the need to maintain a log of their off the job training.

In the words of Module Coordinator Tom Woodbury,
“Due to the restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 crisis, our Applicant Open Day moved to an online-only format. Working with TECH OCD, we developed the content for the session using a Google Plus site which meant that as well as having the content organised for the day, applicants that could not attend and those wanting to revisit the content were able to access at their convenience. In the end, this method worked out really well, and seemed very well-received by attendees.”

The sites helped prepare students for some of the skills that they will need to help complete their course successfully, for example, what IT skills will be required and offered early access to study support information and library facilities.

This model was also used by the faculty of Business and Law for their Chartered Manager DA, Project Management DA and their MBA DA course. The ease with which Google sites can be used to create web pages also meant the sites could be put together and published relatively quickly. However, the structure that Google sites forces on the user can be a little frustrating at times, but this can be overcome with some bespoke HTML.

Screen shot of one of the pages on the Google Site it's titled: IT Skills Required

For courses starting before the official October re-opening of the University, the sites were an important way to communicate with students. The sites were not made public and anyone accessing the site needed the actual link that was sent out to the prospective students. Google Analytics was used to monitor the level of access and early data indicated many applicants were using the sites. With Google sites already being used extensively by Business and Law degree apprentices for their ePortfolios, using them as a way of welcoming new apprentices in these unusual times seemed a logical and workable solution but it will be interesting to collect feedback from the students.

Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels

Another 6 months of working from home - don't panic!

Another 6 months of working from home – don’t panic!

October 26, 2020 / / 0 Comments

2020 has been a rollercoaster of a year. With the latest announcements and guidance from the government, plus the extension of working remotely for many of us, it’s inevitably starting to take it’s toll. For some working from home is challenging and can often feel daunting and very isolating. Not everyone is tech-savvy and with the use of more and more new technologies, particularly in higher education to teach, learn and to simply communicate with our colleagues, it can feel quite overwhelming. With the added bonus of the pressures of family life thrown in, it’s important to look out for each other and most importantly take time out for you!

Finding the balance

Working days seem longer since lockdown and our workloads have increased, with ongoing pressures and deadlines, it can feel like we are drowning in constant emails and online meetings. So what can be done? What little things can we do, to take some control back in our lives? How do we find the balance between work and life?

Back at the beginning of lockdown, we put together some Top Tips from TEL to help our followers on social media (and us), adjust to this new way of working. For many of us we will be continuing working from home for the foreseeable future, with this in mind we thought it might be useful to revisit them, before the panic takes over!

Take regular breaksTake regular breaks

It’s important to make sure we take time away from our screens during our busy days (something I’m especially guilty of not doing!). It’s not only good for our mental and physical health but also good for our productivity. It’s better to have shorter breaks more often from your workstation than longer breaks less often. Try to schedule in a short walk, an exercise or a short meditation session.

DEDICATED WORK SPACECreate a dedicated workspace

We’ve become remote workers overnight and it’s often difficult to find ‘space’ in our homes to work. Some of us are fortunate to have a spare room which we can transform into a quiet office space. Others have created a workspace at their dining room tables. It’s important to create a dedicated workspace where you are able to work from home – this way you can feel like you are at work even if you aren’t physically in the office.

Write a to-do listwrite a list

Write a to-do list at the start of every week, this is a must for me. It not only helps you to plan out your week but also to prioritise your tasks. Try and achieve one thing on your list, don’t be surprised if it all goes at the window. At the end of the day reflect on what happened, what went right, think positively. Don’t beat yourself up – tomorrow is another day!

Don't panic if you get disconnectedDon’t panic if you get disconnected

I think we’ve all experienced this when working remotely. Things aren’t working quite like you thought they would and it’s easy to panic – but don’t! All technologies can be glitchy at times. Remember, if you lose connections, maybe a video conference, don’t worry – everyone is in the same boat and we’ll muddle through together.

Don’t lose contact with
your work colleaguesDon't lose contact with work colleagues

As I’ve mentioned above, working from home can often feel isolating. It’s important to keep in contact with our colleagues for our own well-being. Although we are all experiencing this crazy year together, we are all in very different circumstances with very different pressures. Some may be thriving under this new way of working and living, others may be struggling – it’s important to reach out, be kind and support one another.

 

20-20-20 RuleRemember the 20-20-20 rule

Suffering from headaches and sore eyes since working from home is common, which is often the result of too much screen time. Remember to practice the 20-20-20 rule: 20 minutes on-screen needs a 20-second break during which you should blink 20 times. Give it a go!

Make sure to clock off
and switch offclock off - switch off

Our working days have increased. We are starting work earlier and turning off our computers well into the night. We seem to be working more hours than ever before. It’s important for our mental health and wellbeing that we don’t burn out! Make sure that you try and have regular breaks from your screen throughout the day and log off when your working day is over. Turn off notifications on your phones to make sure that when you do clock off, you also switch off. Work/Life balance is hard to juggle when we are stuck indoors but being mindful to separate both mentally is essential.

learn to deal with distractionsLearn to deal with distractions

There are often distractions with working remotely. However, when the whole family are also thrown into the mix, learning not to be distracted can feel like an impossible task. Try to tackle things in small chunks and if you can’t achieve everything that you set out to in the day, then there’s always the next day. Don’t feel ashamed to call on your colleagues, friends or family to help out if they are able to. Be understanding of one another and take everything one step at a time.

Make time for exercisemake time for exercise

Whatever your go-to exercise, it’s important to factor some into your day. It’s not only good for your body, but it also keeps your mind healthy. Exercise is the miracle cure we’ve always had! If you can’t get to a gym, then there are lots of online videos that can help you carry out home workouts, such as Joe Wicks, the nation’s favourite PE teacher and our own UoP Sport and Recreations Facebook page.

work when you're at your most productiveWork when you’re at your most productive

Nobody rushes through their work from morning to night – your motivation will naturally dip and rise throughout the day. When we are working from home, however, it’s more important to know when those dips and rises will take place and plan your schedule around them. To make the most of productive periods, save your harder tasks for when you know you’ll be in the right headspace for them. Slower points of the day for easier tasks.

Take time out – reflect ontake time out to reflect
how far you’ve come and
how much you’ve achieved!

Take some time out, even if it’s ten minutes in the day, be grateful for the small things in life and reflect on how far you’ve come and how much you’ve achieved this year. You’ll be surprised at how productive you have been!

 

 

don't be afraid to ask for help

Don’t be afraid to ask

Lots of new tools and technologies to learn, new terminology, head full of pedagogy, best practice and resources and zero time to do anything – can often feel overwhelming. As a team, TEL, offer lots of useful training sessions to help you get to grips with online teaching, we also offer 1-2-1 sessions and we can be contacted via email, or video call if you have a question – so please don’t be afraid to ask – just contact us!

And most importantly  . . .
Be kind to yourselfbe kind to yourself

One of the most difficult things to practice and that’s putting ourselves first and being kind to ourselves. It’s often hard to schedule some time in the day especially if you have a busy work and family life. However, a bath at the end of the day, meditation, a short exercise session, reading a book, listening to music are all ways we can take time out for ourselves.

It’s been a challenging time for us all and we may find some days are more productive than others. We’ve all had to adapt to a new routine since March, a new way of working and living. Make sure to take time out for yourself and always remember tomorrow is another day. Yes we may have to do this for a little bit longer, but we have shown that we are able to.

You may not think it but you’re doing great!

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