Teaching & Learning

Creating a Smart Writing Environment with Academic Markdown

In January, Tobias Pester, postgraduate students in the department of International History at the LSE, was awarded an LTI Grant for his project to “develop, document, and teach a Workshop for Sustainable Authorship for students of the LSE that familiarizes and equips them with the writing environment of Academic Markdown”. The workshop will take place on Tuesday, 7th June and a recording will be made available afterwards. Read about his experience of this handy tool.

In the spring of 2015 I finished my first year of American grad school. Coming from the German university system I knew it was going to be a Protestant re-education camp in terms of work load and ethic. By the end of that spring I had to write three sizeable papers in short succession and ‘time is of the essence’ took on a new meaning. Lucky for me some of my friends had just started using this writing set-up that streamlines all the things that take no brain but lots of time: citations, the bibliography, and worrying about the different format of citations when in footnotes vs. when in the bibliography.

Enter Academic Markdown and Pandoc. So-called markup languages like LaTeX have long been used by authors in the sciences. They’re great to handle formulas, diagrams and other sciences-specific requirements. For humanist writers, however, the upside to learning a markup language had been comparatively small. All we really need are basic formatting options, block quotes, and citations.

That’s where Markdown comes in handy. It’s designed to satisfy those requirements and be easy to pick up at the same time. It only takes five minutes to learn how to mark a header or a footnote as such and the text remains visually intact and perfectly readable in its raw form. And because formatting, citation management, and bibliography are almost entirely automated it affords an utterly distraction-free work flow. I work on crafting my text and crafting my text only. The last line in my manuscript is the header ‘Bibliography’. When I’m done pouring my blood, sweat, and tears onto the screen, I run it through a simple program called Pandoc once and, voilà, I get a ready-made ´pdf´ or ´docx´ with citations and bibliography according to whichever citation style language I specified.

The text in Academic Markdown and after formatting

Using that particular set-up last spring I became a writing machine. And the many hours freed from formatting could go into refining my argument or polishing my prose. I am since doing all my writing this way, from response papers to my dissertation, from personal letters to invoices. American grad school, however, still kicked my ass.

To share the benefits of this work flow I am developing and teaching a class with the generous help of an LSE Learning Technology and Innovation Grant. The workshop will take place on Tuesday, 7th June, 2-5 p.m. in 32L.LG.18 alongside the Teaching and Learning Centre’s Dissertation Week. Spread the word and join us!

Click on the picture for more information and to book

Hit me up on Twitter at @philomonk. I’d love to hear your thoughts! #SmartWriting16

May 27th, 2016|Announcements, Digital Literacy, Ed-Tech news and issues, Events & Workshops (LTI), LTI Grant Winners, LTI Grants, Student projects, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Announcing the IGNITE! Grant Winners!

Successful projects funded through the IGNITE scheme are now underway. We had over 20 project applications put to the committee and after much deliberation projects were chosen for their innovation, scalability and alignment to the School’s Education Strategy. Here are the winners:

Enhancing Your Moodle

Jennifer Jackson-Preece, European Institute
- (Re)designing Moodle courses EU450, EU457 and Eu458 to maximise their pedagogical aims and deliver with a more distinct look and feel with clear links to Mahara for professional skills development.

Online Blended Learning

Lourdes Hernandez-Martin, Language Centre
- A multilingual platform of audio and audio-visual materials to develop students’ interactive aural skills and increase their language exposure.
Nancy Holman, Geography and Environment
- Developing professional skills the use of Participatory Action Research to deliver a practice-based learning project which provides engagement, consultation and Research in Urban Geography and Planning, especially when partnering with organisations such as a local authority.

Innovation, by Boegh on Flickr (CC)

Feedback and Assessment with Technology

Edgar Whitley, Management
- Developing a scalable feedback system that integrates with Moodle and works effectively for the three constituencies affected by feedback: students, faculty and professional service staff.

Gamification

Jose Javier Olivas and Jessica Templeton, LSE100
- Experiencing the Dynamics and Limitations of Market and Regulation through Gaming by incorporating game design mechanics and techniques aimed at encouraging knowledge, skills development, collaboration and discussions in reference to the academic literature.
Andrea Pia, Anthropology
- The Long Day of Young Peng is a point and click serious game exploring key themes in the study of contemporary China through the eyes of a young Chinese Migrant.

May 25th, 2016|Announcements, Assessment, eAssessment News, Ed-Tech news and issues, innovation, LTI Grant Winners, LTI Grants, Teaching & Learning|1 Comment|

Given the limited amount of innovative tools used in their studies, it is hard for students to actually know how technology could better their education.

Having reviewed all the interviews from our Student Voice project, we created a video highlighting a few of our key findings.

As the video suggests, a majority of students stated that PowerPoints are the main “technology” used in the classroom. Many added that, given the limited amount of innovative tools used in their studies, it was hard for them to actually know how technology could better their education.

That being said, students believed that technology – if used correctly – could challenge the current “one to many [educative] system”. The expression “one-to-many” refers to lectures where teachers talk and students listen, often giving the impression of a unidirectional information flow. Students stated that technology could be implemented to make lectures and classes more interactive, to foster teacher-students and student-student collaboration.

The video also suggests that students expect an increase in online pedagogical content. This includes more online courses and online exercises but also online exams. Students suggested that, to prepare them for the use of technology in their future career, more tasks should be carried out on line.

All findings are currently being written up and the full report will be available shortly!

The previous post can be found here

May 3rd, 2016|Announcements, Assessment, Blogging, Ed-Tech news and issues, Images, Audio & Video, innovation, LSE 2020, Open Education, Projects, Reports & Papers, Research Skills, Show and tell, Social Media, Student projects, Surveys, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|2 Comments|

Click to sign up to the Learning Technology Idea Exchange

“Learning Technology Ideas Exchange” is an opportunity to get inspired, meet colleagues, exchange ideas and discover ways to improve teaching and learning with technology!

Run as informal café-style presentations, LSE colleagues will share insight into technologies used for teaching and learning and explain the educational rationale behind their work. You will have the opportunity to ask questions and discuss.

Posters from various LTI projects will be on display during lunch, which will be provided by LTI. Learning Technologists will be available to answer any questions throughout the event.

There will be a further opportunity to ask questions in a plenary before we wrap-up.

Time	Programme	Themes and presenters
11.00 -11.10	Welcome	Tea and coffee provided
11.10 - 12.10	Café 1	Table 1 - e-assessment * Sara Geneletti (Statistics) * Elisabeth Grieger (Mathematics)	Table 2 - General Innovation * Francesco Panizza, (Government) * Kay Inckle (Sociology)
12.10 - 12.20	LTI Update
12.20 - 13.00	Lunch (provided)
13.00 - 14.00	Café 2	Table 1 - Students as Producers * Jennifer Jackson-Preece (European Institute) *Catherine Xiang (Language Centre)	Table 2 - e-assessment * Edgar Whitley (Management) * Lourdes Hernandez-Martin (Language Centre)
14.00 – 14.30	Plenary	Group discussion and questions

When	Monday 23rd May
Time	11am -3pm
Location	Lower Ground of Parish Hall (PAR.LG.03)

April 28th, 2016|Announcements, Assessment, eAssessment Events, Ed-Tech news and issues, Events & Workshops (LTI), innovation, Roundup, Show and tell, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies, Uncategorized|Comments Off|

Students’ Expectations for the Future of Technology in Education

Last term, Learning Technology and Innovation (LTI) started a project involving three days of interviewing all over campus. We asked 100 students questions designed to gather their insight about what teaching, learning and technology could look like at LSE in 2020. The three-minute interviews, whether filmed or just audio recorded, have helped us start a conversation from the grassroots up about the future of innovation and education at the school.

We are currently reviewing the hours of footage gathered to create a short video and a report relaying the students’ voices about the future of technology in education. In the meantime, we have designed the following teaser to give you some insight into the project. This teaser is a compilation of the answers given to a single question: if you could describe, in one word, what you would expect from technology in the future what would it be?

I would like to end this post by thanking all the students that accepted to be interviewed, your feedback is tremendously helpful. Stay tuned for more updates and videos!

April 26th, 2016|Ed-Tech news and issues, Images, Audio & Video, innovation, LSE 2020, Projects, Reports & Papers, Research Skills, Show and tell, Social Media, Student projects, Surveys, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

SADL and Statistics: an interview with Professor Pauline Barrieu

Dr Jane Secker, Programme Manager for SADL caught up with Professor Pauline Barrieu, Deputy Head of Department in Statistics at LSE. Statistics students have always made up an important part of the student ambassador cohort and this year seven of the nine Senior Ambassadors, providing support for the programme, were from this department. Jane was interested to know why digital literacy might be so important to Statistics students, what this programme might also be offering the group and the impact it might have had on the department more widely.

Jane: Why do you think Statistics students are so engaged with SADL?

Professor Pauline Barrieu

Pauline: I think there are some clear reasons why the programme appeals to our students, many of whom are actually taking the Actuarial Science programme or the Business Mathematics and Statistics (BMS) programme. Understanding data and information is a fundamental part of statistics. Being about to manipulate data, to work with data is a really important skill, so I think digital literacy is something that our students also recognize as an important part of their curriculum. I also think our undergraduate students are very focused young people. They know what they want to do at 18 and they recognize the importance of issues such as data confidentiality. They know this is going to be very important in their future careers so I think they see the benefit of this programme.

Jane: Do you think your students from the Actuarial Science programme are different from other undergraduates at LSE then?

Pauline: This programme has fewer optional courses, the students are very focused, they have a clear idea of what they would like to do as a career, which I personally find very impressive for people of that age! During our ASC review last year, Paul Kelly mentioned how mature and articulated our students were – they seem to be very focused and know what they want.

Coming back to SADL, I think the flatter structure of the progamme, how they are taught as your peers also appeals to them as it’s different to what they experience in our classes. Some of the experiences they have, for example, acting as a Senior Ambassador and providing peer support to others helps to develop their confidence. It’s also great to give students experience of giving presentations and attending conferences with the SADL staff.

Jane: Do you think SADL has had a wider impact on your department?

Pauline: I know many of our lecturers are very keen to be more innovative in their teaching. Statistics do a lot of general courses open to students across LSE who need to learn about statistical analysis. Almost every social scientist needs to understand some form of stats, so we do a lot of teaching of students from a qualitative background where maths and stats is quite alien or difficult for them. It’s really important to try and engage those students and find creative ways of teaching them. One of our lecturers, Sara Geneletti recently applied for a Learning Technology grant from LTI to look to improve assessment on her course. Our in-coming Deputy Head of Department, Irini Moustaki is also very interested in innovations in teaching and working more closely with LTI to use technology effectively. And of course we have James Abdey in Statistics who has won a number of prizes for his teaching and was highlighted as an Innovator in your recent series. This is not an exhaustive list of people and innovation is something really important to lecturers in my department as a way of engaging students with the subject.

Jane: What more could LTI do to help support your department?

Pauline: I think every department across LSE is doing some fantastic things in terms of their teaching. However we don’t always know about these innovations so I think it’s important that LTI share these experiences across the school. One of the biggest problems that gets in the way of this is how busy we all are with so many emails, meetings, reviews, teaching and research. We need some really short guides to give us ideas of what others are doing. Your Innovators series looks great for doing this, to give us ideas for our own teaching in a short digestible form, ideally I would like a version I can read off line too though.

Jane: Is there anything else you can tell me about SADL, digital literacy or learning technologies?

Pauline: I’m interested in why you just focus on undergraduates? I think masters students also need to develop these skills, although of course they spend less time at LSE, so the peer support aspect would work less well. But I think PhD students in quantitative subjects need more help and support around digital literacy. I know the Library offer a course on how to do a literature review, but it would be great to focus a course for our students who publish their thesis by papers, so have quite a different experience. In addition some of our PhD students are sponsored by a private company so there are differences in issues such as ownership of the data in the thesis. We have a standard agreement with the sponsors, but it’s quite different to other departments.

Jane: That’s a really interesting point, and we do try to offer workshops and support for PhD students in LTI with colleagues in the library. But it sounds like we could do more?

Pauline: I also think it’s really important to teach PhD students about this because many of them work as Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs), so teach our undergraduates. In Statistics we have developed a dedicated training for our GTAs, so we will certainly make sure they know about SADL, so they can encourage students to get involved in the programme. Overall, I’m really pleased with this programme, which I think is of great benefit to our undergraduate students, and I am proud so many of them have got involved in SADL.

Jane: It’s been great talking to you Pauline, good luck next year when you take over as Head of Department and I’d just like to thank your department and your wonderful students, who have been an inspiration to me and the SADL teaching team.

Original post taken from the SADL blog

April 21st, 2016|Digital Literacy, innovation, LSE Innovator, LTI Grants, Teaching & Learning|Comments Off|

Turn It In at LSE

Turn It In (TII) is the leading online service that provides originality checking of academic work, and also a range of functionality for feedback and peer review. In relation to originality checking, while the appropriate use of ideas and concepts is still best judged by an expert teacher, TII is the most efficient and effective tool to check student writing to make sure it has not been copied from another source.

LSE has been using TII to originality check the work of students via teachers and departmental staff logging into the TII website and uploading submitted assignments there.

TII integration with Moodle for originality checking

Learning Technology and Innovation (LTI), as part of their assessment and feedback with technology project, has reviewed the use of TII and implemented an integration with the School’s virtual learning environment Moodle in 2014/2015. This integration was a result of a number of different pilot scenarios that were reviewed and assessed.

At this point the integration for originality checking has been refined, tested and found to be robust and reliable. The LTI team has demonstrated it to representatives from almost every academic department at LSE. Feedback has been very positive, highlighting the efficiency and ease of access of originality reports the integration delivers.

Barring any unforeseen problems, LTI are confident the integration for originality checking can be rolled-out in Michaelmas Term 2016 so it can be used on every assignment submitted through Moodle. The official decision will be taken after the final review of feedback from the participating departments towards the end of the Summer Term and an announcement will be made after the Summer Term is concluded, well ahead of the ‘Moodle end of year arrangement’.

The Moodle/TII integration enables different settings to be applied to each assignment: for example, whether submitted work is stored to a repository so future work is checked against it, or to vary the baseline level of matched content that is deemed acceptable. This allows for a good degree of flexibility and for the integration to be configured to the requirements of different disciplines and assignment types.

Grading through Turn It In (GradeMark)

Turn It In also offers an in-depth set of functions for marking student work called GradeMark: efficient ways of applying course rubrics and standard marking comments of individual teachers across multiple assignments, thereby delivering richer feedback for students. GradeMark provides powerful functionality, but like all tools is best deployed when the user is comfortable and confident with it.

The LTI team is still working on enabling assignments to be marked through TII GradeMark and then have this grading information released to students via Moodle. A separate integration to achieve this is currently being tested, and any teachers who are interested in using it should contact lti.support@lse.ac.uk to agree an assignment where they can trial this.

Improving student writing

The availability of the TII service has generated a lively debate across higher education on whether it is a tool that students can use to improve their writing standards or if it provides an aid to those who want to cheat by massaging their plagiarism to an ‘acceptable’ level. By extension, opinions are formed on if students should see the originality scores TII assigns to their submissions; and if they should have the opportunity to revise and resubmit a piece of work if they can see that this score is not acceptable.

The common feeling from everyone involved in providing courses at LSE – both teachers and departmental staff – is that there needs to be a greater training provision if this service is something our students have available for their use.

This is something that the LTI team have noted in all the feedback they have received to this point, and they will be working with colleagues to try and create a solution that will enable TII at LSE to be as much a learning tool to improve writing as a quality assurance mechanism. Anyone interested in finding out more should contact lti.support@lse.ac.uk.

Want to know more?

The LTI team have been contacting Moodle users in each academic department to demonstrate the originality check integration, but if they have not been in touch with you yet or if you have any questions feel free to drop them a line! Please email lti.support@lse.ac.uk and LTI will be happy to provide more information.

Once Summer Term 2016 has concluded further information about the integration will be circulated to the teacher/editors for all LSE courses in Moodle.

April 13th, 2016|Assessment, copyright, Digital Literacy, Research Skills, Roundup, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Digital is not the future – A UAL/LSE online hack

Digital is not the future – Hacking the institution from the inside

Background
Within many higher education institutions, the patterns and responses of resistance to change make anything different from the norm forced into the position that has to justify ‘why?’ Debates about the potential of technology, the tensions of techno-determinism and the fears of replacement and redundancy have centred the discourse on service rather than pedagogy. The problem is that the genie is already out the bottle. There is no going back to chalkboards and overheads,we won’t be shutting off the internet any time soon. Technology and the digital are already integral to what we do but the presence of technology does not automatically equate to a shift in practice.

So, we came up with the idea of this hack. How do we change the discourse and empower people like us to actively shape teaching and learning at our institutions? What are the key messages, tools and strategies available that put the digital in the heart of the conversation and not as a freak show, an uncritical duplication of institutional norms or a fringe activity of the tech savvy?

The aim of this hack is to design collectively the solution to the problem. A problem that we all know exists but perhaps have never cracked. The problem of potential. The problem of resistance and acceptance. The problem of teaching and learning in the post-digital age. The problem of defining what a university is in the same.

An open document?
We have made a Loomio community, which open for anyone to edit. You can find it here, and registration is simple and easy!

http://bit.ly/1RWSq79

This is a conversation that will be made better by involving more people. The aim of the community is to frame the discussions and debates we need to have at our institutions in order put innovation and the digital at the heart of the institutional approach to learning and teaching. There is a case to be made that institutionally, we have failed. ‘Traditional’ custom and practice is legitimised in the digital, whilst practice based innovation can be banished to the fringe or the grassroots. Techno-solutionism is equally legitimised, where ‘solutions in a box’ and services drive our activity; an activity that often replicates existing practice rather than transforming it. This widens the gap between ‘academic’ practice and the changing nature of learning in a digital era, masked by the procurement of new, and by implication, ‘innovative’ technologies

What do you have to do?
What we seek from the physical and online hacks is a form of radical pragmatism. You are in the room, because you are the institution, you are the senior management, you are the expert.

The rules of this hack are simple.

Rule 1: We are teaching and learning focused *and* institutionally committed
Rule 2: What we talk about here is institutionally/nationally agnostic
Rule 3: You are in the room with the decision makers. What we decide is critical to the future of our institutions. You are the institution
Rule 4: Despite the chatter, all the tech ‘works’ – the digital is here, we are digital institutions. Digital is not the innovation.
Rule 5: We are here to build not smash
Rule 6: You moan (rehearse systemic reasons why you can’t effect change – see Rule 3), you get no beer (wine, juice, love, peace, etc)

We have chosen 5 common scenarios which are often the catalyst for change in institutions. As we noted above, you are in the room with the new VC and you have 100 words in each of the scenarios below to effectively position what we do as a core part of the institution. Why is this going to make our institutional more successful/deliver the objectives/save my (the VCs) job? How do we demonstrate what we do will position the organisation effectively? How do we make sure we stay in the conversation and not be relegated to simply providing services aligned with other people’s strategies? Anyone who has been around the system for any length of time will recognise these scenarios and will have been through many of them. They are critical junctures at where momentum for change peaks.

Scenario 1
Strategic review of the institution and budget planning for 2020
Scenario 2
Institutional restructure because of a new VC
Scenario 3
Undertaking of an institution wide pedagogical redesign
Scenario 4
Responding to and implementing TEF
Scenario 5
Institutional response to poor NSS/student experience results

Write on the basis that you are pitching your responses to the above to the new VC and senior management.

April 4th, 2016|Conferences, Teaching & Learning|3 Comments|

SADL Celebration: ending term on a digital high

Last week saw the official end of the SADL Programme for 2015/16 and students and staff got together in the Studio in the Saw Swee Hock to report on their group projects, be presented with their certificates and prizes for the best blog posts and generally let their hair down before the end of term.

The evening started with each of the three groups discussing the research project they had been working on together since Michaelmas Term. Each group was supervised by three of our Senior Ambassadors and the projects included:

how to improve learning spaces at LSE
how to improve assessment and feedback and
how to improve peer support.

The groups were given complete freedom in how they wanted to interpret the question and how to present their findings, however they were supported by the Seniors. The first group led by Djelila, Simran and Vikki were tackling the question of how to improve learning spaces at LSE. This is a really important question and the group highlighted some of the issues with the current learning spaces at LSE and how they felt they could be improved.

The next presentation was from Eugene, Katie and Chandra were investigating how to improve assessment and feedback at LSE. Again lots of issues were raised and the students had carried out a survey to gather the opinions from their peers about how improvements could be made.

Finally we heard from the group led by Geteesh, Chantel and Melissa who explored how peer support might be improved. The group talked about what peer support is and had lots of suggestions for how technology and face to face contact can build a peer network.

Throughout SADL we encouraged students to blog about their experiences rewarding them with Amazon vouchers for their blog posts. We also had a prize for the best blog post over the course of the year and two runners up. We were looking for a reflective piece of writing, that emphasised digital literacy and shared ideas with others. The blog posts were judged by Valerie Brese who was a SADL student last year, Sierra Williams from LSE’s Impact Blog and Heather Dawson from the Library.

We are delighted to announce the winner was Ella Sun for her blog post on OneNote or Evernote. The two runners up were Rebecca Quinn for her post on referencing, no longer a pain in academia and Djelila Delior who wrote about how SADL got me hired, who is also one of our Senior Ambassadors.

Congratulations to all the SADL students this year. They will all receive a statement on their PDAM record for their contribution to the programme and be eligible to apply to be a Senior Ambassador next year to help shape the programme.

Blog post written by Jane Secker (Digital Literacy and Copyright Advisor) and is taken from the SADL blog

March 21st, 2016|copyright, Digital Literacy, eAssessment News, Ed-Tech news and issues, Events & Workshops (LTI), innovation, Learning Spaces, Show and tell, Student projects, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Technology in Teaching and Learning: Newest Projects from LSE Staff

Games, revision podcasts and electronic feedback are the main themes of the latest projects funded by an LTI Grant. You can find more information about our funding schemes and other projects in our dedicated pages.

Strand 1: Innovation in Teaching and Learning

Gustav Meibauer and Andreas Aagaard Nohr, Department of International Relations – Development of PowerPoint-Based Simulation Games for Use in Undergraduate Teaching

“This project will design and implement three PowerPoint-based interactive simulations for use in introductory undergraduate classes. Currently available solutions are targeted at course-long activities, at a high cost of time and preparation effort for both teachers and students. Instead, this project explicitly aims at providing a low-cost, easily accessible and class-long interactive experience to students to encourage theoretical linkage with own in-class experience in such issue areas as foreign policy, diplomacy, or great power dynamics. “

Kay Inckle, Department of Sociology – The Game of Research

“The Game of Research is designed for social science students undertaking a final-year qualitative primary research dissertation. In stage one it is a board game similar to Snakes and Ladders but adapted with additional features to make it research-focused and dependent on skill and discernment rather than luck. Through the game students learn the six essential components for a successful qualitative research project: research question, design/proposal, ethical approval, methods/fieldwork, analysis, writing and referencing. The second stage of the game mimics the board game, but takes place in a virtual platform using students’ actual research projects.”

Olga Sobolev, Language Centre – Language Immersion in a Self-Study Mode: Revision e-Course

“A new self-study revision e-course, promoting students’ proficiency in spoken and aural Russian through autonomous learning […] This is very much a student-centred initiative:

The course is geared specifically to the syllabus covered in the Russian Language and Society Course throughout the year.
It will offer a valuable alternative to teaching contact hours that are not available to students throughout the Easter break, to back up and enhance their revision/preparation for the exams in the ST.”

Tobias Pester, Department of International History – Sustainable Autorship with Academic Markdown

“I am proposing to develop, document, and teach a Workshop for Sustainable Authorship for students of the LSE that familiarizes and equips them with the writing environment of Academic Markdown. […] One, it provides the automatic generation of references and bibliographies. Two, it relies on the single most sustainable file format since the invention of computers: human-readable plain text. Three, it is platform independent: the most basic text editor available on any operating system will do. Four, it does not rely on proprietary software.”

Read Tobias’ post on his experience with Academic Markdown

Susan Scott, Department of Management – Using Digital Innovation to Curate a Living History of Uber and Uberisation

“This project will explore the usefulness of establishing and curating an open access digital ‘living’ archive to support problem-based learning about contemporary topics in global business management particularly (but not only) reconfiguring business models and service innovation. With help from LTI we will create an open access archive populated with a selection of material to date about the American international transportation network company Uber and the phenomenon known as “Uberization” ”

Strand 2: e-Assessment

Edgar Whitley, Department of Management – Using Mahara: Blogging, Peer Review and
Feedback

“The aim of the project is to assess the suitability of the Mahara platform as a means of student assessment, feedback and peer review for courses within the School.”

Strand 3: Students as Producers

Jennifer Jackson-Preece, European Institute – Narrating the Death (and Life?) of Multiculturalism

“EU 458 Identity, Community & the ‘Problem’ of Minorities ends with a student debate on the ‘Death of Multiculturalism’. Instead of group presentations, the initiative would ask students to work in small groups (3-4) over a 2-3 week period to produce a short (5 minute) film narrating their take on this theme. The films would be screened in LT week 11, and a general debate / discussion would follow on from them.”