Mahara, Blogging and Peer Review
Edgar Whitley from the department of Management tells us about using Mahara as a tool for blogging and peer assessment and its benefits to teaching, learning and assessment.
Michaelmas Term Training Opportunities
Now that term has started and you have (hopefully) settled down, why not take this opportunity to refresh or develop new skills?
Michaelmas Term workshops
Check out our programme of workshops around digital literacy and teaching with technology
On Demand and bespoke
Workshops listed below will run on an on-demand basis when at least three people have expressed their interest via LSE’s training system.
We also offer bespoke training to groups of academics and departments to meet specific requirements. Just choose which one(s) you are interested in from both scheduled and on-demand and contact s.ney@lse.ac.uk to arrange for sessions.
And much more!
Stay tuned for more information on our upcoming exciting event on gamification and playful learning in November!
Maths quizzes in Moodle using Maple TA
LTI have a one year site licence for Maple TA for this academic year.
Maple TA is an online testing and assessment software designed especially for quantitative disciplines that involve the use of maths and statistics. It has many features including:
- integration with Moodle;
- visualisation of mathematical problems;
- automatically generating questions;
- free response answers for questions that have more than one correct answer;
- automatic marking and the provision of instant feedback;
- adaptive testing with individualised question paths.
If you are interested in using MapleTA for your course or just want to find out more email LTI.Support@lse.ac.uk
LTI in the spotlight
Last week staff from LTI attended the Association for Learning Technology’s annual conference (ALT-C 2016). It was an eventful three days at the University of Warwick for the team, with five of us presenting a total of 4 papers and one keynote. And oh, we also won the Learning Technologist of the Year Awards!
Learning experiences and virtual learning environments: It’s all about design!
A design for learning; Learning Experiences for the Post-Digital World – Peter Bryant
In the first part of his presentation, Peter described his new approach to teaching and learning whereby seven learning experiences (found, making, identity, play, discontinuity, authenticity and community) can “shape, influence and enhance the opportunities for students to learn, to share learning and to teach others in a post-digital world”. Participants then discussed how existing learning technology tools could be used to create such learning experiences.
You can find a summary, reflections and slides from Peter’s presentation on his blog
Good post: we’re not using technology to its full potential. We’re using it to do old things in new ways. https://t.co/PO4vgXe831
— Tony Burke (@TonyBurke1) September 9, 2016
Innovating from the Outside In: a Creative Hub to Change eLearning Practice- Sonja Grussendorf
Sonja introduced the audience to LTI’s “creative hub”, a project bringing together film makers, artists and designers, and how it is being used to design a VLE that can “accentuate communication between participants; support independent learning, collaboration and student creativity; facilitate peer learning and peer assessment and deliver ongoing, two-way feedback opportunities.”
very well thought out and presented session from @authenticdasein #altc
— Sheila MacNeill (@sheilmcn) September 8, 2016
Physical teaching and learning spaces
Learning Spaces: Roles and Responsibilities of the Learning Technologist – Kris Roger and Sarah Ney
While Sonja was presenting on virtual spaces, Kris and myself discussed physical teaching and learning spaces. More specifically, we reflected on a recent project to develop new active learning spaces at the LSE that made us wonder about what our roles and responsibilities as learning technologists were in the design of learning spaces.
Thought-provoking presentation by @KrisEdTech & @SarahNeyLTI#WhatIsSpace#WhereDoWeLearn#altc
— Elaine Brown (@ElaineBrownARU) September 8, 2016
Copyright and eLearning: who else but Jane Secker?
Jane presented a paper AND a keynote at ALT-C this year!
Lecture Capture: Risky Business or Evolving Open Practice? co-presented with Chris Morrisson, Copyright Licensing and Compliance Officer at the University of Kent.
Jane and Chris presented the findings from a recent survey on institutional attitudes towards intellectual property issues in relation to lecture capture and contents used in lectures. They also reflected on the relation between good policy and good practice and how to support staff in implementing and encouraging it.
Keynote: Copyright and eLearning: Understanding our Privileges and Freedoms
Jane presented an entertaining, fun, moving and very interesting keynote on how a better understanding of copyright can empower copyright users and educators.
You can view Jane’s full keynote on youtube:
Last But Not Least: We won!
LTI was presented with the prestigious Team Learning Technologist of the Year Award last Wednesday for their work around Students as Producers. The award recognises “outstanding achievements in the learning technology field and the promotion of intelligent use of Learning Technology on a national scale”.
“LSE are proud to be selected as the Learning Technology team of the year, especially in its 10th year. This recognition by our peers is a celebration of the innovative work being done by academic and LTI staff to better the student experience and provide more opportunities for engaging, positive and transformational education with technology.” Peter Bryant, Head of LTI
Here are a few pictures from the evening:
Changes to turning point
The voting software Turning Point is being upgraded and the clickers will no longer be compatible or supported by turning point. This means that if you want to use voting activities in your teaching you will have to ask students to bring their own internet enabled devices.
The new software is currently being tested by IMT and will be moved onto the school build shortly. In the meantime the old version of Turning Point is still on school pc’s and will continue to work until the upgrade takes place.
More information on how to get an account and guides on how to use Turning point to effectively will be available on our website soon. If you have any queries please email LTI.Support@lse.ac.uk
Crowdsourcing for Massive Engagement
London School of Economics and Political Science embarked on a crowdsourced, gamified approach to education and citizenship, harnessing the massive open online space to engage a community of learners in writing a model UK constitution.
The project is a Campus Technology Innovators Award winner for 2016.
Please visit the Campus Technology website to read more about this innovative project which was led by LSE Professor Connor Gearty of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) in partnership with Learning Technology and Innovation
More information on the project can be found on our blog
Tablets in Teaching and Learning: Marking and Feedback
In 2014, teachers from LSE’s Language Centre started exploring the use of technology to mark and provide feedback on students’ written work. After trying out three tools (Moodle, iPads and annotation apps, Snagit) with her colleague Catherine (see blog post), Lourdes Hernandez-Martin decided to focus on the use of iPads and worked on the project with Mercedes Coca.
Turnitin in Moodle rolls out
Learning Technology and Innovation are pleased to announce the roll out of Turnitin originality check from within Moodle across the School from Tuesday 16th August.
Turnitin provides originality checks against webpages, library catalogues, journals and publications but also other student submitted work (within LSE and other institutions). By integrating Turnitin into Moodle, originality checking becomes more efficient, reliable and a robust solution in identifying matched text through the production of originality reports and scores (%); viewed directly within Moodle.
Learning Technology and Innovation (LTI) have trialled the integration at eleven departments across the School; liaising with ARD, GLPD, IMT, SU and TLC throughout.
We will roll out the integration across departments and are developing supporting material for teachers and students ranging from documentation, videos, FAQs etc.
If you would like LTI to demo how Turnitin in Moodle works; Book a place to our briefing or get in touch with LTI for 1-2-1 or departmental sessions.
For full details on the rollout and the resources available, please visit the Turnitin page.
Celebrating LTI’s Moodle men!
This 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:
“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.
Milan 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
Student Innovation projects
Co
ngratulations 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!
