Tel Tales

Adventures in Technology Enhanced Learning @ UoP

Tag: student experience (Page 2 of 4)

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

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

November 23, 2020 / / 0 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zoom

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

Screen or application sharing

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

Mute/Unmute

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

Breakout rooms

Remote control

Storage and Caption

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

Webex

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

Screen or application sharing

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

Webex Meeting Center

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

Screenshot showing that anyone can share

Webex Training Center

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

A screenshot of how to change the role to presenter

Mute/Unmute

Webex Meeting Center

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

Webex Training Center

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

Breakout rooms

Remote control

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

A screenshot of the label showing where to assign privileges

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

Storage and Caption

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

Webex Meeting Center 

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

Webex Training Center

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

Google meet

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

Screen or application sharing

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

To prevent sharing:

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

Mute/Unmute

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

Breakout rooms

Remote control

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

Storage and Caption

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

 

Credit Image: Image by Hatice EROL from Pixabay

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

A different way of welcoming students

November 16, 2020 / / 0 Comments

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

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

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

Screenshot from the SCES pre-applicant site.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels

Three different coloured text boxes with the titles of each step

Situational judgement assessment

August 17, 2020 / / 1 Comment

So I think it is fair to say, Covid-19 has thrown us all into having to think outside of the box when it comes to developing the usual, more ‘normal’, course assessment delivery types. This couldn’t be more true for our academics within the Paramedic Cert HE course. 

A few weeks ago, I was asked to support a colleague within this team to help deliver an online assessment that would replicate what would have been a practical examination on adult and paediatric resuscitation. 

With COVID not going away anytime soon, and practical assessment dates looming, we had a very short space of time to develop an online assessment that would best simulate ‘hands-on’ resuscitation scenarios.

As a response to the need to deliver an alternative assessment, Jane Reid – the Course Leader for the Paramedic Cert HE course – wrote four situational judgement assessments; each scenario had sequential situations and each situation had a series of serious judgement questions to test a student’s knowledge of actions to take within the ever-changing scenario.

Situational judgement assessment has been used in healthcare for years. It allows participants to experience as close to real-life scenarios as possible, without risk (in our case COVID), enabling them to identify, in order, their responses to given situations.

Three different coloured text boxes displaying the steps

Storyboarding a situational judgement test:

  1. Scenario – Includes detailed descriptive text, containing key information that sets the scene. This can also include images, audio or video to further illustrate the scenario.
  2. Situation 1 – Content that builds on the initial scenario, it contains the next layer of information relating to the scenario at hand and includes the first set of serious judgement questions.
  3. Situation 2 – Content builds on the previous situation and includes the next set of serious judgement questions… and so on until the end of the scenario.

There were many considerations that had to be made whilst developing this assessment type – mainly to keep the assessment as authentic as possible. For example:

  • providing media to set the scene; 
  • keeping the narrative on track – ‘time’ is of the essence in any resuscitation scenario, so it was important to include timely details within the situations; and 
  • replicating the quick thinking process that would be required in a real-life situation by using the sequential format in the quiz, so that students had to take notes or work from memory as they couldn’t return to previous situations to guide them.

The student experience was another really important factor in delivering this assessment – most of whom may never have experienced this type of examination. It was essential to provide clear and consistent instructions to guide them through this process. Before the main assessment, we also created a formative version of the quiz so that students could familiarise themselves with what was expected from the assessment.

We used a Google Document, with tables, to structure the content in the development stage and a Moodle Quiz Activity (Multiple Choice) to build and deliver the assessment which worked very well. The feedback from both students and examiners has been really positive, with more scope for using this assessment as a CPD exercise for practitioners. 

Interest has also been shown by academics at other universities who wish to explore this particular method of assessment along with Ambulance Trust managers. The methods for assessing the learning of resuscitation has seen little evolution from the traditional OSCE format therefore, this format that was created for a small group of students may well develop over time.

Developing this was by no means easy given the time constraints. However, it is a great example of an alternative assessment that has been developed from creative thinking during the lockdown.  

Part of the edge of a table with a laptop opened with a hand placed on it as if using the laptop

Guest Bloggers: Emma Cripps and Rama Hilouneh – Content Capture: Supporting Learning Outside the Classroom

July 6, 2020 / / 0 Comments

By Emma Cripps, eLearning Coordinator in the Graduate School, and Rama Hilouneh, elected Learning Experience Officer at the Students’ Union.

Content capture, as defined by the University of Portsmouth Content Capture Policy, is “the digital production/capture of… content for the purposes of enhancing learning and teaching practices…”. 

Whilst to many, this may be in the form of a recording of some, or all, of their taught sessions, to others it could be the production of a written or audio summary, a how-to guide, or a summary of points made by students during the session. There are many options for capturing what takes place during the variety of taught sessions we offer our students, but what the Content Capture Policy ensures is that all students have access to learning from these sessions, whether they were physically able to attend or not. While the Content Capture Policy was developed before the coronavirus pandemic, it has become particularly relevant as we prepare for a blended and connected approach for Teaching Block 1 in the new academic year.

Through various consultation and feedback mechanisms with both staff and students across the University, the Content Capture Policy, which was recently considered and approved by the Academic Council and will now be implemented, is the result of over two years worth of discussion, revision and ultimately, an understanding that not all taught sessions in their entirety are suitable for recording. However, our diverse student population are asking for a mechanism that allows them to engage with taught sessions after they have taken place, whether that be to revisit, revise, or experience it for the first time. 

Rama Hilouneh, elected Learning Experience Officer at the Students’ Union (UPSU), and member of the Content Capture working group, has contributed to the Content Capture Policy, and long-term project, which originally arose from a UPSU elected officers manifesto point. “The working group, created by Dr Harriet Dunbar-Morris, has included the Students’ Union through each step, and actively listened to our input. This is particularly important, where the elected officers have changed over a number of years, yet are still included in this long- term project. From a student perspective, the world has become that much more technology-driven and information is just a click away. Yet, at times as an institution we have fallen behind in accommodating what this new generation of students expect from us, with inconsistencies in access to learning material within, and across, courses. 

“Yes, the presence of students in a lecture brings about a whole different learning experience with the opportunity to engage and ask questions as you receive the taught lesson. However, with the number of students entering higher education not only increasing, but also diversifying, the ‘type’ of student we attract has changed. University is no longer a place for academia alone, but an experience to advance a wide range of developmental skills and extracurricular activities. In addition, the majority of students work part time jobs, with some holding caring responsibilities, living a distance away from university or taking care of younger children and upholding a family. This begs the question as to what true engagement is in the age of technology. Regardless of the student’s circumstances, staff are able to provide resources and support through essential content online, and improve the overall student experience. This is why I view the Content Capture Policy as a step forward for us as an educational institution.”

For students, the ability to review material after a live session has taken place is extremely valuable. A survey carried out by the University, in partnership with the Students’ Union in 2018, found that over 85% of the students who responded use captured content, such as recordings, for revision, and recapping or revisiting complex concepts. There is also evidence within the research literature of the benefits students gain from revisiting taught sessions, including being able to review complex material, create detailed notes, and support the completion of assignments. 

There is of course diversity in how students use captured content, and staff within the University have raised concerns over the impact capture may have on attendance and engagement at taught sessions, something which is discussed at length within the research literature. Whilst there is evidence that the introduction of lecture capture can have a negative impact on attendance, there is also evidence that there is little impact, or that this impact is inconsistent, and other variables such as individual levels of motivation, and other academic pressures influence a student’s decision on whether to attend a lecture. 

The aim of content capture within the University is not to replace live-taught sessions, but to supplement them, something which will need to be communicated with students in order to help them understand that attendance and engagement at timetabled sessions is still important. The Content Capture Policy also acknowledges that “not all teaching styles nor all formal teaching sessions are suitable for recording”, giving staff a choice in how they capture and share the core content of a taught session. It is important to remember though that the core content of every formal teaching event that takes place needs to be captured, and some of the different ways staff have already been doing this will be shared in future blog posts and support materials. As our students try to overcome new and perhaps unexpected challenges, such as additional caring responsibilities, or inequalities in access to equipment or the internet, the capturing of content from formal teaching events is going to be key to ensure that no student is disadvantaged.

As a University, the ability to capture and record content has been available for many years, with staff already using creative ways to share material from taught sessions. Whilst there may be some additional work required to develop skills when choosing to use technology to capture content, many staff have already developed these skills, especially over the last few months in response to the challenges faced with teaching in lockdown. Training and continued support will be provided for staff as part of the Learning and Teaching Opening Campus Workstream, and we will be sharing some of the creative ways in which staff have been capturing content from their teaching sessions, including at the TEL Tales: Blended Learning Festival from the 13th to 17th July 2020.

  The Content Capture Working Group is aware, and understands the concerns raised by staff in relation to the new policy. Whilst this post can’t address all of these, it is hoped that the continued discussions, training and support around this policy will allow staff to make informed decisions, and allow all our students to benefit from taught sessions, even after they have taken place. Look out for future blog posts where we will be sharing more resources, guidance and support in relation to content capture.

Credit Image: Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

A view from above looking down on runners, running away from the photograph

Guest Blogger: Claire Tewkesbury – Lockdown And Life With No Students

May 28, 2020 / / 0 Comments

As someone who thrives on routine, going into lockdown and working from home on a permanent basis has been tough. I work full time for the Students’ Union and I started to work from home permanently on the 17th of March. While it was tricky at first, I have managed to develop a new kind of routine now. 

I live in a small flat so no desk space or a spare room to work from and, with a partner who is also working from home, we’ve had to be crafty with the space that we do have. I was lucky enough to have a desk topper that converts from sit to stand bought for me but, with no desk, it sits on my coffee table instead! New routines don’t come easy but I make sure to pack down the desk, my screen and my computer each night which helps me to separate my work life and my normal life. I still run outdoors so I’ve managed to keep a small part of my normal workday routine by running in the mornings before I start work for the day. Running outdoors really helps my mental health so I’m grateful that this remains a constant in my life. 

One benefit of working from home is that I’ve actually been really productive. I’m a list keeper and I usually have quite a few items on my to-do list. I work in a student facing role meaning we usually have a lot of students coming to the door every day and it turns out, without physically being able to see students, the things I need to do on this list get ticked off a lot quicker! 

I do miss this interaction with students and I’m really proud of the ones I work with closely. They’ve adapted incredibly well during tough times and, although they’ve expressed how sad it’s been to have to wrap up their Society activities early, they’ve rallied together and dealt with it in really positive ways. We ran our Student Awards event digitally so I’m delighted that we got to celebrate our students’ achievements, albeit in a very different way. 

On top of my full-time work, I’m also a part-time Masters student at the University so I understand the impact this situation has had on them. I’m studying a Research Masters in the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries so a lot of my research is done individually anyway but it can be hard not having your network around you in difficult times. A lot of the students I work with were due to graduate this summer so now won’t see the many friends they’ve made until they do. 

If the current situation has taught me anything it’s that I don’t really know how to slow down even when life forces it upon you. I’m constantly working towards something or engaging in a new challenge – now I’ve finished my university coursework for this year, I’m setting up a virtual event for charity and taking a nutrition course online. But I have realised now that it’s important to give yourself downtime as well. 

Some days I’m full of motivation and still find myself working away after 5 pm and other days I have no concentration at all, but I’m learning that this is OK. I’m a big planner and like things to be just so but now I’m taking it one day at a time – learning that it’s OK for my ‘normal’ to look a little different right now. 

Photo of Claire's work station with the table flat

Photo of Claire's work station with the desk topper extended

In the photo on the left the desk topper is closed for when Claire sits down to work and in the photo on the right, the desk topper is opened for when Claire wants to stand.

 

Claire is a Student Groups Coordinator at the Students’ Union and a MRes student at the University of Portsmouth.

Image Credit: Photo by Mārtiņš Zemlickis on Unsplash

Ablue background with four outlined images on people's heads in a semi circle around the earth, with piles of books either side of the earth

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 

People pointing at a computer screen

Peermark – a tool for group feedback.

March 9, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Recently Coventry University released a new plugin for Moodle around the idea of group and peer feedback. A colleague highlighted the new tool to me and at first glance I thought it looked like a promising solution to one of the requirements many academics have while running group work: the ability for students to score the contribution of individuals within the group and provide either public or anonymous feedback to group members.

Currently Moodle provides various options to support group work and peer learning, because Moodle HQ realises that these approaches hold an important place in the arsenal of many academics. Firstly, Moodle provides a generic framework for creating groups – these can then be allocated to an activity (such as discussion boards, wikis or group assignment submissions).

Secondly, and with a greater focus on the use of peer learning, Moodle provides the Workshop tool.

While groups can be Moodle Workshop screenshotadded and used within the Workshop, the idea is predominantly that students add a submission. The submission is then allocated to a specified number of their peers, who then grade and provide feedback on it.

If you haven’t used the Workshop tool in anger, here is a quick overview of how to use it as a peer-assessment tool:

  1. All students submit their work (traditionally this will be an essay, but it could be work in some other format).
  2. The work is allocated to the other students. This can be scheduled and automated if required.
  3. Every student marks the assessments they have been given (academics can also provide feedback, although this is not a requirement).
  4. Each student receives a final grade for the submission and a grade for their ability to assess the work (academics can overwrite grades should they feel the process has proven unfair).

This tool provides students a fantastic opportunity to reflect on their own writing and work while comparing it to that of their peers. However, it does not allow for a group to provide anonymous feedback to their peers on projects. To do this academics currently have to find solutions outside of Moodle. The most notable option for this is TeamMates. TeamMates allows groups to feedback on the overall project work and then score the engagement of the rest of the team throughout the project.

We now have a new Moodle-based solution! Peerwork, created by Coventry University, is an integration with Moodle that provides a peer feedback option for group work. You can learn more about this approach from the video they have produced:

While working through Peermark, I was really impressed with its simplicity of set-up and use. I created the framework as an academic, but also completed the process as a student. Using multiple test accounts, I was able to understand how the process would work from both sides and see how you can adjust the overall grade given to a group though the peer reviews on the work.

The only criticism was really just my understanding of what the tool did (so not really a criticism of the system). When I uploaded a document as a student it cascaded it to each other members of the group. Each student does not need to upload a file, it is targeting the students for feedback on their peers and how the group worked throughout a project. The upload was almost a secondary consideration to the process.

Peermark is not the Workshop reimagined. They are two very different tools that serve a specific purpose.

The Workshop facilitates a student writing a piece of work, submitting it and other students provide feedback and evaluation of that work.

Peermark allows groups to discuss, rank and analyse how the entire team worked together over the course of the project. The work is created by the team for evaluation by the academic but the feedback given by the group on each other member will directly affect the shared grade of the team.

Peermark is currently on a test installation of Moodle.

If you would like a demonstration to see whether it would fit your need, please contact tom.langston@port.ac.uk

Image taken from Unsplash :John Schnobrich
John Schnobrich

Amand standing behind a handheld video camera

Guest Blogger: Jonny Bell – Video content as learning objects – Capturing more than just the lecture

March 2, 2020 / / 0 Comments

We often advise lecturers to use more interesting content on their Moodle sites, rather than just lecture slides, PDFs and so on, but what does that mean in practice and how can lecturers facilitate this and manage their busy schedules?

Videos are an easy way to make sites more visually appealing and are more likely to engage students. We can use videos in two ways: either

(i) source already-created videos, via sites such as Youtube or Box of Broadcasts.

(ii) can create our own. 

As an amateur videographer outside of work this is an area I am very interested in. During my time working in the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies I had the chance to interview some extraordinary characters, including government advisers on how to deal with terrorist attacks and ex-convicts who have been successfully rehabilitated into society. 

These short interviews provided much better value to students than watching a rerun of a longer lecture. In fact, studies show that the length of the video directly links to how much of the content the student will watch. Whilst this study looks at MOOCs, I strongly believe we can translate this to a Higher Education environment also.

With the introduction of H5P functionality within Moodle we can make these videos interactive and make sure students answer questions to solidify the knowledge they’ve gained by watching them.

The generation of students coming through now have grown up on Youtube and Netflix, and academics are keen to tap into that mindset to provide videos of educational value. There’s various different styles of video to choose from, and I have personally been involved in 7 different ones. 

In my current job in the Science and Health Faculty there has been a lot of scope to provide instructional or demonstration videos for specific pieces of equipment in laboratories, for example. Students can watch these videos outside of class, and it saves valuable lab time: students can get on with their work straight away rather than having to get to grips with the equipment. 

I think videos also provide a vital link on Distance Learning courses: it’s often a great way for students to connect with the course, especially if the lecturer is happy to do bits to camera. It can humanise the experience if they can see who is teaching them. 

Students want to feel they get value for money and just providing Powerpoints and PDFs isn’t enough these days. By creating our own in-house videos the students get an almost personalised learning experience. When I started in the Faculty there was some basic camera equipment, but I was able to purchase a higher-spec camera, lapel mics and some small studio lights via senior management. This means that I’m mobile and can go to the lecturer or a location they wish, rather than have everyone go to a dedicated filming space. 

Projects currently in the pipeline are a “TV” style video with student presenters introducing pieces about their specific course, including how to present their poster assessment in front of a panel on a Pharmacy course; this will be invaluable for first-year students.

Looking to the future there have already been requests for my services on field trips for geography-type courses. This means we can increase the accessibility of these courses for students who, for various reasons, might be unable to get onto these trips. Having a short video on how to conduct experiments on soil, for example, means these students will have a similar experience to those who go on the trips. Ultimately, as an institution, we should be striving for all of our students to have consistent learning experiences and by creating short videos we can go some way to achieving that. 

Credit Image: Photo by Seth Doyle on Unsplash

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.

 

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