On the 20th January, the TEL&ED Team in collaboration with the School of Modern Languages (SML) ran the first in a monthly series of community of practice events, showcasing the different ways that Media* resources can be used as part of teaching and assessment. This first event focused on the work of Modern Languages and Medical Science in supporting and assessing student-produced films and media-rich teaching packages.

Prior to the main event, we were very lucky to have Nick Bartram (Modern Languages Learning Technologist and Centre Manager) give a tour of the facilities found within the Multimedia Centre. The centre is a purpose-built six-room facility for the school, including Teaching and Study Spaces, a Film Library, a Recording Studio and a Cinema.

The aim of the event was to highlight what students learn by producing media resources, how others at the institution are approaching this, and assessing the results.

Presentation number one was led by Gloria Visintini and David Perkins de Oliveira from SML; they talked about the projects within the school where students produce videos as an alternative to written work, and how the school has developed assessment criteria to mark their work. More information can be found on our case studies page.

The second pair of presenters was Dominic Alder, from the eLearning team in the Medical School, and Will Fotherby, a fourth year Medical Student. Dominic talked first about the Student Selected Components program and the summer project to create Media Rich Learning Materials (more information can be found on our case studies page). Will then talked through his project ‘Get exercise confident‘, covering how he approached the project, the support he had received from Jonathan Williams (his supervisor), Dominic, and friends, and the skills he had built up by completing the project.

*In this context we use “Media” to describe video or audio content used as part of a teaching and learning activity.

Congratulations to the team at Durham for putting on another excellent conference. For me, this is the most useful event of the year for those of us with the task of supporting Blackboard. It is truly a ‘user’ led conference. The agenda is set by users and attendees are open and willing to share.

It was harder to pick out specific themes and emerging trends than at previous conferences. The conference title ‘Learning from Failure’ can be interpreted in different ways (helpful for those submitting papers but resulted in lots of different topics covered). Learning from mistakes is something we know we should all should do, as students, teachers and institutions. Google’s approaches to ‘failing faster and smaller’ come to mind, as does Kolb’s learning cycle and the ‘validated learning’ approach used in lean design methodologies. For me, the key is to manage mistakes by limiting the impact, whilst creating a culture in which (whilst we try to get things right first time) we accept that this will not always happen and learn from the process. Failing is often part of success, providing lessons are learnt and changes made. When I was working with academics to create MOOC materials, the materials we  had to recreate several times after testing turned out to be the best bits of those courses.

Eric Stoller’s keynote on social media touched on the failure theme by suggesting we are likely to fail (and learn) as each new technology comes along. In doing so we (and our students) develop our digital capabilities. For example, we  learn more about identity and risk in these new spaces. A takeaway message for me is that whilst some spaces are very much at the social end of the spectrum, where student learning will happen, usually without our intervention,  we could encourage students to use other tools  more. For example Linkedin is increasingly a tool of choice for recruitment.  The age demographic for linkedin is 40+. Should we be encouraging students to sign up to these tools? Eric praised Linkedin Pulse, the  publishing facility in Linkedin, and mentioned that the company had recently acquired Lynda.com (a very successful online learning materials provider).

Alan Masson from Blackboard (previously the University of Ulster) highlighted a change in focus to a more mature embedding of TEL. VLEs are now business critical, and need appropriate robustness with 24-7 availability. Institutions are looking at deeper integration with student information systems. Alongside this, Universities are looking at personalisation and re-use of tools for things outside of core teaching. Sheffield Hallam, Leeds Becket, Groningen and Durham are amongst those developing home pages for different kinds of user (we are experimenting with this with the South West Doctoral Training Partnership). Edinburgh University have been using Blackboard collaborate for virtual open days (we have done something similar here with Google Hangouts).

Alan and Blackboard are keen to support user groups, something I enjoyed and benefited from  when working in the North East that is a bit lacking here in the South West. I am keen to see if we can get some activity going, perhaps initially involving our G4 partners.

I attended several sessions on learning analytics.  Andy Ramsden (once of Bristol University, now with Blackboard) is working with JISC to look at institutional cultural and technical readiness for analytics. Derby University  are experimenting with the Blackboard analytics tool, initially to interrogate activity in their online teaching division (University of Derby Online). Edinburgh have designed  a student-focussed analytic tool.  Students can see both their performance on tests relative to peers and online course activity (clicks) relative to peers. The information is also useful to teachers. Edinburgh are now looking at a data warehouse solution for the future which would allow much deeper analysis, presumably across a variety of systems.

The holy grails (if you can have more than one grail) are to predict student retention and  student performance in order to take preventative or supportive action. From the discussions, the reality is that whilst the data is there, and can be extremely useful, it is unlikely to answer these questions directly. What it can do is help us ask more questions requiring further investigation.  For example, if there is lots of  activity in a particular online course, is it because it is a very active course with engaged learners or is it because information is hard to find? Does it matter if students are not using the library? What else might they be doing? What does a gap in learners’ online activity mean?

At Bristol some academics are already keen to look at data from our lecture capture system to see which parts of lectures students are watching. We can then ask (for example) whether students are looking at a particular segment of a lecture because it contains a tricky concept.  For Blackboard, analytic data might help us understand the consistency of experience across the VLE – something we are asked in relation to quality audits. I am keen to learn from Cardiff University who have used something called Eesysoft to understand activity and target support at learners who need it though the VLE interface itself in the form of contextual help.

A number of institutions are integrating their student information system with Blackboard so that grade centre columns are automatically created in the Grade Centre and so that grades can be transferred back to the information system from assignments and tests once completed. This could dovetail with some of the online submission and marking work we are currently undertaking at Bristol. It could also feed into the Student Lifecycle Support Project implementation.

The conference was far from a failure, and I learned a great deal. I now need to build in time to follow up on some the lessons learnt the hard way elsewhere, and, with colleagues, continue to develop approaches that help us manage and learn as we develop and experiment with new approaches.

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.

On Wednesday 2nd December members of the TELED team attended an event at the Graduate School of Education – Technology and the social experience of learning. Led by Professor Charles Crook, Director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute and Professor of Education at The University of Nottingham. Charles is by trade a Psychologist and his research centres around the role that technology plays in teaching and learning.

The main part of Charles talk centred around central practices in the Educational Landscape – all based on the way technology can mediate exchanges between people.

– Conversations – Collaborations using technology
– Assessment – As a social business and what role technology plays
– Exposition – Presenting as a social experience
– Congregating – gathering of people where knowledge can be generated

Finally the Darkside – not something I will touch on here but Charles views on this can be found in this article –  Cheating with essay mills: an extension of students asking each other for help? (link accessed 8/12/2o15)

Charles discourse on the main themes centred around an aspect that is core to the approach taken by the TELED Team in that technology should be used to support Education and not for the sake of using it. There is a fine line between providing students with all the information they need and the sparks to allow them to research and discover for themselves.

Charles highlighted two cautionary aspects of the Education Landscape where technology has had an impact, the Assessment Cycle and the Lecture. He warned about the over technological approach to the assessment of written work weakening the link between the student as author and the Lecturer as marker. While I do not think this is a new idea the increased role of technology while increasing efficiency on one hand which is wanted by students could be impacting the close relationship with the Tutor.

He also highlighted the presence of technology in the Lecture theatre as marginalising the teacher where they become a side note to a series of bullet points on an enormous display.

I found Charles talk very thought provoking and gave me a good nudge towards a more questioning approach to using technology and refocussed my mind to thinking Education and Pedagogy first and technology second.

The studios are a collaboration between the Universities of Bristol and West of England managed by the Watershed. Walking in to the studio in the loft space of the Watershed you are instantly struck by what an amazing space they occupy. The studio is a community centred around technology consisting of artists, academics, creative companies and technologists.

Working in the studio comes with an ethos and I think this is the one that should be taken on much more widely (and having a making corner!). Everyone working there is interuptable (professionally speaking) to help and answer questions from the community and in return you can ask the questions you have in mind. This simple measure changes an environment which could be very introspective in to one that encourages inquisitive creative learning.

Each Friday afternoon as an extension to the lunch time talks the studio is ‘open’ to visitors to come and chat and share ideas and experiences. The afternoon starts with a short tour of the studio which involves lots of interruptions of the people working there at the time. From Dancing cranes to neurogastronomy experiences an hour felt like we had only scratched the surface of the work being undertaken there.

The most interesting project for me was an app which allows users to synchronise filming from a number of mobile phones using one phone to rule them all. This app has been used on a project funded by the Arts Council and led by the University of Lincoln to mark the anniversary of the Magna Carter called Time for Rights.

Pete and Martin visited Pervasive Media in the Watershed for one of their Friday Lunchtime talks last week to hear Jack Edwards talk on Making Movies With Your Mobile. During the talk, part of PMs Open Studio Friday initiative, Jack introduced the simple concept that almost all of us are carrying around a device capable of filming great quality footage. Aimed at those wanting to produce footage for creative or activist purposes, a lot of the advice covered was useful for more general filming.

Whilst in education we may not be in the market for creating the next Cannes sensation, there’s a lot we can take away from a more professional approach. You no longer need to have expensive video cameras, microphones, lights, and tripods to create good quality footage. WIth a bit of stage management and some relatively cheap equipment that fits in a pocket you can easily create your own high quality video.

One of the main take home points was the use of sound, confirming something I’ve said time and time again – you can watch quite poor quality footage if the sound is good, but if the sound is awful even the most beautifully shot HD video will quickly become jarring and unwatchable. With a mobile phone you have a microphone optimised for close up use but may not perform particularly well over a small distance. The good news is by plugging in a cheap clip on tie-mic (around £2-3 on ebay or £5 in Maplin) you instantly get better quality sound. Some of these have quite lengthy leads which could be useful if you’re trying to film more than just a talking head. A top tip is to use a bit of furry fabric to cover a mic outside to mimic the ‘dead cat’ style microphone covers professionals use to muffle wind sound.

Lighting and exposure can be another issue when filming on mobile, so getting you know your settings can give far better results. By turning off auto-exposure in your phone’s video app you can ensure you don’t get that fading in and out effect that can ruin so many indoor shots as you phone desperately tries to get the best levels and fails miserably. A subsequent online search found loads of guides for my phone telling me how to turn off auto-exposure both for the native app and a few of the video apps I’ve downloaded.

Composition – setting up scenes/stage management was also briefly discussed. This is often overlooked but making sure you’ve got a scene set up and everything ready before shooting makes for a more watchable clip. For example using a tripod – these days you can pick up mobile phone adaptors for both large and small desktop tripods. Having a stable shot over shaky-cam is usually far preferable for a viewer (most of us don’t set out to induce motion sickness). You can pick up cheap adaptors, some of which double as hand held ‘stabilisers’ – giving a more ergonomic handle rather than grasping a phone hopefully resulting in a smoother video (£5-25 on Amazon and ebay). Jack illustrated this DIY approach with the fact that when CNN can’t get a full crew to a news story their local reporters will use a ‘Selfie Stick’ and tie mic to film themselves – if that’s good enough for Nationwide broadcast then it’s probably good enough for us. [Note: Please don’t buy a selfie stick]

As far as which mobile apps to use Jack recommended the native iOS video app or Cinema FV 5 for Android. I’ve had a play with the latter and it certainly gives you a lot of manual control over things like focus and exposure.

Jack encouraged us to think about editing as a cut and paste exercise, just a case of grabbing clips, snipping out bits we don’t need and pasting them into the order we need. There are lots of options for giving your footage a bit of editorial polish directly on your phone or tablet these days, this guide gives lots of options for both Android and iOS – http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/511-Video-Editor-Android-iOS-Video-Filters.html – I personally recommend Cyberlink Powerdirector for Android – the cut and paste approach works well with this app.

The talk was followed by a screening of Tangerine, a movie shot entirely on an iPhone with a specially adapted clip on anamorphic lens. The total cost of the equipment ran to around £1000, whilst the movie has gained critical praise both at Sundance and in the mainstream media. Unfortunately we had to get back to work, but the film trailer looks great and I’ll definitely be watching it a later date.

A number of staff at Bristol signed up for the Elearning and Digital Cultures Mooc (Massive Online Open Course), here are some of the thoughts of staff now that it has finished

Joseph Gliddon – Learning Technologist, Technology Enhanced Learning Team

For the past 5 weeks my evenings have been taken up with the Elearning and Digital Cultures Mooc (Massive Online Open Course) and it has – for me – been a great learning experience.

It was a chance to reflect on the day job but at one step removed rather than “How can I use technology to improve the learning experience at Bristol” it was more “What is technology doing to learning (and to humans), and is it a good thing”.  Also as a Sci-fi fan it was enjoyable to engage with my interests in an academic setting

It was a “cMooc” with the c standing for connectivism as opposed to an xMooc, which is about providing information in a structured form to the students (the “best” definition of x I can find is x = instructivist  – never let spelling get in the way of a good acronym).  The connections were – for me – what made the course so engaging, the reflections of others on the course materials were incredibly rich and interesting (the course materials were also good).

At the end of the course I had submitted my digital artefact, obtained a “Statement of Accomplishment with Distinction” and (one of my personal goals) extended my personal learning network by over 50 useful people.

So are Moocs the end of University as we know it?  I would have to say no, and there are a lot of reasons why not which I dont have space to go into here, so instead I will close with a brief example of what can be so special about studying at University.

I was working with Dr Tamar Hodos in their office when a student came in to pick up their essay and feedback – having checked with the student that it was ok if I was in the room, the academic went over the paper with the student discussing what was good, where improvements could be made etc, the conversation moved to the teaching and time spent in the lab (student suggested longer lab sessions, and they discussed the potential benefits of this).  This was a really detailed learning experience that (provided the student does take the steps suggested) will make a real difference to the students study.

Now I do realise you cant scale that 1 to 1 detailed contact with an academic up to a 40,000 user mooc, and I think that is why sometimes traditional is best (and yes I did tell Dr Hodos how impressed I was).

Joseph

Roger Gardner – Learning Technologist, Technology Enhanced Learning Team

I enrolled primarily to see what the MOOC experience might be like. On reflection I don’t think this was sufficient motivation to get me very far. After the first week, despite participating I found myself quite unengaged with the content and much of the discussion. So I am looking forward to the ALT Mooc  (ocTEL) in a few weeks as I suspect the content of that might engage me more. To some extent I got what I wanted from the course, in that I had first hand experience of MOOC-ing and some of its challenges . I know that next time I  need to allow a realistic amount of time to participate, not go on holiday for a week in the middle somewhere with very flaky Internet access, and try to identify and connect with some other participants with similar interests early on if possible. I never got round to the assessment, but started to write a limerick which expresses some (I suspect common) MOOC emotions. It’s on Soundcloud so please feel free to add your comments.
Roger

Roberta Perli – Learning Technologist, Technology Enhanced Learning Team

First, I decided to sign up for this this Mooc because I am very interested in online learning. In April last year I attended a 4 weeks online course in e-assessment run by Jisc which was just great, good size (about 30 people) and about the right length.

After reading about Moocs, xmoocs and cMoocs in our reading group during the summer I thought that the Mooc in digital cultures offered by Coursera would be a good opportunity to learn more about Moocs and this ‘innovative’? model of online education. I liked the pre-course activities and interactions with different social networks such as the facebook group, which continues to be fairly active!  I think I got a lot out of the social network, interesting discussions, useful tips, helping people with their research, peer support with artifacts, sharing resources (e.g. list of tools), although I felt quite overwhelmed by the constant streams of information and interactions. I enjoyed the topic of some of the videos but I wasn’t sure about the format ‘four videos + core readings’ for the entire course.

All in all my first Mooc was an enjoyable experience and I think I will sign up to another Mooc in the future if I have have the time to devote to (it needs more than three hours) but one thing I felt was missing was more support in term of online learning strategies to help students engage with the student generated content and learn by interacting with their peers.

Roberta