Educational Enhancement

ALT-C: The ‘coming of age’ of learning technology #altc

Posted on 5th September 2014 by Anne Hole

Thanks to @authenticdaseinon Twitter for this photo.

Anne Hole, a member of the Sussex TEL team, was one of over 400 delegates at the Association for Learning Technology’s ‘Riding Giants’ conference this week. This is her report.

This was a huge conference so this post is just scratching the surface – fortunately you can see more for yourself by watching the recorded sessions on YouTube, including two inspiring and poetic keynotes from Catherine Cronin and Audrey Watters.

Learning technology coming of age

This was the 21st ALT conference and in his introduction, Joe Wilson, co-chair of the conference suggested that learning technology has now ‘come of age’ and is integral to education. This idea of learning technology ‘coming of age’, and what that might mean, became one of the themes of the conference for me. Read more ›

Tagged with: Events
Posted in External events, Technology Enhanced Learning

Study Direct: using Choice for booking appointments

Posted on 2nd September 2014 by Sally Burr

University of Sussex tutors can use the Choice feature in Study Direct, our Moodle-based VLE, as an online system for students to sign up to tutorials, feedback meetings or office hours. A Choice activity is:

easy to create
easy to collect data from and
can be made available to students as part of your Study Direct module site

Emails can do the job of booking appointments. However, often appointments are rescheduled which can mean lots of emails are generated to book just one appointment. Read more ›

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Posted in Study Direct

Flipping beautiful – news and digital curation on your mobile devices

Posted on 29th August 2014 by Anne Hole

For this app review we are looking at Flipboard; a news and reading app that can also be used for curating online content.

Unlike many apps which moved from desktop computers or the web to mobile devices, Flipboard was made for mobile. Its beautiful layout and interface is seen at its very best on tablets and smartphones.

Flipboard describes itself as ‘a single place to discover, collect and share the news you care about’. As well as bringing together publications you want to read, such as national and local newspapers, you can add blogs that you want to follow and social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Googleplus. Think of it as your own personalised daily paper with sections you have chosen yourself.

Reading is only half the Flipboard story, though. You can also use the app and/or a browser bookmarklet to create your own magazines. These can be private or public, created individually or collaboratively and are easily shared by sending a link or embedding them in a web page. You can also add comments to the content in Flipboard. Read more ›

Tagged with: App reviews
Posted in App review

Open world, connected world

Posted on 26th August 2014 by Nicholas Botfield

Nick Botfield, Learning Technologist for the Sciences, attended the Academic Practice and Technology (APT) Conference at the University of Greenwich, which focused on how teaching and learning can become more connected.

Waves of change

The conference was organised to ‘provide an opportunity to debate and explore the significant challenges for higher and post-compulsory education and training arising from these waves of rapid change’ (APT). The event promised to ‘be a forum where policy, practice and strategic developments can be explored, discussed and shared by practitioners and researchers in a vibrant and lively atmosphere on the university’s World Heritage Campus’ (APT)(and it did not disappoint). Read more ›

Tagged with: Events
Posted in External events, Technology Enhanced Learning

Digital, interactive and inclusive?

Posted on 19th August 2014 by David Walker

Digital media and associated technologies afford many new opportunities to enhance and innovate in teaching and similarly to support and enrich student learning.

Used positively, these technologies can facilitate interaction and active engagement (both within the classroom and beyond), and support the development of learner’s reflective and self-regulatory capabilities. Digital media can be a great enabler for inclusive practice but it can also introduce significant challenges, particularly for individuals working within professional contexts.

Exploring these issues and attempting to address some of these challenges is the focus of a free, one day event being hosted at the University of Sussex by the Media Enhanced Learning Special Interest Group (MELSIG) on Tuesday the 9th of September. Read more ›

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Posted in Technology Enhanced Learning

Future fit: building a digital institution

Posted on 12th August 2014 by Pete Sparkes

How can recent innovations in educational technology be used to support university life?

This was the essence of the debate at Building the Digital Institution, a recent conference held by the Centre for Educational Technology, Interoperability and Standards (Cetis).

Pete Sparkes from the Technology Enhanced Learning team traveled to Bolton to explore the issues of e-books and learning statistics.

Meeting digital expectations

Paul Hollins (Cetis Director) put forward the case that both technology and standards have important roles to play in enabling universities to meet the new and growing expectations of students. Phil Richards (JISC Chief Innovation Officer), emphasised the ongoing need to innovate and highlighted that in response to recent educational and economic changes, JISC have altered their focus to ensure that institutions receive value for money. Read more ›

Tagged with: Events
Posted in External events

Visualize learning: 7 sources for free images

Posted on 5th August 2014 by Sally Burr

Find an image using a Creative Commons search

It’s easy enough to find an image using a search engine. Simply type the word ‘orange’ into Google, for example, and 577,000,000 orange-related results are retrieved in just 0.47 seconds.

Which of these results, however, will find you an image rather than a mobile phone contract? Of the results that are images, which ones are freely available for you to use in your work?

The moral of the story is this; it’s easy to find a good image on the internet, but a more refined search is required to find an image that is free to use in:

a presentation slide
a web page
a Study Direct site

To clarify, when we say ‘free’ we mean:

free of cost
and free of copyright

Language Tutors show and TEL

Posted on 29th July 2014 by Anne Hole

A collage made with clipart images and Fotor.

The modern language tutors in the Sussex Centre for Language Studies are great at exploring opportunities to use technology to enhance their students’ learning – and sharing what they are doing with each other.

Anne Hole, the liaison learning technologist for Arts and Humanities was pleased to be involved in a recent ‘Show and TEL’ workshop organised by Belinda Hackney.

Three inspiring tutors showed colleagues what they have been doing with learning technologies and discussed where technology might be able to take their classes in future. Read more ›

Tagged with: Language learning
Posted in Technology Enhanced Learning