On 17 September, the TEL&ED Team and the Medical Education Team ran a highly successful event showcasing the many ways Student Response Systems are currently being used at the University. Over 50 attendees, from all parts of the University, benefited from a mixture of case studies and introductions to the different systems.

“Really useful to see many different approaches.” 

“I liked the emphasis on student engagement and pedagogy.” 

It was very inspiring to see the different ways that people have used the same technology to engage their students – and the majority of attendees said that they had been inspired to use Student Response Systems in their own teaching.

“I really enjoyed meeting with like-minded staff and hearing all the creative ideas that are being tried.” 

“Came away with new ideas.” 

More information on Student Response Systems and their use – as well as details of the University’s SRS support network – including recordings of the presentations at the event, can be found on the TEL&ED Team’s webpages.

“Have definitely been inspired to use the technology.” 

The key to making this a successful event was the team of people involved in it – the presenters and the group behind the scenes – who all worked together, putting time and effort into it selflessly. It simply wouldn’t have happened without every one of them. Looking back on the event, from an organiser’s perspective, some other things that made it successful were:

• allowing plenty of lead-in time for planning – we started discussing the event five months beforehand – which let us explore options and make arrangements safely
• using Eventbrite for ticketing, and providing initial information about the event, even though we weren’t charging for attendance – which helped us to see interest levels and made managing attendance lists, badges, etc, relatively straightforward
• having speakers from a range of disciplines, covering topics with different perspectives (both technical and pedagogical)
• keeping the presentations relatively short – under 25 minutes each
• asking the presenters to supply their slides in advance, so that they could pre-loaded and tested on the presentation computer

The thing that I would do differently next time would be to publish the full programme two weeks in advance of the event, in order to let attendees know exactly what to expect, and also to stimulate further interest.