Educational Enhancement

Canvas highlights 6: Conferences

Posted on 13th April 2018 by Kitty Horne

[note: this post has been updated to reflect a terminology change on the Sussex Canvas VLE, to align it to Sussex terminology]

Canvas provides staff and students with many collaboration opportunities and in this Canvas highlights post we will be taking a look at Conferences.

Canvas Conferences use a tool called BigBlueButton to enable staff to create online virtual spaces in order to interact with students on their modules. This tool allows you to broadcast video, audio, presentations or online applications in real-time. In addition to this, students can create their own conferences allowing them to facilitate study groups or prepare for group work at a distance. Conferences are very quick to set up and are easily customisable for different uses.

screenshot of Big Blue Button on Canvas

Notable features:

Enable recording to view Conferences at a later date
Upload documents to share with participants
Customise the layout (options include: chat box, webcam sharing, shared notes)
Share your screen to demonstrate a particular programme or procedure
Closed captioning – create captions that will also be available on the recording

screenshot of Conferences page in Canvas

Canvas Conferences could be used to aid student learning in a number of different ways. Firstly, Conferences would allow staff to create ‘virtual lectures’, to allow guest lecturers to contribute from a distance or to create virtual office hour spaces. In addition, the screen sharing and annotation features of Conferences could be used to demonstrate particular processes, technologies or applications, or to troubleshoot certain issues.

Arguably, the most powerful way in which this tool can be used is to encourage collaboration between students, for example when planning group projects and presentations and to facilitate reading groups.

Below are a few resources from the Canvas Community to help get you started when using the Conferences tool. Training for Sussex staff will start shortly, if you would like to find out more about Canvas please contact tel@sussex.ac.uk.

Resources

Padlet – some changes to a popular tool

Posted on 10th April 2018 by Anne Hole

Many staff and students at the University of Sussex are using Padlet, which is a very versatile and flexible digital tool that we have been sharing with colleagues for a few years.

At the beginning of April 2018, Padlet changed its pricing model, so if you have been using the free version (now called Padlet Basic) there are some new limits on what you can do. Given the popularity of Padlet at Sussex, Technology Enhanced Learning will secure an institutional licence for the academic year 18/19 which will allow unlimited Padlets, remove advertising, increase upload limits and make adding students easier.

In the meantime, this post offers some tips for making the most of your Padlet Basic account. Read more ›

Tagged with: A - Z of apps, Active learning, Apps, Collaboration, Engagement, Mobile, Multimedia, Padlet
Posted in Mobile learning

Canvas news: an update on progress

Posted on 6th April 2018 by Antony Coombs

Canvas Update

[note: this post has been updated to reflect a terminology change on the Sussex Canvas VLE, to align it to Sussex terminology]

Since our last Canvas update in early February, work has continued at full pace, with a focus on preparing training for all staff and establishing the mechanisms for creating module areas, accounts for staff and students and contributory assessment based on the University database records. Read on for more information about our progress. Read more ›

Tagged with: Canvas, Instructure, Training, Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), VLE
Posted in Canvas

5 Myths and misconceptions in learning theory

Posted on 27th March 2018 by George Robinson

There are a number of common myths surrounding learning theory that arise time and time again. In this post we’ll be separating some of the facts from the myths. Read more ›

Tagged with: Active learning, digital skills, Interactive teaching
Posted in Learning theory

Canvas highlights 5: Collaborations

Posted on 23rd March 2018 by Anne Hole

[note: this post has been updated to reflect a terminology change on the Sussex Canvas VLE, to align it to Sussex terminology]

In the second of these Canvas Highlights posts we looked at Groups and some of the ways that students can work together. This post will explore more of the collaboration tools available in our new Canvas VLE.

Module Pages

When a teacher creates a new page in a Canvas module they have the option of allowing all the students on the module to edit the page. The Rich Content Editor offers many options for creating pages with text, images, links, video etc.

If you have been using a class wiki this could be a good alternative, as the ‘view page history’ button allows you to see who has made changes when, and restore a previous version if necessary.

Revision History of a Page

A module page that students can edit could also be used for students to sign up to activities such as individual presentations (self sign-up groups would be better for group presentations).

Page for editing by students.

Group Pages

In groups, students can create and edit their own pages for members of the group. These can also be viewed and edited by the tutor, so groups could get feedback on the pages they are creating. Here is an example of a page showing some of the content that students could collect, curate and create together.

Example collaborative page

Collaborations using Office 365 or Google Docs

In addition to collaborative pages, Canvas offers options to work together on documents using Office 365 to create Word, Excel or PowerPoint files. Alternatively, a Google Docs Collaboration will create a new doc (like a word doc). As both Office 365 and Google Drive allow you to share access to files with a link, you could also collaborate on OneNote notebooks, Google sheets, slides and forms by sharing links in a group.

These options would be great for:

Collaborating on slides for a group presentation.
Group editing of lecture or seminar notes.
Curating resources such as websites, videos, files, images, podcasts.

For more information see these Canvas FAQs:

We have a dedicated Canvas section on the TEL website (www.sussex.ac.uk/tel/canvas) and you can subscribe to this blog or follow us on Twitter (@SussexTEL) to receive all our Canvas news and information, including training for all Sussex staff.

Tagged with: Canvas, Collaboration, Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)
Posted in Canvas

Digital Wellbeing – How to Focus and Unplug

Posted on 20th March 2018 by Daniel Axson

You would be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed when it comes to tools for work, productivity, teaching, learning and entertainment. There is a lot of noise from a lot of places. Notifications popping up on our phones, tablets, laptops, watches and more. In this post we look at some strategies for focus. How do we manage the flow of information, keep ourselves on task and avoid the draw of multitasking? We also take a look techniques and tools for switching off. As important as that email may be, your health and work-life balance are more so. Read more ›

Tagged with: digital skills, Mobile, wellbeing
Posted in digital skills, e-Safety

Open Education Week: Exploring Open Textbooks #OEWeek #OER

Posted on 8th March 2018 by Anne Hole

“Brigham Young University faculty survey seeks to advance open education through academic libraries” flickr photo by opensourceway https://flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/6555466069 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license

This week has been OER Week so it seems an ideal time to be talking about Open Textbooks. This guest post is by Suzanne Tatham, Academic Services Manager (Library).

First of all, what is an OER? Here is the Creative Commons definition:

“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.” https://creativecommons.org/about/program-areas/education-oer/

A quick trawl of Twitter’s #oerweek will give you a flavour of the types of OER activity that are taking place in universities and other interested parties across the globe.

OERs are not new to the University of Sussex. Prof Lucy Robinson worked with the University of Sussex Library and the Mass Observation Archive to launch the Jisc-funded Observing the 80s in 2013, an OER that brought together voices from Mass Observation and the British Library Oral History Collections.

In this short video, Tim Seal of the OER SCORE Project discusses the benefits of Open Educational practice. He gives advice on how to license, create, publish, remix and redistribute Open Education.

A lingering concern around OERs is highlighted with the recent attention given to them by commercial publishers who have introduced open resources alongside proprietary material. Inside Higher Ed have written an enlightening Guide to Good OER Stewardship, advocating the CARE Framework to encourage the following:

‘Contribute’ via financial or in-kind contributions to ‘advance the awareness, improvement, and distribution of OER.’
‘Attribute’ by making sure that those who create or remix OER are ‘properly and clearly credited’ for their contributions.
‘Release’ by ensuring that OER can be shared and used outside the platform in which it is was created or delivered.
‘Empower’ by striving to make OER meet the needs of all learners, and supporting the participation of diverse voices in OER creation and adoption.

That said, within this OER landscape, open textbooks have been gaining popularity. Open textbooks are written by academics and shared using open copyright licences such as Creative Commons. These licences allow authors to share their textbooks. They also grant permission for anyone to access and reuse the textbook. They reduce the “hidden costs” of university study by replacing expensive textbooks with free ones. For the tutor, they present opportunities to adapt the content to suit their particular teaching needs. The open licences enable you to mix and match, so you can actually create your own book using chapters from different open textbooks.

Sourcing good quality academic open textbooks

The following sites have large collections of open textbooks, available for you to use in your teaching and link to from your online reading lists:

For updates on news about open textbooks, follow @UKOpenTextbooks on Twitter.

Tagged with: OER
Posted in Open Education