This paper, written by Dr David Rush and Dr Bex Lewis, was accepted (see abstract), and will shortly be presented on this panel.
D-ICE for Change: Applying Organisational Development Guidance to IT Projects #ALTC2011
September 7, 2011 1 Comment
Along with Dr Andy Wilson and Marina Janetsky, we submitted an abstract for a workshop for ALTC11, which we were asked to resubmit as a panel paper. The paper is about to be given as part of this Panel (with Dr Bex Lewis representing the group’s findings). The initial report was confidential, but the findings appear relevant across many institutions:
Workshop: Meeting the Students Where They Are: Facebook
September 1, 2011 Leave a Comment
This afternoon, I am running the following workshop at the University of Winchester:
HEEG Session with @lisaharris @lorrainewarren @alanrae
March 22, 2011 Leave a Comment
An interesting session yesterday, encouraging the use of social media at the University of Winchester, especially entrepreneurial uses. A selective group…
Manipulating Media: Social Media Develops Academic Literacy Skills (Abstract for #PELC11)
January 10, 2011 1 Comment
PELC11: Digital Futures: Learning in a Connected World
Dr Marcus Leaning and Dr Bex Lewis, University of Winchester
Strand: Higher Education // Web 2.0
“Sit still and listen!”
Traditional learning approaches stress that the teacher is the source of all knowledge, that there is a fixed path to learning.
“Stand up and join in!”
Lifelong learning emphasises that educators are guides to sources of knowledge, which people learn by doing, in groups and from each other.
Manipulating media is a new course taken by all first year media studies students at the University of Winchester. Students taking the course work upon a number of live team briefs that present problems that require the use of academic literacy to be solved. The projects make extensive use of collaborative online learning. Students produce and deliver work using a number of web 2.0 applications and platforms, including reflective blogging. The course has proven very popular with students and there are clear indications of the development of academic literacy in students.
Previously, academic literacy, which comprises the core skills of critical thinking, evaluation of sources, referencing, analytic and critical writing and self directed learning has proven a difficult and often unpopular aspect of introductory years for students in higher education. At PELC10, there was much discussion of the contested notion of the ‘digital native’ , particularly as to the use of social technologies for learning. This paper explores one successful way in which a combination of social media and project based learning have been used to teach academic literacy to media studies undergraduate students at the University of Winchester, overcoming the sense of ‘disconnect’ between the substantive elements of a media studies degree and the ‘drier’ academic style and skills required.
Going PaperLess in Meetings #iPad
November 25, 2010 Leave a Comment
Today, at a meeting that I regularly go to, I decided to go ‘paperless’. The papers for the committee had already been emailed to me (rather than the usual internal post, which can be hard for me to get as I’m only in 2 days a week), and so were accessible via my email online.Some thoughts:
- I had a choice whether to open them as non-editable from the email or open them in other Apps I have installed, where I am more likely to be able to comment & annotate.
- As I thought of things, I could email myself, or tweet things out to a wider audience (which got some really interesting responses, not that I fed them back into the session!), or email someone, so actioning immediately.
- For this session, I emailed myself notes, rather than annotating online, largely because I haven’t had time to find the right app yet, and I wanted to concentrate in the meeting rather than be focused on the technology.
- I found it a little difficult to work out which paper we were on, as it was referred to by the chair by the document subject, rather than the attachment number given to the file emailed out. This, however, would be easy to rectify, particularly if the chair is also using an iPad.
- Similarly, when people talk about page numbers, these don’t exist if the document is opened straight from email (one long document). Potentially open in ‘Pages’ which is the iPad equivalent of Word (with Keynote for PowerPoint and Numbers for Excel, with documents exportable between the two).
- The iPad belongs to my department, rather than to me, but to use it, I’ve had to sync with my iTunes account. Other people have a desire to borrow it, but at present there’s a lot of my personal information, so we need to look at a departmental login (but there are 3 of us from the department in this particular committee!). See review.
- I got several people talking to me, who wanted to have a play with the iPad… as I’ve commonly said, demonstrating by example is the best way (sometimes its finding the time to demonstrate though!). We are looking at purchasing iPads so that most committees can go paperless – they would pay for themselves very quickly (in reduced paper costs), and aid the environmental agenda (well, if you take manufacturing out of the equation at least).
- We particularly think that for those taking minutes this will make a great difference, as notes will already be in online form, and therefore the production of minutes will be much less time-intensive, freeing up time for other tasks.
- If everyone is on the iPad (and we have good WiFi so no need for 3G iPads… if extra signal is required, a MiFi could be purchased), then extra documents to illustrate a point, etc. could be circulated immediately amongst delegates.
- Yes, a laptop or Notepad could do a similar job, but the iPad is so lightweight and so right for the job, that it seems a key tool.
Have other people used iPads or similar devices similarly, and has particular advice, warnings, or enthusiasms to provide?
Testing Wimba
November 25, 2010 Leave a Comment
Over the past couple of weeks 
I’ve been helping out at a couple of sessions at getting groups of students to use Wimba (I’m looking at ways of trying this more widely in the institution, but not there yet – think I may have to hang out in the dining area!). The students will then be interviewed for focus groups, and it will be very interesting to see their feedback.
The sessions were run by a pair of tutors, with one taking the lead on Friday, and one today. They had been on Wimba Classroom training sessions, but the use of the software was anticipated to be very “conscious” (the tutor always has more to learn than the student). I was available in the classroom to help calm nerves (so that the tutors could concentrate in another room), and ensure that the audio worked well (it’s what we’ve had the most issues with… Wimba’s not alone with these – I’ve been on the #jiscel10 conference all week, and a few people having issues there too!).
Friday Session
Friday was a 9am start (not always a great time), and we had 90 minutes for the session with First Years. Set up and log in was fairly straightforward. Students weren’t using their mikes so only needed to be able to hear. We recommended that they plug in the headphones before booting the browser. For some we also had to go into the control panel and change the settings as several were set to mute, but it was all pretty straightforward. I was not required to help calm any student nerves… they were straight in, experimenting with the different functionality. The tutor was running a seminar session based upon the previous day’s lecture. To a certain extent the students were a little distracted by the technology, but as they settled engaged with the interactivity that the tutor was putting forward. Inevitably, as they were in a room together, the group dynamic also came into play (and it would be interesting to see what would be different if they were all working from home computers), so there was quite a bit of laughing & joking (again, that was part of my role to ensure that didn’t get out of hand!). When the students were allocated to ‘Breakout Rooms’, the eBoard that we thought we’d disabled appeared, and the students greatly enjoyed doodling… of the most primitive kind! 10 minutes were given for them to work on the breakout material, maybe too long? The general feedback from the students was really positive, with some of them wondering why they’d had to come in (most of them only a few metres from students halls!) as they reckon they could easily have done it from home… it’s just straightforward. And yes, they all looked like “typical age” students.
Interestingly one student was ill and hopes to access the archive, and another couldn’t get in, so joined from home… both exactly the kind of situations that Wimba is designed for (but tutors need to work with the software before it’s required really, so that it’s more natural, and they can concentrate on the content, rather than the tech). We’re currently investigating what button we haven’t pressed to access the archive!
Thursday Session
Today, students had been in a lecture for the hour beforehand, and this seminar followed on from the lecture. Students were around 5 minutes late into the room, but logged in quickly. We initially couldn’t find the Classroom, but it was just in Moodle ‘shuteye’ mode, so once that was opened (and the browser refreshed), students were in. The process with the audio was the same this time, with all on fairly easily. We had 60 minutes for the session, and students weren’t all in until 26 minutes in (for distance sessions, we’d recommend that students log in 15 minutes beforehand). Students seemed to be more ‘with it’ from the beginning, and knowing that we hadn’t resolved the eBoard issue (which turned out to be that it is ALWAYS available in breakout rooms), we were clear that tutors can see into the breakout rooms, and as soon as they were announced I gave the students 60 seconds to play then encouraged them to move on to answering the queries. Students were again positive about this, and with the next session (not til Feb) we are planning to ask the students to bring in mikes as well as headsets, and seeing where we go with that – as the students found that in typing they lost some of what they wanted to say. In this we will need to ensure good etiquette for speaking (particularly with a slight sound delay on the audio) – common in the #jiscel10 conference is that people are asked to put their hand up and the chair nominates the next speaker. Seems to work well…
Staff were keen to help develop a ‘quickstart guide for dummies’ for Wimba Classroom, based upon what they wished they had known (even after the training!), although they are also aware of the material available here.
Well, that’s my “off the top of my head” feedback….
Blended Learning: One Year In
October 2, 2010 1 Comment
Yesterday, it was 1 year to the day since I started as Blended Learning Fellow at the University of Winchester, and rather than looking at my rather terrifying “to do” list, I thought I’d celebrate what I have done. My contract was 0.2 (1 day per week), until 2 months ago, where I have 12 months at 0.4!
- Building up an extensive set of material on the internal ‘Learning Network Blended Learning Pages’ (Moodle-based, which I have had to learn), which 152 people are now following (out of 200 academics).
- Learning the various Wimba products, writing strategy, promoting them (to staff & students) & training people in using them. Member of the Wimba Working Group, including chairing some sessions. Providing feedback to ITS and to our Wimba contact.
- On the Senate Learning and Teaching Committee, and the Learning Network Working Group.
- Learnt how to use Sharepoint for the new University website.
- Set up a timetable of Workshops, promoted, written & taught
- Presentations to all four Faculties re: Blended Learning, plus lots of smaller meetings & training sessions.
- Attended CET Lunches, and L&T Development Days, including presenting material on SkillsNet (a separate project for which I was funded).
- Set up Facebook Group and Twitter feeds, both of which need more work!
- Dealing with many many emails…
- Spent time in Second Life, and met with JISC people, in-life and IRL.
- Learning how to use ‘Clickers’, ‘Personal Response Systems’
- Followed FOTE09 online (October 2009)
- JISC E-Learning Fair (November 2009)
- JISC Innovating E-Learning Online (November 2009)
- Followed Ascilite online (December 2009)
- LLAS E-Learning Event (January 2010)
- Presented JISC Webinar on Twitter (March 2010)
- ‘Collaborative Enhancement in Teaching’ Lunch on ‘The 21st Century Learner‘ at short notice (March 2010)
- JISC Event (April 2010)
- Plymouth E-Learning Conference (April 2010), including presenting ‘Snow, Floods, Swine Flu, Terrorist Threats: Keep Calm and Carry On‘
- Undertaken surveys with staff & students re: their attitudes to Blended Learning/Twitter
- Live Blogging from International Blended Learning Conference (June 2010), including presenting ‘Twitter for Communities of Practice‘
- Set up blog ‘Blended Learning at the University of Winchester‘ (July 2010)
- Learning Literacies in a Digital Age event (September 2010)
- Working on the JISC-funded EMBED-IT Project (July 2010 onwards), with some extra funding/hours.
- Attending a few other events, e.g. Faculty BLS, Rosie Miles.
- Keeping an eye on digital stories in THE.
- Completing 2 out of 3 assignments for PGCLTHE, including the steps I’ve taken to develop a Blended Learning Community of Practice
- 980 followers on my Social Media in Education, Life & the Christian space Twitter account @digitalfprint, made some great connections through there.
No wonder I feel tired, but it looks good to see a list in black & white!
What Next?
- Continue training, talking, promoting, sessions, etc. and plan out my conferences for 2010/11
- Will be setting up a Wiki on Monday 4th October, in which staff can put forward case studies, tips & tricks, and be honest (internal viewing only), and identify material suitable for the external blog.
- Asked to be a “Super-Delegate” for JISC Online Conference Innovating e-Learning 2010 (October 2010)
- Arranged a couple of external speakers to visit the University, and will be running a ‘Drop-In-Day’ (November 2010) to allow people to come and have a go with various tech-tools.
- Turn ‘Twitter for Communities of Practice‘ into a journal article, with my co-author David Rush
- Assuming that I’ve passed my ‘Blended Learning’ module on the PGCLTHE, I’ll be teaching it next semester (that’s extra hours though!)
- Learn to film/produce “OK” videos to demonstrate a number of aspects of Blended Learning
- Identify appropriate funding streams from e.g. JISC.
Now I just need some time to actually read some of the many papers that I’ve identified would be useful to read.
SkillsNet: Boosting Academic Skills Performance
September 22, 2010 2 Comments
“Students’ lackadaisical attitude is just one of the things that troubles Bernard Lamb, emeritus reader in genetics at Imperial College London, who campaigns to improve the use of English. He worries that students are leaving university without a grasp of the basics and paying the price in the jobs market. He says employers often reject applicants purely on the basis of spelling or grammatical mistakes in their CVs: “Their errors showed poor attention to detail, ignorance and a bad attitude.”"
Newspapers enjoy demonstrating the lack of skills that graduates have, but Ann Mroz, editor of Times Higher Education indicates that these issues should be passed back to the government, and back down to skills… : “At university, students should be broadening their minds and learning how to think and work independently.” See full story, and associated stories on employability, and “by an English pedant“.
SkillsNet: Boosting Academic Skills Performance
SkillsNet offers on-line resources, tips and information to boost the academic performance of students at the University of Winchester. Study skills and study strategies are abilities and approaches applied to learning. Good study skills are critical to success at University, both in acquiring good grades, and proving useful for learning throughout one’s life.
Who is the site for?
SkillsNet is an interactive site providing easily accessible, relevant on-line resources to help students excel in their academic work, bringing together materials from across the University into one site. Whether the student is diligently preparing preparing ahead (everyone can improve), or working to a deadline, SkillsNet is available 24-7, 365 days a year to all students with a University log-in. The external site is fully open, and in future will include exemplars of material upon the site.
What information is on the site?
Students can search for useful tips, worksheets, ideas and information on such topics as dealing with written work, presentations, group work, learning actively, dealing with assessments and jargon under the section “I want to know about”. They can also access information about face-to-face workshops, other sources to dip into, and people who they can contact through “I want to go on a workshop” and “I want to talk to someone”. We are also encouraging contributions (comments, questions and suggestion)s through the interactive features, such as the blog, Facebook and Twitter under “I want more”!
“I want to know about…”
“I’m a student in”
“I want to go on a workshop”
“I want to talk to someone”
“I want more..”
In the future we will be adding specific information for specific disciplines through “I’m a student in…”, but this requires material provided by staff across the University, and until the site is within their consciousness, this will be slow in materialising – we could only work with the material that was already available at this stage. As the site develops, there will be options for more interactive material.
How was the site developed?
SkillsNet has been under development throughout the 2009/10 academic year, and, after much discussion as to whether it should external or internal, has been built upon the internal portal (using a 5+ year old infrastructure, which is undergoing some modernising). Bex, who Project Managed this, considered other similar sites, collated material, instructed other staff as to how to construct their sections, developed social media strategies, and undertook a focus group study which allowed us to see the enthusiasm that the students have for the project, and how we can continue to develop it – they were particularly keen to see exemplars of good/bad work from different disciplines. There is much material that can go on the site, and we have plans to develop SkillsNet to other aspects of personal skills development, including those related to employability.
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