Tel Tales

Adventures in Technology Enhanced Learning @ UoP

Tag: moodle (Page 2 of 7)

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Creating accessible documents – some tips

July 20, 2020 / / 0 Comments

In recent weeks, several members of staff have asked for some simple tips on accessibility of learning content. Well, for text-based material on Moodle, the best advice I can give authors is: look at the Ally report that appears next to your document – the report RAG rates your document against accessibility criteria and, where problems exist, states what they are and explains how to fix them. (Accessibility of video and audio content is something different, and will be the subject of a later post.)

If you are creating a document from scratch, however, it is best to avoid accessibility pitfalls rather than fix them later. Refer to creating accessible documents in the eLearning-tools site to find out what are the do’s and don’ts. We know what the commonest problems are at UoP: the Ally institutional report tells us! So, when writing, take note of the following five tips.

1. Ensure there is sufficient contrast between text and background

Text with poor contrast can be difficult for anyone to read, but it might be impossible to read for people with certain visual impairments. Putting red text on a green background, for example, is a really bad idea. Don’t do it! For more information, see the relevant part of the WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines.

2. Add a description to images and graphs

Adding a rich text description to images – often known as “alt text”, “alternative text” or “alternative descriptions” – improves comprehension for all students and is a requirement for students with visual impairments. (Adding alt text also helps students with poor network connections: text might be transmitted when images aren’t.) If you don’t know how to add alt text, check out the help in Ally.

3. If you use tables, give them headers

Tables can be a great way to organise complex information – but use them for data, not for visual layouts. And in order for students to best navigate a table, particularly if they are using a screen reader, add appropriate headers. Again, Ally provides guidance on how to do this. (If you have never used a screen reader before, try doing so on a Word document that contains a table. If that table is not properly structured, you will soon hear how confusing a table can be. In some cases, a screen reader can provide incorrect information because of the way a table has been set up.)

4. Use styles to structure your document 

Headings help all students to navigate and comprehend texts; headings are essential for screen readers. So when using Word, for example, use Word’s built-in styles for headings, sections, subsections and so on. If you don’t like how the style appears visually, change the formatting of the style. (If a piece of text has the “Normal” style applied, it doesn’t help to highlight the text and make it 20pt bold: it is still “Normal” text. If the text is a heading, apply a heading style rather than a direct visual format.)

5. Give your document a title

A PDF title is used as the document title for a PDF window or tab. A title makes it easier for a student to navigate to the PDF and to understand the purpose of the file. It is easy to fix the problem of a missing document title at the PDF level –  use Acrobat Pro. But the problem doesn’t arise if you add a document title in your word processor. (In Word, for example, select the Summary tab from File > Properties and then add a short, descriptive sentence in the Title field.) 

And that’s it! If you follow these tips, your document will be more accessible than the majority of documents on our Moodle (or on the VLEs of most other institutions – these are the commonest accessibility errors people make). 

Image Credit: Image by 200 Degrees from Pixabay

Roles in Moodle

Roles in Moodle

June 29, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Do you often feel baffled by the many roles and privileges of your role in Moodle. Are you clear about what the definition of your role is and what it allows you to do? For example, do you know the difference between the ‘Non-Editing Teacher’ and the ‘University Admin Staff’ role? Did you know that there’s a PhD student role titled: ‘Student-Teacher’? Have you ever wondered what the difference is between the ‘Unit Reviewer’ role and the ‘External Examiner’ role?

I hope that this blog will give you answers to some of these questions. Although while the roles themselves shouldn’t change, some of the processes might be different in the summer, due to new systems and upgrading. New features are added and old tools are upgraded to improve functionality of Moodle at the end of August, this is when Moodle is taken down for a couple of days. This year the date for the Moodle upgrade is week commencing 24th August. We try to encourage anyone with an active role in Moodle to attend our training sessions, although our sessions cover more then just Moodle. To see the description of all the sessions we run, go to the Department of Curriculum and Quality Enhancement (DCQE) website and click on the TEL Training Calendar. 

Differences between the roles:

The Lecturer 

  • Who is this given to? 

This role is mainly given to content creators.

  • What are the privileges?

The main privileges of this role is the person can add, edit and delete the content within the site. It allows the person with this role to view hidden and visible content, along with being able to complete activities and view student activity reports on the site. This role can also switch between roles so that they can see the view, of a lesser role or a role that is equal to them.

On most sites in Moodle, the ‘Lecturer’ role is given to the person responsible for the information on the module. This is normally the module co-ordinator, but not always, for instance a Project or Dissertation module may have many lecturers updating key information onto the site as each may be responsible for certain areas, or different groups of students. 

The Non-editing Teacher 

  • Who is this given to? 

This role is given to lecturers, who teach on the module, but do not have to update or upload content onto it.

  • What are the privileges?

This role has four privileges, the person can view hidden and visible content, along with the ability to complete activities on the site and the capability to view student activity reports.

The ‘Non-editing Teacher’ role may be given to lecturers and in some cases PhD students who teach on the module, although a new role has been created titled ‘Student-Teacher’ role so that they are more identifiable. The person with this role may be permanently on the module or acting as a substitute, but there would be no reason for them to touch the content on these sites. The ‘Non-editing Teacher’ role is occasionally given to external examiners, rather than the ‘External Examiner’ role, as this role can see hidden content, which the ‘External Examiner’’ role isn’t able to view. 

The Student-Teacher

  • Who is this given to? 

This role is only given to PhD Students. 

  • What are the privileges?

The privileges of this role are very similar to the ‘Non-editing teacher’ the only difference with this role is they cannot view student information including their activity. 

The ‘Student-Teacher’ role is for PhD students who are assisting with the teaching programme of the module. The main reason for the role was PhD students needed a greater level of access than a student, but couldn’t have a ‘Non-editing teacher’ role as they would then be able to see student information.  The ‘Student-Teacher’ role cannot see any of the students activity reports, emails or details for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) purposes.

The University Admin Staff

  • Who is this given to? 

This role is given to members of the Department of Student and Academic Administration. 

  • What are the privileges?

This role has the same privileges as the ‘Lecturer’ role, they can add, edit and delete the content within the site. They can view hidden and visible content, along with being able to complete activities and view student activity reports on the site. This role can also switch roles whilst on a site so that they can see the view of a lesser role or one that is equal to their role.

The role of the ‘University Admin Staff’ has increased across the university with administrators needing to use Moodle for reporting or analytic purposes as well as inputting some key information.

The Student

  • Who is this given to? 

This role is given to any participant taking the module. 

  • What are the privileges?

This role has two privileges, they’re able to view visible content and able to complete activities.

When students are uploaded onto modules in Moodle through Student Records they are automatically given the ‘Student’ role. The ‘Student’ role is also given to members of staff when they are given access to core training sites in Moodle.

The Student (Interest only)

  • Who is this given to? 

This role is given to participants taking the module who have not been added to the module through Student Records, unless asked otherwise in their request. 

  • What are the privileges?

The privileges are the same as the ‘Student’ role, they’re able to view visible content and to complete activities.

Participants might be given access to this role if they’re taking the module for interest only, or have directly come into the University at a different year and need to view the modules to help understand the content of the course. The ‘Student (Interest only)’ role is used where marks received from these modules are not necessarily going towards their end grades. This role is not linked to the students’ timetable, MyPort etc. 

The Senior Online Course Developer

  • Who is this given to? 

This role is given to the Senior Course Developer 

  • What are the privileges?

As you can imagine this role has all the privileges of the ‘Lecturer’ role and more. They have the ability to change site names and module codes along with adding blocks into categories. This role can enrol some users manually and unenrol non-student enrolled users and add tags which attached cohort of students onto sites. They can also backup and restore existing sites and roll over sites for the new academic year.

The ‘Senior Online Course Developers’ role is a new role, created towards the end of last year. This role has been created to help channel and monitor requests for Moodle accounts, who is assigned what role and why that level of access is needed.  This is carried out in conjunction with eLearn.

   The Online Course Developer

  • Who is this given to? 

This role is given to Online Course Developers.

  • What are the privileges?

This role has the same privileges as the ‘Senior Online Course Developers’ role, the only difference being is they cannot manually add Moodle accounts onto sites.

The Unit Reviewer

  • Who is this given to? 

In the past this role has been given to the Associate Deans (Students) and members of the staff leading on the Blended and Online Development Team. In addition, this role is given to auditors, externally and internally to the University.

  • What are the privileges?

This role can view visible and hidden content.

The External Examiner

  • Who is this given to? 

This role is given to external examiners that are not based at the University. 

  • What are the privileges?

This role can view visible content, completed activities and view activity reports.

External examiners don’t normally need to see hidden content, so it was requested that we create a Moodle role that has the ‘Non-editing teacher’ role benefits without seeing material that they do not need to see.

The Guest

  • Who is this given to? 

The role is given to people who just want to view a module.

  • What are the privileges?

This role only has one privilege and that is to be able to view visible content. 

 

Roles and Responsibilities in Moodle

Moodle – Roles and Responsibilities Table

Please Note: The privileges shown on this grid are for Moodle version: 3.7.1

 

Lecturers, do you know you can change the role description in a module?  

If you wanted to change the name of the ‘Student’ role to read ‘Participant’ or the ‘Lecturer’ role to read ‘Facilitator’ or ‘Author’ or even ‘Non-editing Teacher’ role to read ‘Tutor’, it’s easy to do. However, be aware that when you change the role description that everyone with that role will have the new title.  

How to rename the roles:

Click on the module that you wish to make the changes in, then:

  • Click on the Action menu cog (top right hand side)
  • Click on Edit Settings
  • Scroll down
  • Click on Role renaming
  • Find the role and type in the name that you want the role to change to
  • Click on Save and display 

This will change everyone on the module with that role to the new name.

Disclaimer: The privileges of these roles were correct at time of publication. 

which role(s) apply to you?

Image Credit: Photo by Roel Dierckens on Unsplash

Image Credit: Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

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Moving online – the experience of Business and Law

June 22, 2020 / / 0 Comments

The sudden and dramatic shift to virtual teaching and learning has brought not only challenges but also opportunities and for the 120 undergraduate degree apprenticeship students working towards their Certified Management Degree Apprenticeship, staff have worked hard to make sure it’s  ‘business as usual’. 

Although circumstances meant limited time to prepare for the new ways of working, the transition to a virtual environment has, in the words of one apprentice, been “a good experience, tutors had access to all their systems and were able to quickly respond to my emails or schedule video calls” 

Clearly, the technology we now have available makes it possible to recreate some of the elements of face to face lectures and seminars, but what has also been impressive is an openness and willingness to try out different ways of teaching using tools that have long been available but not necessarily seen as relevant. 

So what has been the experience in Business and Law? Some lecturers were already familiar with delivering distance learning to military personnel but for most lecturers it was a new experience requiring them to learn how to use new platforms and applications and adapt their resources so they could be more easily delivered online.

Quickly after lockdown, what amounted to a working party was set up to bring lecturers and technical support together online to share ideas and plan how best to deliver the modules online. A variety of elements had to be brought together, for example: what tools to use, how best to structure content on Moodle, how to engage students in a virtual environment, supporting those apprentices working in key sectors, ensuring resources were fully and easily accessible.

From these meetings came these top tips:

  • Don’t be shy to ask for help.
  • If you have time, practice with a colleague.
  • Especially at the start – go for simplicity rather than creativity.
  • It does get easier after the initial learning curve.
  • Whether a video or a quiz, keep it fairly short and snappy.
  • Encourage more informal feedback from your students on their learning experience.
  • Be prepared to respond to change with a degree of flexibility.
  • Don’t be afraid to make reasonable adjustments to your online design as teaching progresses to improve student engagement.
  • Group working (use breakouts etc) to increase interactivity and build relationships .

The team’s top tools include:

  • Screencastify
  • Vevox
  • Google Forms
  • Moodle scheduler
  • Padlet

Supporting staff online has been made easy using Google Meet or Zoom as both allow participants to share their screens. Online help is backed up by the use of a dedicated  Moodle site providing more detailed advice on moving to online teaching. For students, the use of tools like Padlet and Jamboard mean that they can continue to work collaboratively. 

Overall, the experience of the Business and Law Degree Apprenticeship has been positive, in the words of the Director: 

“This has been an incredibly busy time, but everyone was determined that our apprentices were going to have an excellent summer term and the feedback has been very good from everyone involved. I am very proud of the team and the apprentices as  they have all shown dedication and professionalism throughout.”

As someone who has worked with educational technology for many years, I have been pleased and impressed with how quickly colleagues have taken to using tools they were not previously familiar with and how this has helped contribute to the positive experience students have had in moving to online learning. 

Acknowledgements 

Would like to thank Liz Sharples, Deputy Course Leader (CMDA) and Becky Quew-Jones Director for their input and quotes used.

Credit Image: Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

A collage of images taken at Digifest 2020

Into the unknown – part 3

May 26, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Digifest (#Digifest20) runs across 2 days and provides a wide range of thought provoking sessions to engage and challenge the audience. 

Day 2 started with a keynote from Hayley Mulenda (@hayleymulenda on Twitter) that was one of the most heartfelt and eye opening talks I have ever watched called “The Hidden Filter”. Hayley talked about her experiences at university, her journey through depression and anxiety. How she felt while having to deal with family and friends all the time maintaining the focus on her learning. This is something that I can not do justice to with my attempt to write about it now. Just to say that if you ever get a chance to hear her speak, I would take it. It will demonstrate how many students are facing challenges that (depending on your age and year of study) you may never have even considered. It equally demonstrated to me that there were times in my life where I was depressed and emotionally raw but not realising it because I was in the middle of the situation, it is only when I think back and reflect that I can see the damage I was doing to myself. 

She concluded her talk with the notion that we should not rely on technology in this ‘technology driven world’ (which has become an even bigger issue at the time of writing during the COVID lockdown). We now face an even greater challenge to support each other those who may be isolated, not only literally but figuratively. (I will provide some wellbeing support and guidance at the bottom of this blog for extra reading). It is with the “Hidden Filter” that Hayley addressed that our reliance on presenting a show of permanent strength and happiness in a digital world can ultimately lead to a rise in negative and harmful experiences in the “real” world. My favourite quote of her session was “You don’t need to listen to respond, you need to listen to understand”. 

The second day was just as inspiring as the first, with sessions covering a range of ideas, however the last one, I want to mention for this series of blogs is the one hosted by Michelle Capes and Sean Randall of the Wiltshire College and University Centre. This session was on digital escape rooms and demonstrated how you could use Microsoft OneNote to create pages of questions, restricted by passwords that require you to challenge your students and get them to investigate the material. Creating riddles and puzzles that can be discovered through online research as well as having to work around physical locations to find the information. 

During this session, I was inspired to look at how Moodle may be a potential option in creating ‘Digital Escape Rooms’. I found that it was possible to recreate using a Moodle book to house H5P activities that are all set with restrictions that require a set score from a previous question. It was a quick test I did during the presentation but with more work, the idea could be developed using a range of activities and conditions within Moodle that create more a more in depth experience. What it demonstrated to me was the idea that we are often limited by our own creativity and not the technical limitations. The OneNote option being demostrated was simple but very effective!

What I realised is that often we are all working on creative solutions to problems or have ideas that we don’t elaborate on and this can lead us to the point where we are not always great at sharing those ideas that we have. With that in mind, if you have worked on something in Moodle that is slightly more interesting, or have an idea that you are not sure what to do with, please do get in touch with myself, your Online Course Developer (many of whom have kindly written for the blog) or the TEL team, and we can discuss these ideas and potential solutions. 

To close this post and my experiences of DigiFest 2020, I would recommend to everyone that can attend this event in the future, they do! It is a fantastic example of creative minds and inspiring innovations that demonstrate learning and teaching within the FE and HE sector. It has made me think about things we should be looking at for our institution and what I can personally do to inspire others with the technology we have available. It demonstrated to me that there are more aspects to the life we lead within a university that we might miss from the students perspective (thanks @hayleymulenda). We traditionally work in silos a lot of the time, and it is an easy trap to fall into, but we should be looking at how best we can connect our work with others throughout the university. There is more we can offer, but we might not see the direct value elsewhere or how others might also be able to apply it to their subject. It is a very easy mindset to create, isolating ourselves and not sharing our work or innovations. Often this is not deliberate but just one factor in how we approach what we do in our daily working life. Digifest has shown me we should be singing each other’s praises and looking at ways to connect and integrate our best practice around the university and also what we can offer the wider community (be it learning and teaching practice or what we can offer others who might use our teaching ideas in the outside world). 

Guidance and Support for Wellbeing:

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Guest Blogger: Ankur Shah – Are we ready to deliver Online Learning?

May 11, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Overview

With COVID-19, teaching delivery has had an impact across the higher education sector. With the unknown of lockdown being lifted, higher education across the UK faces a challenge of delivering courses online for the new academic year. This post considers options, suggestions from the University of Portsmouth perspective and identifies how the university can be ready to deliver online teaching.

Challenge

Everyone across the university had to change the way they deliver teaching when the lockdown or closure of university premises was implemented. Academic members have had to not only figure out what technology to use, but have also needed to think about how the technology they use fits in with the pedagogy for their modules.

The second challenge was to think about the implications on  assessments and exams and how they would be conducted online.

There was a requirement to provide essential training or tools to our academic colleagues for delivering teaching online and also a concern over student engagement due to the suspension of face to face teaching.

How did we overcome the challenges?

BAL Staff Help Pages

In order to ensure teaching can be delivered and support can be provided to both staff/students, there was an initiative to design a one stop support page defining all the necessary tools, technology and pedagogical approaches academics can use to deliver their teaching. We directed staff to our faculty support page and also TEL’s elearning tool site. Within our faculty we started email communication everyday highlighting key tools/technology and training guidance to academic members to make this period as smooth as possible for them. 

There was also constant communication with the students on a regular basis to reassure them in this pandemic period. Support teams across the university worked really hard to ensure that staff/students can access the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Moodle without any issues.

From an academic perspective there were some very good practices noticed within our faculty in terms of using the technology to integrate with the pedagogy of learning. Recording tools (Camtasia, Screencastify, PowerPoint Recording) were used extensively to create short recordings followed by longer ones for the lecture/seminar – examples can be found on the BAL Good Examples – Modules on Moodle. Video conferencing applications (Webex and Google Meet) were used in high demand to conduct live sessions, record student presentations for assessments, seminars etc.

Looking forward

Being the uncertainty of the country, due to COVID-19, no one knows when face-to-face teaching will resume and there are plans for the university to consider delivering online teaching for the new academic year.

If we look back on how the university approached this before Easter when the lockdown was implemented, we can argue that quite a lot of things were done on the fly such as using Google meet for sessions, recording using Powerpoint recorder if no access to Camtasia or recording software, or finding other tools that are not supported but still did the job in terms of delivering teaching.

However going forward this can’t be the case, for the new academic year if the plan is to deliver online teaching then we need to consider the following…

  1. A robust lecture capture solution with the capability of captioning to ensure recordings are fit from the accessibility side of things as well (this can be beneficial for distance learning and on campus delivery).
  2. Provide essential training to academic members to deliver their teaching smoothly.
  3. Identify the preferred application to deliver live sessions that can integrate easily with Moodle (Webex or Google Meet). 
  4. Implement a standard structure across Moodle pages to keep consistency.
  5. Identify how students engage with the content on Moodle pages (i.e. thinking about specifying time a student might require to complete an activity or read an resource).
  6. With regards to online submissions of coursework, have a standard deadline time across the university.
  7. Consider the communication channel you will use with the students (emails, forums on Moodle, video chat etc.).
  8. Think about how attendance can be monitored during the interim period of online teaching.
  9. Ensure all the materials uploaded on Moodle pages are easily accessible for the students.

Conclusion

Based on the consideration made above and also from experience, the university needs to take action on this rapidly, as there is less time to act on the changes mentioned above. Once the academic year starts, students attending, whether on or off campus, will have expectations to get value for their money. There is also a potential expectation on a lecturer to design their materials fit for online, so stating the requirements to them as early as possible could prove beneficial.

Ankur Shah

Ankuh working remotely.

Credit image: Photo by https://pixabay.com/illustrations/online-library-education-book-4091231/

Black background with a traffic light light with the red, yellow and green bright

Guest Blogger: Ankur Shah – Moodle Module Test (MOT)

April 20, 2020 / / 2 Comments

How to ensure your Moodle pages are consistent and easy to access for student

Overview

Within the Faculty of Business and Law there has always been a push for implementing a consistent approach for the Moodle pages that students use for assessing their learning materials.

Current approach

Over the years, we have put in place, design and navigation standards document which informs academics on the approach they need to take for their Moodle pages. Overall,  this has been a beneficial exercise as it has provided academics to gauge an understanding of what is considered as best practice, however the long term goal is to ensure that consistency across the Moodle pages is maintained year on year.

Hightlighed words and key paragraphs

The first block that you see on a module page in Moodle is a Baseline which is 5 tabs which supply information about the moduleMoodle Announcement & Q&A discussion board

Here’s the link to the page: BAL Best Practice

What is on the horizon?

One of the key points to take out from the 2030 vision, and also from the new strategy, is the push towards innovation through digital technologies and the learning environment can be crucial for this. Hence, having a process in place that can work as the enabler for this within the faculty and across the university is essential.

Moodle Module Test (MOT)

The Moodle Module Test (MOT) process is designed to inform and allow academics to rate their module pages in the form of a traffic light system. In order to make the process more robust, the initial proposal is to undertake the module MOT via subject group meetings, and face-to-face consultations. As that will allow us to gather feedback in terms of what works and what doesn’t work.

We have also assembled a checklist and guidance on hand for academics, that can help them rate their module using the traffic lights (from red to green)

A diagram showing the traffic light system and what actions are required to get a green light

What is involved and how long will the MOT take?

As this is a new process to encourage best practice in the faculty and potentially across the University, the plan is to conduct this exercise by my team first and consult academics based on the findings we have acquired for their respective module. The aim is to respond back within a working week with the rating and additional notes to advise academics on the steps forward.

How often will the MOT be conducted?

In order to implement a consistent approach and also help the faculty in adopting a best practice approach towards online learning, the recommendation is to carry out this exercise quarterly with the respective academic to ensure they are improving on the suggestions made to have consistency on their module. This will allow academics and us in the faculty to understand what are the key areas that need more attention and help in making a leaner approach.

If you would like to discuss more about this or any other Moodle related issues, please email ankur.shah@port.ac.uk

Credit Image: Photo by Harshal Desai on Unsplash 

Edword assessment platform logo

Engaging students with online assessment feedback

January 13, 2020 / / 1 Comment

An Exploration Project

Technology Enhanced Learning and Academic Development are leading an exploration project centered around engaging students with online assessment feedback. We’re specifically exploring an assessment platform called Edword.

It’s worth mentioning that we’re taking a more scientific approach to this project, you could almost imagine it as an education lab experiment. 

Academics and educational technologists within our team have evaluated the functionality and advanced workflows that Edword offers. We think that it offers some real tangible benefits to students and staff. The platform has been designed based on some pedagogically sound principles, that’s really what’s most exciting about it. I’ll demonstrate some examples of these in action later in this post.

It’s not enough that we’re excited about a new assessment tool though. We need to explore and test whether our students and staff actually do experience a benefit from using Edword when compared to one of our existing assessment platforms such as Turnitin or the Moodle assignment.

In order for me to explain what Edword allows us to do, I need to explain what’s missing from our existing assessment systems. 

Current feedback workflow

Turnitin / Moodle assignment

Assessment graded, student sees grade, end of workflow

When an online assignment is handed back to a student via Moodle or Turnitin students see their grade immediately, before they’ve had a chance to read any inline or summary  feedback added by their lecturer. The grade is often seen by students as the end point within their assessment, their grade is a students entry point to the next stage of their course. What we actually want students to engage with is the meaningful and constructive feedback their academics have produced for them. This will help students improve their next piece of work. Unfortunately many students don’t read their assessment feedback and miss out on the benefits to them.

Edword has a ‘lock grade’ feature which means students can’t see their grade until after they’ve read their feedback and potentially also submitted a reflection on how they will put their feedback into practise. In this way, Edword supports the feed forward model of good academic practise.

The Edword workflow looks more like this:

Edword workflow

Assignment is graded, student reads feedback, student writes reflection on feedback, student sees grade, student improves on next assignment

We also hope the feedback provided within Edword will be more engaging. Academics can enrich inline feedback with learning objects such as videos or H5P interactive learning objects. Rather than the flat text based feedback comments within Turnitin and Moodle, feedback in Edword helps students understand the mistakes they are making along with an immediate way to re-test their knowledge. The platform supports assessment for learning concepts.

 

A h5p learning activity embedded into assessment feedback for a student

A H5P interactive learning object within feedback in Edword

Edword records how long a student spends engaging with their feedback and allows students to rate the usefulness of the feedback they receive. These metrics are presented to staff as a way to evaluate how engaged students are and which feedback comments could be improved from a student perspective. 

We will make Edword available to staff and students during teaching block two with an on-boarding event for staff happening in early February. If you would like to take part in the project or ask some questions, please get in contact:

Mike Wilson

Ext. 3194

michael.wilson@port.ac.uk

A video introduction to Edword can be found here

Happy New Year - 2020

New year, blank page, fresh start!

January 6, 2020 / / 0 Comments

The festive season can be a hectic time for us all, rushing here there and everywhere, feeling that you’re constantly racing against the clock to get things done at home and at work. The last minute dash to the shops to buy your loved ones gifts for Christmas, the big food shop to get the all important ingredients for your Christmas dinner (the most eagerly awaited meal of the year!) and the work deadlines that seem to be ongoing and need to be met before everyone breaks up for annual leave – it can be relentless and can easily become overwhelming. 

At this busy time, it’s important to take time out not only to recharge your batteries but also to take stock of what you’ve achieved over the last year, time to reflect and to look ahead to the coming year. The beginning of a new year brings with it a fresh start and blank page for all our hopes for 2020.

‘Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Make it a good one’. - Brad Paisley

So, before we start thinking about the Tel team’s hopes for 2020, and all the things we want to achieve and work on, I would like to spend some time practicing ‘reflection’ (for tips on reflection visit my post: Through the mirror – learning through reflection) and look at what we’ve worked on in 2019. It’s easy to forget what we’ve achieved in a year and that’s why it’s so important when actively reflecting to make sure you have recorded your achievements and things you would like to improve on in some way or another. Our blog site, Tel Tales, is a great way of keeping a record of the Tel team’s work over the year and by contributing to the site it helps us take stock of what we have learnt, whether bad or good, collaboratively.

A whistle-stop tour of a year in the life of the Tel team

Accessibility was at the forefront of our minds in 2019. We wanted to ensure staff were aware that we, as a university, have a legal requirement to provide accessible content to our students. We developed Moodle Baseline and, to help with accessibility for digital content, we installed a plugin called Ally into Moodle. We looked at Grackle for accessible Google Docs and Slides, Automatic Media Transcription and how we could convert Print-based booklets to accessible online resources.

We attended conferences such as Remaking Marking Conference, Digifest 2019,  a Adobe/Higher Times forum called: Making digital literacy a pillar of education, the 19th EAIR Forum, TED Global Conference and Wonkfest 2019.

We looked at Scenario Based Learning, Wikipedia, Online Exams in Moodle, Videos in Higher Education, Content Capture and Digital Badges. We revisited topics such as Copyright and the all-important informative Did you Know? posts for Moodle. Moodle was upgraded to 3.7. We explored the increasing interest in Audiovisual in Education.

Assessments and feedback were also running topics of 2019. We looked at the different types of online assessments we had to offer and looked at feedback and shifting culture in the way we provided feedback to our students by ‘feeding forward’ to students using Edword.

We started to think about 5G and how this may affect us, by looking at Education 4.0 and Natalie 4.0. We looked at the pedagogy behind practice in learning and how visual note taking such as doodling could aid concentration and memory.

We revisited our social media platforms and looked at ways we could revamp them a little to increase our followers on Instagram and Twitter. So far this has worked and we are now advertising Tel and AcDev workshops, which again has helped increase the number of attendees.

We made time to reflect and looked at the importance of reflection. We explored change particularly in our current climate at the university and how we react to change. We looked at technology and our mental health and wellbeing.

Our regular guest blogger; Adrian Sharkey, kindly contributed to Tel Tales to tell us all about the new Linkedin Learning and Julian Ingle told us all about his writing retreats.

Stuart Sims and Andy Clegg joined the AcDev team and I returned from maternity leave.

We said a fond farewell to Jerry, who was seconded to IS.

Finally, we finished the year by looking at Three Useful Apps in Learning and Teaching. The 12 apps of Christmas had a make-over and was revamped into 12 days of Christmas – Learning and Teaching Advent Calendar.

Phew! I think that was everything! Surprising, when you do take the time to reflect, just how much you can achieve in one year. As you can see, for us it’s quite a lot!!

What’s in store for 2020?

As you may have been aware we have had a few internal promotions within the team: Mike Wilson has been seconded to a Senior Lecturer In Digital Learning & Innovation for part of the working week and Senior Educational Technologist for Tel the rest of the week. Shaun Searle has now been seconded into Jerry Collingswood’s post as a Senior Educational Technologist and Tom Cripps seconded to back-fill Mike’s role when he is working with AcDev. 

The new year will therefore welcome Jo Fairwood, seconded to Shaun’s original role on eLearn as an OCD, and Abigail Lee seconded to Tom’s OCD role. 

Content capture will continue to grow organically and, following a staff–student consultation, the university will be introducing a Content Capture policy in 2020.

Accessibility will continue to be a focus for the Tel team. We will also be looking at best practice when it comes to external examiners.

We will continue to explore Edword, an online platform that will allow richer feedback to students. And we will be working much more closely with the AcDev team in 2020, which we are very much looking forward to!

We intend to carry on blogging away – so please, when you have a spare five minutes, check in with us to see what we’ve been up to. And feel free to follow us on our social media platforms! Please leave comments – we appreciate any feedback you have for us.

Finally – we are always looking for guest bloggers! So if you have something of interest that you would like to share on Tel Tales then please contact me at marie.kendall-waters@port.ac.uk.

So from myself and all the team we hope you all have a very happy 2020! 

keep exploring

 

Image credits:

Three female students kicking at laid snow, so that it covers the image

Moodle – Teaching Block 2 Modules

December 9, 2019 / / 0 Comments

One query which we often receive from students here in TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning), is a concern that one or more modules are missing from their Moodle homepage. This is usually because the modules they are enquiring about, are for Teaching Block 2.  Teaching Block 2 modules are normally hidden from student view until students return from the Christmas vacation. 

Teaching Block 2 starts this year on Monday 20th January 2020. However, this is not always the case as some modules have two different cohorts of students attached to them. These modules may have a short name that looks similar to this: UXXXXX-19SEP & UXXXXX-19JAN.  Depending how the module has been set up, both cohorts may have access to the unit in September, or maybe the January cohort have been put into a group and won’t be able to see the module until the lecturer releases it to them at a later date.

Lecturers decide when to release their Teaching Block 2 module(s). Some prefer to release them when the students leave for the winter vacation so that they can start looking at them, while others wait until the first day back or when the first session starts. Some students may be able to see their Teaching Block 2 modules now.  It really is up to the individual lecturer.

We’re often asked; ‘Why does the January code not reflect the new year?’ – for example, ‘Why does the code say 19JAN and not 20JAN, as the year would now be 2020? This is because the code is taken from the academic year in which the course started, so as this academic year started in 2019, the code you’ll see is 19JAN. However if your course starts in the new year, it will have the 20JAN code.

It can be confusing, but as long as you can see your module(s) when the lecturer says you should be able to see them,then there is no need to worry. If you can’t see your module(s), please email us at servicedesk@port.ac.uk and we can investigate this further for you

In the meantime, the TEL Team would like to wish everyone season’s greetings and a healthy and happy New Year!

Image Credit: Photo by Naitian（Tony） Wang  and Aaron Burden on Unsplash

 

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

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

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