By Roger Gardner

This was a thoroughly enjoyable event organised by the University of Bristol Graduate School of Education. Coinciding with the School’s centenary celebrations it aimed to look ahead to potential developments and changes in education over the next 100 years. All of the speakers were excellent and thought-provoking, but here are a few personal highlights.

Dr Richard Harris kicked off by suggesting that the current face-to-face University experience will become the exception rather than the norm in future with the majority of learning in HE being “pay as you go” from large online universities, backed by a mixture of philanthropy and commercial interest.

Professor Sri Subramanian outlined some of his work on brain computer interfaces and gestural interfaces, as well as morphees, (“self-actuated flexible mobile devices adapting their shapes on their own to the context of use in order to offer better affordances”).

Professor Mike Fraser reassured all those teachers present that the “Robot teacher” was not coming any time soon, stressing the importance of physicality and co-presence in learning environments and highlighting the gap and the nuances separating best and mechanical practice.

After a delicious lunch (as promised!) we re-convened to vote on some of the predictions, discussing whether they were likely to happen in 10, 20, 50, 100 years or never. Opinions were quite varied on many of the statements we considered (most are available on Google Moderator.)  There was quite a bit of discussion on the subject of so-called “smart drugs”, whether use will increase and and to what extent consumption of these can be considered “cheating” when other stimulating drugs such as caffeine are commonplace.

One emerging theme of interest seemed to be the area of genetics and education, for example speculation and concerns around genetic enhancement of learning ability. Another was wearable devices (highlighted in the Horizon Report 2013 shortlist), including the possibility of student learning being monitored through use of implants or wearable devices.

So plenty of food for thought, and a stimulating range of perspectives from the invited speakers.  I particularly liked the conversational approach of the event, in which Paul Howard Jones chatted with each panel member for ten minutes before inviting questions from the audience.

This month JISC Digital Media have run a webinar and released some useful guidance on audio and video for assessment and feedback. They provide some ideas for the use of audio and video when setting an assessment, during completion of the assessment, in submission of assessed work and in provision of feedback.

By Suzi Wells

Having booked at the last minute I was a little unsure what to expect at this one-day workshop. It was publicised through the MEDEV website. Not having a background in medical education I wasn’t sure how relevant it would be to me.

By Roger Gardner

As part of the Education Excellence Seminar series organised by Phil Langton in the Faculty of Medical and Veterinary Sciences, I presented recently on ideas for using technology to enhance marking and feedback.

The aim of the session was to raise awareness of a range of options in this area. In between some demonstrations and consideration of benefits and issues, there was plenty of discussion and questions. We looked at some examples from our collection of case studies on the TEL website, and there was interest from some colleagues attending in trying out some of the approaches in the coming year, including screencast feedback and Turnitin Grademark.

By Suzi Wells

Last week I attended the HEA BioMaths Challenges workshop at the (rather grand) Nuffield Foundation building in London. It was an excellent event, and I came away with more interesting things to follow up than I will have time for.

As well as the usual drivers – mixed student ability, experience and confidence in maths and statistics – several speakers mentioned the changing requirements for maths in the Bio Sciences. More and bigger data sets are available, that you can’t begin to understand without quite advanced statistical techniques. And maths is required to create predictive models of biological systems, models which have become possible as our understanding of these systems has become more complete.

Confidence was also mentioned, with one speaker declaring war on maths phobia. Toby Carter  (Anglia Ruskin University) demonstrated the impressively fun-looking StartLogo TNG which they have used very successfully with 3rd year students and postgraduates as a way in to simulations that does not require programming experience. It also got me wondering how much the Code Club initiative, after-school programming clubs for 10-11 year olds, might be indirectly addressing maths confidence and helping to open up advanced maths to students.

Hearing about how people used open educational resources (OERs) within this context was also interesting. Not much mention of repurposing them and incorporating them into an institution’s own material. But students would use them, sometimes being directed to them within problem classes, and one person mentioned using them as lecture notes: printing them out and talking around the maths.

Following this event there will be more information on the Biomaths Education Network website, set up by Jenny Koenig (Cambridge) and Dawn Hawkins (Anglia Ruskin University). At Bristol I’ll add more to our Maths and Stats Teaching (UoB only) section on Blackboard. I believe the slides from the day will also be available in the future.

(Note to speakers / attendees – as we were told Chatham House Rules applied, and my notes were somewhat disorganised, I haven’t attributed anything than wasn’t in people’s slides as they appear on the data stick. Drop me an email suzi.wells@bristol.ac.uk if you’d like me to change anything.)