Top 10 Books for Technology Enhanced Learning

Image by Eric Mueller, under a
CC BY-SA 2.0 license

Okay, so this is my top 10 (and they're in no particular order) and you may well have other books you rate... but here are some books which have really influenced my thinking / proved useful for reference when it comes to technology enhanced learning and I thought it might be useful to share them.

Rather than linking to book sales sites with each book, I've linked to related resources you might find interesting!  If you want to buy them - Google is your friend.

1.  John Biggs and Catherine Tang - Teaching for Quality Learning at University
I have many rant-worthy subjects which, if triggered, will be produced and put on display for the audience... not understanding that we are involved in the practice of educating and learning... and not understanding that we also have to model practices to others is one of those trigger points.  Understand processes of learning.  Understand learning design.  And if you're a learning technologist, working with academics / students, speak the language of learning!  Start here.

2. Rhona Sharpe, Helen Beetham, Sara de Freitas - Rethinking Learning for a Digital Age: How Learners are Shaping Their Own Experiences
Another of those books which gets across the learner perspective brilliantly - and gets you to challenge yourself with your own learning and teaching practices in the process.

3. Ormond Simpson - Supporting Students in Online, Open and Distance Learning
When I had not long started working for the Open University I picked myself up a copy of this book - and it was just SO useful to me supporting my distance students.  Now about to come out in a third edition, I still rate his learner-centred approach highly and the clarity of his writing is spot on.

4. Malcolm Gladwell - The Tipping Point : How little things can make a big difference
Heard someone use the phrase 'the tipping point'? You probably have... and if so, then this'll tell you all about it. Why is this useful for technology enhanced learning?  Because spotting that moment when things tip from being 'just a few' to 'just about everyone' is part of the trick of seeing what needs support and where the potential areas for future development lie.  And understanding how you can influence that too is also important.

5. Chris Anderson - The Long Tail: How endless choice is creating unlimited demand
You can't avoid the technology bit of technology enhanced learning (nor can you focus on it too heavily, it should be said!), so why not understand how and why technologies become established?  It'll help you see where tech fits and get you to think about what might be just around the corner too.  It'll also help you think about the value of that niche you might just have ignored, but which was existing and thriving in the long tail.



6. Daniel Pink, Drive - the surprising truth about what motivates us
Now, this one may seem like a bit of a random recommendation, but I honestly believe that if you're going to work in any area connected to learning and teaching, you have to understand where people are coming from to help support them get to where they could go.  You want real engagement?  You need to get motivation.



7. Etienne Wenger - Communities of Practice - Learning in Doing
Another of my rant-triggers is people bandying about phrases without understanding them in anything more than a superficial way.  For a while 'communities of practice' was that phrase!  It is a really important concept when it comes to e-learning and learning support / engagement - and for getting your head into what learning is and where it might exist, blurring the boundaries between formal and informal education.  An influential work.

8. Jane Seale - E-learning and disability in higher education
Of all the things that technology can do, opening up the possibilities for accessing education / learning to a wide range of people is one of the most exciting things.  So, why not understand the landscape of e-learning and disability as well as pick up lots of hints and tips too?

9. Garr Reynolds - Presentation Zen
If you're going to work in Technology Enhanced Learning then communication is vital - and getting yourself some solid presentation skills that are going to get your ideas noticed, and your presentations appreciated should be pretty high up your list!  Free yourself from bullet-point hell!

10.  Chip and Dan Heath - Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck
This kind of goes along with the presentation skills I mentioned with Garr Reynolds book.  Present ideas beautifully... sure... but present beautiful ideas which will stick and then exciting things can happen!  You have to be a salesperson for your ideas - and this is especially true in technology enhanced learning.  It's not necessarily the tech that's the biggest issue... getting people to get on board and to engage with your ideas... that's where the tough stuff lies!

There's not a great deal of tech there, I admit it... but what there is are books that will get you thinking.  Get you reflecting.  And provide a platform from which you can build your own practice.

And that has to be worth it, I think!

What would be on your top 10 list?

Sarah

Welcome to the University of Google - Online Information 2012 Conference Presentation and Review

Welcome to the University of Google - Online Information 2012 Conference Presentation

Last Tuesday I was lucky to present to a very full room at this year's excellent Online Information 2012 Conference. Moving from what I regarded as the conference's spiritual home of Earl's Court and Olympia to the Victoria Park Plaza there were a wealth of topics covered from my own on the Cloud to Social Media, ebooks and mobile devices.

Even though I only attended the first day, it was jam-packed with brilliant, educating and entertaining sessions - possibly the best day's conference schedule I'd been part of.

Sadly I missed Cory Doctorow, Editor of the popular weblog boing boing, Contributor to The Guardian, The NY Times, Publishers Weekly, Wired Magazine and his plenary - There is no copyright policy; there is only Internet policy. There is no Internet policy; there is only policy.

I did however get there in time to see the insightful presentation by The Guardian's Technology Editor Charles Arthur and his session Platform Wars: After the Digital Wars which looked at the on-going mammoth battle between Microsoft, Google and the biggest of them all Apple. Arthur is a superb speaker who moved across the platform landscape with a collection of statistics and figures that showed the technology arms race and the war is going to continue on a global scale. He was followed by Lucia Adams, Digital Development Editor, The Times, UK. Adams gave a brilliant talk about how the famous news company has tackled the problem every newspaper is facing - how to remain as a viable business. Since dipping its toe into the tablet and Apps market, The Times has now no less than 12 apps and is making a real fist of staying relevant in the era of more content, social media and less advertising revenue. As an ex-journalist, I found these two sessions really interesting, and I couldn't help but note my ex-employer, The Press Association’s London Office as I walked back to Victoria Tube Station at the end of the day, I gave a nod as I passed by

I have to say that I was impressed with the venue, despite looking grubby on the outside, the inside was very sleek and welcoming - the presenter’s green room felt more like a boardroom with several people doing some last minute cramming ahead of their sessions, I was sat next to Charle's Arthur who you'll be keen to know was using a Mac.

After a brief break it was my turn in track 3 - ‘Making sense of big data and working in the cloud’ alongside the co-founder of the excellent Altmetric site Figshare, Mark Hahnel

I hadn't been feeling the pressure as I'm usually OK speaking at large events, but felt a sudden wave of anxiety on the way down when I checked the #online12 Twitter feed to see a post by the Director of our computing services department, Dr. Christine Sexton. Christine had Tweeted: “Two fire alarms and hotel evacuations later, I'm up. Looking forward to talks from @doctorow, @charlesarthur and our own@Andy_Tattersall”

Considering I was giving a talk on a topic that Christine had been instrumental in, by getting Google for the University, I was worried that I’d say something that wasn't factual, I did say that I used to be a journalist didn't I? Luckily my concerns were unfounded as I met with Chris beforehand and was reassured that there was nothing I could wrong. The room I was speaking in held 140 I was informed and it was evident that the word Google in my title was a crowd puller as the room filled up with just a few spare seats with many others stood to the side and back of the room (although they all could have been there so see Mark of course). I talked about how my own experiences of using Google Apps since 2006 and how that had aided myself and my department in adapting to the University transition to the Google Apps Suite. I covered why the University had taken the decision to not only move students, but staff on wholesale and what it meant logistically and culturally. I received lots of questions, more than I could have imagined and did the best to deal with them, but in the end as I’d already primed Chris - the Director of CICS eventually had to step in to answer questions on security, legacy and stability. Chris had been live blogging throughout the day, and a review of my session, which was written as I presented - it takes a real skill to do that - can be read here: http://cicsdir.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-university-of-google.html

My slides can be viewed here:

Welcome to the University of Google from Andrew Tattersall

Lunch was lovely, but isn't that one of the high points of a conference? Beef Bourguignon with a variety of sides, followed up by some kind of vanilla mousse - I know people usually rate events by the food, this was fine dining, for me anyway.

After lunch I attended a really entertaining and very popular debate titled : “Staying Safe Online: The Dark Side of Apps and Social Networks” with Mathias Klang, Researcher and Senior Lecturer, University of Goteborg, Sweden and Cory Doctorow again. Both argued the pros and cons of social media, the issue of how we protect our children and how to ensure their privacy. They discussed how do we manage the problem of giving away our data for free products and that we are giving away much more than we are aware of. Again the session was captured live on Chris Sexton’s blog and can be read here.

Finally after more snacks and a fly by of the trade stands to get a multi-colour highlighter from Emerald (thank you Emerald) for my little girl.

I finished the day with the session that featured 3 talks on the use of tablets in libraries. First up was Jan Magnusson, Librarian, Chalmers Technical University, Sweden and his presentation Surf Tablets in University Libraries. This was followed by an excellent talk by Guus van den Brekel, Medical Information Specialist, Coordinator Electronic Services, Central Medical Library, University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands. I first met Guus at EAHIL 2009 when he moderated a presentation I gave in Dublin with Andrew Booth. Guus’ presentation was excellent and showcased their project to lend iPads to medical staff. There were many benefits from this project, one being a better personal relationship between librarians and users, and more importantly gave users a new and improved insight into the library and its services. In Guus’ own words: “It proved to be the best PR & marketing activity for libraries since the invention of "sliced bread"!

Finally, the solar powered library from Denmark, this was an inspiring talk and from a man wearing shorts, in London in November. Rasmus Fange Vestergaard, Librarian, Tingbjerg bibliotek, Denmark gave a new slant to the mobile library, by actually taking one to the beach and running with power from the sun. His talk focused on their initiative to lend users tablet devices as well as books. A nice way to end the conference. I would certainly recommend this conference to anyone from the library and information world, and with an interest in technology. I'm sorry I could not attend both days, but certainly felt I got the better day for my own area of work.

Andy

How do learning technologists use their smartphones for work?

I’m fascinated by mobile phones, I worked for a short-time at a well known mobile review site, even ran a blog on their application in ESL. My current phone is the monstrous Galaxy Note 2 (with it’s 5.5 inch screen and stylus, it’s probably closer to a table than a phone) and as these devices become increasingly powerful and versatile, I love the way that they can assist me in my daily working life here at the University of Sheffield.

I also wanted to find out how tutors and learning technologists actually use their mobile phones in their working lives, so I sent out a short survey and got an encouraging number of responses. So I’d like to tell you first how I use my mobile phone to help me in my work as a teacher at the English Language Teaching Centre and also suggest some apps that people might find useful. Then I’ll summarise the results of the survey and hopefully from this you may get some ideas about how you can use your device to enrich your working life.

Here are a few typical ways I’ve been using my mobile phone this term. The apps are on the Android platform, but I’m sure many of them would be available on iphones or other devices (Blackberry, Windows 8) as well.  

Taking Attendance: for a few of my classes, I use a cool little app called Safety Attendance to take the register in class, it doesn’t take long to set it up and it has a really user-friendly interface that makes it easy to just go down the names and register them as either present/absent or late. You can also export your data as a spreadsheet later.  

     

Recording Students: In one of my classes students have to conduct a small group discussion/debate and their English level is assessed. This is difficult to do on the fly so I make sure it’s recorded so I can listen back later and assess them properly. The quality of voice recording on mobile phones is really high now and I was comfortable just putting it on the table while the students were talking and it picked up everything. One issue with mobile phones is that they often record in slightly odd audio formats (.3ga and .amr for example) which can make playing them back later on the computer a bit of a problem. I use an app called Hi-Q MP3 Recorder so that it can be exported as an MP3.

Running a VLE: with one of my classes, I use an online service called Edmodo as our VLE. Visually it’s very similar to Facebook and other social networks but it has specific features for education such as quizzes, polls, assignments and a document library. It also has a fantastic mobile app for both ios and Android. It’s very easy for me to respond to students posts directly from my phone as well as upload documents and photos for students to access. 

     

Running Quizzes: a fun way to check students progress on a topic (often at the ELTC it might be grammar or vocabulary) is to set quizzes for them which they can answer on their mobile. Socrative is a wonderful - and free - app on which you can create multiple choice or short answer quizzes for the students to do under timed conditions or at their own pace. You can then export the results as a spreadsheet and see how well each of them has done. There is a teacher app for creating and administering the quizzes and also a student app on which they can actually do the quiz. Very easy to set up and the students love it. You can also use the web interface to view their progress through the quiz. 

     

Shared vocabulary notebooks: a key aspect of learning English is building vocabulary and one great way to do this is by creating a shared class dictionary of all new words they come across. For this we use an app called Springpad. This can be accessed via the web or on a smartphone or tablet. For my class we’ve created a shared notebook and anyone can contribute new words as they come across them and this is automatically synced across the web and devices. Springpad is similar to Evernote, a very popular note-taking service, but the advantage of Springpad is that everything is free whereas on Evernote shared, editable folders are only available on the paid premium version. 

Document and folder management: I use Google Drive extensively with my classes, firstly for creating shared folders of material but also as a way for students to write essays and homework and share them easily with each other and with me. The Drive app for Android is excellent and I can easily share documents, video and audio files and folders with my students and they can do likewise. One particularly effective use I’ve found for the mobile app is to use it to record mistakes students make with English I hear as I’m walking around the room. These can then be displayed immediately on the projector screen during lessons. Students are particularly impressed when I have the document open on the screen and as I add their comments/mistakes on the phone, the words magically appear.

Presentation control: I’ve only done this once at a conference I attended and spoke at recently but I was very impressed and will definitely use it again. Using an app called Gmote, I was able to advance through my slides at a distance by touching the screen on my phone, freeing me up from being stuck behind the podium during the presentation.

How are other technologists using their smartphones in their daily work?

I asked the technologists at the university of Sheffield the following questions and I've recorded the responses below each question.There were 11 responses in total but I haven't recorded the names as I wasn't sure if they wanted them published here.

What smartphone/operating system do you have?

I don't have one, HTC One X (Android), Samsung Galaxy S2 (Android), Samsung Galaxy Note and S2 (Android), iphone x 5 (three didn't specify version, one iphone 4 and one iphone 5), HTC Wildfire (Android), Samsung Galaxy (Android)

In what ways do you use your smartphone to help you in your work?

• Not as much as I should! The only direct reason I do so for students is to demonstrate recording and uploading on sites such as Audioboo and Soundcloud. I also use it for calendars, checking work email on the move etc.
• email, calendar, Dropbox for files, rss feed reader to stay abreast of interesting topics, Twitter for following topics and people, conferences and to Tweet professionally, socialcam and Twitvideo to record videos for students and conference abstracts, Mendeley to save and store references, Zite to stay abreast of interesting topics, Pinterest to save interesting infographics
• email, brief web queries, task management
• Like a multi-tool really - impromptu/lo-fi photography and recording, calendar/email, usb drive (when necessary), my-pocket-internet. Fairly general stuff.
• Note taking, email, web access, taking and sharing images, calendar, maps etc
• I use it to access Google Drive and read any Google Docs whilst in meeting etc if I haven't got my iPad or laptop with me; I have non-sensitive files stored on Dropbox and so I have this app on my phone too so I can access other documents; I use the phone to make notes using the Apple Notes or Pages app so that this syncs with my other devices; I constantly use it to pick up emails and check my calendar whilst on the move. I have also started using the new Reminders app to remind myself of tasks that need doing so I can get alerts on these; The Safari application comes in handy when needing to check something online; I use the Twitter app to login to the Department Twitter account and tweet; there have been a few occasions when I've been off work, and travelling around where I have logged into MOLE etc and dealt with a query directly from the phone - for example enrolling students onto a module. I also have a VPN set up so I can access restricted content too.
• Two main categories:
  - research/CPD type things (podcasts, RSS) including social media (twitter, G+),
  - 'office' stuff - email, gdocs, chat, I record meetings in Evernote.
  Apart from that, most of what I do goes on f2f or in a VLE (MOLE or moodle), neither of which are particularly mobile friendly right now.
• Because it's a private phone, I only have my calendar on it.
• to manage my diary, to manage my emails, to keep track of my "to-do" list, to tether my tablet so I can get internet access when away from wifi (e.g. on the train), occasionally to take photographs, occasionally to access the VLE (e.g. to release content that's been hidden)
• general VLE admin (but not uploading material). Checking students have access / checking work has been submitted, checking selective release of material. Increasingly use it with google form for student surveys

Are there any apps you find particularly useful to help you in your work?

• Audioboo, Soundcloud, Calendar
• I'm finding Socialcam potentially very useful, whilst email and calendar are essential and very obvious. I would like to employ Audioboo much more as I only use it on a personal level just now.
• Chrome Browser, GoTasks (google tasks for iphone)
• None come to mind - I've never come across a work issue where I thought 'bet there's an app for that'.
• Evernote, Audioboo, Dropbox, iCloud, Zite, Twitter etc
• Google Drive, Dropbox, Twitter, Facebook, Notes / Pages / Mail / Calendar / Reminders / Safari
  (bundled with iOS 6.0.1)
• Evernote. Wonderfully searchable, taggable, syncs on all devices, easy saving of photos, audio and video (maybe?). Can email notes to colleagues.
• It's not specifically a work-related app, but I use K9 mail to manage my email. It's vastly superior to the Google Mail app, and it lets me manage all my mail accounts in one place.
• That old favorite dropbox. But over the last 12 month increasing use of Google plus / Google hangouts / Google Drive on the android. Google Drive has becoming increasingly useful, mainly realtime collaboration on Google docs

I'd like to thank my colleagues for their responses to the survey. Clearly some of them use their smartphones extensively to help them in their work, others really only use them for the basics (email, calendar) or not at all. It was interesting to read the range of apps they use as well, there were the obvious ones like Dropbox, Google Drive, Facebook and Twitter but also there seems to be an increasing use of note-taking apps (such as Evernote) and audio/video apps such as Audioboo, Soundcloud and SocialCam. The last one is new for me and I'm definitely going to look into how that could be used in class.

I would love to hear from any teachers, learning technologists or technicians working in education who could share their own experiences using smartphones in their working lives and get some more recommendations for apps that could be used.

ELTC Half Time Report

With a firm nod in the direction of Ian Loasby’s excellent post giving his half term report on tech in the law department, I thought I would do something similar for the English Language Teaching Centre (ELTC) . Here’s a quick overview of what we’ve been up to in terms of technology

Student Training

Over the last year I’ve been focussing more on getting the teaching staff to engage with technology both inside and outside the classroom: running workshops on things such as Google Docs and Smartboards, producing written guides on how to use MOLE2 or the university email system or providing individual training on any aspect of tech they were interested in.

Yet I noticed that adoption of technology was sometimes hampered by the students’ lack of knowledge of how to use the technology and online services available at the University of Sheffield. This is often not an issue of them lacking technological knowledge, but partly just an unawareness of what’s available to them and partly a linguistic issue as English is not their first language and they are not sure what all the words refer to. Although we do produce a guide to technology that they receive when they start here, often they are too overwhelmed at the beginning of term to look through it.

So, this term we organised for every class in the school to have one full lesson (90 mins) in the computer lab with me so they could get some direct instruction and information. It was quite a lengthy procedure (we have about 25 classes with approximately 16 students in each) but we did it and all students were given a hands on chance to to use their email, access MUSE, my File Store, upload a file to Google Drive, create a Google Document and share it and comment on it. With some of the groups we also had a chance to look at the library services and how to search for articles and journals.

At the end of each session, I got the students  to fill out a short, anonymous questionnaire to find out what they had learned and what they felt more confident doing and the results were generally positive. I’ve also had positive feedback from teachers who say that students now want to use things like Google Docs more to submit essays and homework. 

Heartening results from the student survey

Student Workshops

As a follow up to the class visits, I’m also now running bi-monthly workshops for students on a variety of tech-related subjects, such as Tools for Effective Presentations, Using online services to develop Vocabulary and more effective learning through Google Apps. Unfortunately, these are squeezed in on a Friday afternoon - never the best time for any kind of lesson - but the attendance has been encouraging (between 8-12 each time) and the students seem to have responded positively to them.

Online Writing Advisory Service

During the summer I piloted a programme to provide online support for international students’ academic writing development. You can read about it in this post here. This term we are continuing with this pilot, but this time focussing exclusively on distance learning students to see whether this is a model that would work for them. We’re also training up a couple of members of staff to work on the programme to give it some legs for the future and I’ve been working to create some guides for teachers to help them. 

Guide to help teachers run our online writing advisory programme

Chromebooks (or those damn *&$^&%* things as we are calling them)

We were lucky enough to get 16 Chromebooks bought for us over the summer. We thought they would be a great tool for teachers and students to use in class to do research, webquests or just to check vocabulary in online dictionaries.

Well, that’s what we thought and I’m pretty sure they would be great for that if they ever actually worked. Ever since we’ve had them they have been constantly dropping the wifi connection to the point where they are unusable in class.

Working with CICS, we’ve been trying to find out why they keep doing this: at first they thought it was a log-in issue, in that we had used the same log-in credentials for all the devices and apparently one account can only have three devices connected at any one time. However, we tried them with other accounts and that made no difference, they still dropped the signal. We also toyed with the notion that there was something wrong with the Chromebooks themselves, but it seemed unlikely that 16 devices were all defective in some way.

Anyhow, it turned out it was an issue with our routers at the ELTC, something to do with them not supporting the 5ghz spectrum that the Chromebooks did and so we are waiting now for the access points to be replaced so that we can start using the Chromebooks. I think they WILL be incredibly useful round the school, it’s just been very frustrating not being able to use them at all. 

Our Chromebooks sitting sad and forlorn in the tech cupboard

So, this has been our tech term so far, pleased with the focus on students, not so happy with the Chromebooks but hopefully that will be sorted out in the near future. Next term we are running a new credit-bearing course for Erasmus/Study Abroad students called Learning English through Technology and I’m very excited to be the main tutor on that. I’m in the process of designing the syllabus and I think it’s going to be a very interesting and innovative course.

What are other learning technologists getting up to in their departments?

A-Z of Free Online Stuff- 8. Hot Potatoes

Image from Leo Reynolds, under a CC
BY-NC-SA licence

H is for Hot Potatoes

Making interactive quizzes is a great way to engage users with learning materials, but without expensive software or coding skills this can seem quite tricky. One solution is to use the brilliant Hot Potatoes, a freeware application that can be used to create quizzes quickly, easily and without technical skill.

Hot Potatoes works as either a Windows download, or a Java download that will work cross-platform. From here you can create five types of quiz:

• JQuiz - a regular quiz, that allows multiple choice or strings of text as answers.
• JCloze - a "fill in the missing words" quiz.
• JMatch - a quiz to match pairs of words or images.
• JCross - a simple crossword-maker.
• JMix - a jumbled sentence exercise.

As well as this, it includes "The Masher", a application that will assemble different quizzes together into a single module.

Once quizzes are created, they are exported as HTML documents, which can be integrated with existing web content.

See here for some examples of quizzes made using Hot Potatoes. The software was also used by the University of Sheffield's excellent All About Linguistics module, where students used it to create quizzes for the "Test Your Knowledge" section of their Google Site.

Pete

A-Z of Free Online Stuff - 7. Go!Animate

Image from Duncan C, under a CC
BY-NC licence

Sorry this A-Z has been on hold, and it's been a while since 'F'...

G is for Go!Animate

Go!Animate is a great tool for creating online animations quickly and easily. You get a range of characters and situations, and can really let your imagination run riot. Paid accounts get a better selection of components to work with, and the ability to create longer animations, but there's plenty of scope with what you can get for free. There is also a Go!Animate for education package, which is aimed and schools and creates a more controlled, moderated environment for learning.

Animations can be made either by recording your own voice, or typing text to speech. The latter is actually very effective, and a range of voices, both American and English accented, are available as default.

The simplest way to create a video is to use the "Quick Animation" tool, in which you select two characters and type in their script. An example is below, and took just minutes to produce...

Go Animate demo for blog. by PeteCICS on GoAnimate

Animated Presentations - Powered by GoAnimate.

The other way is to use the complete Video Maker, that acts like a studio, in which you can select characters and fully configure how they act. Movement, facial expressions, camera angles, sound effects, music, interaction with objects - all this can be achieved, and it can be as complicated as you need it to be. Be aware, though, that in this mode you get a finite amount of text-to-voice "credits" to use per month in the free version, and you're restricted to two minute videos. You've also got a fairly limited amount of default characters, but new ones can be purchased (including custom characters).

Here is an example of the kind of things that can be achieved. Making a video about something that you need to explain could be very time consuming using traditional means. Go!Animate allows you to create short, humorous videos which, with a bit of imagination, allows you to explain a point. Below is an example of video I put together that could be used to explain to students about getting filming permissions for video-making.

Filming Permissions Fail by PeteCICS on GoAnimate

Video Maker - Powered by GoAnimate.

I really like Go!Animate, and it's a great way to make videos that, while being slightly silly, can actually give across information and make serious points using humour.

Claire Beecroft, a colleague in the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) has used Go!Animate for real-life purposes very successfully. She used on an Integrated Learning Activities (ILA) Masterclass, using it as an alternative for role-play for students. The students had to write a script for a consultation between a doctor and patient, and Claire animated them, with the finished videos watched as a class. Claire says, "needless to say the students were very taken aback by this, but they really enjoyed it."

ILA Beecroft by Claire on GoAnimate

Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate.

So, if you've never used Go!Animate give it a go, and if you've used it in learning and teaching, or see some potential for using it, let us know.

And I'll try not to leave it so long before 'H'...

Law School Half Time Report

Image from Kate Hiscock, under a
CC BY 2.0 license 

Reading week upon us and time to take a quick look back at the first half of the semester from the point of view of the Law School . Except that it isn't really half time for us. An increasing number of our course programmes start earlier than the normal undergraduate year. This used to see us fired up and ready for the first week in September, but even that has pushed forward into mid August for one of our part time programmes. 

(begs the question when will the Learning Technologies Team find a free week to do the summertime patches on Blackboard as the summer window gets smaller?) Having an early start also meant we soon found out when rolled over courses didn't quite work as expected. In our case it was screencasts (published from Articulate) that threw us an early curve-ball. The courses were all checked, we can view the rolled over screencasts, the tutors can see the rolled over screencasts, then came the steady stream of student complaints. First it’s “Some of the screencasts don't work in Solicitors’ Accounts”, then its every other course we have running . Maybe its a chrome problem? What device are you using? have you tried it on the University's own desktop, it’s definitely working fine for us? Then we twigged what was happening. All the newly republished screencasts worked perfectly, it was only the ones that had been left unchanged from last year that displayed a blank. The students did indeed have permissions to the html file that launched the screencast, just not permissions to all the underlying folders and files needed to view it. This was not spotted as a staff MOLE user, as we have access rights to the entire content collection. So with the help of the Learning Technologies Team this was traced back to courses built before last winter’s patch, the one that prevented students accessing adaptive release material directly from the content collection. Having found the problem the solution wasn't quite as straightforward. Re uploading every screencast and its associated files would fix all the permission issues but by this time intro week for the undergraduates was upon us; simply no time. In the end it was a case of manually applying student rights to groups of folders in some courses, and uploading from scratch in a few others. One thing I did learn is how much the test student account and two different browser windows are you best friends in sorting theses issues. I was going to write a little about struggling with SCORM to pass grades from 3rd party quiz tools to BB9, problems with viewing videos in chrome, the annoyance of accidentally enrolling a staff member as a student, the fact that Respondus with its new patch for BB9 still doesn't grasp the concept of negative marking and a host of other things but they can wait till another time. Roll on the semester 2 roll over!

Ian

Weekly Learning Technology Digest... 32

Bonfire night is here already - cripes!

Another week has whizzed by and there was a load of really interesting stuff to get your teeth stuck into (I know I always say that!) including developments to Google+ Hangouts, more on MOOCs and well...

... let's get stuck in and see what the past week had to offer, shall we?

• First little goodie is a free set of resources from Google on Understanding YouTube and Digital Citizenship and although it's aimed at 13 - 17 year olds, I think there's a lot you can reuse and it gives you a place from which to start bringing ideas of digital footprint into the curriculum
• From the BBC came How do you stop online students cheating and if you're moving towards more e-assessment / e-submission then this is a very very useful article to read to get you thinking about some of the issues involved.
• Prezi also unveiled a massive makeover and if you've struggled with some of the 'quirks' of the user interface of old Prezi and not bothered with it as a result, then perhaps now is the time to venture back and take another look?
• It must be make-over season because the Google+ hangout screen has been redesigned with new sidebar, colorful notifications and easy to find apps which is good news as hangouts are one of the very best features of Google+ if you want a readily available, video conferencing tool which is designed for collaborative working.
• Oh and there's also a new Google+ Help account which is another way of helping you get going with Google+!
• And if you want to record your Google+ Hangout rather than going completely open with a Hangout On Air (which we've discussed on the blog in the past) then How to Record Skype, Google Hangouts and Webinars from Techsmith is very useful!
• There was also a nice little tips and tricks article in Mashable called 10 things you didn't know Dropbox could do and whether or not you use Dropbox I always think articles like this encourage you to dig a little deeper and see what you can discover about the tech you're working with!
• For something less tech and more teach, I spotted Will academia be destroyed by massive open online courses and with quotes which include 'MOOCs are not the answer to our pedagogical shortcomings' and 'If I had my wish, I would wave a wand and make MOOCs disappear, but I am afraid that we have let the genie of the bottle' this is a provocative one to get your teeth into!
• Since MOOCs are a buzzword right now, what other trends are out there? Classroom-Aid.com pulled them together in 5 must read articles for latest educational technology trends and though it's essentially a list of links, it's handy to have them altogether like this!
• My final article in a rather tech-heavy round-up is Top 10 Secret Features of iOS which I know is Apple specific but it might be helpful for someone (though I understand that there's potentially an issue with iOS6, the iPad and Eduroam... so if you haven't already upgraded then maybe hold fire a while)

Before I forget, I have a video for you too - this one is from Ryan Merkley about remixing and creating interactive, interesting online video!  If you're inspired to have a go, let me know!

And that... is that... for this week anyway!

Enjoy the fireworks and I'll see you next week

Sarah

WebExcellent?

I have previously written about the various different video conferencing technologies we use at the University on this blog, and although this post isn't going to cover a new technology, I am going to talk about an exciting change to an existing technology.

CiCS supported a trial of WebEx across the University earlier this year, and colleagues from a number of different departments had a chance to use the technology. WebEx is an enterprise-level desktop video conferencing solution. Participants can join meetings using Linux, PC's, Mac's and mobile devices. What makes it different from other web conferencing solutions, such as Google Talk or Skype, is that participants do not need to set up an account, which does remove a possible barrier to connection.

WebEx has features common to many desktop video conferencing platforms, such as video chat, screen sharing and the ability to schedule meetings in advance. However, it also has more advanced features; such as the ability to join meetings via telephone, record sessions and upload files to the meeting space so participants can view them before, during and after the meeting.

During our trial, the platform was used for a number of different purposes, including job interviews (with external candidates), meetings with colleagues from outside the institution, conference participation and student supervision. Clearly, the area that is most relevant to this blog is student supervision, as students could meet with academic supervisors in disparate geographic locations. As well as having a video chat, students can present, share documents, as well as recording their session for review / reference later.

All of this is a great, but there is a monthly charge for the WebEx service, which would probably put off many casual users. Similar services are freely available, such as Google Hangouts, Meetings.io, Anymeeting etc. However, in a first for the company, WebEx has recently launched a free version of their WebEx Meetings service. The major limitation to WebEx Basic is that meetings are restricted to three participants. This will clearly limit the service for people looking to host online classes or webinars, but for a remote meeting between two parties, such as the example outlined above with the student and academic, this could be ideal. The table below shows the differences between the Premium and Basic accounts.

Before this post turns into a wholesale advert for WebEx, it's important to note that my experiences with the platform haven't always been gratifying. It struggles to work over wireless. Sometimes it makes you install software, sometimes it does not. Desktop sharing can be almost unbearably sluggish. Audio for the conference is not turned on by default. Even with the fastest wired connection, and decent computer, full screen video does not look as good as I think it should. And, what I think is most unforgivable; WebEx will continually crash if you try to use it with a USB headset and a Mac. This is something which I think is quite frankly unacceptable, and has been a problem for people for almost a year and a half now.

I'm sure that some of you will have had similar problems with other video conferencing platforms, and will be familiar with some of the above. It can often be the case of finding the 'least bad' video conferencing system for your needs, rather than the most perfect. If you think WebEx could work for you, I would love to hear about your experiences.

Tom