we run a service at Newcastle University for running online exams through Blackboard. The Google Docs Motion Chart gadget below is a great way to illustrate the growth of the service. Change the axies and click play to see how it has taken off.
Starting state
{"time":"2007","yZoomedDataMin":0,"yAxisOption":"3","nonSelectedAlpha":0.4,"xZoomedDataMin":1167609600000,"iconKeySettings":[{"key":{"dim0":"SAGE S1"},"trailStart":"2007"},{"key":{"dim0":"HASS S1"},"trailStart":"2007"},{"key":{"dim0":"MED S1"},"trailStart":"2007"}],"duration":{"timeUnit":"Y","multiplier":1},"yZoomedIn":false,"uniColorForNonSelected":false,"colorOption":"3","showTrails":true,"xZoomedDataMax":1293840000000,"xZoomedIn":false,"sizeOption":"3","orderedByX":false,"playDuration":15000,"dimensions":{"iconDimensions":["dim0"]},"xAxisOption":"_TIME","orderedByY":false,"yZoomedDataMax":3305,"yLambda":1,"iconType":"BUBBLE","xLambda":1}
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Group blogs
The Business School are running a Marketing and Social Influencing module, in which students will work in teams. The team membership is based on results of a personality test. The idea is to to ensure the group has a good mix of skills and approaches to teamwork.
In the computer lab session this week, we asked appointed group-leaders to create a 'sign up' group in Blackboard.
The other team members were then asked to enrol in the Group. The team can now use the group blog to introduce themselves before renaming it themselves and possibly customising it with an image or link to a YouTube video.
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Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Online Educational Alternative Courses
Middlesex University online hands on developmental courses.
challenge: Teachers ask to teach online with no experience as students online.
The University is looking to move to 100% online essay submission. This is a challenge with the resources available.
The team decided to take an online approach. The 3 week course, taken as a group by programme teams, hangs on discussion boards, self-study skills and scheduled online meetings. They compare traditional approaches to online approaches. Interactive video tutorials used to get participants to interact. Staff are asked to compare online and traditional approaches. They discuss benefits and limitations of the various approaches and engage with the technologies as a student and member of staff. For example for Turnitin, they both submit assignments as students and set them up and mark as staff. They are then asked to evaluate through an online survey.
The approach appeared to take out the fear of the unknown. It helped to share and agree on approaches. Time is still an issue for staff. One lesson was to ask staff when the best times are. Terminology is also a barrier potentially. Many staff still want to print and then undertake the activity.
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challenge: Teachers ask to teach online with no experience as students online.
The University is looking to move to 100% online essay submission. This is a challenge with the resources available.
The team decided to take an online approach. The 3 week course, taken as a group by programme teams, hangs on discussion boards, self-study skills and scheduled online meetings. They compare traditional approaches to online approaches. Interactive video tutorials used to get participants to interact. Staff are asked to compare online and traditional approaches. They discuss benefits and limitations of the various approaches and engage with the technologies as a student and member of staff. For example for Turnitin, they both submit assignments as students and set them up and mark as staff. They are then asked to evaluate through an online survey.
The approach appeared to take out the fear of the unknown. It helped to share and agree on approaches. Time is still an issue for staff. One lesson was to ask staff when the best times are. Terminology is also a barrier potentially. Many staff still want to print and then undertake the activity.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Adaptation for Adoption - changing modes of staff development
The Emphasis for the training offered by the blended learning unit registered to an issue rather than technology approach and as part of a wider curriculum design to blend graduate skills into existing teaching. Each team member supports a School. They abandoned this model and looked instead to work with each School in turn for a time period. This improved things as a wider range of expertise became available to the school. This sustained effort helped to make blended Learning better embedded.
The team sought management buy in which helped to get staff to attend. A blended learning week of flexible sessions allowed for small and large groups to attend. There are now school targets, and roles on relation to learning.
One year in, the School held a festival. The whole University and partner Universities attended this showcase.
The team sought management buy in which helped to get staff to attend. A blended learning week of flexible sessions allowed for small and large groups to attend. There are now school targets, and roles on relation to learning.
One year in, the School held a festival. The whole University and partner Universities attended this showcase.
Paul Lowe , the learning studio
Inspired by BarCamp (a geeky but fun idea) for conferences with no previously agrees agenda. People post sessions they want to run and people turn up to the sessions they want to.
Paul uses communities of practice at the core of his ideas. Paul has worked with Etienne Wenger on creating these informal opportunities for learning. Paul asks how we can use these informal gatherings to share knowledge eg staff peer to peer learning. Experts can aid the cross fertilisation. Paul wants a playful fun space for group problem solving. This is organic and grassroots.
The sessions are very informal in structure where people can come and go as they please. The work is spread out over several institutions. Catering much more low key - everyone brings something to eat (sometimes cooks it). Some sessions are hands-on, some more presentation and discussion focused. For the first session, they used a flip cam to film the process for decorating cupcakes. Some sessions used an online presenter.
The attendees and activities have been varied with 10-30 attendees. It unlocked an made visible lots of things that were going on.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Paul uses communities of practice at the core of his ideas. Paul has worked with Etienne Wenger on creating these informal opportunities for learning. Paul asks how we can use these informal gatherings to share knowledge eg staff peer to peer learning. Experts can aid the cross fertilisation. Paul wants a playful fun space for group problem solving. This is organic and grassroots.
The sessions are very informal in structure where people can come and go as they please. The work is spread out over several institutions. Catering much more low key - everyone brings something to eat (sometimes cooks it). Some sessions are hands-on, some more presentation and discussion focused. For the first session, they used a flip cam to film the process for decorating cupcakes. Some sessions used an online presenter.
The attendees and activities have been varied with 10-30 attendees. It unlocked an made visible lots of things that were going on.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
TLC programme Henny Yipp Ini Saldord
Flexible bite-sized learning by and for staff.
Henny's unit supports both certificated programme and the open workshop programme. The issue faced with the latter is the time commitment for attending 3 hour sessions.
They are now developing a more blended approach, adopting elements of the PGCAP for others to take flexibly. They already delivered synchronous online sessions (webinars) through Eluminate for the PGCAP, so they opened these to the university. Each session is an hour long. There were both face to face and online sessions facilitated but presented by the academics concerned. They were also recorded and made available. Some online sessions were delivered in the evenings.
For example, one session on Open Learning was delivered by the VC one evening. The structure was presentation and then online disussion.
The online sessions (even in the evening) was better attended than face to face. Tech support was an issue.
More and more organisations are moving to webinars approaches. International speakers also become a possibility. Bog names can participate with less time commitment and can be a big draw. One audience member pointed out that it is easier to do the why, rather than the 'how to'.
They have now dropped the evening seminars, aiming for Wednesday lunchtimes. They are looking at Big Blue Button as an alternative to Eluminate.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Henny's unit supports both certificated programme and the open workshop programme. The issue faced with the latter is the time commitment for attending 3 hour sessions.
They are now developing a more blended approach, adopting elements of the PGCAP for others to take flexibly. They already delivered synchronous online sessions (webinars) through Eluminate for the PGCAP, so they opened these to the university. Each session is an hour long. There were both face to face and online sessions facilitated but presented by the academics concerned. They were also recorded and made available. Some online sessions were delivered in the evenings.
For example, one session on Open Learning was delivered by the VC one evening. The structure was presentation and then online disussion.
The online sessions (even in the evening) was better attended than face to face. Tech support was an issue.
More and more organisations are moving to webinars approaches. International speakers also become a possibility. Bog names can participate with less time commitment and can be a big draw. One audience member pointed out that it is easier to do the why, rather than the 'how to'.
They have now dropped the evening seminars, aiming for Wednesday lunchtimes. They are looking at Big Blue Button as an alternative to Eluminate.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Aberystwyth University - Synergy in action
Mary Jacob
This second session o the Engaging Hearts and Minds conference highlighted collaboration between the team that deliver the required teaching and learning professional development and the learning technologies team. As part of the certificate on academic practice, staff introduce a learning innovation into their teaching. They write up and evaluate the intervention. 20% of these are about learning technologies. This is supported by good practice websites (must google Nexus website later) mini -conferences (part of the certificate) and other follow up events.
Peer voice, as we know, is more influential than specialist voice when it comes to staff development. This approach is employed heavily through the certificate case studies and the examples that come out of the certificate. This is made possible through this integration/ collaboration of/with the certificate teaching team and the
learning technologies team.
The case studies website is hosted on x-wiki (not sure on spelling) which seems very customisable seemingly allowing sorting and tagging. This might be worth exploring.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
This second session o the Engaging Hearts and Minds conference highlighted collaboration between the team that deliver the required teaching and learning professional development and the learning technologies team. As part of the certificate on academic practice, staff introduce a learning innovation into their teaching. They write up and evaluate the intervention. 20% of these are about learning technologies. This is supported by good practice websites (must google Nexus website later) mini -conferences (part of the certificate) and other follow up events.
Peer voice, as we know, is more influential than specialist voice when it comes to staff development. This approach is employed heavily through the certificate case studies and the examples that come out of the certificate. This is made possible through this integration/ collaboration of/with the certificate teaching team and the
learning technologies team.
The case studies website is hosted on x-wiki (not sure on spelling) which seems very customisable seemingly allowing sorting and tagging. This might be worth exploring.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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