Category: Guest Blogger (Page 4 of 5)

Students in a study room, one student looking a laptop laughing

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – Digital Capability Discovery Tool

March 4, 2019 / Adrian Sharkey / 0 Comments

The Digital Capability Discovery Tool is an empowering first step for students and staff to self-assess their digital capabilities and to identify current strengths and areas of development.

What is Digital Capability?

DIgital capabilities are defined by Jisc as ‘those that fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society’. Digital capabilities are more important than ever: they are essential requirements for employability in a digital economy.

According to Jisc’s Digital experience insights survey 2018, only 41% of UK students felt that their course prepared them for the digital workplace. Everyone should be looking to continuously develop these skills and reflect on their own digital capability.

Using the Digital Capability Discovery Tool

Staff and students are encouraged to use the Discovery Tool to self-assess their digital capabilities. For staff, the tool could potentially be used to inform the PDR process. For students, there would be benefit to discussing the results in personal tutoring sessions.

When you log into the Discovery Tool for the first time you will be asked about your role at the University – there are different question sets for new students, current students, teaching staff, and library and learning support staff. It may be that the options don’t fit your role exactly – just choose the nearest match.

Upon completing the questionnaire you will receive a confidential, personalised report showing your results in each area of digital capability and with links to high-quality, tailored resources.

All responses are confidential, so tutors and managers do not have access to them. The University does, however, have access to aggregated, anonymised data – which will help us identify gaps in our digital learning support and improve our provision for both students and staff. This is yet another reason that everyone – staff and students – are encouraged to complete the survey!

Logging on and further support

IS and DCQE provide sessions for staff to find out about digital capabilities in general, and about the Discovery Tool and how to use it. In these sessions we also discuss how to use the Tool with students and colleagues.

For further information, and to access the Tool, go to digitalcapability.port.ac.uk

Guest Blogger: Julian Ingle – Writing Retreats Take Off

February 20, 2019 / Julian Ingle / 0 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image credits: Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Guest Blogger: James Brand – Erasmus+ Staff Training: Visiting the FernUniversität in Hagen (Part 4)

October 3, 2018 / James Brand / 0 Comments

This is the final blog post about about an Erasmus+ Staff Training experience to the FernUniversität in Hagen which took place in June 2018. In this post I will summarise the keynote presentation that concluded the training week and reflect on my experience of attending an Erasmus+ Staff Training experience.

Keynote: The Future of Distance Education: Mind the Gaps – Professor Mark Brown

One of the highlights of the week was the inspiring keynote presentation from Professor Mark Brown, Director of the National Institute for Digital Learning at Dublin City University. Professor Brown discussed the future of distance learning and the work being done at DCU.

Professor Brown also highlighted the importance of having a philosophy for delivering distance learning and explained some of the key principles that constitute a DCU programme and a DCU student. At DCU distance learners are referred to as being part of DCU Connected or as “connected learners” and this is part of the student experience that they have envisioned for their learners. They also refer to their learning technologies as part of a suite known as “the loop”. The loop includes Moodle and various other learning technologies and personal tools that a student may use and that might connect learners in the course of their studies. However, DCU avoids referring to systems as Moodle or their students as distance or online students, as this is just the mode of delivery. This is also linked with the negative view of technical determinism, that we should not be rushing to follow technological innovations, instead, we should be considering what is best for education. The quote featured in the presentation, “The future is not something we enter, the future is something we create” is something that resonated in this session and something that we should consider as a University.

A number of different aspects on the future of digital learning were also discussed in this presentation including MOOCs and the global Higher Education market. Professor Brown’s presentation can be found on Slideshare.

Conclusion

The Erasmus+ staff training week I attended was a fantastic opportunity to visit a University which specialises in distance education. I was able to learn from the Fernuniversität through workshops and by visiting their resources. I was able to network with colleagues from the institution and also with attendees from across Europe. The training week provided an opportunity to gain knowledge of HE practices from other European institutions, discuss and share ideas with fellow participants and also take part in the of the cultural exchange of visiting another country.

I would highly recommend the Erasmus+ staff training weeks to staff as personal and career development opportunity. I have made new networks and now have an understanding of HE in a global market. If you would like to know more about Erasmus+ staff training activities please see the Erasmus intranet website.

Image credits: Photographs by James Brand

Guest Blogger: James Brand – Erasmus+ Staff Training: Visiting the FernUniversität in Hagen (Part 3)

September 26, 2018 / James Brand / 0 Comments

This is the third of four related blog posts about about an Erasmus+ Staff Training experience to the FernUniversität in Hagen which took place in June 2018. In this post I will be discussing initiatives that the FernUniversität has implemented to ensure the quality of distance learning being delivered at the University. I also mention the instructional design approach and educational theory that underpins e-learning at the University.

E-teaching Certificate

One of the benefits that the FernUniversität offers to staff is a recognised qualification in e-learning for practitioners at the University in the form of an E-Teaching Certificate. This is an internal training programme available to teaching staff at the University, the course takes on average 1.5 – –3 years to be completed. The course is made up of a number of fundamental workshops including Introduction to didactics, Overview of FernUni-Tools, E-Learning and Law, Evaluation, E-Assessment, Documentation, and reflexion (individual), Peer observation of teaching (kick-off workshop). There are also a number of electives which can be taken as part of the programme and concludes with an e-teaching project which involves the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a project with a peer overview observation element. This training is delivered as a mixture of online and blended learning. This programme has proved to be very popular and is in high-demand from staff. There were several requests as to whether the University offer the course externally but unfortunately they are not able to!

Instructional Design

Instructional design and didactics were topics that raised throughout the training week. Dr. Ada Pellert, President of the FernUniversität, in her welcome to attendees of the training week said that previously there had been an absence in the expertise of instructional design at the University. This is something that they are trying to improve by working with academic staff and the introduction of the E-Teaching Certificate.

A session from Dr. Theo Bastiaens, Vice-President for Digitalisation and International Affairs, on Instructional Design was informative and discussed many aspects of delivering education. This included discussion of the psychology of learning and major learning theories. The importance of having a learning philosophy was also emphasised during the session. Dr Bastiaens also explained the use of learning patterns, the framework for high-quality distance learning, that the University encourages staff to follow. One important statement on the use of technological innovations in learning was that “Technology is not a solution – it is a tool to make education easier. This is why instructional design theory is important. It’s all about your approach to teaching and learning.”

Like the University of Portsmouth, the FernUniversität also uses Moodle as its Learning Management System (LMS). A number of presentations during the week highlighted how support staff at the FernUniversität had worked with academic staff to develop their courses on the LMS into high-quality template designs to improve the student experience. A number of courses had been relaunched with a face-lift and with new approaches to maximise learning. Presentations from a number of academic staff highlighted the course design of the online and blended elements. In the Faculty of Law, all courses featured an introductory video from a lecturer. I could see many elements of best practice in the work of colleagues at the University of Portsmouth. The University is also using H5P to develop learning materials on Moodle.

One of the things highlighted was the need to be aware of different academic cultures and allowing academic freedom is important when considering course design and the use of the LMS. For example, the Faculty of Mathematics had a very different approach to the Faculty of Law. This is something that I’ve been aware of for a long time at the University of Portsmouth but it had not really resonated until hearing it at a different University.

In my final post post I will be reflecting on my experience of undertaking an Erasmus+ Staff Training week and I will also summarise the keynote presentation that concluded the training week.

Image credits: Photographs by James Brand

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

September 19, 2018 / James Brand / 0 Comments

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

Learning Technologies and Innovations at the University

E-Assessment

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

Hybrid Lectures

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

FEU login

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

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

Learning Group Finder App

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

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

Study books

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

Video Studio

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

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

Image credits: Photographs by James Brand

Guest Blogger: James Brand – Erasmus+ Staff Training: Visiting the FernUniversität in Hagen (Part 1)

September 12, 2018 / James Brand / 0 Comments

This is the first of four related blog posts about about an Erasmus+ Staff Training experience to the FernUniversität in Hagen which took place in June 2018.

Introduction

I was recently able to take part in an Erasmus+ Staff Training week to the FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany. Hagen is a city located in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany and the FernUniversität (fern meaning remote in German), is the largest distance learning University in Germany with 80,000 students.

The staff training week was a unique experience to learn from a leading distance learning University, understand the German Higher Education system and to also a fantastic cultural exchange experience. The training week was well attended by delegates from various European Universities, including a number from distance learning Universities. The training week featured a number of workshops, presentations and discussions as well as opportunities to visit the facilities of the University. There were also a number cultural events arranged including a visit to a castle and an excursion to the nearby city of Dortmund.

The following is a summary of some of the things I learned during the week from attending presentations, visiting facilities and speaking to staff at the University:

About the University

The FernUniversität is the only German teaching distance learning University in the world. As expected, most of their students are based in Germany and the bordering countries where German may also be spoken. However, it was interesting to see that they also have students as far afield as America, Canada, and South America. The University was founded in 1974, following a similar model to that established by the UK Open University. Further information on the structure and course offerings of the FernUniversität can be found on their English language website. The FernUniversität has a range of students, however, typically students at the University will already have a first degree or they will be people studying later in life for the first time.

Study Centers

Interestingly, for a distance learning University, not all of the teaching is conducted remotely. The University has opened 60 regional study centers, the majority of which are located in Germany, however, they have opened up a number of study centers abroad. The study centers allow an opportunity for the distance learning students to receive face-to-face teaching and advice on all areas of their studies. If there is a high concentration of students they will open a center to allow face-to-face teaching. If a student cannot attend one of these study centers they will try to provide a digital alternative, although from seeing the map of study centers it looks like it would be fairly easy for most German students to at least attend one.

In my next blog post I will be discussing how distance learning is delivered at the FernUniversität, including some of the learning technologies and innovative projects that they are undertaking. More to come next time…

Image of: Dortmunder U Art Gallery

Image credits: Photographs by James Brand

Dog with an edible small bone on his nose

Guest Blogger: Carole Phillips – Old Dog – New Tricks

July 24, 2018 / Carole Phillips / 0 Comments

Blog following TEL Training sessions:

The saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks isn’t quite true in my case.

I am a 50-something senior lecturer PT and an Advanced Nurse Practitioner PT. I have spent the whole of my nursing career gaining knowledge to develop my clinical skill and then passing them on through clinical teaching. I ventured into HE back in the early noughties … only to find I missed clinical practice. This was at the start of online resources for teaching and learning – I thought, “bugger that, I want to be hands on…” Fifteen years later, somewhat at a loss having done clinical practice full-time, I found I missed my students and formal teaching – and landed a PT role here at UoP (#Nursing).

The last year has been a massive learning curve for me. Gone are the big lecture theatres; instead we have small lecture rooms, with satellites and facilitators, and more online activities and learning. I thought, “Oh no, I’m too old to learn how to do that – keep a group of students in another room engaged with my lectures whilst not actually in the room!”

Then I found the TEL training sessions and Tom. He’s not quite a knight in shining armour, but he’s definitely taught this old dog new tricks.

I am about to embark on a PhD (well an EDD, but you know what I mean) in using online activities in undergraduate nurse education (“OMG” you cry; me too!). But I am so enamoured by all the resources I am keen to learn and use this in my teaching – my head is spinning!

I couldn’t do all the TEL sessions in order as I’m PT, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Tom has been patient and listened to me, and I’ve been developing lots of activities through Moodle to enhance my teaching.

I have been promising a blog for a few months – so here is the first, and hopefully not the last. And whilst I’m an academic, I’m not your traditional academic – and over time, if I continue with blogs, you’ll find out why. So keep reading!

Image credits: Photo by McDobbie Hu on Unsplash

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

Guest Blogger: Julian Ingle – The Green Zone Rabbit

June 27, 2018 / Julian Ingle / 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

Guest Blogger: James Brand – Lecture Capture in the Graduate School

May 14, 2018 / James Brand / 1 Comment

The Graduate School training room (room 4.09, St Andrews Court) was one of the rooms that had the Ubicast lecture capture system installed as part of the University’s roll out of the system in 2016. This room hosts over 150 sessions throughout the academic year from the Graduate School Development Programme (GSDP) for postgraduate research students as well as the regular sessions for the Research Supervisor Events Programme (RSE) for research degree supervisors.

Information on how the system works and using Ubicast can be found in a previous post on the TEL Tales blog – Ubicast Lecture Capture. The Graduate School’s installation of the system is configured slightly differently to most of the installations around the University as the training room is not a lecture theatre, instead it is used for training workshops of approximately 30 people per session. The Graduate School’s installation of the lecture capture system incorporates a ceiling microphone that captures audio from a wide area at the front of the room. The major benefit of this approach is that a member of staff is not limited to standing at a podium nor are they required to wear a microphone for each recording. As the Ubicast installation is localised to the Graduate School, the recordings are managed entirely by myself on the media server with technical support from Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL).

Since the installation of the lecture capture system the Graduate School has recorded a large number of sessions, the majority of which come from the GSDP and RSE sessions. These are then made available to students and staff via Moodle. The system has also been used for other purposes including postgraduate research students recording presentations as a way to practice their teaching or presentation skills. The system allows a quick and easy method to capture sessions without having to provide much in the way of technical support. Since the system is integrated into the training room, we can capture sessions without staff having to worry about equipment like microphones or sound levels. Our policy now is to capture all GSDP and RSE sessions, however, these are not published without the session facilitators first checking the recordings and providing permission to release them.

The ability to pre-schedule recordings is a convenient feature of the system. I am able to schedule recordings in advance by date and time so that staff don’t have to worry about stopping and starting recording. The system is also unobtrusive which allows staff to teach their sessions as normal and have it captured as a high-quality video resource. These resources are primarily used as supplementary materials for the face-to-face sessions to allow students to re-visit the content that has been covered. However, they also provide a flexible training resource for students unable to attend our face-to-face sessions.

Configuring the system has been challenging at times and has required some trial and error to get to a stage where I am confident that the system can produce quality resources. TEL have supported the installation of the system and are able to perform remote assistance if necessary. It is worthwhile checking that equipment is functioning correctly on a regular basis though and before a session takes place as it can often take some time to troubleshoot issues.

Although we are now making a large number of recordings, I believe that one of the biggest challenges – to get maximum effectiveness out of the system and to create pedagogically sound resources – will be training staff on best practice usage of the system. We have a lot of talented and experienced teaching staff at the University, however teaching with lecture capture brings its own unique challenges. In the future it would be really useful to coordinate a training programme to help staff to get the most out of their use of lecture capture.

The system has a number of interesting features that require further exploration. For example, Ubicast provides the facility for live streaming from the training room so that sessions can be watched live. This has been discussed as a potential delivery method in the future to support distance learning students unable to attend our face-to-face workshops. It also opens up the possibility for collaborative training partnerships with other institutions if we can offer our sessions remotely. Other features of the system that need exploring include getting the most out of Ubicast’s rich media player. The ability to embed questions and attach other media into videos is available to further enhance video resources.

Ubicast opens up a lot of possibilities for the delivery of online teaching materials at the University and the Graduate School has made extensive use of the system over the past year. Whether lecture capture is the best method for creating online resources is something to be considered. However, the system has allowed us to quickly capture a large number of sessions and make them available as online resources which would otherwise be difficult to put online. We will continue to investigate how to use this exciting technology to create online training resources for our staff and students.

If you are interested in seeing the set-up of the Graduate School’s training room and configuration of the integrated Ubicast lecture capture system please contact graduate.school@port.ac.uk

Image credits: Photo by ShareGrid on Unsplash

A hand just about to open a reading book

Guest Bloggers Wanted!

April 23, 2018 / Mandy Harcup / 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

Category: Guest Blogger (Page 4 of 5)

Guest Blogger: Adrian Sharkey – Digital Capability Discovery Tool

What is Digital Capability?

Using the Digital Capability Discovery Tool

Logging on and further support

Guest Blogger: Julian Ingle – Writing Retreats Take Off

Guest Blogger: James Brand – Erasmus+ Staff Training: Visiting the FernUniversität in Hagen (Part 4)

Keynote: The Future of Distance Education: Mind the Gaps – Professor Mark Brown

Conclusion

Guest Blogger: James Brand – Erasmus+ Staff Training: Visiting the FernUniversität in Hagen (Part 3)

E-teaching Certificate

Instructional Design

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