Educational Enhancement

Open Education Resources for teaching

Posted on 7th November 2017 by George Robinson

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are, as the name implies, educational resources that are made openly available (usually through an open licence such as one of the Creative Commons licences – for more information please see the creative commons website). This permits their use and/or re-purposing by others, whilst maintaining attribution of the original author.

In this sense, OERs embrace the ideal of openness and desire to exchange knowledge, taking the idea that education should be freely shared with everyone and not locked away behind institutional or national walls. Article 26 of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to education. OERs can be seen as one method for working towards this goal.

“Archive: The Blue Marble” flickr photo by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center https://flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/8250851747 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

So why would you wish to use OERs?

You might want to:

Utilise resources that you may not have either the time or skill to create yourself.
Avoid ‘re-inventing the wheel’, if the content you want to create already exists there’s no benefit to recreating it yourself.
Meet a specific teaching need.
Quickly improve the richness of your educational content.
Be stimulated by peers’ fresh perspectives.

Where can you find OERs?

So you may now have decided you’d like to use OERs, but how best to find them? The fact that there’s much content available is great, but it can sometimes make locating what you need a challenge. Here are some tips to help you find OERs.

OER Commons is a vast online library of OER content. You can use its inbuilt search engine to specify content by subject, educational level, media format, material type and accessibility. There is also an option to use what are called ‘collections’, which are curated groups of OERs based around a certain topic or area. If you register for a free account you can also join user groups which share content or even create your own group!

OER Commons https://www.oercommons.org/

Wikimedia Commons is a good place to look for image and video resources. It is one of the Wikimedia Foundation’s projects and hosts over 40 million files. Most of the resources are divided into categories and then further divided into subcategories to allow you to find appropriate content.

Project Gutenberg can be an excellent choice for full texts, such as novels, especially older titles which are no longer covered by copyright. You can either search their catalogue or look through ‘bookshelves’ which are collections of books based around a particular topic or theme.

SlideShare is a service run by LinkedIn that holds a large repository of slideshow content created by users on a huge variety of topics. Many of these slideshows have been Creative Commons licensed in such a way that they can be used as they are or altered to fit your teaching.

Making and learning about OERs at Sussex

During last year’s Digital Innovation Week, Sussex staff and students captured photos from around campus and shared them onto Wikimedia under a creative commons licence. You can see these photos at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Home_at_University_of_Sussex

This year, for Digital Discovery Week (6th-10th November) there will be a workshop on Wednesday 8th November, led by National Teaching Fellow Dr Vivien Rolfe from the UK Open Textbook Project on the subject of ‘Using open textbooks for teaching’. For more details please visit the Digital Discovery Week page.

Tagged with: open education
Posted in Open Education

5 Great reasons for students to use OneNote

Posted on 31st October 2017 by Anne Hole

“Computer – Phone – Tablet – Technology” flickr photo by perspec_photo88 https://flickr.com/photos/111692634@N04/16389739412 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license

Whether you are a tutor or a student, and whatever your discipline, it’s likely that you are going to have to make notes. Paper and pen can be convenient and it’s something we’re all used to, but digital notes have a lot to offer. Read more ›

Tagged with: Collaboration, digital skills
Posted in digital skills, Mobile learning

Study Direct update: embed content from a range of popular apps and websites

Posted on 24th October 2017 by Kitty Horne

It is now possible for staff to embed a range of external content within Study Direct (the University of Sussex Virtual Learning Environment). This enables you to incorporate a broader range of interactive resources and activities into your teaching which students can access and interact with directly from their module sites. This could include embedded media such as podcasts or interactive videos, polls or surveys, or presentations and collaborative documents.

This development has been driven by desire from University of Sussex staff to add further interactivity to their module sites and to provide their students with a broader range of resources. Due to this we are keen to receive recommendations from Sussex staff about different tools that they use for teaching and learning which they would like to be able to incorporate seamlessly into their Study Direct module sites. If you can’t see a tool that you use on the ‘What sites can I embed’ list below; then you can make a request for it to be added by sending the name and web-address of the service to tel@sussex.ac.uk Read more ›

Tagged with: Engagement, Interactive teaching, Learning Design, Multimedia, Quizzes, Study Direct
Posted in Learning Design, Study Direct

What does the update to Turnitin mean for students?

Posted on 17th October 2017 by Pete Sparkes

Turnitin is the software used for providing marks and feedback and checking for similarity on text-based assessments as part of the e-submission system at the University of Sussex .

Current students will most likely have used Turnitin at some point for submitting their work, viewing feedback or as a tool to help develop their referencing skills. However, for new students, this will likely be an entirely new experience. All students should be aware, that for the 2017/18 academic year, Turnitin has introduced a number of significant changes to their software with their recent ‘Feedback Studio’ rebrand and update.

If you are unfamiliar with Turnitin or e-submission, then please see the resources and guidance on the Technology Enhanced Learning website. For a brief overview of the updates, continue reading.

Key changes

The Originality report has been renamed the Similarity report.

Turnitin is often misunderstood as providing a ‘plagiarism’ detection service. Whilst in truth, it is your tutors who identify plagiarism, as defined by the university policy for academic misconduct.

Turnitin has no concept or built-in intelligence for identifying or navigating institutional policies for academic misconduct. It is simply capable of comparing your document against others to highlight similar matching sentences and areas of text – regardless of why it is ‘similar’. To recognise this, Turnitin has renamed this feature to more accurately reflect its behaviour. See our Understanding Turnitin Similarity webpage to learn more.

All features have been combined into a single interface.

In the previous iteration of Turnitin, marks and feedback were presented in a tab labelled ‘GradeMark’. Information from the Turnitin similarity report was displayed on a separate screen known as ‘Originality’. Feedback Studio now includes ‘layers’ which can be switched on or off to customise your display.

You will be able to view your summary feedback and rubric forms from the ‘Instructor Feedback’ menu. For more information on viewing your feedback, see the Technology Enhanced Learning web page.

Improved navigation between pages.

As well as having more visibility of your document, and the option to choose what you see. It’s also much easier to navigate between pages in your document using the thumbnail navigation menu.

New feature in @Turnitin Feedback Studio. No need to scroll to navigate between pages with the new thumbnail page menu pic.twitter.com/rT1o2zChlG

— Pete Sparkes (@petesparx) July 28, 2017

Mobile and web accessibility.

The Turnitin software now uses a mobile responsive design, which means that you will be able to view your feedback and similarity reports across a range of smartphones and tablet devices. Turnitin has taken steps to improve the accessibility of their software to strive towards compliance with modern web standards (WCAG AAA standards). They have introduced an accessible colour palette, keyboard navigation and a text-only report for use with screen reader software. To access the text-only report, press the ‘tab’ key and then enter.

Where can I learn more about e-submission and Turnitin?

Full guidance on using the e-submission system, including submitting your work, viewing your feedback and understanding Turnitin similarity reports, is available from the Technology Enhanced Learning website.

For technical issues and support, contact the IT Service Desk, located in Shawcross Building. Email support@.its.sussex.ac.uk or call 01273 678090

Tagged with: Accessibility, assessment, Mobile
Posted in Marking and assessment

Autumn 2017 TEL Workshops

Posted on 10th October 2017 by Antony Coombs

Image: “My Life Through A Lens”

Over the Summer we’ve been beavering away developing an exciting menu of workshops and training activities for the Autumn term, blending our most popular sessions from last year with a range of new workshops tackling hot topics in teaching and learning with technology.

Really practical … great facilitation

Feedback on “Introduction to Poll Everywhere”

Staff can get support with specific classroom technologies, such as our Introduction to Poll Everywhere, Advanced SMARTboard workshop and overview of the Media on Demand available at the University.

We have a strong focus on creative applications of technology, exploring Mobile Creativity and Creating Multimedia Learning Materials as well as the expanded world of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality.

Community also features prominently, from Working Together Online to developing a Connected Experience for Students on Placement, Peer Instruction and Creating Opportunities for Students to Showcase their Work.

Yesterday’s training was fantastic

Feedback on
“Peer Instruction: Just-in-time Teaching”

We’ll be re-running our online Digital Productivity course that was such a success at the beginning of the Summer, and complementing this with sessions on Managing Time and Tasks and Building a Professional Learning Network.

Teaching challenges are tackled as we revisit our highly popular session on Teaching Large Groups with Technology, offer strategies for In-class Formative Feedback and address issues of inclusion through sessions such as Reaching out to International Students through Technology and Creating Engaging & Inclusive Presentations.

Spotlight on Feedback and Assessment

Effective feedback and assessment remains a high priority for the University, and we’ll be offering direct support for your practice through the following workshops:

What’s new in iOS 11: Standout features and enhancements to accessibility.

Posted on 3rd October 2017 by Daniel Axson

If you use Apple products and haven’t been living under a rock, you’ll no doubt have heard of the updates from Apple Park over the last few weeks. Alongside the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X came the public release of iOS 11, the latest version of their mobile operating system. Having spent some time getting to grips with the new OS I thought I’d share my top picks of the new features.

I can’t possibly cover everything that’s new here, if you want a full run down, check out this very comprehensive article from Ars Technica. For a brief look at the accessibility updates check out this page on iMore.

So, what’s new?

Fun online quizzing with Kahoot!

Posted on 26th September 2017 by George Robinson

This week we are reviewing one of my favourite classroom tools, Kahoot!

Kahoot is a free online quiz tool that enables you to design quick fun quizzes for students for use within the classroom. It can be played competitively, cooperatively, solo or with a large group of people.

Kahoot allows you to create your own multiple choice quizzes entering your question and answers, there is also the option to attach an image to any or all of your questions. The questions are then projected onto a screen and students can submit their answers using their mobile devices or laptops and computers through a web browser.

A unique PIN code is generated for every Kahoot session, which students enter on the Kahoot web page to join the quiz. This makes it very easy for a large number of students to join a quiz with minimal setup and hassle.

After all students taking part in the quiz have submitted their answers, results are displayed, showing which answers people chose and which was the correct answer. This can work as a good way of gauging student knowledge and identifying any major knowledge gaps.

(Image source: Kahoot.it)

A leaderboard is then displayed, ranking players and awarding points to those who chose the correct answer. You can also set it to award extra points for the fastest answers. This is a great way to motivate students to engage with your questions, as it allows individuals or teams to compete against each other.

Dividing students into teams can encourage collaboration and discussion which can be a good way of getting shyer students to engage with their peers and take an active part in discussion .

Featuring energetic music and bright colourful imagery, Kahoot can also be an excellent way to get students energised and excited about a class, especially early in the day.

Kahoot has also recently been updated with a new feature called Challenge mode, this allows students to play Kahoot quizzes outside of class against themselves in order to beat their own high score. This can function as a more fun and accessible way for students to revise information and their understanding of topics.

For more information on creating a Kahoot quiz please see the Getting started guide

Is it free?

Yes, Kahoot is completely free..

Will it work on my device?

Kahoot can be accessed through a web page on any computer device, there is also an app that can be downloaded for mobile and tablet devices on both Android and iOS.

Where can I get the app?

Ideas for using Kahoot in learning and teaching

Use as an icebreaking tool for new cohorts of students. If you assign them to work together in teams it strongly encourages them to discuss their answers in order to win.
Quickly assess understanding on certain topics and identify knowledge gaps.
Use open ended questions as a jumping off point to promote discussion if quizzes are created with the discussion mode.
Use the survey mode to gather opinions and insights on certain queries.

What are the alternatives?

Here are some alternatives to Kahoot you may want to look at:

Conclusion

If you are teaching at Sussex University and would like help with using Kahoot or to discuss how this or any other digital tools could help you in your teaching or learning please get in touch with the TEL team.

Tagged with: Active learning, Kahoot, Mobile, Quizzes
Posted in Active learning, App review, Mobile learning

Seeing how it all fits together – a timeline for Art History

Posted on 19th September 2017 by Anne Hole

Last year Professor Liz James (Art History) received a Digital Practice Award. The purpose of the funding was to give staff the opportunity to develop or experiment with new tools, resources or teaching approaches with the potential to inform practice in their School or disciplinary area.

Recently I interviewed Liz to find out how her project went.

What was the learning or teaching issue that prompted this innovation?

The project was a response to an issue raised by a student on the Art and the City module which covers the whole history of Rome. Lectures are chronological, but as Liz points out, ‘something like the Forum might have significance across different periods’ so keeping the different elements from the lectures ‘in order’ and understanding how it all fitted together can be difficult. The student asked: ‘Could we have a timeline?’

The Forum (image by Liz James)

Liz was keen:

‘It made an enormous amount of sense to have a timeline but it seemed stupid to do a paper timeline and it seemed stupid to do a timeline as a word document or anything like that. It seemed to make more sense to see if it was possible to do this electronically and create a timeline that could then sit on the Study Direct site and could be added to on a year-by-year basis.’

What did you do?

Along with the funding, came focused support from members of the Technology Enhanced Learning team who investigated commercially available timeline tools. After some discussion with students Sutori (formerly HSTRY) was selected for the project because:

‘It was something that seemed very simple and straightforward that could be rolled-over year-on-year and could be added to very straightforwardly by the students.’

extract from the Rome timeline

You can read more about Sutori in our post ‘Tell a story with Sutori’.

How did the project go?

The innovation went pretty well. There was a technical issue with Sutori when trying to register all the students to use the timeline, but it seems that may now have been resolved. This year we will try signing up all the students in a workshop to enable any issues to be quickly identified. Once they got started, though:

‘the idea of an electronic timeline was successful and the students liked it and the additions that they made to it were very good and very helpful …. Feedback from students was that it was useful.’

Class visit to Rome 2017

What next?

We wondered where Liz and her students would like to take their timeline for the future.

‘In terms of what it delivers the Sutori timeline is pretty decent, but what we would ideally like to do is to generate linked timelines. What we’ve got is a timeline of the history of Rome from Romulus and Remus (or not) to the present. What might also be interesting to do is generate a timeline that is the history of The Forum running through, or a particular artist and how that intersects.’

This is not something that can be done with Sutori in quite the way that Liz envisages it, but it is possible to add all sorts of web links to a Sutori story, so a ‘Forum’ timeline could be included in the ‘Rome’ timeline offering a point at which the story could branch out.

Meanwhile, Liz will be using Sutori timelines with other courses she teaches, and colleagues in Art History are interested in using it themselves.

This was a very simple and straightforward project, but ‘it’s one of those simple ideas that actually can make a great difference to the student learning experience’.

Throughout, the emphasis was on students using the timeline, ‘putting things on the timeline that they think are important or are worth noting … not about the lecturers and tutors putting all the things on the timeline that they think should be there.’

The timeline will grow over the next few years, and will then become ‘a record of student interests and places that students go to – and that’s not always the same year on year’ so Liz is expecting its development to be fun.

If you are teaching at the University of Sussex and would like help with using technology in your teaching you can get help from the Technology Enhanced Learning team by emailing tel@sussex.ac.uk

Tagged with: Apps, Collaboration, Engagement, Innovation Scheme, Multimedia
Posted in Learning Design, Learning Spaces, Mobile learning, Technology Enhanced Learning