Manchester Metropolitan University

Colleagues from around the University may be interested in the Masters in Research: Education and Society (FT and PT routes available) which will be run by members of the Education and Social Research Institute, starting in October 2013.  You can find out more about it here:  http://www.esri.mmu.ac.uk/resdegrees/mres.php.

The Leadership Foundation for Higher Education  has shortlisted our Communities of Practice for their Staff Development Impact Award. The winner will be announced at the LFHE conference at the beginning of November.

Two workshops entitled “Using technology to support work-related learning” and two others entitled “Using technology to support the student learning experience” have just been confirmed by Netskills.

These FREE workshops will explore a variety of technological resources and investigate their pedagogic value. They are aimed at lecturers, learning technologists and educational developers interested in the use of technology to enhance learning through the use of technology.

Using technology to support work-related learning workshops:
sub-themes: learning at work and learning for work

Topics to be covered include:
- resources to support work-related and work-based learning
- investigation of learning for work – preparing learners for the workplace
- supporting learning at work – e.g. learning via work placements
- using mobile communications and web 2.0 technologies to enhance work-related learning
- technology enhanced learning and employer engagement
- e-Portfolios for professional learning

For more information please visit the workshop web pages:
1. Oxford, Wednesday 24th September

2. Newcastle, Wednesday 1st October

Using technology to support the student learning experience workshops
sub-themes:
- learner-learner communications, learner-tutor/staff communications and
- learner access to resources

Topics to be covered include:
- technology and the student learning experience – case studies
- learner to learner communications and learner to tutor/staff communications
- use of a range of social media tools to enhance student engagement e.g. blogs, wikis and social networking sites like Facebook
- mobile learning for a range of learning contexts
- learner access to resources
- information skills and the Google generation
- resources to support students on their learning journey

For more information please visit the workshop web pages:
3. Oxford, Wednesday 15th October

4. Newcastle, Wednesday 22nd October

The workshops have been sponsored by The Higher Education Academy and JISC as part of their partnership activities in support of the HEFCE e-Learning strategy.

Places are limited, so be sure to book immediately!

In addition to our popular ‘Lectures and Lecturing‘ resource, we now have some additional online resources for staff on ‘Groupwork‘ and on ‘Curriculum Design‘.

We welcome feedback on these resources, as well as contributions and suggestions for improvements.

Nuala Byrne, an ex-colleague from MMU Cheshire who now works at the University of Nottingham, has told us about this extensive resource which includes video clips of lecturers talking about their teaching, discussion papers and suggestions. Topics include “How do you ensure everyone’s participating in practicals?“, “Student roles in small groups“, “Evaluation of distance e-learning programmes” and many more. Well worth a look. (See also our own ‘showcase’ of staff talking about their practice if you haven’t already looked at it),

The HEA digest contains details of a useful course in London next week entitled Copyright Clearance for Print, Broadcast and Multimedia Production, for anyone who needs to know how to get copyright clearance on films and videos. The course is run by Richard McCracken and Bernadette Atwell from the Rights Department at the OU. More information is available on the BUVFC website/. If you are interested in having this kind of course run at MMU, please let us know in the Learning and Teaching Unit.

The HEA has published A Standards Framework for Teaching and Supporting Student Learning in Higher Education for consultation. If you are at all interested in the way in which teaching is supported and recognised in HE, it’s worth having a look and responding to the document, or letting us know what you think so that we can incorporate your views in anything the LTU puts together in response. The need for flexibility and integration with normal professional activity seems to have been recognised in this round of consultation – it all looks like a big step forward to a workable system.

This “Free, digital book” from the Masie Center is a collection of contributions from educators on what keeps them up at night. I don’t think you’ll get any real surprises or insights from the listings (other than the fact that a lot of sleep is claimed to be lost over work-related issues!) but you might find that it strikes some chords to skim through some of the topics such as ‘Time and Resources’, or ‘Technical Requirements’.

A lot of them are surprisingly specific, but I expect that this anonymous contribution “Things I should have done, but have not yet gotten to – they could be work-related, family-related, or just some commitments in my life that I haven’t met.” will ring bells for most people!

Wimba EduVoice is a tool which enables you to incorporate audio (eg voice recordings) into your WebCT course easily. You can have a voice email, discussion board, or chat tool, or just record short audio sections to add to your course. For more information about Wimba see our WebCT FAQ page. Wimba are offering free online training to help you to use the voice tools – click here to see the programme of events and sign up for a session. Sessions last for an hour (but run in the afternoons in the US, so check the time difference!). Wimba will be offering us a session in June – contact us at the usual email address if you are interested.