Doing it digitally: embedding digital skills in the curriculum

Posted on by Anne Hole
digital skills in the curriculum

flickr photo by mrkrndvs shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license

Whether we talk about digital skills, digital literacy or digital capabilities there is no doubt that students need to develop their use and understanding of digital tools (see Digital Skills for the UK Economy).

Don’t be misled by talk of the ‘digital native’ who by virtue of being born in the internet era has an innate understanding and ability to use technologies.

Just because students own smartphones and use social media to communicate with their friends doesn’t mean that they can use digital tools professionally, critically evaluate them and make informed decisions about online security, identity and digital wellbeing.  Read more ›

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Posted in Digital scholarship, Technology Enhanced Learning

Using screen capture as an instructional tool

Posted on by Daniel Vince-Archer

This week we are handing over the blog to Daniel Vince-Archer, Course Coordinator in Undergraduate Business and Management.

Daniel has recently created a number of ‘how to’ screen capture videos using VideoStudio X9. You will find VideoStudio X9 in your Software Centre.

Over to you, Daniel.

“I hear, and I forget; I see, and I know; I do, and I understand” – ancient Chinese proverb.

Over the past six months, the course administration team here in the School of Business, Management & Economics (BMEc) has been collaboratively producing a series of ‘how-to’ guides. These document how the team carries out the administrative tasks and processes needed for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in BMEc to run as effectively and efficiently as possible. Read more ›

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Posted in Technology Enhanced Learning

Technology Enhanced Language Learning

Posted on by Sally Burr
Language

flickr photo by Thomas Hawk shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license.

In this post we’ll look at technology that can help you or your students to learn a new language.

We’ve covered the popular language app, Duolingo, previously in Gamifying language learning.

But what other digital tools and social networks are available to help you learn?  Read more ›

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Posted in App review, Mobile learning, Technology Enhanced Learning

Developing accessible web content

Posted on by David Walker

In our recent post Making learning accessible through technology, Tab Betts (@MrTabKey) took us through some valuable tools that promote inclusivity, productivity and help overcome what are for some significant barriers to learning.

Dr David Sloan

Dr David Sloan – UX Research Lead, The Paciello Group

A growing range of free content creation tools (e.g. WordPress) and intuitive social media platforms (e.g Facebook) have opened up web authoring to the masses, but as non-experts in web content creation this can inadvertently result in the introduction of accessibility challenges.  Read more ›

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Posted in Accessibility

Requirements gathering: listen, challenge, playback

Posted on by Nicole Ingerson

Requirements gathering, sounds easy. Ask people what they want and gather their answers together. But how do you know you’ve got the right information?

People are creatures of habit and it’s harder than it may seem to take Picyourself out of the here and now. Not everyone is a natural futurist. Read more ›

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Posted in Technology Enhanced Learning

Making learning accessible through technology

Posted on by Tab Betts

How can we make learning easier for everyone?

We all experience barriers to learning, but for some of us these challenges mean that we require additional support in order to complete everyday tasks pertaining to work or study.

While everyone working in education has a responsibility to promote inclusivity and make learning as accessible as possible, it is also important to recognise that accessibility tools can be used by anyone to increase their productivity.

Here at the University of Sussex, we recently invited Alistair McNaught from the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) to deliver a workshop on how technology can enable us to increase productivity and overcome barriers to learning.

This blog post will attempt to summarise some of the most important tools introduced in this workshop and provide some brief suggestions about how these could be used in academic contexts.   Read more ›

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Posted in Technology Enhanced Learning

Doing it Digitally – Summer

Posted on by Anne Hole

flickr photo by Martin Snicer Photography shared under a Creative Commons (BY-ND) license

One way to develop your digital capabilities is to carry out familiar activities using digital tools. We already offered some examples of this approach in Doing it digitally – presentations and in this post I’ll be looking at a range of ways that you can have a digital summer.  Read more ›

Posted in Learning Design, Technology Enhanced Learning

Get even more from Poll Everywhere – LaTeX, Surveys and more…

Posted on by Kitty Horne

Polling and quizzing tools can be a great way to increase interactivity and engagement in classes, in particular in large lectures. 

Poll Everywhere is a useful tool which takes advantage of the mobile devices that students already use, affords students anonymity and encourages interaction between peers.

To learn more about the benefits of in class voting systems, read our post from September 2015, Encouraging student engagement through interactive lectures. Read more ›

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Posted in Learning Design, Polling tools, Technology Enhanced Learning

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We are the Educational Enhancement team at the University of Sussex. We publish posts each fortnight about the use of technology to support teaching and learning. Read more about us.

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Based on a work at https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/tel/.