Education Technology

Celebrating LTI’s Moodle men!

AwardThis week two members of the LTI team were recognised for their work at the 2016 IMT awards.

Chris Fryer the LTI Systems Manager was awarded ‘unsung hero’ for his behind the scenes efforts to ensure that Moodle is always up and running and working well with other LSE systems.

 

He is a very deserving recipient of this award as LSE Moodle has the highest rates of ‘up time’ across the whole of the UK compared to other HE institutions.  Over the last academic year it has been online 99.99% of the time, this means that the system was ‘live’ for all bar 42 minutes in 2015/16!

LSE Moodle has supported the running of 1651 active Moodle courses across all departments, the IPA, language centre, TLC, HR and LSE Enterprise (a 50% increase from the previous year and that doesn’t include those courses in the Summer School and TRIUM).  Moodle courses were accessed by over 22000 unique users and facilitated over 15.5 million ‘participating actions’ (actions where students and staff click to do something on Moodle).

His work has not gone unnoticed by those in IMT with staff recognising his dedication to the job:

Awards2016_CF

“Chris Fryer doesn’t seem to ever truly take a holiday.  Regardless if he is hiking through Italy or looking after his kids, if there is an emergency he will take time to fix it”.

 

 

 

In addition, our very own ‘Moodle Man’, Milan Popovcic was awarded “Excellence in Customer Service” for his work on responding to LTI.Support@lse.ac.uk emails.  Recent analysis of the LTI emails has illustrated that LTI responded to queries from every academic department, centre and institute across the school from staff and students alike.  Moodle is the most common query but topics also included questions on online assessment, the use of forums and social media, how to record audio feedback and requests for training.  The number of emails received has gone up year on year, with 4667 emails received for September 2015 to June 2016.

LTI support emails

Awards2016_MPMilan is often the member of staff that responds to these calls for help and was one of the most nominated colleagues across several categories with positive comments from customers and colleagues.

“Delightful manner, patience of a saint, really cares about helping academics with their problems, not just answering their queries but also developing them to help themselves.  Milan is a joy to work with”.

We are currently working on developing more resources and support to go on our new website which should be up and running before the start of Michaelmas term 2016.  In the meantime if you have any queries, Moodle or otherwise please contact lti.support@lse.ac.uk

June 23rd, 2016|Announcements, Moodle, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off on Celebrating LTI’s Moodle men!|

Student Innovation projects

CoGobstopperlightbulb _by Joe Loong on Flickrngratulations to the LSE students who came up with winning ideas on how to use technology to make life better for staff and students in Higher Education.

The Summer of Student Innovation competition asks for student technology solutions to improve education, research and student life.  Now in it’s fourth year, students are asked to submit a 2 to 5 minute video pitch on the Jisc Elevator website.  Entrants must receive at least 250 votes to go through to the development stage.  The 15 winning teams will receive £2000 of expert support, with the possibility of an additional £3,000 funding to develop their projects.

See the 2 LSE submissions below and view all 15 successful projects on the Jisc website

Augmented Reality App: to provide visitors and students with digital content enhancing campus experience.

 

Stutor: Get help from other students in the UK through our application.  Everybody can be a tutor!

 

 

 

June 22nd, 2016|Announcements, innovation, Student projects, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off on Student Innovation projects|

Five reasons why using technology could make your teaching and learning better!

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The use of technology is an issue that is danced around quite a lot, especially here at the LSE. Technologists, academics, students all debate the notions of pedagogy before technology and how we can avoid the pitfalls of technological determinism or the replacement of every one of us with the robot Sheldon from the ‘Big Bang Theory. The reality is that this should never have become a polarised debate, where the choice was either the unregulated and ill-defined change agenda driven by technological adaptation or the last line of defence of the ‘way it has always been’. Technology (if such a concept can be simply defined) is a means; a society changing and generation shaping means for sure, but a means nonetheless. LTI are here to be part of your approach to engaging with technology to enhance learning and teaching. From the simplest innovation to the most transformative intervention and at a pedagogical or instructional level, technology is a critical part of modern teaching. So, if you are thinking about whether you should use ‘technology’ in your teaching or learning, contemplating a change in pedagogy or simply finding out what your colleagues or learners are doing with their technology, then maybe these five reasons might help shape your thinking.

1. All your students are already using technology to a wide variety of degrees
This is a simple assertion. All of us are using technology; from cash machines, to smartphones, to laptops to tablets to our oyster card. Each of these pieces of technology serves a purpose. They change the way we do things. They change the language we use and they shift core practices around processes (such as paying, communications, processing and thinking). There are no universal rules about this. Generations after us are not naturally better than their parents at being technologically adept. These technologies are simply there. They develop, change and progress like most other means. In your classroom you have an array of devices more powerful than any of the ones that went before. There are ways to use that technology for the benefits of learners and learning. Instant communications, collaborations, interactions outside the classroom, annotations, engagement with readings, critical thought, right down to managing the calendar. These skills are not native, nor are they uniform. Learners and teachers may need support, training, mentoring and practice. That’s where we can help.

2. All the jobs students will do are shaped in part by technology
We use technology to do all our jobs. You are reading a blog now. Almost every discipline has been impacted by technology; from research practice to visual rhetoric through to open access. How do we integrate these changes into curricula, teaching and assessment? Like any other programme/design process, we are research informed, we maintain rigour and we understand what skills and knowledge graduates will need to be develop expertise and understanding. Technology is just another part of that. Technology can help simulate real world employment situations, global phenomena or inter-personal scenarios. Technology can develop the communication, collaboration, identity or teamwork skills required in most modern workplaces. Technology skills such as media making, coding, social media or searching are critical trans-disciplinary concepts. Either inside or outside teaching and learning, having access to these skills enhances the employability of your graduates. LTI have a number of great cases where courses and programmes have embedded these skills. Maybe some of those practices will work for your course/programme or have an impact on your student satisfaction?

3. Technology is not a scorched earth approach to teaching
No institution wants to replace you with robots after recording your lectures. There is no replacement for the interaction and engagement face to face contact supports (either live or facilitated). However, you can add aspects of innovation to your teaching that build on and magnify that impact. Encouraging students to interact and engage through collaborative assessment, support each other and provide peer feedback, comment and discuss your lectures and tutorials or annotate and debate your PowerPoint slides. Technology does what it says on the box. It enhances, it adds, it disrupts and it transforms. Whether this is technology students use outside the classroom, or the innovative, flexible spaces were are looking to create within; Technology does not teach. Technology does not make people learn. You do. Students do. We want to work with you to enrich the student experience through innovative approaches to pedagogy, to the embedded use of technology such as Moodle, lecture capture and social media and through encouraging your students to use their own technologies to enhance their own learning.

4. Technology can make things possible that you previously thought impossible
One of the great potentials of technology is change. Technology for education represents a wonderful catalyst for change. One department commented to us recently that they have been waiting for the technology to catch up with their thinking. Maybe thinking about technology will change the way you think about assessment, challenge some of your assumptions about feedback, maybe it will open a door or close another. Maybe technology will shift the lecture from being bounded by transmission pedagogies to being discursive and interactive. We advocate for technologies to be more than an economic replacement of one practice with another. They are a chance for a rethink, a chance inspiration or a series of experiments that allow you to embed some play and fun into your teaching and learning. One of the most important roles here at LTI is innovation, thinking about and making available cutting edge ideas, practices and platforms in order to provide all staff with opportunities to rethink and experiment with their teaching.

5. Technology does enhance learning
Give it a go. The gap between what our learners see and understand as their online learning experience and the face to face experience is narrowing. It is all just learning. The capabilities required to search quickly, determine the veracity of information and do this whilst doing three other things are developing rapidly. These skills are by no means universal or natural, but they are developing and they are shaping how people learn. From students being able to re-watch lectures 8 or 9 times to make sure they understood concepts to being able to access a support network at 4am through twitter (or just to know when the Library lift is out of order @LSELibraryLift) technology is enhancing learning right now. LTI are here to help you, offer ideas and a critical (but friendly) perspective. We can offer you money, technology and expertise. We are happy to share with you all our experiences, knowledge and coffee. But most of all we share our confidence that we can help you make your teaching and learning better.

Want to get in touch? Drop us an email lti.support@lse.ac.uk

Trends in Education Technology I

Education technology is a rapidly moving, sometimes divisive and always interesting field of study, especially to us working in Higher Education. Therefore, I will be posting a fortnightly round-up of some of the articles I found interesting, and thought you might too.

Do comment, recommend and share. That’s what blogging is all about after all!

General

40 Future Uses for Educational Technology [Infographic] – EdTech Magazine

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2012/07/40-future-uses-educational-technology-infographic

Whilst aimed at K-12, concepts such as gamification and digitized classrooms also have implications for HE provision.

MOOCs

Moocs: From Mania to Mundanity – Times Higher Education

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/opinion/moocs-from-mania-to-mundanity/2007773.article

Written by the author of the recently released BIS report on the impact of MOOCs on HE provision, this article argues that MOOCs have moved beyond hype and hysteria, and are now becoming normalised into the teaching strategies of many universities.

Third-party credentialing

College Diplomas are Meaningless. This is How to Fix Them. Design specs for upgrading the communications device formerly known as the sheepskin – New Republic

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114692/college-diploma-time-upgrade

Whilst quite transparent in suggesting that LinkedIn could be a better alternative to demonstrating skills than a University degree, Reid Hoffmann, co-founder of LinkedIn, does make a point that the way graduates gain skills in future will involve a an unbundled format of course provision, allowing students to tailor skills to their own career aspirations. Central to this would be the ability for third-party course providers to be able to grant recognisable credentials to subscribers, e.g. Mozilla Open Badges.

Online mentoring

Internet mentors could supplant traditional lectures – Times Higher Education

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/internet-mentors-could-supplant-traditional-lecturers/2007676.article#.UkPiDCVB2W8.twitter

One of the findings to come out of the Horizon 2020 report from the Observatory on Borderless Education. As information becomes more freely available via MOOCs and other platforms, support provided by junior-level lecturers at universities may be replaced by Online mentors, who may themselves be professionals in the topic or PhD researchers.

Education technologies

50 Education Technology Tools Every Teacher Should Know About – Edudemic

http://www.edudemic.com/50-education-technology-tools-every-teacher-should-know-about/

A lot of technologies mentioned here will be familiar to many, but this is a useful round-up of the tools available to educators.

October 4th, 2013|TEL Trends|Comments Off on Trends in Education Technology I|