Why don't you take our self-diagnostic online digital capabilities audit?

The Elevate Team have been working with a number of course teams to develop a digital capabilities auditing tool for lecturers. The intention is this acts as a developmental tool for the individual, and highlights potential areas for development at the team level.

A spin out of this development is the creation of an online version (using a sub set of questions), which allows you to compare your digital capabilities within LearnUCS with others. It also provided links to support material.

The online version is available from: http://goo.gl/zAlgZy

If you have any questions around running a Course Team Audit please contact the Elevate Team (elevate@ucs.ac.uk)

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UCS "wide" e-learning catch up: April 2015

We are inviting those at UCS who have a named e-learning responsibility within their job descriptions to a monthly coffee catch up. The idea behind this is to help people connect with each other, share ideas and collectively ask and answer questions.

We had our first coffee catch up today, and the conversation quickly got onto using Virtual Reality within teaching and learning, especially Oculus Rift, which is being explored by Dept of Science and Technology.

A few things struck me during the conversation (which I kind of followed); (1) there seemed to be lots of interest, a very lively discussion and the cross fertilisation of ideas (so the collective approach is working) and (2) given the varied skills and background in the room there is definitely an opportunity for a development sprint over the summer.

If you have named responsibility within your job responsibility at UCS, please contact me if you'd like to be invited to these monthly catch ups.

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With thanks - Image - http://imageserver.moviepilot.com/-5c2a5f2f-0821-49d9-b147-3508538eb768.jpeg?width=1418&height=1064

Improving your LearnUCS course: Our (Elevate Team) Top Tips

The Elevate Team have just released our top tips on how you can enhance your LearnUCS module design.

These aim to meet two distinct needs; to develop your skills to enhance the student learning experience on your LearnUCS module, and encourage you to align your course to the emerging minimum expectations across UK HEIs for the use of the Virtual Learning Environment in Teaching and Learning.

The learning design is based around, providing a rationale, the inclusion of an embedded video to demonstrate how to complete the task in LearnUCS, and where appropriate a link to the Blackboard provided support materials. You are encouraged to contact the Elevate Team to discuss how you might put these ideas into practice within your course. To facilitate this process the Elevate Team are revisiting how we position ourselves within course team areas. This aims to increase the opportunities for corridor conversations. The new approach will be piloted in the near future.

In the mean time, if you have any questions, please contact the us, elevate@ucs.ac.uk

Alternatively, 

• https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rEZQlaxfL4I7AYnE66ltycI5sBHYvBpOEFQgTcPdExg/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000

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With Thanks - Image - http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/276493/file-287927609-gif/note-top-tips.gif?t=1391618604000

The current Multimedia Service from Elevate Team: Part of Multimedia Review

What service do we offer to academic teams at UCS (Ipswich)?

The first question is to answer, how does our service complement IT Services?
IT Services are responsible for the AV in teaching rooms, and the installation of software on desktops. The Elevate Team take ownership over creation of multimedia teaching and learning objects, and staff and student training on specific software;

• Screencastify
• YouTube
• Audacity
• Tablet (ExplainEverything & HD Record)

The Elevate Team provide the following services to staff at UCS for the creation of Teaching, Learning and Assessment materials.

1. Loan Elevate Team Equipment (camera, mics, tripod), for staff to capture material. Use Elevate YouTube channel. We offer minimal editing (background noise, volume and top & tail) and provide links to unlisted videos,
2. Require The Elevate Team to capture, edit and upload multimedia (this covers Video and Audio)
3. Use Elevate Team offices and equipment for screencasting. Use Elevate YouTube channel.
4. Google Hangouts (web conferencing). Use the Elevate Account, and Elevate personnel to manage the event and provide training. Output into Elevate YouTube Channel
5. Advice around the use and capture of multimedia for Teaching, Learning and Assessment. This will include, top tips, copyright of 3rd party material, OERs, and Consent
6. Bespoke multimedia intensive,augmented / location aware learning objects

What Hardware & Software do the Elevate Team use and/or support?

Capture Process

• Hardware
1. Camera
2. Mics (Desk & Clip)
3. iPads
4. FlipCams
5. Dictaphone
6. Pop Shield
7. Tripods
• Software
1. Screencastify
2. Audacity
3. Inbuilt tools on iPads
4. Record HD (audio) on iPads
5. Explain Everything on iPads

Editing Process

• Software
1. iMovie
2. YouTube
3. Audacity
4. GarageBand
5. Aurasma

Distribution Process

• Software
1. YouTube
2. SoundCloud

Archive Process

• Software
1. YouTube
2. SoundCloud

Deletion Process

With respect to student presentations, once the material has been uploaded during the Distribution stage, all materials will be deleted from Elevate Team hardware. For other materials (uses) we will discuss the archive and deletion of the raw files on case by case basis.

There is no deletion policy for material held / uploaded to YouTube. The material will remain until the Elevate Team informed by YouTube / Google around space requirements. If this occurs, the oldest material will be deleted first, although we will endeavour to keep material within the last three academic years.

What training provision (direct and indirect) do we provide?

An objective of the Elevate Team is to build capacity within staff and students at UCS to take advantage of the opportunities offered through multimedia within their teaching, learning and assessment models. Our current provision is based around;

Online (self paced) - Getting Started Resources, and Guides
Face to Face - Bespoke session for course teams

It is suggested this area needs to be re-designed. In particular, the need for a coherent online and face to face programme. Including;

• development of a specialist half-day multimedia workshop
• creation of Getting Started resources for Screencastify, and Audacity
• authoring of a guide which explores the effective use of multimedia in Teaching and Assessment

Broad Recommendations (these are all owned by the Elevate Team)

1. Review and publish an archive and deletion policy for local and cloud materials.
2. Identify any risks in terms of data protection of multimedia material.
3. Extend our current staff and student development programme for multimedia to ensure it is more effective, and covers the core software.
4. Identify skill and knowledge gaps within the Elevate Team, and identify how these are going to be addressed.
5. Audit hardware to identify gaps in our provision to meet future demands.

Multimedia Management Service (Elevate Team): 2015

The Elevate Team allow staff to upload videos to the Elevate Team YouTube channel, for use in teaching, learning and assessment. On occasions the Elevate Team will be involved in the capture and edit of the videos, or we'll simple enable the distribution. This service has been growing over time, and provides an alternative to course teams needing to support their own approach.

The following outlines the use of this service in 2015.

Total number of videos uploaded: 443

• Student Presentations: 242 (55%)
• Student Viva's: 3 (1%)
• Student Role Plays: 94 (21%)
• Recordings of online events (Hangouts): 5 (1%)
• Screencasts (talk over powerpoints & how to videos): 23 (5%)
• Staff focussed Learning Objects: 47 (11%)
• Marketing (external audience): 12 (3%)
• Other: 17 (3%)

The Elevate Team are starting a review of how people are using Multimedia in their teaching and learning models to ensure the service we provide is fit for staff needs. For more information, see;

• http://ucselevate.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/how-is-multimedia-video-being-used-in.html

With thanks - Image - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Nuvola_apps_multimedia.svg

Creating a Grading/Feedback Column for Offline Assessments

If you are wanting to use LearnUCS to give students grades and/or feedback for assessments taken offline, such as exams you will need to create a new Grade Centre column.

The video below shows how to create a new column that is not associated with an online submission process.

Student Stories - Social Media

Learning Services regularly run workshops to both students and staff on how to effectively use Social Media to help engage their learning at University Campus Suffolk. We include sessions in the student inductions and the early adopters Get Ahead sessions.

We thought it would be nice to gather a couple of success stories of how students have been using social media to showcase it's effective use while we run our workshops and sessions.

Pam Ramsden and Geraldine Barker gave up their time to talk to us about their experiences, you can listen to our discussion below.




The examples both Pam and Geraldine gave, highlight two very different ways of using Social Media and these stories will hopefully help reinforce our message that the effective use of social media for learning can help gather resources and connect with peers and professionals based around your discipline.

If you would like to know more, keep an eye on Learning Services publications as we run social media workshops where get to run a more hands on approach to the subject.

Learning Services Workshops - http://ucslssessions.blogspot.co.uk/p/workshops.html

Alternatively if you are a member of staff at UCS who wishes to use Social Media with your cohort, please don't hesitate to contact the Elevate Team in Learning Services.