Tel Tales

Adventures in Technology Enhanced Learning @ UoP

Category: General (Page 3 of 4)

A man with virtual reality goggles on looking at his hands

A VLE without a screen?

November 9, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Staff use Moodle to upload learning resources, post and mark assignments, and set quizzes. Students use Moodle to access learning resources, submit assignments and take quizzes. And, of course, there are other activities that take place on Moodle – discussions, forums, wikis, and so on. It goes without saying that all of these activities involve a screen of some sort, whether a computer screen, tablet screen or phone screen. Can we imagine a VLE without a screen?

That question had never crossed my mind, but then I saw a recent edtech challenge from JISC. They are looking for ideas that can help them address the next big edtech challenges in education and research, and one of their key themes is: what might the future VLE look like? In particular, right now, they are asking: what a VLE might look like if the interface were something other than a screen?

If you have sensible answer to that question – from the perspective of either a teacher or a student – then you might want to submit your idea to the JISC challenge. Describe your idea in 1000 words or less, along with a design overview (in appropriate media) and a vision for how your idea would benefit users, and you stand to win £1000 (for best idea), £250 (for one of two runner-up ideas), or being showcased at Digifest 2019 (the top ten ideas).

Further information can be found on the JISC edtech challenge page. Closing date is 3 January 2019 – so get thinking!

Feature image title:  Man trying on VR Headset by Maurizio Pesce is licensed under CC-BY 2.0 on Flickr

A rabbit with a flower in his mouth and a hen's egg

Guest Blogger: Julian Ingle – The Green Zone Rabbit

June 27, 2018 / / 0 Comments

In the Green Zone, a safe area where politicians live, Hajjar and his friend are hiding in a villa preparing for an attack. To pass the time, Hajjar is looking after a rabbit. When he goes to clean the hutch one morning the rabbit appears to have laid an egg. Absurd events like these run alongside moments of horror and violence in Hassan Blasim’s collection of short stories about Iraq called The Corpse Exhibition.

These stories of the everyday devastation of people’s lives caught in war zones became reality at a recent talk about the work of The Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA) by its director, Stephen Wordsworth. The talk was part of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences’ Learning and Teaching day and was, without doubt, the most moving event I’ve been to at this kind of conference. I’ve just joined the University of Portsmouth and have been fortunate that it’s the conference season. I’ve seen interesting work, met lots of people, who’ve been welcoming and friendly and been to some excellent talks.

What stands out were the accounts of their recent lives by three academics who were supported by CARA (http://www.cara.ngo/). Each of them talked about how their academic careers were closed down by the war in Syria. CARA helped them to escape, got them visas and has found them work at the University of Portsmouth so that they could continue their careers as academics until such time as they can return to their country. Their families and friends remain in Syria.

There has been more debate recently about academic freedom in UK HE, often raising concerns about the introduction of the ’Prevent duty’ in 2015. Under threat was academics’ right ‘to question and test received wisdom and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or the privileges they may have’ (1988 Education Reform Act). Hearing the stories of these three people, their struggle to survive and to pursue their careers in higher education, put some of these debates – and our privileged position – into perspective.

Julian Ingle has just joined the University of Portsmouth as the new Deputy Head of ASK. Prior to this he worked at Queen Mary University of London as part of the Thinking Writing initiative, and as an educational developer and lecturer at several London universities.

Image credits: Photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash

A hand just about to open a reading book

Guest Bloggers Wanted!

April 23, 2018 / / 0 Comments

So here we are a whole year later and the Tel Tales blog is still going strong!  

Rather than just us rambling on, we’d like to invite colleagues from around the University to write a blog for us. We’d like your blog to be associated with technology in some shape or form, but that’s not always necessary.

It’s often difficult to get started, so we’ve detailed some types of content that we’re interested in publishing in the hope that it might prompt you to tell your story:

    • Have you’ve tried a piece of software that you found amazing? Or started using a new App that you want to shout about? It could help you with your studies, get you ready for the exams period or calm you down after a really stressful day.
    • Have you attended a conference where new technology was demonstrated and you’d like to share with colleagues across the University.
    • Have you produce a course introductory video with us, and want to encourage others to do the same? You could embed this video into your blog post.
    • Have you attended a TEL training session and then incorporated what you learnt into your teaching? Tell us how your audience responded, was it a success or a failure?
    • Have you taken a Lynda.com course and want to write your verdict on it? How did you feel using Lynda.com? Would you use it again? Have you been able to implement what you learnt on Lynda.com into your teaching?

When you start to think about writing a blog, even one on a topic you’re familiar with, does your mind go blank? If so, you’ll find some help and tips on what makes a successful blog in our first ever post Why Blog? Good question, why blog indeed?. If you want to gain more confidence and knowledge before tackling your first blog try taking a course on Lynda.com, there are a wealth of informative videos on blogging, and also some aimed at creating a blog, and finding images for blogging. Some of these are videos which are only a couple of minutes long, so go on, take a look, you know, you want to!

For a slightly longer course take a look at the Writing a Compelling Blog Post by Starshine Roshell. Starshine is an award-winning journalist and writing coach, her course covers area such as, content, structure, style policies, much the same as other courses, but she also demonstrates how to personalise your blog “by developing your own voice” and how to turn your knowledge into a brief, passionate, but sensitive blog that will make people want to read it. Starshine includes a Blog Checklist, which reminds you of things to keep in mind when writing your own content, and is certainly useful to look at once you’ve completed your writing.

If you’re interested in writing a blog for us, email elearn@port.ac.uk with your ideas on a subject.

So are you ready . . . . . . .

Image credits: Photo by Mona Eendra on Unsplash

Man Asleep

Guest Blogger: Lucy Sharp – Sleeping your way to a good degree

April 16, 2018 / / 0 Comments

This may not be what you think it is, at least I hope not!

Humans and animals all need to sleep, how much, when and where will vary but the constant is that sleep is an essential part to living and learning. The quality and quantity of our sleep is a major indicator of our overall health and wellbeing.

We spend up to a third of lives asleep and most of us know that getting a good night’s sleep is important, but too few make the recommended 8 hours between the sheets. This can lead to having a sleep debt and forgetting the feeling of being truly rested. This third of our life is far from unproductive as it plays a direct role in how energetic and successful the other two thirds of our life can be.

When we’re asleep the body re-energises cells, clears the brain of waste, and supports learning and memory; two pretty important factors when you’re a student. It also affects the way we look, behave, perform and impacts on our overall quality of life. At different ages we need different amounts of sleep. Typically teenagers need at least 8 hours—and on average 9¼ hours—a night of uninterrupted sleep to leave their bodies and minds time to be rejuvenated for the next day. If sleep is cut short or disturbed the body doesn’t have time to complete all of the phases needed for muscle repair and memory consolidation, neither does the brain have time for its complex clean-up operation (brain cleaning). The effect is that we wake up less prepared to concentrate, make decisions, or engage fully in the learning experience.

The sleep cycle follows a pattern of NREM (non-rapid eye movement) and REM (rapid eye movement), throughout a typical night the pattern repeats itself every 90 minutes. In the NREM phase one, we begin to transition from being awake to falling asleep. In stage two the onset of sleep begins where we disengage from our surroundings, heart rate and breathing becomes regular and body temperature drops. Stage three is our deep and restorative sleep: muscles are relaxed, tissue growth and repair takes place along with the release of growth hormones and our energy is restored. After about 90 minutes we enter the REM phase, this is when we dream, our brains are active and our eyes dart back and forth and our body is immobile and fully relaxed as our muscles are turned off.

So there’s a lot going on when you tuck yourself in at night, but of course in reality we don’t always get a full and restful night’s sleep and the impact is far reaching. The effect of a poor night’s sleep may stay with you for about 48 hours. Other impacts are more immediate, such as feeling groggy, irritable and the urge to consume sugary drinks, food and extra carbohydrates. Therefore, if your weight is increasing, try spending an extra hour in bed!

As well as the health reasons for getting a good night’s sleep, there are also the physiological and psychological reasons why sleeping well will help you to study and learn.

Physiologically, a sleepy brain has to work harder and isn’t as efficient as a rested brain. This is due to diverting more energy to the prefrontal cortex to stave off tiredness. The effect when we’re learning is that our short and long term memory is shot. This means the brain holds a smaller amount of information for a shorter period of time. The impact is that we go round in circles trying to remember what we’ve learnt, and we find it difficult to perform complex tasks and sometimes even simple tasks, such as reading text. The common example is reading a body of text and not remembering what has been read, or simply reading the same sentence over and over again. This isn’t a great state to be in when you’re studying at a higher level.

A healthy amount of sleep is needed for the plasticity of brain which is a vital component of our ability to adapt to input. If we sleep too little then our ability to process information is lessened, as is the process of remembering what we have learnt and then recalling it in the future, such as in exam settings.

Psychologically, lack of sleep may be the culprit if you’re feeling low in mood, less enthusiastic about activities you used to enjoy and it can chip away at your happiness. In a nutshell, not getting enough good quality sleep heavily influences your outlook on life, energy levels and emotions. 

A regular sleep pattern is the foundation needed to enjoy life and engage fully with the learning experience. Without it, it can affect health, wellbeing and the learning process, the ability to perform at your best in exams and presentations, and achieve those high marks you know you’re capable of reaching.

Tips on how to get a good night’s sleep:

  • Sleep at regular times – this allows the body to get into a routine.
  • Make your bedroom sleep-friendly by keeping it dark, clean and tidy. Your bedroom is for two things; sleep and sex.
  • Wind down before going to bed, switch off the TV and electronic devices. The blue screen tricks your brain into thinking it’s daytime. Install software that enables your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, such as f.lux
  • Calm your body and mind (Mindfulness Exercises for Everyday Life).
  • Try not to spend the night in the library revising and studying. Nighttime activity disrupts the circadian rhythm. This is your body clock, this responds to environmental cues such light and temperature.
  • Avoid caffeine and energy drinks 4–6 hours before heading to bed.
  • Read University Health Service SLEEP HYGIENE.
  • and Skills for sleep at UoP for more advice.

Image Credits:  Photo by Toa Heftiba and Cassandra Hamer on Unsplash

 

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The TEL banner

A year of the TEL Tales blog

April 9, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been asked to write a post to mark the fact that the TEL Tales blog is one year old. Happy birthday! Except… it’s actually a lot older than this. The current blog is in fact the third incarnation of TEL Tales: the previous two attempts limped along for a couple of months, then died.

It’s not surprising that the early TEL Tales didn’t survive – many blogs start, last for a few postings, and then fade away. The main reason that the early TEL Tales failed to thrive was simply that few people wanted to tell their tales. This is common. Last week a group of us participated in the PressED Twitter conference, which was devoted to the use of WordPress in Higher Education, and one of the presentations was called “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. The author, Suzanne Falkener, was a teaching fellow at the University of Strathclyde, and she found she had to overcome a large amount of apprehension before starting a blog. She wrote: “It’s ok to have a fear of blogging. There are a lot of ‘what ifs’ including: What if no one reads this? What if people think my blog is rubbish. What if I am publicly humiliated? What if my writing style isn’t good enough for my community?” She felt the fear and did it anyway – and the result was a blog that people found useful, with an audience that grew slowly but steadily.

I think a lot of members of the TEL team here at Portsmouth feel the same apprehension that Suzanne felt. But this time round we’ve applied more pressure to get people in the team to write something. And the same thing that happened to Suzanne happened to our team members – as Suzanne wrote: “Guess what? When I posted my first blog, nothing terrible happened. I wasn’t ridiculed. People read it.”  

We still have some people in the team who are reluctant to write. But in each and every case those people have tales to tell, and they are the ones best placed to tell them. So we’ll keep applying pressure to get them to write … and with luck we’ll still be here for the second birthday of TEL Tales.

Lynda online learning – user survey

March 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

User survey

Since August 2017 all students and staff at University of Portsmouth have had access to Lynda.com, an online, on-demand learning resource designed to help users gain new technical, business and creative skills.

Lynda.com can be used in numerous ways. A student, for example, might use it as part of their course, or to learn additional skills such as Excel. A member of staff might use it for personal development, or to embed its resources into Moodle, create playlists and support students. We’d really like to learn about your experience of using Lynda since it was launched – so please take a couple of minutes to complete our user survey. Results from the survey will go towards improving and tailoring our provision of digital resources.

University of Portsmouth Lynda.com User Survey

Never heard of Lynda.com?

If you still haven’t used Lynda.com you’ve been missing out! Nearly 3,500 staff and students have used it since we launched, accumulating over 4,000 hours of instructional time. Lynda.com is available anytime, on any device, and as well as supporting your own learning it is possible to share courses, create playlists, and embed courses into Moodle – all helping to support the learning of students and staff.

With Lynda.com you get:

  • Unlimited access –  Choose from more than 5,000 video tutorials covering business, creative and technology topics.
  • Relevant recommendations –  Explore the most in-demand skills based on your interests.
  • Expert instructors –  Learn from industry leaders, all in one place.
  • Convenient learning –  Access courses on your schedule, from any desktop or mobile device.
  • Helpful resources –  Reinforce new knowledge with quizzes, exercise files and coding practice windows.
  • Relevant content – Map content to support the learning of your students and staff.

For further information:

www.port.ac.uk/lynda

Online Training for everyone – Lynda.com

adrian.sharkey@port.ac.uk

@adrianjsharkey

Web Development speech bubble

Becoming an Online Course Developer

March 19, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Given various constraints experienced by both learners and training providers, online learning appears to be a growth opportunity. I have lost count of how many ‘online course developer’ (OCD) positions have been advertised over the years within the University and similar vacancies regularly appear elsewhere. Each vacancy is hotly contested, so what does it take to get into online learning as a developer? How can you give yourself the best chance of being offered the position? And is it really the dream job that many applicants claim it to be?

Firstly, I should say the various ‘online course developer’ positions are not all the same. Tasks and responsibilities can be very varied, depending on the team/department/faculty/institution you are in as well as the types of courses you support. So it is worth finding out more about this beforehand. Strictly speaking, the role is to create courses which are studied (either wholly online, or partially as blended learning delivery) via the internet. You are not expected to be a subject expert writing the materials, although an enthusiasm or understanding for a particular subject will make your role a lot easier and more enjoyable. Your expertise should lie within learning technologies – beyond that you will need to read the job specification…

Factually, that’s about all I can say. However, this post would be a little on the short side if I were to stop there – so I’d like to offer some insight drawn from my own work experience. Note: I make no promises and bear no responsibility for your application (especially if I am on the interview panel)! Still, what have you got to lose?

Firstly, why do I feel I can offer advice on this topic and why should you listen? After all, throughout my working life I have written fewer application forms and attended fewer job interviews than statistics suggest that I should have (reference ‘dream job’ from paragraph 1). What this does mean is that I have experience in the role, as I have worked for the University of Portsmouth for over a decade starting in an administrative position that gave me a great basic understanding of University operations. This is something that is reflected in how often I refer OCDs back to their course administration teams to follow procedure, rather than agreeing to apply what might appear to be a quick fix – if a shortcut was the way a task was supposed to be done then it would already be the way to do it.

In July 2008 I became the University’s first ‘eLearning System Support Officer’ taking responsibility for the day-to-day operations of our first virtual learning environment (VLE) – WebCT. Since then our VLE’s have changed (from WebCT, to Blackboard, and then to Moodle) and so have my job titles (eLearning System Support Officer, Online Course Developer, Educational Technologist and Senior Educational Technologist). I have witnessed first-hand the growth of online learning and the increased requirement for the online course developer role. When the University switched from Blackboard (which we branded Victory) to Moodle for the 2012 academic year, we recruited 20 online course developers and the number of posts has continued to grow since then.

Candidates for those original positions had to endure an Excel numeracy/spreadsheet test, a paper-based proofreading task and an online assessment before their formal interview. The selection process has changed since then and usually now requires candidates to give a presentation before a formal interview. That said, do not underestimate the importance of proofreading and attention to detail as mistakes in your application form and/or presentation will be noted – so be warned! The spreadsheet test has also been removed, although interviewers will be expecting to see evidence of digital literacy and organisational skills, so if these are not evident in your presentation make sure you bring examples of each into your interview answers. Another topic that often comes up at interview is ‘communication’ – chances are you already have some answers prepared for this, do they involve communicating online via forums and web conferencing tools such as Webex, Skype or Google Hangouts?

Moving away from ‘transferable’ skills, what specific knowledge or skills do you require for online course development? I would be very surprised indeed if you had never encountered issues with access to online material. This statement from Tim Berners-Lee, W3C (look this up!) Director and inventor of the World Wide Web, describes the ambition of accessibility “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”. For a ‘development’ role you should familiarise yourself with ways to negate visual, hearing or other sensory impairments, limitations of mobile devices e.g. screen sizes (if these are your intended audiences), bandwidth limitations and requirements for internet connectivity. There may also be other geographic or political limitations placed upon accessibility. If you are required to give a presentation at your interview make sure it is accessible to you, or you will have to give a very good interview to get the job!

Another consideration that should always be at the forefront of your mind is copyright. This is a large subject, and one in which I don’t pretend to be an expert, so if in doubt – look it up. There are various helpful sources online, and the University Library also has some friendly staff who can advise on copyright. You would not be silly enough to include anything in your presentation without copyright clearance, would you?

Creativity is an attractive quality in a developer – however don’t lose sight of functionality. A lack of creativity and design flair may leave materials dry and unengaging, whilst a lack of functionality will not just lead to a lack of engagement but complaints and demands for refunds! Why not check out H5P and let your creativity run wild on HTML5-compliant browsers.

Many appointable candidates show an independent drive for self-enhancement and as a result many skills are ‘self-taught’ – the University’s site-wide licence for Lynda.com may help with this! However, if you cannot evidence particular skills or experience in answer to an interview question the panel will not know that you possess such a skill. Utilise your application form to display evidence of skills by attending training sessions. The Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) team offer a diverse range of training to staff on all of the technologies we use at the University – much of it aimed at development of materials that would be  particularly useful if you do not already work in that area. Evidence of undertaking ‘online learning’ via a massive open online course (MOOC) could also differentiate you from other candidates. Check out Coursera or Futurelearn for a list of courses from a range of providers.

For some OCD posts you will be required to give training sessions. Presentation skills are a transferable skill and are receiving great emphasis within many of the courses offered at the University these days. Based on requests over the last couple of years, I have had a need to develop a system and workflow to facilitate the recording and assessment of student presentations in a simple and timely manner, so that lecturers may provide written feedback to students enabling them to review their own performance. Check out Assessed Video.

Many years ago I was a participant on a course to develop skills in training others. What I took away from that training was that the key to presenting is confidence. You acquire confidence by having faith in yourself and what you are saying – so do your homework. Preparation is everything. If you work through the job specification and can answer ‘yes’ or ‘I have that’ to everything, then you have a right to not only be in that room but to be confident that you deserve to be there auditioning for the role. Run through your presentation beforehand at home, you may find it helpful to record yourself – phones make wonderful video cameras these days (you might even try the TechSmith Fuse app). The first time you watch it back you will probably be horrified by the number of times you ‘um’ and ‘er’, so try the presentation again and speak more slowly. Do not be afraid of silence, as natural pauses help your audience follow what you are saying. If you need a little help why not try one of the ‘presentation speaking’ workshops run by the Academic Skills Unit.

You must be aware of delivery methods for the materials you produce. This may be via a SCORM package, but will most likely be delivered via the University’s VLE. We use Moodle, which is an open-source package so there is no excuse for not being familiar with it. You can download a copy (https://download.moodle.org/) and play with it yourself on your personal computer or play around with a demo site from Moodle.org.

Finally – technology moves fast! I hope you have found what I have written to be a good starting point, but that you are already thinking about what the latest developments are. After all, you want to be a developer, don’t you? Good Luck.

 

References

Tim Berners-Lee. Retrieved from https://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility 25th July 2017

A wooden background with a flag with the word Explore on it

UoP does the TESTA test! An introduction to the TESTA project

February 19, 2018 / / 0 Comments

From January 2018 to September 2018, The University of Portsmouth will run the Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment (TESTA) project. Initially involving 10 courses, the aim is to expand this pilot project to more courses and improve the quality of student learning through addressing programme-level assessment​ ​across the university.

What is TESTA?

TESTA, originally funded by the Higher Education Academy, is currently sustained by the University of Winchester and Southampton Solent University. TESTA aims to improve the quality of student learning through addressing programme-level assessment. Over 50 UK universities as well as universities in Australia, India and the USA have engaged with TESTA since its early project days (2009-2012). TESTA works with academics, students and managers – and for students, academics and managers – to identify study behaviour, generate assessment patterns to foster deeper learning across whole programmes, and promote assessment for learning.

Why TESTA?

Because:

  • There needs to be more consistency between modules, across programmes, and a greater emphasis on progressively developing students’ internalisation of programme-level standards, over time, rather than relying on documentation to specify criteria at the level of assignments or modules.
  • The programme view shifts perspectives from: figures/percentages  and student experience surveys (e.g. NSS)  to enhancement strategies;‘my’ unit to ‘our course’; teacher-focused on module delivery to student experience of the whole programme; from individualistic modular design to coherent team design.
  • It engenders a team approach. The process enables the researcher to get to know the team and programme;. It’s a listening process, and a valuing process​. The team make decisions based on data, knowledge and guidance.​
  • It enhances curriculum Design and Pedagogy; a.rebalancing formative and summative, b.making connections across modules, and c. ensuring sequencing and progression of assessment across the programme. Also, developing approaches to formative, including more authentic assessment, influencing curriculum design (content-load etc.) etc.

What does TESTA involve?

The process involves mixed research methods for the sake of a. exploring various dimensions of the programme and b. triangulating the data. The process for each course/programme includes: a TESTA audit; an Assessment Experience Questionnaire; and Student focus groups. The process results in a programme case study report with summary of findings, interpretations and recommendations and an interactive workshop presenting this report.

What people say:

‘The value was to look at what we do from a scientific perspective and look at things objectively, and that is really enabling us to re-think how we do things. Because it’s driven by the project the staff are very willing and accepting of the data. I don’t think anybody, after we had the meeting with you guys, sat there and said ‘They’re talking absolute rubbish.  What do they know?’ (Programme Leader, Nursing). ​

​‘I’ve found it useful to have a mirror held up, to give a real reflection. We talk about the ‘student voice’, but actually this has provided a mechanism, which isn’t part of the programme, which isn’t the evaluation’ (Programme Leader, Education).​

‘TESTA has revealed some really interesting and, I believe, accurate information about our programme/ approaches/ student experience.  The details of your report have enabled some really strong shifts. We would not have reached these conclusions otherwise and I feel that TESTA has had the desired effect of enabling us to think a little more progressively.’ (Programme Leader, Dance)

‘Our very productive TESTA meeting has stimulated much discussion about how we can develop our modules to include more formative feedback and more engagement in large lectures. Some​ developments will be incorporated in the interim validation and others will influence our departmental policy on assessment and feedback for next year’ (Programme Leader, Psychology.)

More information about TESTA and a variety of resources can be found at http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/services/dcqe and https://www.testa.ac.uk/

Any interested programme/course leaders can send an email to amy.barlow@port.ac.uk or melita.sidiropoulou@port.ac.uk

Image credits: Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

A sign showing the words 'change' in lights

Interactive Classroom Tools – Some Advice for Students

February 5, 2018 / / 0 Comments

In some classroom situations your lecturer might decide to use interactive tools that require you (the student) to have access to a connected device (phone, tablet or laptop). When lecturers do this, the work traditionally reserved for in-class teaching can be done outside of lesson time. For  example, you could be asked to watch and investigate the subject of a lesson before even entering the classroom – then in class you are in a position to contribute and shape discussion. This approach is not about a lecturer talking at you for two hours – it’s about you being an active part of the process. This might require a shift in your working practice. This can be daunting at first – but don’t let it worry you!

Some people assume that if anyone starts university today having grown up in the 21st century then they must be an expert in all areas of technology. This assumption is, of course, false. While you may be technically proficient with a range of electronic devices, the question for you is: “Have I used my devices for more than just social media or games? Have I used them to develop my higher level thinking skills, or for more in-depth researching techniques than Google and Wikipedia can provide?”

The answer might be “possibly not” – but if it is, don’t worry: you need to learn to ask for help in areas where you are unsure or uncertain of how to proceed. Even seemingly ‘simple’ problems regarding Word, Excel or similar software might pose challenges. To this day I am a limited Excel user; although I’m definitely not a technophobe, my capabilities with the software are not what many would expect. However, now that the University has a full campus licence for Lynda.com I am able to develop my skills at a time of my choosing. Asking for help should not be seen as a problem or as an admission of failure: it’s a means of  making your life easier for the next three  years (and indeed for life after university). The finest minds are always asking questions and attempting to learn more to better themselves and by extension of those around them.

Two areas that lecturers are investigating are Social Media and Collaborative Learning – but it is down to you, the learner, to help shape the platform on which material is being delivered. Would you engage with course material on Facebook? Can you help develop an academics idea of how best to use Twitter in the classroom? These conversations are taking place and you should not be afraid to take part in them.

If you are unsure of how to participate in these conversations then please contact us and let us help. We deliver training to academics about future technologies and how they can be used in class, but we don’t always get the responses of how that has worked from the student perspective. We’d love to hear from you!

Image Credits: Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

Ross Findon

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