Replacing a 2,000-word formative essay with a short video or visual presentation. That’s the challenge that Dr Sivaramjani Thambisetty set to undergraduate students on her Intellectual Property Law course.
But why do that?
Here we are, the first week of term, a stressful but exciting time of the year! It is also that time of the year when we are buzzing with new ideas and still feel the boost of the Summer holidays, so in a word the perfect time to try out new stuff or work on developing your skills.
This month LTI has organised workshops to help you just do that! Get familiar with new technologies and how they can support your teaching, see how you can enhance your presentations, develop your web presence and search for literature effectively.We also provide support and training for all your Moodle needs!
Go to LSE’s training system for more information and to book your place
Looking forward to seeing you!
Tea,Tech and Teens …Introducing our next NetworkED seminar on Thursday 12 November at 3pm
When Maggie Philbin accepted a role on Tomorrow’s World in 1982, she had no idea what a life changing decision it would prove to be. Immersed in a high tech playground, meeting inspiring innovators behind the technology we all now very much take for granted, it was a dream job. It also gave her deep insight into what might make a difference to teenagers without any real understanding of where digital skills might take them and in 2008 the TeenTech initiative was born. TeenTech now work with over 4000 young people face to face every year, giving them opportunities to explore their own ideas, turning teenagers into powerful ambassadors for science and technology. Come and find out more. As Maggie says “It’s a great game but we need more people”
As always the event is free to attend and places can be reserved via Eventbrite.
All our talks are live streamed and recorded for those who can’t attend in person. For more information, check out our YouTube channel.
Students making videos as part of their formative assessment?Not only is it possible but it can also have a great impact on student engagement, assessment and on developing life skills.
Moodle was upgraded to version 2.7 as part of the reset process. The changes to Moodle are minimal and can be seen below along with some features of Moodle that you may not be aware of.
New text editor
Atto is the new default text editor in Moodle from version 2.7 onwards. Clicking the top left icon (highlighted in red below) will expand it to three rows.
The previous text editor (‘TinyMCE’ shown below) contains additional font style settings and the paste from word button. If you prefer the old editor you can select the TinyMCE as your default text editor from your profile settings.
Go to Administration > My Profile settings > Edit profile.
Then select ‘TinyMCE html editor’ from the drop down list for Text editor, then click ‘update profile’.
Improvements to Quizzes
2.7 sees the introduction of new features to quiz question banks, including question duplication, moving questions and save changes and continue editing buttons. The essay question now allows students to add an attachment with no accompanying text.
Improvements to assignments
Teachers can now comment directly on students work when they submit via online text.
Turnitin plugin
This plugin allows work to be submitted automatically to Turnitin, ( the plagiarism checking software ) directly from the assessment activity. Teachers can then mark and give feedback using the Turnin GradeMark features. If enabled students can also see their originality reports and use this information for plagiarism prevention training.
This feature is being enabled to individual courses on request. For more information about using this tool or to take part in a pilot please contact LTI.Support@lse.ac.uk or see the Moodle-Turnitin Integration Moodle page.
Activity completion
This can be set up to record the completion of various activities in your course. A check (tick) 
appears against the activity when the student meets the criteria you have set (e.g. viewing an activity, submitting an assignment, or passing an assignment).
Once you have set up your assessments with activity completion details you can then set up the completion details for the whole course. Go to ‘course completion’ in the administration block and, select ‘Course is complete when all conditions are met’ and then select all activities to be completed.
You can then access a quick view to see if students have completed the activities in your course by going into ‘Administration’, > ‘Reports’, > ‘Course completion’.
This report can be filtered by course group or student name.
You can also allow students to view if they have completed each activity according to the settings chosen.
To find out more details on how to use these features or if you have any other Moodle queries contact LTI.Support@lse.ac.uk
It’s that time of the year again! September is just round the corner, the holiday mood is starting to wear off and the weather seems to have already shifted to Autumn. But September is also the time to get a fresh start and get ready for the new academic year, and LTI is here to help you!
We will be running training sessions on Moodle for new and proficient users and also on using learning technologies in teaching and learning, a great introduction to the many ways you can use ed tech to make your teaching- and your students’ learning experience even more enjoyable!
We have prepared guides for teachers to discover or explore the many ways that learning technologies and digital literacy can add value in education. We’ll be distributing them to new and current staff and they will be available here soon.
We’ll also be holding an Open House at the end of the month so come say hi and chat with us about how we can help you with your projects and professional development!
If you are a Moodle editor and would like some support with redesigning or updating your Moodle course LTI are running various sessions on:
Moodle basics training – for a basic introduction to updating and editing a course in Moodle.
Moodle refresher training – a flexible session covering any Moodle topic that you would like assistance with (users should have completed Moodle basic training).
Moodle quiz training – an introduction to creating quizzes (users should have completed Moodle basic training).
Click on the links above or log in to the Training and development system to book a place.
Preparing for the new academic year
See our checklist on preparing courses
Remember that once you have prepared your course you need to make it available to students.
 Catherine Hua Xiang |
There are numerous methods and tools to mark and provide feedback using technology. Catherine Hua Xiang and Lourdes Hernandez-Martin from LSE’s Language Centre run an LTI-funded project* aimed at ‘exploring and comparing three distinctive e-marking methods and e-feedback as a result of three marking tools’ |
 Lourdes Hernandez-Martin |
More than 20 members of staff at the Language Centre were offered training on using Moodle, iPads with e-pens and Snagit to mark and provide feedback on students’ written work. They applied the three different marking methods to the same group of students throughout the academic year on different pieces of work (usually long essays).
They were then asked to write a reflective diary on the impact of these methods on the way they mark while students answered a survey to explore their perception of video and written feedback. The findings demonstrated a clear preference for video feedback using Snagit, which Catherine and Lourdes explained by providing the following reasons:
“It is very helpful having the teacher guide me through the corrections as it is more personal and can allow me to see not just what is wrong but why it is wrong”
“It’s much better to hear something directly rather than having to try and work things out from comments or notes written down”
“you can learn from home, rather than having to come in for office hours”
Snagit Features
* From e-Marking to e-Feedback: Training, Applying and Evaluation, project funded by a Learning Technology and Innovation Grant. You can also find some information and updates on this project in the LSE Language Centre website.
The flipped classroom is a pedagogical model in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a course are reversed. Short video lectures are viewed by students at home before the class session, while in-class time is devoted to exercises, projects, or discussions – 7 Things You Should Know About… Flipped Classrooms from Educause.
There are many possibilities in terms of resources, activities and organisation when flipping a lecture. You’ll find below some useful information about this approach drawing on the results of a study made at LTI.
The flipped lecture model is a learner- rather than teacher-centred approach: students take ownership of their own learning.
Other benefits include a greater focus on practical application with more “hands-on” activities and a deeper understanding of theories and concepts thanks to the combination of such activities with key concepts and notions drawn from the recorded lectures.
A key aspect observed from flipped lectures is the shift of the role of the lecturer from instructor to facilitator. As more responsibility is given to students, it is essential to ensure that:
This might lead to additional work when preparing the course and also requires facilitation skills such as time-keeping, balancing participation, listening and summarising/rephrasing, etc.
|
|
|
|
LTI grants allow academics and students to integrate the use of new technologies in teaching and learning. We are currently accepting applications for projects for the academic year 2015/16.I’m most impressed by the willingness of people to try new things and to think about different forms of teaching and assessment.
“I am most impressed by courses that have moved to include active modes of learning and which employ less traditional models of assessment.”
There is of course great variety of teaching and assessment practices across the disciplines, so it’s not like only one stands out. I am pleased to see courses that have moved to include active modes of learning and which employ less traditional models of assessment. You can tell they’ve been thought through! I like seeing course proposals with a clear rationale that informs the whole course design, including the aims of the course, the learning outcomes and the final assessment, and which incorporate feedback properly, from formative tasks to summative assignments. Those courses also utilise technology to engage students in creative ways and to enable giving more comprehensive feedback to students. For example I think there are exciting possibilities for e-portfolio assessment which ask students to build their work in a formal way over the span of a course.
Yes, there appears to be an increased number of half unit courses which reduces the amount of contact time that students receive and makes the issue of getting students to engage early on and attend even more vital. There has also been a move away from the traditional model of 100% exam and towards more essay assessment and some new types of assessment. New course designs from many departments have included assessment such as projects and case studies or group work.
One of the key challenges is being aware of inclusivity issues when designing courses and reconsidering or rethinking forms of assessment. It is extremely important to involve students and explain why they are they being asked to complete tasks and how they meet the aims of that specific course. Students need to be given guidance and support particularly with regards to alternative forms of assessment that they may not have experienced before. You need to give students freedom to take risks and get excited about learning but you can’t make assumptions about what they already know. It can raise anxieties if it is not clear what is what is expected of them.
One of the key opportunities is to explore possibilities to refresh and innovate your own teaching. You shouldn’t be afraid of making changes as there is lots of support and guidance to help in the process. Also I would point out that innovation doesn’t have to be on a huge scale as quite small changes can make a big difference to the students’ experience of a course.
“One of the key opportunities is to explore possibilities to refresh and innovate your own teaching”
I suppose it goes back to the first question, about good course design. Innovation and technology should be appropriate to a need, don’t just try and fit something in, go back to the course design and ask yourself what are the course aims? Do your learning outcomes match the aims? and how are you assessing the learning outcomes? Then consider how this changes for each stage of learning. Innovation should not be a ‘stick’ to beat people with, but something useful that enhances learning experiences and outcomes.
Course design does involve some trial and error so you perhaps use formative tasks to test out alternative forms of assessment and lessen the risk to students as you find out what works before making changes to summative assessment.
