Tag: student (Page 2 of 5)

Guest Blogger: Fiona Cook – Introduction to Tel Tales

May 4, 2020 / Fiona Cook / 0 Comments

Hi, I’m Fiona Cook and I am the new Research Associate for the Department of Curriculum and Quality Enhancement (DCQE).

I have joined the University after nearly four years, across three roles, at the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union (UPSU). My latest role at UPSU was Insights Lead and I was responsible for leading all consultation, research, benchmarking, and data management, and for supporting GDPR compliance. Previously, I worked for the Student Focus team which covered areas such as academic representation, quality assurance, and collaborative partners. I have also worked in FE where I supported multiple departments including all HE provision.

I have joined DCQE to support the University’s work on widening access to and participation in HE and enhancing the student experience. My role focuses on projects across the University that support the Access and Participation Plan, particularly those around BAME students, WP, innovation in learning and teaching, and student voice. When I saw the posting for my new role it seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring together my experience and interests!

My previous roles at UPSU means I have already worked closely with the University, and DCQE, on similar projects including content capture, the NSS, the student charter, and the TEF. Working within the Student Focus and Insights teams means I have a lot of experience with student voice, and I thankfully already know quite a few of the many acronyms used in this area.

I think student feedback is crucial in the development of both strategic and operational planning, and I’ve been able to share my work on using data to drive the student experience at conferences such as the University’s Learning & Teaching Conference and Qualtrics X4 which was one of the highlights of my career to date! The relationship between the University and the UPSU Insights team was also mentioned in the newest APP, demonstrating the importance of collaboration and inclusion.

I am keen to support access and participation through equity of opportunity, and I am excited to continue to contribute to this in my new role. I hope to bring my experience of these key areas and use it to support the development of University activities, whilst also developing my own research and analysis skills.

It’s quite strange that after just over six weeks into a new role I’m now working at home daily. I shared some of my top tips for remote working on LinkedIn, and it’s been really useful to access the TEL resources as I adjust to regular video calls and life online.

Outside of work I am interested in dancing, politics, and baking – although I made my sister’s wedding cake last year so I’m on a slight hiatus. I’ve also recently adopted an eight-year-old cat called Mimi.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Fiona is based in Mercantile with AcDev and the Tel team.

Welcome to the team, Fiona! We look forward to hearing more about your projects in the not so distant future on Tel Tales.

A lady sitting on her bed with a laptop on her knees, whilst her golden Labrador lays next to her

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – Making the best of a bad situation – digital capabilities

April 23, 2020 / Adrian Sharkey / 0 Comments

One really positive thing to come out of the current situation is how creative and adaptable students and staff have been in using digital tools to keep the University running virtually. They’ve been backed up by the awesome support from IS and other digital support teams like Technology Enhanced Learning and faculty Online Course Developers. Lecturers and students have quickly adapted to teaching and learning online, using tools like Webex and Google Meet. Support staff have transitioned to online working using video conferencing along with messaging tools like Google Chat and Slack. It’s also been impressive to see how social media has been used to keep staff and students connected, the UoP Sport Facebook group being a great example. Although setup to share fitness tips, it does much more than that in keeping people connected.

It would be great to keep this momentum going once things get back to normal. If this has shown anything it’s that the workplace is quickly changing and along with changes brought by Industry/Education 4.0 everyone is going to need the skills to be creative and adaptable as technology changes quicker than ever.

One of the tools we have available to help with this is the Digital Capability Discovery Tool. Also, one of the really hard things to get across is that digital capabilities are not basic literacy skills. All of us will have areas of digital expertise, but there will be gaps in our capability, whether in information, data or media literacy, digital creation or presentation, or even digital well-being. The framework the tool is based on is designed to help students and staff develop their digital capabilities to cope with how things are changing.

Give it a go, you might be quite surprised about the results. Available for both students and staff, when you sign up you’ll be asked if you are a new or continuing student or if you are academic or professional services staff and then taken through a questionnaire. It’s not a test of your knowledge, it’s a self assessment of your confidence in the different areas of digital capability. It will take a bit of thought for you to decide on honest answers and be around 45 minutes to complete. It is personal to you, the University doesn’t see individual results, only aggregated ones so we can compare ourselves in the sector and possibly see where resources can be emphasised.

As a result of this effort you’ll get a tailored comprehensive report on your capabilities with links to great resources. Check out the LinkedIn Learning landing page linkedinlearning.port.ac.uk where there are learning paths with resources mapped to the different areas of the framework.

Lastly, if you have any groups of students or staff that you support and who might be interested, we have a presentation that can be dusted off to explain all of this, which we’d be happy to deliver. If you find it useful, please recommend it to colleagues, or you may use it to inform your PDR process, teaching staff could use it with students perhaps to help with a ‘baseline’ of digital capability.. However you feel it might be useful please feel free to get in touch with me or ittraining@port.ac.uk

@adrianjsharkey

Image Credit: Photo by BRUNO CERVERA on Unsplash

Starting a part-time degree as a mature student

April 14, 2020 / Becky Holman / 3 Comments

Hello and welcome to my introductory blog which will serve to document my journey into higher education as I undertake a part-time, fully online degree in Graphic Design, which will hopefully only span over the next 6 years, and not the rest of my life. Every few months or so you will see me pop up, documenting my latest module adventures and letting you know what I’ve been up to.

For a bit of personal background, I went to college for 6 months before deciding it wasn’t for me, fast forward 4 years I found myself working at the University of Portsmouth. 13 years later I’ve worked my way up the ladder into the role of Online Course Developer, a role which I truly enjoy. However, over the years I have looked at my peers and silently wished that I had pursued an academic path after all, but I had accepted that life doesn’t always go the way you expect it to and buried the thoughts back down when they popped up, telling myself that I had too much going on in my life to consider trying to get back into education (and for those that know me will know that this is true for the most part, my life is nothing but hectic!).

In 2019, I gained my Mathematics GCSE, after attending night school for 9 months, which I had been putting off due to struggling with dyscalculia and the fear of failure. Succeeding in this triggered such a sense of achievement that I started to consider enrolling on a degree, for real this time. I spoke to friends and colleagues for advice and their thoughts as to what they thought I should do. Some felt that it was wise to add to my qualifications, when others would say, well you’re already doing the job and have the work experience, so what’s the point?

In the end I decided it was now or never, and time to just dive in – I’ve navigated so many major life events as a baptism of fire – so why stop now? I want to undertake this degree not just to better my job prospects, or to become better at the design aspects of my current job, but for me. Because this is what I’m truly interested in and I know I can do it and be great at it.

So where am I studying? After doing lots and lots of research, and becoming disheartened many times, I discovered the Open College of the Arts (OCA), somewhere I had never heard of before, and after learning more about them, I’m really surprised it isn’t more well known. The OCA was founded in 1987 by Micheal Young, who was one of the founders of the Open University. They specialise in creative degrees delivered entirely online, something that I’ve discovered is very thin on the ground. In 2016, the OCA became part of the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), which in 2019 was named Modern University of the Year by the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, and is ranked number #13 on the UK’s Guardians University League Table and listed as TEF Gold.

As the degree is delivered fully online, which is perfect for me work-wise, it means that my motivation and time management skills are going to have to exceed my usual levels by tenfold. I know myself well enough to know that my main challenges are going to be just sitting down and reading, and balancing my social life with study time … I’ll have to start taking the advice that I give to students, and like most people I am terrible at taking my own advice!

However, through the power of social media I already have a ‘study buddy’ that I met through the OCA student community Facebook group. It’s already been a huge help, regardless of the ‘real life’ support that I have, and we are helping each other by sharing ideas and just motivating each other generally. She’s started slightly earlier than me (I’m starting in April) so has let me know what the first assignment is, which is to design three postcards based on your interests and hobbies. Naturally they are going to be the nerdiest postcards ever seen, and I’m super excited about getting started on them.

I’m also very interested to see how this degree is delivered from a professional viewpoint. The only contact I will have with my tutors is via Skype or Google Hangouts, I will be sent my assignments online and will be expected to maintain a learner log. I’m not sure yet what Virtual Learning Environment will be used if any, but the feedback I have read from other students has been very positive, so I’ll also be feeding back on this blog on how the OCAs way of teaching could improve my own practice in certain areas as an Online Course Developer.

I’m under no illusion that this is going to be hard work, lots of hard work, but I’m ready for the challenge!

Image credit – Photo by Flo Dahm from Pexels

On a table a mobile phone showing a list of courses on LinkedIn Learning app, next to earphones and a mug filled with a dark beverage

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – LinkedIn Learning – Collection and Learning Paths

April 6, 2020 / Adrian Sharkey / 0 Comments

LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning contains over 40,000 courses on technical, business and creative skills and is free to all University of Portsmouth students and staff. Many of the courses will map directly to studies, others will be on tools such as Autocad, MatLab or SPSS which are essential for study. The courses on a wide range of business skills can be used by staff for CPD and students for employability skills.

Collections and Learning Paths

With that amount of courses in the library, searching for exactly what is relevant or required can sometimes seem daunting. LinkedIn Learning will offer recommendations based on the skills and interests you have setup as part of your profile. If you’ve connected a personal LinkedIn account to your University LinkedIn Learning, you will also get recommendations based on your professional network. One way to organise courses is to use personal collections and learning paths. Everyone can create these, collections work for a group of courses or videos related to one particular topic or skill, learning paths when you want to work through courses in a particular order, building skills and knowledge. If you create personal collections and learning paths you can share a link to them so others users can access them.

With Admin access however, it is possible to create ‘University of Portsmouth’ collections and learning paths centrally. You’ll see these in LinkedIn Learning in the main library, under the browse button. As well as being available here and shareable via a single sign on link they can be recommended directly to users.

Custom Content

Another advantage of Admin access is that you have the ability to upload custom content into the University of Portsmouth LinkedIn Learning platform. These can be videos, PDFs, PowerPoints, links, pretty much any type of file. It means you can then create collections and learning paths with a mixture of LinkedIn Learning content with bespoke University content alongside it. Great if you want some specific explanation or demonstration alongside the expert industry standard content provided by LinkedIn Learning.

LinkedIn Learning Mapping Service

LinkedIn Learning provides a mapping service where they map their content against a list of competencies or skills in a particular area. We have done this for a number of areas: the CCI Placements team created a learning path based on competencies students need for finding a placement, a similar exercise was done for the student sports club committees. LinkedIn also provide mapping against frameworks used in Higher Education, such as the Jisc Digital Capability Framework and the framework for Researcher Development and Doctoral Skills. As well as this LinkedIn have developed course mapping against the range of activities for a typical university, things like teaching skills, skills for student success, professional development, project management and many other areas.

Next Steps

Have a go at creating your own collections or learning paths or using some of the ones set up by Linkedin Learning. If you think you could benefit from the Admin access and you want to create collections and learning for groups of students or staff contact ittraining@port.ac.uk for further help. Let us know also if you’d like to take advantage of the mapping service and get LinkedIn Learning content mapped to specific skills and competencies for your areas. Lastly check out the Linkedin Learning landing page and the collections and learning paths created by University colleagues.

For further reading on Linkedin Learning, then check out these previous posts:

LinkedIn Learning – Change

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – University of Portsmouth LinkedIn Seminar

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

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – Digital Capability Discovery Tool

Adrian Sharkey: @adrianjsharkey

Guest Blogger: Ruth Geddes – Feel Good Fest 2020

February 3, 2020 / Ruth Geddes / 0 Comments

A celebration of all things that support us in our quest for wellbeing!

Each year, the Feel Good Fest brings together University staff and students with local artists and organisations to take part in an afternoon of FREE food, fun, and activities.

Together, we celebrate the diversity of what Portsmouth has to offer in supporting, encouraging, and inspiring us all in maintaining our personal wellbeing.

There is a wide range of activities, brought to you by University departments such as UoP Library, UoP Careers, Global, Sports and Rec, our UoP societies and Student Union, as well as local partners such as Highbury College and Southern Domestic Abuse Services. Portsmouth based artists such as Miss Bespoke Papercutting (a UoP alumni) and Hoopshaker also support the event.

This year, we are also excited to have secured Vidura Fonseka as a speaker and performer at our event. He speaks about his own journey with depression, and how dancing has provided him with a creative outlet to help manage his mental health and support his recovery and ongoing personal journey. (https://www.vidura.co.uk/and https://happiful.com/body-popping-my-way-back-to-health-viduras-story/)

The Festival is based on the Five Ways to Wellbeing – a set of actions proposed in 2008 by a government thinktank, (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/five-ways-to-mental-wellbeing) to decrease some mental health problems and help people to flourish.

The 5 actions to improve personal wellbeing are:

connect
be active
take notice
keep learning
give

The Festival therefore attempts to provide activities and performances that link and promote each of these five ways to wellbeing – giving staff and students an opportunity to experience new things and connect with new people, all in a fun and supportive environment.

In the past, we have taken over Third Space for the afternoon – this year we have expanded and have also secured The Waterhole space for the afternoon too !!

The performances this year are –

UoP Show Choir – opening the festival @ 1pm
UoP Capoiera Society – @ 1:30pm
Vidura – a speaker and performer with lived experience of Mental Health challenges @ 2pm
Individual performance slots of music from two students – @ 3:15 and 3:30pm

There is also –

Free food
Drop-in craft activities such as crochet and mug painting
Free Massage
Get Active sessions from Sports and Rec
Lego building
Try out static rowing and mini-trampoline’s

There will be giveaways and raffle prizes, and wellbeing staff to chat to – all under
one roof!

If, at the event, you need some quiet time away from all the action, The Huddle is the perfect place to have a space of calm.

No need to book – just turn up!

DATE: Wednesday 5th February 2020
TIME: 1.00pm–4.00pm
VENUE: Third Space and The Waterhole, Students’ Union

Follow us on social media for updates on the festival schedule, and if you would like to get involved on the day – get in touch !!

Personal Tutoring Project

January 27, 2020 / Alana Aldred / 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.

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.

Engaging students with online assessment feedback

January 13, 2020 / Mike Wilson / 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

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

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 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

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

Moodle – Teaching Block 2 Modules

December 9, 2019 / Mandy Harcup / 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 / Andy Taggart / 0 Comments

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

Screencastify

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

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

https://youtu.be/VwU-kwFzVHk

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

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

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

Screencast-O-Matic

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

Brainscape

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

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

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

Credit Image: Photo by Rob Hampson on Unsplash

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – University of Portsmouth LinkedIn Seminar

November 11, 2019 / Adrian Sharkey / 0 Comments

LinkedIn Services to Support University of Portsmouth Students and Staff

On Friday October 25th we had a visit from Ralph Blunden the Relationship Manager for LinkedIn. Since 2017 the University has been using Lynda, an online resource with thousands of courses on business, creative and technical skills. Lynda had been owned by LinkedIn for sometime and this summer, Lynda moved over to the LinkedIn Learning platform. Ralph offered to present on how LinkedIn Learning and LinkedIn could be used to support both students and staff and we had a great turnout from all around the University willing to listen.

There are now over 30,000 courses on LinkedIn with up to 40 new ones being added every week. The new platform personalises learning by making recommendations a lot more relevant, these are based on previous learning, on what is popular in the University and if a LinkedIn account is connected – recommendations are based on the skills shown on the user’s account. When courses are completed a badge can be added to a LinkedIn profile, which is particularly useful for students in order to show employability skills to potential employers.

LinkedIn have 23 million accounts in the UK, while only around 10% of these are active at any time it represents a significant section of the working population. Around 70% of employers recruit using social media showing a professional presence for employability and making connections is essential. With Industry 4.0 and changes about to happen because of emerging technologies like AI – skills requirements are increasingly fluid – Linkedin data shows the average skill having a shelf life of 5 years. While hard skills are still important, the most in demand skills for employers is creativity along with other soft skills such as critical thinking, being able to learn, teamwork and adaptability.

LinkedIn are aiming for their services to compliment learning for students and staff in HE. LinkedIn Learning can supplement in class learning, allow opportunities for flipped classrooms, support accreditation and professional development for staff. It can promote employability and placement skills for students and encourage engagement with alumni, allowing students to make important professional connections.

There a number of ways we could leverage LinkedIn Learning to target certain areas by packaging courses and creating collections/playlists or utilising the existing learning paths. Teaching excellence could include blended learning, flipped classrooms, instructional design and VLE training. Digital capabilities can be packaged, staff development and employability for students also. LinkedIn offer a mapping service, where if we supply the competencies we’re looking to develop they will map the appropriate courses against them, allowing the creation of collections/playlists.

For further support/assistance with LinkedIn Learning contact:

adrian.sharkey@port.ac.uk

Twitter: @adrianjsharkey

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adrianjsharkey/

Image Credit: supplied by LinkedIn

Tag: student (Page 2 of 5)

Guest Blogger: Fiona Cook – Introduction to Tel Tales

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – Making the best of a bad situation – digital capabilities

Starting a part-time degree as a mature student