Manchester Metropolitan University

This is a resource you might want to access in order to see the sort of learning that goes on in secondary schools and colleges:

“UK-based Teachers TV has been producing instructional videos showing actual classroom footage since 2008. The content is used by educators worldwide and was government funded until the site closed down in 2011. Alexander Street Press has licensed this material and is pleased to make it available FREE to all libraries in the U.K.
 
Access to Teacher’s TV has been automatically set up for you.  All you need to do is point your browser to: http://edtv.alexanderstreet.com
 
The Teachers TV content covers every possible subject area— Bullying, Behavior Management, ADHD in the classroom, Early Language, Secondary Maths, Art Workshop, Guided Reading, Primary Science, Dealing with Family Breakdown and more. We’ve created a playlist that highlights this content – please click the follow link to view these examples: http://ediv.alexanderstreet.com/Playlists/398146
 
In addition to being able to access this important content via streaming video, we’ve also transcribed approximately 50 hours or 230 titles in Teacher’s TV.  These transcripts are synchronized to each video title and downloadable as full text documents – giving you the ability to interact with this content in ways not available to you before.
 
Going forward, we will be offering customers the chance to “top up” from the free version to our full Education in Video collection. This will be available at a significantly reduced cost to a full Education in Video subscription in other markets.  More information on Education in Video can be found here: http://alexanderstreet.com/products/education“

JISC’s new guide, Effective Assessment in a Digital Age, demonstrates how technology can significantly improve the experience of assessment and feedback. As many higher education institutions are reviewing their assessment strategies, JISC is looking at the transformative effects of technology that increase learner autonomy, enhances the quality of the assessment experience and improves teaching efficiency.

Further details

The association for Learning Technology (ALT) have recently produced a series of 9 guides looking at how research in various areas of learning technologies might inform the practical deployment of these technologies
 
The 9 guides cover the topics below and can be found at
http://wiki.alt.ac.uk/index.php/What_research_has_to_say_for_practice

Tutoring on-line
Web-based course design
Learner acceptance of on-line learning and e-learning
Learning objects and repositories
Learning using mobile and hand-held devices
On-line communities
Technology-supported assessment
Learning environments
Using social software in learning

This is quite an interesting tool developed by a team from Bradford university with JISC funding, although the learning and teaching implications may still be a bit obscure. It searches Wikipedia for related terms and then creates a concept map showing how they are linked. It isn’t a recommendation for students to use wikipedia, before everyone shouts at once, it just shows ways in which students could be given some starting points for thinking about topics. The example given is for students to search from ‘bread’ to ‘cheese’ but you can quickly think of more useful examples such as “politics” to “indonesia” or “quantum theory” to “nuclear energy”.

Haven’t tested it as you have to install MS Silverlight on your computer – surely an accessibility issue – but would be interested to see what people think.

The UK is at risk of losing its world-leading reputation for education unless it continues to invest in digital technologies to meet the ever-changing needs of modern learners, researchers and the academic community says JISC in its three-year strategy which launches today.

The strategy outlines a vision of the future whereby a robust technological infrastructure is required to meet the shifting needs of the 21st century education community. JISC believes it is crucial that the UK ’s education system continues to compete on the international stage by investing in innovation, research and increasing the availability of online resources.

JISC Chair Professor Sir Tim O’Shea commented: "The UK ‘s learner base is changing at great speed. Students are increasingly demanding that universities and colleges provide flexible and personalised learning which makes full use of the internet and IT applications. Such demands and expectations are set to increase as we move through this decade and into the next.

"If we fail to sustain the required research and investment to assist universities and colleges in their drive to improve their efficiency, effectiveness and to manage their costs, the UK risks losing its reputation for world-class education."

Recent JISC projects, such as the Google Generation and Sustainable ICT studies, have defined a new world for teaching and learning and have outlined the infrastructure needed to support it. With new technologies constantly evolving, sustained investment is needed to pioneer their use. Over the last decade JISC has invested its research and development funds in around 200 universities and colleges to help uncover new products, approaches and systems as well as increase skills and capacity.

JANET has developed a world-leading computer network and technical backbone which has transformed the way that technology is used and understood. Now, a network once used by a select few purely for cutting-edge research allows millions in education and research to share, manipulate, analyse and reuse digital content from around the world. It is also the first national research and education network in the world to complete a 100Gbit/s network trial that is nearly two hundred thousand times faster than the average broadband connection.

As the web continues to transform life in the education sector, JISC, through its services will guide individuals and organisations to make effective use of digital technology through training and staff development

JISC’s strategy outlines four key areas of investment: effective, creative approaches to teaching and an enhanced learning experience; increased research quality and innovative approaches to support the research process; efficient and effective institutions; shared infrastructure and resources.

Within these four areas, focus will be given to online learning, management information systems, cloud computing, innovation and impact.

A rich online learning culture has a huge part to play to ensure UK colleges and universities remain attractive in the domestic and global markets. In addition, with the release of cloud computing now offering a real and widespread new way of working enabling institutions, learners and researchers to access information, resources and software online without the need for local storage.

JISC Executive Secretary Dr Malcolm Read OBE added: “Realising cost savings and improving value for money and efficiency through exploiting technology needs, leadership and culture change. There are many opportunities to consider; the technical risks are modest but the risks to an organisation through adopting new business and teaching and learning processes can be considerable. But funding and economic pressures require such change and JISC’s role is to show how this transition can be managed and the benefits gained.”

The launch of JISC’s strategy 2010-2012 follows a period of consultation in which UK higher and further education institutions, membership bodies, mission groups, and key partners were invited to respond and help inform the strategy’s final direction. The strategy has been written to ensure JISC’s planned future investment priorities focus on the areas of greatest importance to those in education and research.

View reactions to the JISC strategy 2010-2012 on a short video

Read the strategy online

The Social Policy and Social Work (SWAP) Subject Centre send out a monthly e-bulletin about their activities. To read about SWAP and subscribe to the bulletin, visit the SWAP web pages. Forthcoming events include:

• Successfully integrating discipline characteristics within generic education development programmes
• Living and Learning, Learning and Teaching: Mental Health in Higher Education

 

Are you interested in enhancing the use of technology within your department?
The Discipline-focused Learning Technology Enhancement Academy 2010 provides a programme of workshops and the ongoing support of an expert ‘critical friend’ over a twelve month period to help you plan and implement a learning and teaching enhancement project within your department. The programme will benefit you most if you are at an early stage of thinking about possibilities, as you will be invited to attend an initial workshop in order to develop your ideas. Further details

 

 

e-Learning publications put learner at the heart of curriculum development

Three new publications showcasing recent JISC research into curriculum design and the needs and aspirations of digital learners were being launched  at the recent Association for Learning Technology conference in Manchester.

The reports aim to inform curriculum development and disseminate good practice for universities and colleges looking to respond to students’ views on e-learning and prepare them for study in a digital age.

JISC programme manager Sarah Knight said: “Two of these publications draw together the latest findings from JISC’s £11.36 million e-learning programme which ended in March 2009, and show the central role technology is playing in enhancing the curriculum design processes and practices in UK colleges and universities.”

The first publication,  ‘Responding to Learners’, is a resource pack which offers recommendations on how institutions can better respond to learners’ expectations and uses of technology, as well as practical guidance on how to embed learners’ voices more effectively into institutional processes and
practice. 

The pack brings together the research findings from the ‘learners’ experiences of e-learning’ theme of JISC’s e-learning programme, which funded a total of ten projects from 2005 to 2009, and involved over 200 learners in qualitative research with more than 3000 survey respondents. 

Download the Responding to Learners pack

e-Learning is explored from a strategic viewpoint in a second publication, ‘Managing Curriculum Change’, which investigates how technology can help make curriculum design processes more responsive and the experience of learning more engaging, inclusive and rewarding. The publication visualises a curriculum lifecycle, with a focus on who needs to be involved to help theory become reality.

The written report is supported by the web based Design Studio , is a dynamic online toolkit hosted by JISC InfoNet, which draws together a range of JISC resources around technology-enhanced curriculum design and delivery.

Download the Managing Curriculum Change resources

The third publication, a briefing paper on learning literacies for a digital age, summarises findings from a recent JISC-funded report of the same name.

Sarah explained: “For those in education who want to design more engaging learning experiences, having a greater understanding of students’ expectations with respect to technology is really key, especially as these
are constantly changing.  The case studies in JISC’s publication allow us to take a real cross-section of the student population’s needs and share that knowledge across universities and colleges nationally.”

‘Learning Literacies in a Digital Age’ explores examples of technology skills provision in UK further and higher education and offers a series of recommendations for institutions which want to evaluate their own provision in this area, based on original data including 15 institutional audits and over 40 examples of innovative practice from across the UK. 

Download the Learning Literacies in a Digital Age briefing paper  

Find out more about JISC’s e-learning programme

JISC’s new guide to Second Life is written by lecturers for lecturers, to help others to use virtual worlds for teaching.

‘Getting Started in Second Life’ answers some common questions like how to set up in Second Life, what the rules of the world are, how to plan lessons and how best to help students use it effectively for learning.

The aim of the guide is to present the basics in order to help lecturers experiment, rather than them getting lost in mastering the detail of the virtual environment.

For further information and to download or order the guide, visit the JISC web site.

A one day conference about the use of audio for feeding back on students’ work in higher education
Date: Friday 18 December 2009
Venue: Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus, Howard Street,
Sheffield S1 1WB

Keynote: Bob Rotheram, National Teaching Fellow, Leeds Met (Sounds Good:Quicker, better assessment using audio feedback)

This national conference aims to bring people together from UK higher education who are interested in finding out about audio feedback or who would like to share and develop their experience and interest in using audio feedback to enhance the learner experience.

Call for Contributions

Given the conference focus, we would like to receive proposals that represent a wide range of interest, success and difficulty. The conference aims to represent the pedadgogic, technical, cultural, and organisational aspects of those innovating in this area. Contributions are therefore welcomed from individuals and collaborators including:

• academics
• support and development staff
• students
• people with responsibility for elearning and academic strategy
• and others

The call seeks contributions in the form of:

• short papers
• posters
• workshops, and
• case studies in audio format

Deadline for submissions: Call for proposals closes 29th July 2009.
Please submit proposals by this date even where you will be still awaiting final outcomes of the work that you anticipate reporting upon.
Further details are available on the conference website or contact Andrew Middleton for more information

JISC press release:

There is also a simple editing service which allows users to create specific clips. These, as well as entire programmes or series can be added to playlists, for sharing with other students or research colleagues. Users can then comment, tag or rate these playlists, clips or programmes.

Commenting on the launch of BoB National, Keith Parry, programme leader for sports coaching and development, Bournemouth University, said: “It’s a fantastic resource which allows me to share content with students and staff alike. For example, students are encouraged to watch European football games as part of their coaching analysis module, and they appreciate the fact they can watch these as many times as they need, wherever they need. For sports history and sociology I use the service to link footage to the department’s Virtual Learning Environment – without BoB this would not be possible.

“BoB has given us the ability here at Bournemouth to be able to facilitate new and different learning styles which fit perfectly with today’s students’ consumption of learning material. And student feedback is that they enjoy the ability to view content off-campus and at a time of their choosing, which is particularly useful when it comes to revision time. BoB is already well-used among staff and researchers at Bournemouth and we look forward to it being opened up to peers at other institutions.”

Further information

* BoB National operates specifically within the terms of the ERA+ licensing scheme offered by the Educational Recording Agency. The head licensee for BoB is Bournemouth University and any institution given access to share the facility is required to be in membership of the BUFVC, and also to hold a current ERA+ licence. The ERA+ licence operates only within the territory of the United Kingdom and relates to off campus access to content acquired under Section 35 of the UK’s Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Educational Recording Agency (ERA) is a licensing and collecting agency which represents broadcasters, performers and rights holders, for more information please visit the ERA website.