Tel Tales

Adventures in Technology Enhanced Learning @ UoP

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On changing from academic to educational technologist

Guest Blogger: Emma Duke-Williams – On changing from academic to educational Technologist

March 16, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Some of you may remember me – I spent about 16 years at Portsmouth, lecturing in the School of Computing. I’ve now moved to be an Educational Technologist in Dundee University, working as part of a central team. In many ways it seems only yesterday that I left; in reality, it has been more than four years!

The change wasn’t entirely planned. I moved to Scotland for personal reasons and was therefore looking for a job. A combination of 16 years of lecturing (and a few more of school teaching before that) and a lack of a PhD made me decide that I didn’t want to lecture again. However, I did like the contact I had had with staff and students at Portsmouth, so the opportunity of a sideways jump appealed. Those who knew me at Portsmouth will remember that IT to support learning was a key area of interest for me. Indeed, my PGCE in the 80s had included “Computing in the Primary Curriculum” – those were the days of BBC Bs, Granny’s Garden and the Domesday project!

While at Portsmouth I was keen to experiment, and no doubt I drove some in the eLearning team mad with my “why won’t it do …” questions – but I also was free to experiment to see whether something could be done, and students generally went along with my ideas. 

All of that experience has really helped me here! I understand those wanting to push a tool to its limits, to get it to work for the way they want to teach, and that it’s rare to find ‘one size fits all’ solution. That aspect of my role is fun, challenging, and forces me to think about both tools and pedagogic practice. 

However, the greater challenge is supporting all staff to have a good understanding of the tools we have, the functionality on offer, while helping staff decide what’s really needed for their students. When teaching I came across students who found aspects of the subject hard, or didn’t understand why they had to do various things. Academics are no different! 

Do I miss teaching? Not often. I do miss the buzz of enthusiastic students, but I don’t miss the pile of marking – but I’d find this role 100 times harder, had I not had that experience of being on ‘the other side’. 

Persona Tutoring Project

Personal Tutoring Project

January 27, 2020 / / 0 Comments

As part of the OfS-funded project Raising Awareness, Raising Aspirations (RARA) staff from a number of teams – Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), Information Systems, Academic Development, and the Academic Skills Unit – joined forces to develop a platform, website and learning resources to support tutors and tutees in the personal tutoring process.

RARA, a collaborative project between the University of Sheffield, King’s College London and the University of Portsmouth, investigated the extent to which an enhanced personal tutoring system might help reduce the attainment gap for Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students and those from lower socioeconomic groups. The project had its roots in research (Cousin and Cuerton, 2012; Thomas, 2012; Mountford-Zimdars, 2015) which suggested that such a system could reduce the attainment gap, ‘based on evidence that the personal tutor can play a particularly important role in the academic integration of BME students and students from lower economic groups.’

We used an agile project methodology, drawing on the skills, experience and knowledge across the University. From the start we wanted to create a space for tutors, in consultation with tutors. From these consultations, it was clear that there was a varying understanding of the personal tutoring role across the university. Many personal tutors felt they were not equipped with the knowledge they needed to fulfill their role to the best of their ability, and this was especially true of those new to teaching.

TEL’s main project deliverable was to lead on creating staff- and student-based personal tutoring resources. In August 2018 we launched the website Personal Tutoring @ UoP for tutors and those that support this process. Since this initial launch TEL have been working to develop the site further – a new, more extensive version of the site will launch in February. The site provides information about the personal tutoring role, developing tutees, supporting and signposting tutees, and training resources.

Personal tutoring @ UoP Website

 

TEL have also developed student-facing resources within Learning at Portsmouth – a student website to support transition into higher education. As well as online provision, we also developed a paper-based guide for all first-year, campus-based students to be given at their first tutorial session.

Burke et al. (2016) found that academic staff play a key role in how students construct their feelings about capability, which ultimately lead to success or failure in higher education.

The guides include information for students on how to develop themselves whilst at Portsmouth and also provided contact details of services across the University and their faculty to support them in their studies and in times of personal difficulties.

The end of the two-year RARA project was marked by our University’s first personal tutoring conference for academic staff, and the launch of a RARA personal tutoring toolkit. As an institution we are now well on our way to implementing the recommendations made in the 2019 RARA Report. Student and staff feedback has been positive – the website has not only had an impact at Portsmouth but has formed part of a national toolkit for personal tutors. These have been presented at conferences and have received positive feedback on the clarity of their design. Looking to the future, TEL will continue to work with colleagues across the institution in the development of work in this area so that as an institution we can help tackle the attainment gaps that are prevalent nationally in higher education.

References

Cousin, G., and D. Cureton. 2012. Disparities in Student Attainment (DISA). York: HEA.

Mountford-Zimdars, A., Sabri, D., Moore, J., Sanders, S., Jones, S., & Higham, L. (2015). Causes of Differences in Student Outcomes. Higher Education Funding Council for England, HEFCE. Accessed July 23, www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rereports/Year/2015/diffout/Title,104725,en.html

Thomas, L. (2012). Building student engagement and belonging in Higher Education at a time of change: final report from the What Works? Student Retention & Success programme. London: Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

 

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

Three Useful Apps for Teaching/Learning

November 18, 2019 / / 0 Comments

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

Screencastify

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

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

https://youtu.be/VwU-kwFzVHk

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

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

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

Screencast-O-Matic

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

Brainscape

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

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

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

Credit Image: Photo by Rob Hampson on Unsplash

Expert - Achieving Mastery - How Important is Practice in Learning?

Achieving Mastery – How Important is Practice in Learning?

August 19, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Learning a new skill can often feel daunting, especially if it’s one that doesn’t particularly spark interest or enthusiasm – we’ve all been there right? You can feel bombarded by information and overwhelmed with the task of learning and feel like giving up before you’ve even begun! 

So, how can we overcome this? How can we find the opportunity to put our learning into practice and how can practice lead to success?

Knowledge Vs Practice

When we think of learning we think of gaining knowledge:

Learning /ˈləːnɪŋ/ - the acquisition of knowledge through study, experience, or being taught.

Learning /ˈləːnɪŋ/ – the acquisition of knowledge through study, experience, or being taught.

However, as Anton Chekhov once said: ‘knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice’. This is true, we can study and gain years of knowledge, however if we don’t put the information we’ve acquired into practice then it’s meaningless and often forgotten over time. I’m sure we’ve all attended a workshop or studied a course that we later haven’t put into practice and our learning has been lost. I studied French and Spanish at GCSE and A-level, however without speaking the languages on a daily basis, I wouldn’t say I was particularly fluent in them now – I expect, if we all think back to our school subjects, how many of us can remember and are actually using those skills now? I doubt many of us are.

Gaining knowledge in learning is only half the battle won, the other half comes from practice and of course feedback – as otherwise how do you know if you are doing something right? And most importantly how can you improve if you don’t know where to begin? So how can we improve practice in our students’ learning?

Can deliberate practice aid learning?

Deliberate practice involves attention, interest and motivation, this is the important bit and how we, as educators, can help our students understand the benefit of practice in the long run by making our learning materials fun and interesting!

It’s important because practice can help improve skills. If you practice a new skill on a regular basis then you will get good at it, learning to ride a bike, drive a car, play a musical instrument, these are all skills that take time, commitment and practice and this is exactly the same for studying too. Practice helps you implement what you have learnt and get better at it.

Practice can also boost self-confidence. When you practice something and see results, it makes you feel happy and confident; when you’ve finally learnt to ride your bike, passed your driving test, play a music instrument – you’ve done it! You feel a sense of achievement as all that hard work has paid off! 

As instructional design expert Barbara Seels (1997) says: 

“Practice is the most important ingredient of effective instruction; it speeds up learning, aids long-term retention, and facilitates recall.  Instruction is less effective when there is no opportunity to perform the task or when practice is delayed . . . . Unfortunately, much of the instruction in our classrooms provides little or no opportunity for practice.”  

Learning will most likely occur with the opportunity for practice and feedback. Creating an environment or providing opportunity for our students to practice what they’ve learnt is paramount in the learning process. Whether this be on an online platform i.e taking part in a chatroom or taking a quiz. Giving feedback is also crucial. Providing students with feedback or vice versa, students giving their course leaders feedback on their learning experience, helps to confirm their knowledge and also provides ways in which future students’ experiences can be improved.

Retrieval Practice

One way we can help our students put their knowledge into practice is through retrieval practice. Retrieval practice focuses on bringing information to the mind, retrieving knowledge and then putting it into practice, by doing this students can strengthen their learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO8abw3DHxs

Are there any ways you can use retrieval practice in your learning materials?

The Mastery Approach – how can we achieve this?

There are lots of ways deliberate practice can lead to mastering a skill, which is primarily what the mastery approach to learning is. 

The next time you learn a new skill, whether it be learning a musical instrument or a work-related task, think about the following things:

  1. Establish specific goals – Firstly, what do you want to achieve? How will you know when you’ve achieved it?
  2. Practice plan – break your tasks down into parts – Break your task down into different areas, then make a specific plan of how long you will spend on a specific part and when you will do it.
  3. Give your full attention to each part – You won’t become a master by multi-tasking. You need to be focusing on each part, practice slowly until you have mastered each section then put it all together. This is why breaking down our learning material into bite-size sections is so important, rather than text heavy documents!
  4. Get feedback from a master – No one masters a skill by themselves. An expert outsider can help provide you with feedback and direction. Surely it’s better to have feedback to correct or improve and help aid perfecting the skill.
  5. Move out of the comfort zone – No one becomes a master by doing what they already knew. Stretch your expertise by stepping away from your current ability.
  6. Maintain your motivation – You’ll need to have three things for this, emotional, logical and logistical reasons to continue:
    1. Logistical – finding the most convenient time and place to practice.
    2. Emotion and logic – what drives you? Maybe you want to succeed due to a negative experience you’ve had or maybe it was something positive, someone’s praise and this drives you to work hard – only you will know this.

Here’s the science bit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2O6mQkFiiw

To summarise, knowledge is important in learning. However, unless knowledge is put into practice then it will lack value and in time will be lost. Knowledge, deliberate practice and feedback lead to acquiring and mastering a skill. Practice does make perfect!

Thank you for taking the time to read my post, I hope you’ve found it interesting! I would love to hear your experiences on putting new skills into practice, have they been successful – if so how did they become successful and if not, why?

References:

Anton Chekhov: http://www.simplybetterenglish.com/knowledge-no-value-unless-put-practice-anton-chekhov/

Barbara Seels (1997): ps://ctl.byu.edu/tip/effective-learning-through-practice-skill-building-and-feedback)

 

 

Students

Wikipedia – A positive force for learning

July 22, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Wikipedia is in the crosshairs for many academics – but is it worthy of a student’s time? There is a concern over the academic relevance of websites that are available for the world to edit, as they may not be completely factually accurate.

Wikipedia understands its failings and has implemented the Wiki Education Foundation that is designed to combat misinformation. It is staffed by volunteer editors that help maintain the integrity of the stories and facts presented on the website. Episode 14 of Reply All (14 mins 37 seconds in) looks at one of the people who work hard to change just a small part of something on Wikipedia on a daily basis.

On the 22nd February 2017, an article was published on the NPR website (www.npr.org) entitled What Students Can Learn By Writing for Wikipedia . I found it a very creative and a useful insight into changing the assessments in which students take part in.

To summarise the article, it suggests that a student becomes an editor of Wikipedia. They choose their subject, research it and add it to the already developed pages of Wikipedia. The findings from the academics already employing Wikipedia as a means of assessment, have found that students engage at a more in-depth level because “they feel there is a higher stake than the difference between a B and an A-minus”. The fact that an article has the potential to be read by millions of people globally gives  students a real reason to do well at the task.

The article concludes that while Wikipedia can be a positive force for student development, it should still be held as a starting point to any research (especially at a university level) and never as ‘a footnoted source’.  With this in mind, getting a student to actively participate in learning activities can be a problem for many academics. Students often ask, “Is this part of the assessment?” or “Why do I need to do this?”. When using Wikipedia as part of a summative assessment, it seems to engage students in a way that more traditional assessments may not.

The workflow that students would be engaging with is very different to that of the traditional written essay. The framework that Wikipedia provides is open and offers public scrutiny. All those involved in Wikipedia are taking part and collaborating and checking the information for relevance and suitability. This appears to develop the students’ sense of pride and achievement in their work, and offers no place to hide. Rushing the essay or using quickly researched and poorly checked sources becomes much harder to do. There is no using Wikipedia to quickly paraphrase sections that are to be part of the essay; you are contributing to the narrative that Wikipedia provides.

Empowering a student into the traditional research methods of using ‘actual books’ (obviously there is now the world of an e-book but the principal is still the same). Checking internet hearsay for facts and truth, perception of a specific reality in the ever-changing nature of the world. Some parts of Wikipedia have been written and are essentially ‘finished’. Certain points in history are now not going to change drastically (although the interpretation of facts and data can heavily influence how the narrative of events is told). There is a wealth of knowledge and information pouring from our computer screens that needs to be verified, researched and potentially debunked or praised as genuine truth.

A geographer at the University of Portsmouth has been doing just this with his first-year students and in 2014 won the UK Educational Institution of the Year award, presented by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. Professor Humphrey Southall assigned his students a very small and limited Wikipedia entry for an English village (outside of the Portsmouth physical boundaries), which the students then had to research digitally. They were unable to use Wikipedia and had to focus their research on other institutions and organisations. The assignment required them to write a 1000-word entry on the location. A fine example is the entry for Sawley in South Yorkshire that now provides a comprehensive look at the village.

Throughout this style of assessment the students are developing key research skills which they can take into their second and third years. Providing them with a strong research ethic for their future projects.

Echoing the opening of the NPR article, we are surrounded by ‘fake’ and invented news at worst or just poor journalistic standards at best. Wikipedia is attempting to tighten its own editorial process and hold the content of the site to a higher standard. This can only ever be a good thing for those starting research, but the bottom line is always to remember that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. It may be the first website you visit when starting research, but it should not be your final source of information.Wikipedia is best used as a stepping stone to both online and offline literature, and even better a starting point for creating a different style of assessment.

Image courtesy of :

Edwin Andrade

The icon which says In Learning with Lynda.com content

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – Goodbye Lynda, hello LinkedIn Learning

July 15, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Two years ago the University implemented Lynda.com, an online library containing over 14,000 courses on business, technical and creative skills. Over 7,500 staff and students have taken advantage of around 19,000 hours of learning and nearly 280,000 individual videos. Sadly, however, from August Lynda is no more.

Fortunately, none of the great content accessed by staff and students is going. It is simply being moved to a new platform – LinkedIn Learning. This has a lot of new features and advantages, which will be outlined in further communication. Before seeing LinkedIn Learning though, it is worth having a look at some of Lynda’s greatest hits.

Top Courses

For the whole University, Excel Essentials comes out on top of the most viewed courses. This is followed by programming courses, which make up a few in the top 10. The trend in the most-used courses is for programming and understanding data, although it’s good to see skills like Critical Thinking and Project Management featuring. The skills that are in demand mirror the skills that universities should be developing in students and staff around Digital Capability. For more information on the Jisc Digital Capability Framework, and to help students or staff get a tailored report on their own strengths and weaknesses, check out the Digital Capability Discovery Tool.

Use By Faculty

All Faculties have adopted the use of Lynda, but usage is highest where the content relates directly to taught courses. 

In Technology and CCI many courses relate to specialist software such as AutoCAD, design, animation or programming – skills directly related to the type of courses taught.

Lynda contains a big section of courses on Business skills, so Business and Law can take advantage of the range of Marketing courses. 

Usage in Humanities is quite a bit less, but students are using the courses for applications such as G-suite and SPSS. One way to encourage usage would be to tailor playlists around the kind of skills students need for study and employability, link them to course Moodle pages so they’re readily available. This is something the IT Training team can help with.

Total number of courses taken per faculty

BAL

Excel 2016 Essential Training

Advanced Grammar

Creating and Giving Business Presentations

CCI

3DS Max 2018 Essential Training

Cert Prep: Adobe Certified

Associate – Photoshop (2017) Learning Design Research

Hum

Google Drive/Docs/Slides

Word 2016 Essential Training

SPSS for Academic Research

SCI

AutoCAD 2019 Essential Training

ArcGIS Pro Essential Training

Programming Foundations:Fundamentals

TEC

Synchro Essential Training

Xcode9 Essential Training

ArchiCAD Essential Training

Mini Case Studies

Nadim Bhakshov, Teaching Fellow, School of Computing

Nadim has, for some time, looked at alternatives to the classic textbook. A well written textbook – as we all know – is a huge benefit to teaching complex material. For a few years now Nadim has been experimenting with Lynda. He has offered students the occasional supplementary video from Lynda to support his teaching. This year, however, he decided to find some learning paths and courses on Lynda and provide parallel material for students.The idea was to use Lynda as a supplement to provide another perspective to what was being taught in lectures and practicals. 

After spending more time looking at Lynda, listening to student feedback and looking to establish better integration, Nadim is now working on the ‘alternative to a textbook’ approach more seriously. Next year, he hopes to replace the classic textbook with learning paths and courses from Lynda and use Lynda in his own teaching. 

Lee Woods, Associate Dean (Students), Faculty of Technology

In the Faculty of Technology, Lynda links have been embedded in Moodle for student induction and the U/F students. In the School of Civil Engineering and Surveying, all courses have AutoCAD and technical drawing Lynda.com resources embedded into the appropriate Moodle Units.

Lee has used Lynda videos directly in the teaching of his units, International Built Environment Fieldwork (IBEF) and Transportation Engineering. There are a series of videos on Lynda around urban planning. Lee has played sections of these in lectures as a teaching aid. Part of the IBEF unit is a field trip to Copenhagen, and there is a video in Lynda, part of the Urbanised course that directly relates to the trip.

Sarah Harris and Emily Parry, Business & Law and Technology Placement Offices

Sarah used Lynda to point students in the right direction for resources to help with skills for placement interviews and assessment centres. Lynda was also used throughout the year to help students build confidence in their abilities. Emily embedded links to Lynda on their Moodle page emphasising employability and soft skills generally. Specific links were added for GDPR, Excel, communication skills and email communication.

The Lynda resources were also used to support and consolidate learning from the Excel trainer led sessions that Sarah and Emily arranged for their students.

Images of a computer screen, a tablet and two different sizes of mobile phones

LinkedIn Learning Upgrade

The upgrade to LinkedIn Learning from Lynda is planned to take place on August 1st. The content is the same as Lynda but it offers a new interface and range of new features, making learning more personalised and relevant to your study or work. There will be an option to connect a personal LinkedIn account with LinkedIn Learning – this means that learning history acquired at the University can be kept on the personal account, even when students or staff leave. Another advantage would be the more personalised recommendations based on the skills from the LinkedIn account. The only information the University will see from a personal LinkedIn account will be the profile picture. The alternative is just to choose not to connect and use LinkedIn Learning in exactly the same way as Lynda has been used up until now.

There will be more communications on LinkedIn Learning and all its features. In the meantime, keep an eye on www.port.ac.uk/linkedinlearning and the Myport article to stay up to date.

Image Credit: supplied by LinkedIn

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

Digital Badges

June 3, 2019 / / 0 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

User interface for creating badges in Openbadges.me

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

Figure 2 - Moodle Badge created using Open Badges

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

 

Figure 2 – Moodle badge created using Open badges

 

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

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

Figure 3 – Moodle badge manager

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, are badges worth having?

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

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

Photo by Melinda Martin-Khan on Unsplash

Melinda Martin-Khan

JISC Digifest 2019 banner

Digifest 2019

March 29, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Jisc’s Digifest is my favourite educational technology conference. Spread over two days at Birmingham’s International Conference Centre it’s an ideal opportunity to meet practitioners from other institutions and this can be nearly as useful as the set programme of talks and presentations themselves. This year the focus was on practical ideas that can be taken back to the classroom or lecture theatre. To this end, I attended sessions on the use of video.

The first session, “How digital video innovates pedagogical methods”, was run by learning technologists from Havant and Southdowns College and looked at how staff and students have used video for both formative and summative assessment. Together, the technologists have worked on around 200 videos, some produced by the students themselves. It was clear that the use of video has had a significant impact on teaching and learning at the College. While claims about improved student attainment and retention lacked supporting data, feedback from both staff and students did indicate improvement in student engagement and achievement.

The importance of video in teaching and learning was also the theme of a presentation by Dominik Lukes’  (Learning Technologist, University of Oxford). In his presentation, titled “How YouTube started a revolution in learning and nobody noticed”, Dominik argued that the role of video in teaching and learning can only expand and provided this example of the power of video as a learning tool. Whilst I’m not entirely convinced by the claim that ‘video is the future’, both Dominik’s and the Havant College presentations did illustrate the usefulness and power of video if used properly. Both presentations also highlighted the ease of using YouTube as the delivery platform especially given the automatic subtitles function. It would be interesting to find out more about what students think of video as a learning tool and the extent to which benefits outweigh costs (in terms of time primarily) but from personal experience, I think a lot more use could be made of YouTube in teaching and learning.

Of the panel discussions I sat in on, the most interesting was “Listening to teachers: implications for education and digital“ The discussion was based on a piece of research by anthropologist Donna Lanclos and others the findings of which can be downloaded here. The research consisted of interviewing teachers in both the HE and FE sector with the aim “to uncover what next generation digital learning environments might look like”. Their report also came up with a series of recommendations which are well worth reading.

I was particularly interested in how terminology was being used. Many years ago when I was a student we went to lectures delivered by lecturers, in this discussion it was about “teachers” facilitating and delivering learning. This change in emphasis – teaching rather than lecturing – is something, I assume, that will become more ubiquitous given the introduction of the TEF in 2017. A number of thought provoking issues came out of the discussion not necessarily related directly to technology. For example, to provide effective holistic support to students takes time, which is one resource most staff are short of. This issue links nicely to a presentation I saw by Bolton College on the use of chatbots. But more on that in my next blog along with a look at Snatchbot!

 

Guest Blogger: Julian Ingle – Writing Retreats Take Off

February 20, 2019 / / 0 Comments

“What do you do, sit around writing poetry and novels?” When I say I’m running a writing retreat, most people assume it’s a kind of self-expression fest, paid for by the University. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m in my sixth month here as Deputy Head of ASK, enjoying the new role. In my previous job at Queen Mary, UoL, I’d run writing retreats for staff and PhD students on a regular basis. This was something I wanted to initiate here at Portsmouth. I’m pleased to say that I’ve just finished running my fourth writing retreat at the University. Hopefully this marks the beginning of regular retreats at Portsmouth and they’ll become part of the fabric.

These retreats are urban rather than residential – in other words we don’t head off and stay in a boutique hotel in the South Downs, but work in a large room on campus and then go home. The plan is to run off-campus one- and two-day retreats for staff and PhD students once I’ve found a good venue. (Being elsewhere does make a difference. As does having a decent lunch that you don’t have to prepare.)

The format of the retreats draws on Rowena Murray’s work, which over the years I’ve developed and refined. Highly structured, intense and very productive, we sit around a large boardroom-style table; we then set a goal or task for the first hour-long writing session, discuss it briefly with a colleague and then begin writing. When the hour is up we talk to our colleague about how it went, set another goal and carry on. To help re-focus, we also do short generative writing activities, such as freewriting. After lunch we spend half an hour peer reviewing someone else’s work, and then carry on writing in one-hour blocks. Sometimes the format varies, depending on time and location. Typically, there are between 12–15 participants from across the faculties – although the boundaries between staff and PhD students are sometimes blurred.

Having run retreats for the last eight years, I know they work. There are lots of reasons why, but key is that they get writing done. Staff workloads, multiple demands, and the general culture in many universities, mean that despite increasing pressure to publish, there is little time allocated or energy left to make time to write. So staff write in their holidays or at weekends. Providing a dedicated time and place, away from everyday demands, email or internet distractions, creates a shared ethos and valued space to do something that is in theory an essential dimension of who we are as teachers, practitioners, researchers, academics…

Building research writing cultures takes time. Writing retreats provide a powerful way to connect staff and PhD students with each other, their research, their thinking and practices, and help build a community of writers. The conversations that take place throughout the day are full of insights (there’s no such thing as a finished writer), so sharing the frustrations, trying something new or learning from others can give direction, confidence and motivation.

Or at least that’s what participants say about writing retreats. Above all they are productive: a frequent comment is that they’ve written more in the day than they’ve written in the last two months. On occasions, the freewriting activities can result in light bulb moments and help move thinking on. At the end of the day we’re tired but most people would like more.

I’m determined that writing retreats will continue at the University and, if we get a good location and good food, they will get better.

If you’d like to take part in a writing retreat, be added to the mailing list, or would like to discuss how they could be tailored to your faculty or students, then please get in touch: Julian Ingle, Deputy Head of ASK, (julian.ingle@port.ac.uk).

Here’s a photo of us hard at work at the first retreat.

People sitting around a table

Image credits: Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Guest Blogger: James Brand – Erasmus+ Staff Training: Visiting the FernUniversität in Hagen (Part 2)

September 19, 2018 / / 0 Comments

This is the second of four related blog posts about about an Erasmus+ Staff Training experience to the FernUniversität in Hagen which took place in June 2018. In this post I will be discuss the learning technologies being used at the FernUniversität and some of the innovative projects that they are undertaking.

Learning Technologies and Innovations at the University

E-Assessment

A presentation of E-assessment at the FernUniversität was very interesting and eye-opening. The FernUniversität has a number of issues unique to the institution in terms of conducting e-assessments. As the number of students is so high, it is difficult to conduct online exams. For example, one of their most popular courses has several thousand students. As a member of teaching staff highlighted, the exams cannot take place at a study center as they could not ensure that all students could attend. German data and privacy laws also mean that a lot of technical solutions could not be implemented. The University, therefore, does not conduct computer-based examinations.

Hybrid Lectures

One of the elements of teaching that I was most interested in was the use of hybrid lectures. These are delivered in a lecture hall but possible only to a handful of students. The rest of the students will be watching the lecture which is recorded and streamed online and will participate remotely using Adobe Connect software. A facilitator will then help with reading out student questions and to ensure that the session runs smoothly. One of our major challenges in the Graduate School is dealing with capacity issues of workshops and ensuring adequate provision to distance learners so the hybrid lecture looks to be a possible solution.

FEU login

One major project at the University is the introduction of implementing a single sign-on through a system being called ‘FEU login’. This will involve students signing in through a single portal to give them access to a number of online services including:

  • Classroom modules (on Moodle)
  • Student email
  • Student Calendar
  • A personal area for course and personal information
  • Library services
  • Regional Study Centre information and events
  • Learning Group Finder app

Learning Group Finder App

One interesting innovation at the FernUniversität is the development of the LernGruppen Finder, (Learning Group Finder) app. This app is designed to help the distance learning students to find others to study within their region or that are studying the same subject. This app has been introduced to support students studying and to help minimise isolation that students may experience from studying as distance learners.

Other examples of digital learning innovations at the University can be found on their E-Koo blog (German language only).

Study books

One of the most surprising revelations during the week for attendees was that paper is not dead at the FernUniversität. During a visiting to their Logistics Center, the printing, and production facility just outside of Hagen, we saw the scale of their use of non-digital learning materials. Students are provided with study books to accompany their courses. These have proved to be popular with students who like to receive something tangible to go with their studies so there are no plans to discontinue this method of producing course materials. The printing facility was very impressive on its own, with all aspects of print and design, provided in-house on large production line type setup. They also handle the production of other media including CDs with teaching material, newsletters, and stationery. 

Video Studio

One of my favourite parts of the training week was the visit to the facilities of the video studio. The media production team are responsible for the production of a range of audio-visual teaching materials including talking-head videos, video lectures, podcasts, and animated videos to name a few. They are also responsible for ensuring the accessibility of materials for all learners. The media production center features professional recording studio, with green-screen, lighting and cameras all of a professional quality. This studio was comparable to studios that might be used in news or television broadcasting. The facility had clearly had quite significant investment behind it and there was acceptance among attendees that this was needed to produce high-quality distance learning. To quote a delegate, “everyone wants distance learning until they have to pay for it!”.

In my next blog post I will be discussing some of the practices being implemented at the FernUniversität to ensure the quality of distance learning provision at University. I will also discuss instructional design and the educational theory that underpins e-learning at the FernUniversität.

 

Image credits: Photographs by James Brand

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