Students embracing Web 2 Social tools for Learning

Just a small post to mention more good feedback regarding our (Elevate) Student Induction sessions, the session has been rolled out this year to try and empower students to think about some web 2 tools and how they could use them for their studies. The big hitters that always come up in the sessions are Twitter and the use of Google Docs for collaborative group work, although sometimes we do go into the use of Diigo for social bookmarking and Wordpress for reflective blogging. The use of Clickers or audience response system lets the students in the session decide what we put the emphasis on.

Although it has been hard to judge any sort of uptake for Google Docs, Twitter has been great in the fact after our sessions, we are getting students follow not only ourselves but the Elevate Twitter as well.

Here are a couple of examples from our/their public Twitter accounts:





At one session, the students were so enthusiastic asking so many questions that the session ran into their coffee break!



We had multiple students add us on Twitter..



We do have more in depth feedback from a student who after attending one of our sessions, embraced the use of Twitter as a Personal Learning Network. You can read the students here -->  http://wolseyweb.ucs.ac.uk/blogs/elevate/?p=15093

We'll be using this feedback to help inform the role of the Elevate Team with respect to digital literacies at UCS.

Thoughts from author of interactive poster #aurasma

As mentioned in a previous post, we have been working with Sam Chenery-Morris (Midwifery) to add an extra dimension to her Conference Poster. As the feedback indicates below, Sam perceives this as a great opportunity and plans to be using it in the future. If you'd like to find out how we might be able to work with you on your interactive posters just email us (elevate@ucs.ac.uk)

The following responses are from Sam.

What is the background?

Here's my story. I submitted an abstract for a concurrent session to the RCN Education conference in Harrogate. I was offered a poster presentation instead. I was delighted when Aaron mentioned the technology that could be embedded as the whole point of the presentation was about the student voices, which obviously came out on the poster with Aaron's help.

What value do you think this adds to the conference poster?

The addition of the audio and video clips was a brilliant addition to the poster. It adds value because delegates can interact as opposed to just glance/ read the words, they can hear and see the effects which enhance this poster.

Would you recommend this to a colleague?

I would recommend this to colleagues as it starts a dialogue, it encourages interaction at conferences and anything that helps delegates talk and network is a good thing. The posters were judged and again, had I been there on the first day and shown the judges I feel this may have been considered for a prize, not only was it innovative it was academic and fulfilled the judging brief.

Would you use this again?

I have already submitted an abstract for NET2012, and if it were accepted I would use the poster or the Youtube links to hear the student voices during the concurrent session and encourage delegates to try on their own devices.

Interactive Poster Prototype #UCSConnect #aurasma

The Elevate Team have been working with Sam Chenery-Morris, a lecturer within the School of Nursing and Midwifery.  Sam is presenting a poster at the RCN Education Forum Conference titled "Evaluating Midwifery Practice ".

The Elevate picked up on this poster during a chat with Sam as part of the "Learning Technologist for a day" model, where one of the team is based within the School of Nursing and Midwifery.  Sam has designed the poster and we thought it would be a good test to see how well we could embed some digital material into the printed poster.  Sam had some audio material that had been recorded with the students, so we set about creating the "auras" that would trigger the audio files using the Aurasma Development Studio.

As I type this we are awaiting approval of our UCS Connect app, a re-skinned version of the Aurasma app, as mentioned here.  The way Aurasma works means we are able to access our own content via their "Aurasma Lite" app, if that app is subscribed to one of our UCS channels.

To improve the experience of the audio we quickly added some images and some key text/subtitles thoughout the audio.  The "auras" are much more impressive if images/video is used.

Below is an image showing Sam's poster, including David to give a sense of scale :-)

We have used images that Sam had already added to her poster as triggers, these are the images that the mobile device will recognise and then complete the action that we have developed.  We have used the Aurasma icon to identify the images that have an action associated with it, as well as a small guide showing what to do in the bottom right of the poster.

You will see in the image below, that we have also included QR Codes to the same video content, these just link to the video in Youtube, this gives alternative access to the video content, for users without the app.

Normally we would also include a short url giving another route to the material, but we chose this time to not include that manual route, just to see how users would interact with the poster.  Below you will see David demonstrating the poster using an Android device, this application is available to both iOS and Android devices.

 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izo9LSpeU7A[/youtube]
http://youtu.be/izo9LSpeU7A

You will notice on the second "aura" that David is able to double tap the screen to make the video play in fullscreen mode, meaning that the device can be moved away for the poster, especially helpful when the digital content is a few minutes in length.

Apologies for the audio quality in the video as it was recorded in an open plan office, and the speaker on the Asus Transformers isn't the best.

We really are starting to see a buzz around this work, only today our Office of Research and Enterprise and shown an interest in working with us.  And we mustn't forget the UCS 2013 Undergraduate Publication that will have "auras" embedded within it, a sneaky peak of a page can be seen below:

 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4WkuFqDM_8&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
http://youtu.be/K4WkuFqDM_8

The Elevate Team will be running a workshop on Interactive Posters at the next JISC RSC Eastern e-Fair.

Getting started with e-books: Online Surgery & UCS involvement

JISC Digital Media are running an online surgery on the topic of getting started with e-books (http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/surgery/) on the 22nd January, 1.00 to 2.00.

I will be presenting at this session, on e-books & e-learning: trying to bring them together - the slides are available below.

The thrust of the session will outline a collaborative task I've been trying to achieve for the last 5 years with e-books and seeing if we are a step closer when we use the Kindle hardware and software. The outcome is the not really, these devices are still designed as personal, and do not easily share content (notes) between people. However, it also notes, with the emergence of the media tablet and the use of web 2.0 software (Google Docs) there are options to better leverage the personal with the collaborative learning opportunities compared to anything we've previously been able to do.

The slides are available from:

• http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12497737/ELTT%20Slides/jisc_ebooks_workshop_final.pptx

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using live conference tools in teaching and learning: JISC guide

The JISC have recently updated their Elluminate Live Good Practice guide (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/elluminateguidance). This focuses on exploring how to use the Elluminate Live Conference tool in teaching and learning. At UCS we use GoTo Meeting, which offers a very similar feature set. I would recommend you spend 15 minutes, with a hot drink and read section 3: designing for participant engagement. This outlines lots of potential ways of enhancing teaching and learning, and works through a number of case studies and work flows.

If you'd like to discuss how to transfer these ideas into your teaching, please email the Elevate Team (elevate@ucs.ac.uk).

Upcoming e-assessment events in Eastern Region

The following are a number of e-assessment events provided through JISC RSC Eastern, which you might be interested in over the next few weeks. e-Portfolios to support assessment and feedback

Free Webinars

e-Portfolios to support assessment and feedback
Friday 17th Feb 1-2pm
Presenters: Emma Purnell (University of Wolverhampton) and Geoff Rebbeck
Further info and to register: http://jiscaf17feb.eventbrite.co.uk/

Digitally-Enhanced Patchwork Text Assessment (DePTA)
Friday 24th February 2012 1-2pm
Presenter: Caroline Macangelo (University of Cumbria)
Further info and to register: http://jiscafdepta.eventbrite.co.uk/

Both sessions are free and will be hosted in Blackboard Collaborate.

On 30th March RSC Eastern are offering a free e-Assessment Showcase hosted by Hertford Regional College this event will showcase best practice in the Eastern Region, topics covered will include, Screencasting for Assessment , Enhancing the e-assessment processes in a mobile world, Verbal Tagging in assessment, paperless formative assessment design for BTEC courses, for the full programme and to book go to
http://info.rsc-eastern.ac.uk/events/event_details.asp?eid=1031

Creating your presentation on the iPad (Keynote)

Based on a train trip home, and watching over someones shoulder as they create a presentation on the iPad using keynote, I thought, I should really try this, why am I creating on a desktop, and uploading to dropbox when I could use my iPad?

The Elevate Team were recently invited to talk at a Suffok Digital event around what we are up to with QR Codes (http://suffolkdigital.org/upcoming-events/suffolk-jelly-ucs-incubator-7th-feb-2012). Hence, I needed to create a presentation to cover this 10 minute session. Although I didn't use it on the day, as I used a flip chart, some of my thoughts are below;

The presentation is available from:

• http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12497737/ELTT%20Slides/qr_codes_pushing_frontiers_feb_12.ppt

As you can see, it includes all the general requirements for a presentation;

• text, images, links

It was very easy to author through the Keynote on the iPad. For screenshots, and web images I simply screen grabbed on the iPad (on/off and navigation square), and edited on my iPad using the Chop Suey HD App.

The only disappointment is the difficulty of displaying video on the iPad, for instance, I was very keen to include the following YouTube Video. This could not be embedded in my presentation, so I'd need to bookmark it in my YouTube App and present through this, so toggling between apps in a presentation - what could go wrong :-)

The other drawback is, it will not allow you (or if it does, I've missed it) to upload to Dropbox from my KeyNote app. So I am having to email it to myself to get hold of the file to upload !!

That aside, I enjoyed it, so I've another couple of workshops next week so I'll create and present from my iPad, using my iPod as a remote control.