PgCert - Sketches

In preparation for the Pg Cert session that I'm delivering on 17th Dec, here are some sketches of things that might be in there:

My Prezis 

 Technology Enhanced learning at Coventry University -
 http://prezi.com/2qpkwxfldyh3/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

 Finding Technology - includes my technology-wise criteria
http://prezi.com/kmnquf2e4rnz/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

  TIPS from the above

• Make it your own by using your photo
• Make it easier for yourself by using a template

A Source 

C4LPT Top 100 tools for Learning: 
http://c4lpt.co.uk/top100tools

Etherpad

From this I looked at etherpad.  It's like using a very simple wiki.
http://c4lpt.co.uk/top100tools/etherpad/
pick one of publicly available instances that friendly people from everywhere around the world have set up.
So I chose this:
 https://piratepad.ca/

Then I have to suggest a name of a pad that I've already started (or at least get everyone into one). Everyone/group needs to be in the same one.
Then I gave everyone a little exercise to do...

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2013

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2013

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2013

Moodle Tip - New icons

For people with teacher access: if you're not sure what an icon does, then just hover your mouse over it - in Moodle that is.

There's a slight difference: the "pen in hand" icon's been replaced by a cog, but that's it.

More information on the new icons is here in Moodle docs

Introduction to blogs

Today I gave a half-day workshop to colleagues in Coventry University London Campus.

Topics

• Defining the purpose of your blog and its messages
• What is a blog?
• Best Practice
• Writing a blog post
• What makes a good blog?
• Twitter
• RSS feeds
• Components of a blog

Here's one of the resources that I created for the workshop. Its purpose was to show many links so I put it into a blog. http://introductiontoblogs.wordpress.com 

Blogs are excellent for showing links but if there are links on a blog, people visiting it may soon disappear! But I want visitors to explore the links.  And to do other things.

Add a picture to your profile

If you don't have an image in your profile, it shows up blank. Although you might prefer anonymity, it would enhance your students' experience if you added a personal image.

First, get your picture:

You might want to use a photograph. Unless you have a square image, you will need to crop the photo. Here's how you can edit the photo, ready for your profile :

Then add the picture to your profile in Moodle as follows:

1. To access your profile, click your name (at the top)
2. Then on the left, under Settings, click Edit profile
3. Scroll to User Picture, add your image (JPG or PNG) then
4. Click Update Profile at the bottom of that page

Using Moodle gradebook and assignments

Coventry University: This is a recommended procedure for adding your marks to Moodle and uploading them to Universe.

Summary of the steps to take

1. Find out the assessment components
2. Set up your online assessments
3. Does the Gradebook have the required columns?
4. Are the columns hidden until the release date?
5. Mark your assignments
6. Upload your marks from Moodle to Universe

More details and guides are in the online resource (CU login needed).
Briefing sessions for this are taking place throughout the academic year 2013-14.


The resource was created using Mahara e-portfolio.

My demonstrations and workshops for Oct to Dec

This is the schedule so far of events for Coventry University staff. It includes:

DEMONSTRATIONS

• Moodle 2 essentials for new tutors
• Mahara e-portfolio for your students
• Alternative presentation technology
• Using Moodle gradebook and assignments
• Moodle and media for beginners
• Communicating with your students using Moodle

WORKSHOPS / HANDS-ON DEMONSTRATIONS

• Your new Moodle Course: This is for course directors and tutors who need to edit courses
• Enhancing your students’ Moodle experience
• Tidying up your Moodle
• Moodle for technophobes
• Adding Content to Moodle2
• Moodle and Mahara with your Tutor Group
• Alternative presentation technology
• Moodle and media for beginners

I hope to branch out. Watch this space for a wider range of events...

LearnMoodle first experiences

It's great to be at the other end of a course!  I like the fact that the video could be played this morning - I was definitely busy earlier this week.
Oh - I'm on this Moodle MOOC...Teaching with Moodle. It started on the first of September and I'm catching up quickly. I have a badge already!  This version of Moodle (2.5) has the capability of giving out badges. So here's a reflection, based on the guidance suggested in the course:

• one thing we've learned
• why we consider it important
• how we can use it later
• which other questions it raises

I've found so far (compared with the Moodle I've been using):

1. There's an extra condition on the topic... FIELD.  Wonderful.
2. The editor for Page is different for the Description and the Content.  The number of times that I've put Content into Description...
3. The GORGEOUS dropdowns for the settings to de-clutter a page.

So one thing that I've learnt is that Moodle continues to evolve. The evolution is important because of the street cred of a system.  Technology is continually moving and this needs to be reflected in the applications that are available. It's great to see that Moodle is alive and continues to move. I'll be using this later to watch out for other snags that tutors might have that prevents them from using Moodle. I'm still thinking about the questions that it raises. Probably... if more people are aware of the wonderful facilities that are available in Moodle 2.5 then they will push for that to happen much more quickly.

Get another internet browser

If you have only used Internet Explorer (IE) to browse the Internet, you might like to consider some alternatives. Especially as the commonly used version of IE does not do some fundamental things that work with other browsers. You may like to know that according to GS Stat Counter, IE is no longer the most frequently used browser. Here are the most commonly used browsers, together with links to their download pages:

• Google Chrome
• Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Firefox
• Safari  (Mac and iPad users have Safari)

Portable browsers from PortableApps

If you want to use a browser that is self-contained (would run on a memory stick or an independent drive), there are portable versions of web browsers that are available here:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet

All sites give free download and you don't have to log in or create an account.

Alternative Presentation Technologies - demonstration and workshop

This was first presented in September 2013 as both a demonstration and a workshop. In demonstration mode, the SpicyNodes was used.  For the Workshop, some applications were highlighted with the view of getting members to creates something, either from their own PowerPoints or from scratch.

So this time, the resource is a Mahara page. Note that I used one column at the top, three in the middle and two near the bottom.  Can you guess how?

September schedule

Technology Enhanced Learning events: September 2013

Here's a list of some of the demonstrations and workshops that I'm delivering next month:

DEMONSTRATIONS

• Moodle 2 essentials and new look
• Mahara e-portfolio for your students
• Alternative presentation technology
• Communicating with your students using Moodle

WORKSHOPS / HANDS-ON DEMONSTRATIONS

• Enhancing your students’ Moodle experience
• Tidying up your Moodle
• Holiday Reading Open Workshop
• Preparing to teach with Moodle 2
• Moodle for technophobes
• Adding Content to Moodle2
• Moodle and Mahara with your Tutor Group
• Alternative presentation technology

More information and how to book

Adding audio to a PowerPoint presentation

Adding audio to a PowerPoint presentation can be done but it needs some settings that are subtle, there and I often forget them.

Here are instructions:
https://curve.coventry.ac.uk/cu/file/50961da8-ac28-47e0-bc4c-284773dbf633/1/Adding-audio-PowerPoint-presentation.pdf
Coventry University only, I may make them open later.

Holiday Reading part 2

Now on the last week of August and over 60 people have enrolled. :)

Holiday Reading for Coventry University staff

My Holiday Reading Moodle Course now has over 50 people enrolled on it. This online course was introduced at the Technology for Teaching at the Learning and Development Conference

Topics include:

• Differences between Moodle 1 and Moodle 2 
• Tips on how to use Moodle to help engage students 

 Participants won't see everything at once as they will need to complete some activities and not all topics have been released yet.

Mahara 2013 at the Custard Factory – my perspective

Mahara UK 2013 Conference site

Following the Mahara conference, I took a fortnight's leave (in England, no rain during the entire time), so this report is delayed.

Here are a few observations taken from my little notebook (one with real paper).

Badges seem to be the upcoming theme, as Mozilla have their Open Badges project and badges are available in Moodle 2.5.

Leading the Development of Academic Practice - Flying Visitor from Canada

The weather this July reminded me of the weather that I experienced during my time as a Visiting Fellow in Ontario, Canada in 2011. This year I had the opportunity to be host as Dr Alan Wright who is the Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning at the University of Windsor in Ontario came on a flying visit to the UK. In addition, Alan came to Coventry University to present a seminar on Leading the Development of Academic Practice. The seminar was well received by those who attended, who came from many different parts of the University.

Six years ago, Windsor was the first university in Canada to appoint a Vice-Provost with a specific teaching and learning leadership mandate, and ten other universities have since followed suit. Their job is to lead the development of academic practice by influencing policy with the aim of promoting change and improving the student experience. In the seminar, Alan discussed the way that this needed to be achieved by addressing the notion of getting lecturers' support and commitment to changes and the need to integrate the plans within academic practice.

The presentation is now available in Curve - Coventry University's Open Collection

Best of Moodle2 - basic tutor guide

This handout will show tutors some basic features of Moodle2 and how to do them. It includes the following:

• How to enter Moodle at Coventry University
• Moodle 2 home page
• Add an item to the news forum
• Editing a module/course
• Change the topic title and add a summary
• Changing the number of topics
• Adding a link to a web site (URL resource)
• Using blocks
• Adding a file using drag and drop
• Adding a file - using upload

Technology for Teaching at the Learning and Development Conference

July 2013 Schedule

Demonstrations and workshops about Moodle and Mahara in July.

July 2013 Schedule

Holiday Reading

• Want to learn more about technologies for teaching?
• Can’t get to the July workshops?
• Then Holiday Reading may be the answer for you.
• It’s about the basics of Moodle 2 plus hints and tips about using Moodle and Mahara in your teaching.
• It’s online so you can use it anywhere in the world!
•  Access the course here (Coventry University Staff only; email Anne for the enrolment key). 

Communicating with your students using Moodle

This is aimed for tutors or TAs who may have not used Moodle 2 before.

This demonstration and discussion session will show how you can use Moodle’s realtime quiz, forums for different purposes and how you can give feedback to your students
The demonstration includes:
Realtime quiz
A comparison between the Standard forum, QA forum and the News forum
Offline assignment
Mahara assignment
The discussion will be about best practice and use of a communications strategy with students

Best of Moodle 2

First presented today to the Engineers.  Decided to present as a Mahara page, plus a Moodle bit for the Realtime quiz and for the demo parts. The PowerPoint was a set of images.  The images' text didn't come out as expected (they were exported as GIF, I exported them again, this time to JPG and they're fine now).


Getting into putting a TinyURL for the page and a QR code for reference too. Paper-free resources!

The presentation plus resources. 

Mahara at London Campus with the new LT

I showed examples and gave an introduction to Mahara and we did the following:

• Looked at examples, including embedding audio and image gallery
• Added Content
• Added items to a Journal
• Created a Page and Shared it with a URL
• As a Moodle tutor, set up a Mahara assignment and marked a submission
• As a student, created a Mahara page and submitted it to a Mahara assignment within Moodle
• Created a template page for people to copy (and be aware of the option to retain view of the copy).
• Created and invited colleagues to a Mahara group.
• Used embed.ly to embed external media.

(As a Moodle Admin person, created a Moodle sandpit Course and  a student ID and added his own ID to the Course)

 Lunchtime... took in the local culture... brightening up a cold late spring time at Spitalfields Market.

Alternative Presentation Technology

And yet another one... updated a little, too. PechaKucha very useful so kept in, but there are a couple of new entries...

Presented on 28th May and 26th June.

Marks from Moodle to the student database

Successfully delivered a demo to members of one School/Faculty.

All receiving the demo needed to have proper access to the student database and needed to be module leaders. I needed a registrar there to answer questions too. 

Anyone from CU can access the online guide (still in the pilot stage) by contacting me.

Summary

Assessment components

What components are needed by the student database? Refer to your MID for the required components for a module (eg coursework, practical, written exam).
Only those will need to be exported from Moodle to it.

Columns

Each component needs a column in the gradebook.

Assignments that are set up in Moodle, such as Turnitin, where students are required to upload items to Moodle automatically have a column in the gradebook.  You need to mark these online.

Other assignments, for example, written examinations, need to have a column adding before adding marks. There's a video to show you how.

Transfer your marks from Moodle to the student database

There's a video that shows you how. To do this step, you need to have proper access to the student database.
For each module, you will be exporting one component at a time and receiving a confirmation email. 
Email the confirmation spreadsheet to your School/Faculty registrar.
Problems? Contact your School/Faculty registrar.

Technology enhanced learning events - my schedule

Here’s the booklet of demonstrations and workshops (to end of June) that I'm delivering to colleagues at Coventry University.

Using Moodle's Realtime Quiz

I heard about Moodle plugin Realtime Quiz from a colleague so thought I'd give it a go. To learn how to use it, I viewed a YouTube video made by the creator of the plugin, Davo Smith. I found the video extremely useful because it gave a demonstration of Realtime Quiz  in use and it talked me (teacher) through the process. (Videos are great because they can be replayed and I would not have understood the reason for each of 3 options at one stage.) Also, I learnt about the significance of naming a session and easily being able to test it beforehand.

When I set up the questions, they had to be single option multi-choice, so I needed to re-word some of the questions.

I like the fact that you can choose a "No right answer" where an opinion, not a fact is needed. This was useful for asking people about what topic the felt least confident in using and giving a set of options.

Issues in my session

The issues are to do with the way I set it up, not the plugin. It worked beautifully.

The timing, especially having a wordy question in question 2.  (I could have changed individual questions' times and the default time.)

Answering skills

Apart from the wordy question 2, the lowest response was for question 1... this may be because all of the people in the group had tablets (Android or iPad) that were new to them and some had problems. Also on at least one occasion, someone pressed an option accidentally... Realtime Quiz is very unforgiving and takes the first "press", not allowing anyone to change their mind.

Next time

What I would do next time - yes, there will be a next time! 

• Make question 1 a longer response time.
• Build up to more complex questions.
• I had the opinion questions after the scoring questions and stated on more than one occasion that they were not for scoring. I think that worked. I might try alternatives.

I'm not the expert - a cautionary tale

Last week, I was looking forward to presenting to a group of new HE tutors who were just starting their Postgraduate Certificate course. I had been asked to tell them about the technology enhanced learning tools. So, the day before, I went to the location and checked that the computer was working and that the internet could cope with a video that I was going to show. It did.
I didn't twig that the mouse was a Mac mouse; I was just using it as normal. Although I'm familiar with Macs - I have a Macbook pro - I'm not familiar with their mouses.

On the day - I was assembling things and I knew that some of them were on a new memory stick. Here's a way to impress one's new boss - I put the stick into the computer, to show what I'd been doing and the stick didn't work. ALL MY WORK... there was a backup but it was IN A SAFE PLACE... (a euphamism for "I'm not sure where..."). 
After trying several options with the stick and the computer... I suddenly realised that I'd put the stick in the wrong way. This particular slimline stick didn't stop me from putting it in upside down.

In the afternoon, I started to give my demonstration and I couldn't log into the VLE.  And the hundreds of times that I had logged in before... just when I wanted to demonstrate some great features. And I couldn't log in. I had been locked out. In trying to recover, I suddenly noticed the mouse and that it was different (without two buttons) and this didn't help as I wanted to right click. Eventually, I  recovered, but things were a little sticky for a few moments.

So - I need to be aware of a plan B. Not necessarily the stick either. I'm working on it. I need to be aware that if I make any changes, then the backup also needs to be changed too. Also, during a demonstration, to go quickly and seamlessly to plan B, as if that were the plan A.
And to be aware of the many alternatives that are in a room when I present.
The video worked fine by the way. But it showed me that I will never present myself as "the expert", as things are just as likely to go wrong when I'm using the technology. 


During the morning, I had spent some time helping someone by ascertaining whether some software was working. It required me to put in my user name and password to enable publishing to the VLE. Unfortunately the settings weren't correct but eventually I managed to succeed. This may have caused the lock-out.

Presentation for the Pg Cert group

Main aspects of my presentation

• Awareness of Coventry University Online technologies, including Moodle, Mahara and Turnitin
• Awareness of some accessibility issues when putting materials online and where to get more help
• Becoming more digitally literate: finding and using resources for Technology Enhancement

Here's the Mahara page that I used to display the resources that I used during my presentation.

One or two features follow...

---

It's not about the Technology

http://goanimate.com/go/movie/0H9D51-PZQLQ

---

Padlet example

Created with Padlet

SoftChalk tips - sessions for BB

Currently, we're using SoftChalk 7 (not Cloud).
I demonstrated some of the facilities of SoftChalk to BB and his students (final and Master's).

• Here's a link to my SoftChalk tips handout that I updated recently. 
• Here are some of SoftChalk's examples that I used. 
• And for people who need to know how to use SoftChalk, here are some of SoftChalk's own videos.
• Here's where you can find a link to a colour contrast checker.
• Finally, a link to Thunder, a free screen reader, so that you can hear what your page sounds like. Notice that Thunder's page has no scheme (style). Why?

You can download a free 30 day trial of SoftChalk from: http://www.softchalk.com

Moodle for Tutors of the Linguae Mundi courses

The organisation

Each language (10) had a Moodle course assigned to it. There was more than one tutor teaching some of the languages so groups were used in Moodle. Tutors had their own groups of students. Corresponding Moodle groups were set up and students selected the Moodle group to which they belonged. They then had access to the resources and activities that were put into Moodle by their tutor.

As a result, the training materials contained some information about groups and selective release, as well as using a Forum that has a Separate Groups setting.

Preparing Documents

To make the document more accessible, I recommended marking the language within a document and using Styles in Word. I showed some short movies that I created. They use the Word 2007 version but the options are similar.

Resources

The accessibility movies and a link to my handout for this session are all available on this page. (I created the page using Mahara.)

Digital Fluency for Library Colleagues - week 1

The icebreaker

Go to dvolver and in pairs (or you can do a soliloquy!). Create a movie with the required items and share it with me/each other.

www.dvolver.com

---

More stuff

Go to the Moodle course (participants only).

PowerPoint alternatives - including PechaKucha

How else can you use PowerPoint? What can you use instead of PowerPoint? This demonstration seminar that I gave highlighted some examples and applications that you can use, including PechaKucha (10 years on).

A summary of examples and resources is in this SpicyNodes mindmap...

Text to speech

When I was asked recently about text to speech, I became diverted because there are many options. 

I had a reunion with lost friends, looked at different voices and characters and found a variety of resources.

In the end, I discovered that the person wanted a voice to read her text documents while she was commuting. I found some useful, recently published items too.

Here's the full article, presented as a Mahara page.

Moodle for colleagues working in the library

I created a Moodle course/web with several items, including selective release, images in the blocks, RSS feeds.

I used selective release to enable participants decide which topics they wanted to see.  Also they needed to add a message to the forum and an item in the glossary to release more items.

I created a guide to give instructions for access and made the course a self-enrolment with a key.

I presented it today to 28 library colleagues. They all managed to access it and all did most of the activities.

I'm sure that they learnt more than just a demonstration.

Dvolver example

I created the example very quickly from dvolver.com
As it automatically starts and has audio (music), I've put it under the more...

News (RSS) feed block to Moodle

These instructions show you how to add a block that shows RSS feeds to Moodle:

My video and printable PDF "how to" guides.

You can also add an RSS feed to a twitter account too.  To do this, I referred to a separate blog which works. (Today) :)  Here is the solution:

For an account called xxxxx you can use the feed link:

http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=xxxxx

Put the name instead of the xxxxx

For example, for the user found at http://twitter.com/covcampus
I found that the following feed worked:

http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=covcampus

Not any more! See the separate blog plus update.

Michael Peak, British Council

I attended a seminar given at Coventry University by Michael Peake on "HE Trends and Opportunities to 2020". It included research by the British Council on "the shape of things to come". The talk gave several sets of results comparing different countries' rates of students' movement between countries.

Some results included the following:

• UK growth rates of international students has always been positive since 1995.
• The USA growth rates of international students went negative after 9/11
• The Australian growth rates of international students decreased in 2009-10 following the tightening of related legislation. 
• Looking at a graph showing these rates over time, it looks like the UK follows Australia - will there be a similar decrease to that shown by Australia in the years to come?

Mahara for 198EM Students and their tutor

You can record what you've been up to using Mahara. (e-portfolio)
But you can do more than that.  You can also use Mahara for creating presentations and web pages.  And simple blogs.
This demonstration session gave some examples and included how a page could be created and shared in Mahara.

More Mahara - audio, templates, planning and more

So you have used Mahara to create a page and share it. There are more things that you can do with Mahara, such as adding audio, creating a template and using its basic planning application. This session demonstrated these facilities and showed examples of how they could be used.

Pre-requisites for this session

Summary of creating a page and secret URL

See Mahara guide (PDF) http://tinyurl.com/coventry-e-portfolio
NOTE: there's an Addendum to page 2 (PDF), to reflect the new access via Moodle 2 

Exporting some pages and adding them to Curve

Mahara Basics Demonstration Update (PDF) - see pages 3 and 4

Mahara Basics

Demonstration given in January 2013

This was a basic Mahara demonstration, using the examples that I had collated in the Mahara examples page and the updated Mahara Student Guide on the Mahara help page.

Star Rating

My comments on a "star-rated" system for online learning

I'm referring to Moodle here because that's what's used at Coventry University.

I think that a "star-rated" system would be great and would be one way of rewarding those who do well. I agree that it could also be used as a method to encourage tutors who need to improve their online presence.

I think that a "star-rated" system, if supplied with the right criteria, push, leadership and rewards, could be made to work.

More activities post-2012

Picking up this blog from many years ago! 

Entries prior to this date were a diary, starting just before my secondment to CIPeL in Spring 2007 and continuing throughout the secondment. My aim was to record here the events that take place throughout the secondment.

Subsequent entries are thoughts, notes and items that I have found interesting during my search for tools, techs and other items connected with my role in e-Learning.

The links quoted elsewhere in this may take a little time to clear up so please be patient if they don't yet work. Five years is a long time!
:)