E@T Newsletter March 2011
Welcome to the latest newsletter from the e-learning team this issue contains articles on conference sessions from the Learning and Teaching Conference at Teesside University. We also have a number of e-learning events coming up on enhancing online modules so please come along, meet the team and discuss your ideas and needs.
The e-learning team attended the University Annual Learning and Teaching Conference in January.
The theme was ‘Internationalisation and Employability’ with keynotes from Dr Richard Hall (DeMonford University) and Professor Timmins (University of Central Lancashire).
The conference sessions demonstrated that they are plenty of interesting developments in technology enhanced learning around the University many of which are discussed in this newsletter.
There is an excellent video summary of the day on the University conference page:
http://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/staff/lt_conference.cfm.
This year’s conference was organised by Derek Harding, his reflections on the day can be viewed on his personal blog
http://cynicalderek.com/.
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E@T Lunch - Enhancing Online Modules with PowerPoint and iSpring
Wednesday 13th April 2011
Sylvia Story (SoHSC) and Russell Smeaton (DfLD) will discuss their collaborative work in developing a research methods resource for the school. The presentation will demonstrate how the module was given a ‘make-over’ in Blackboard and content enhanced with simple interactive PowerPoint quizzes and iSpring.
Please book, if you require lunch you MUST book a place.
To book your place please visit Unity, click ‘My University’, ‘DLD Workshops’ then select ‘E-Learning Programme’.
Workshop - Constructing Online Learning - Wednesday 13th April 2-3.30pm
Workshop - Organising your module online - Tuesday 10th May 10-11.30pm
Keynotes
Internationalisation & the Student Voice
Dr Richard Hall (National Teaching Fellow)
Dr Richard Hall kick started the event with a thought provoking keynote presentation on internationalisation and the student voice. Feedback from the presentation was very positive comments included ‘he was most inspirational and motivational with a health tinge of controversy, good to get you thinking first thing!’, ‘genuinely thought provoking’ and ‘excellent in setting the themes of the conference in broader social and political contexts’. You can view a recording of keynote here http://eat.scm.tees.ac.uk/video/ and the presentation slides on Richard’s blog http://www.learnex.dmu.ac.uk/2011/01/24/internationalisation-student-voices-and-the-shock-doctrine-disrupting-business-as-usual/
Richard will be visiting the University again on Tuesday 5th April 12.30pm for a LaTE session titled ‘Becoming and being a Teaching Fellow’
Employability
Professor Geoff Timmins
The afternoons keynote came from Professor Timmins who addressed the subject of employability in ‘non vocational’ humanities subjects. Professor Timmins began with a definition of employability as ‘a set of achievements skills, understandings and personal attributes’. The prospects website is recommended for students to gauge the abilities employers are currently seeking http://www.prospects.ac.uk/index.htm and help assess their vocational needs http://ww2.prospects.ac.uk/. He discussed the levels of employment amongst humanities and STEM students which were found to be of similar levels. View a recording of the keynote here: http://eat.scm.tees.ac.uk/video/employability/employability.html
Moving forward online support for student life skills
Steve Scott-Marshal, Student Services
Steve (Senior Student Counsellor) gave an overview of this module for students interested in developing key life skills. The name ‘Moving Forward’ encompasses the view that counselling is not solution based as many life problems don’t have definite solutions but it is instead about findings ways to help people move forward.
The aim of the module is to help students achieve resilience or ‘life effectiveness’ in the face of life changes through helping them adjust their personal competences, cognitive, emotional and social skills. The module is full of useful information and contains sections on ‘Personal Development and Key Skills’, ‘Careers & Employability’, ‘Health & Wellbeing’ and ‘International Students’.
There is an area called ‘When the going gets tough!’ with emergency contact numbers and valuable guidance on how to handle stress and depression specifically for students. Steve discussed plans for future development include creating an A-Z of resource links using the Glossary tool in Blackboard; the section should make it easy for students to locate specific resources.
The site is currently available to students in counselling, those studying counselling psychology and work-based learners in TUBS. Steve expressed an interest in working with others in the university to further develop the module. If you are interested in contributing, then please contact Steve
Preparing Interactive tutorials with Xerte Toolkits
Nigel Atkinson, SSE
Nigel presented his experiences of developing learning resources with Xerte a software tool for developing learning objects or self contained ‘lessons’ incorporating a variety of media resources. Nigel demonstrated that with Xerte it is fairly easy to include learning interactions to liven up your online content. These interactions include quizzes such as drag and drop,
Nigel then explained that a lesson is created by developing a sequence of pages for content, there are different types of pages or content including, text, media, navigators, charts (but very basic), twitter and RSS feeds.
The developed content is viewed in Xerte with a number of benefits for students viewing the content in the Xerte format includeding; the ability to change colour schemes, font and text sizes, adjust screen size and zoom ability in addition to a very good text to speech function to read out the onscreen content.
Xerte developed content can be uploaded to Blackboard the same as any other media file. From attending Nigel’s presentation the Xerte software certainly does appear to be a valuable tool with some similar features to Wimba Create (Course Genie) but with more focus on developing interactions into your content rather than converting text based Word documents.
Xerte comes in two versions one accessed online called ‘Xerte Online Toolkits’ and a full desktop version to install. Have a go with Xerte Online Toolkits at http://www.techdisplayxerte.info, this version has an online sandbox to help you develop ideas. If you want to reuse any of your developed content from the sandbox just remember to export it. The desktop version of Xerte is slightly harder to use initially but has all the features, for full information and to download the full desktop version visit http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/
Prezi a visual and interactive handbook
Paul Denison, SAM
Paul gave an engaging presentation on his experience of developing a handbook to engage visually literate and media savvy students. Paul felt that traditional handbooks can potentially overwhelm students with information and explored the options of providing information with short cuts to content, a website format seemed to fit the purpose but still seemed very linear. Paul then began to establish the idea of working with Prezi ‘The Zooming Presentation Editor’ a piece of software for presenting information.
The pilot project was made possible with the help of the Teaching Innovation Fund and involved some rather intensive planning and work. Paul collaboratively worked with a designer for eight weeks on the project to develop the design. The outcome was a beautifully presented online handbook based upon a global metaphor for the visual design with continents as destinations and oceans for travel. Students could interact with the handbook by either taking a predetermined journey or a ‘un-pathed’ journey to explore specific destinations of information only.
Is Prezzie the new PowerPoint?
There was a discussion of Prezi in contrast to PowerPoint. Prezi is certainly gaining popularity with increased use. If you are thinking of using it as presentation software there are a number of issues to keep in mind. Prezi can involve a lot of forward planning as it is not linear slide based but route based. Prezi also works better with more visual forms of content than pure text.
If you want to see Prezi for yourself it can be download for free here http://prezi.com/. You may wish to follow some of the interactive tutorials available on the site in the ‘Learn’ section, before trying to build a presentation for the first time.
Business Simulation Workshop
A practical demonstration of the range of learning and teaching opportunities and Real-World relevance of this exciting approach.
Mike Ashwell, TBS
Mike’s presentation was very interesting. It discussed the use of business simulation software – SimVenture – in a 1st year module (Business Decision Making). TUBS introduced the module in 2009/10, following the review of undergraduate modules the previous year, the idea being that the module would help develop ‘real world’ business skills, in line with Business School objectives.
The focus of the module was on the business simulation activity. The students worked in teams – a “board of directors” – each in the scenario of a company who produce and sell PC’s. The students were tasked with holding monthly ‘board meetings’ during which they discussed the previous month’s business, including aspects of pricing, marketing, HR, financing, production, etc. The board meetings were minuted with any decisions explained.
For 2010/11 TUBS learned from the experience of the previous year and introduced the simulation earlier in the module. This meant students could be given focused individual tasks that would help them learn the software prior to the group work phase. These individual tasks contributed to a percentage of the overall mark for the module. In attempting to address issues some students had with the group work, the weighting was also amended to be an equal 50-50 split between the group work “board meeting” documentation and individual tasks/reflections (previous weighting was 70% group work, 30% individual).
Clearly there is an aspect of additional student support that this type of activity requires that was dealt with by means of a fully detailed portfolio of activities/instructions, a helpdesk in TUBS reception during key activity periods, support from the module tutor/a Research Assistant/Student Support Officer, as well as follow up support via Blackboard/email/text/telephone.
The activity has received lots of very positive feedback from students who clearly feel it is an effective way to gain experience of team work and real world decision making.
Outside of academic modules, the software has been used for a variety of different events for Schools and Colleges, Spring/Summer University, and even with Institute of Digital Innovation (IDI) Fellows.
Overall, this was a very interesting and innovative session with real scope for expansion in collaboration with the company who make the software. It’s very encouraging to know that Teesside are working with the company who make the software to begin to deliver alternative business simulation scenarios.
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Workshop - Constructing Online Learning - 13th April 2-3.30pm
Construction comprises one of the four strands of the University’s Elearning Framework. Opportunity to construct their own learning through any online activity that enables them to test or apply their subject knowledge is an important and valuable aspect of students’ online learning. This workshop will explore some of the tools and techniques that can be used and will also address how to best manage their use through setting student expectations and moderation of student interactions.
Workshop - Organising your module online - 10th May 10-11.30pm
Organisation comprises one of the four strands of the University’s Elearning Framework and is arguably the simplest way to improve the online learning experience for your students. A well organised online module with consistent use of folders, a broad range of learning materials, staff contact details and opportunities for electronic submission makes students online experience user-friendly and is now broadly expected by students.