2023 Roundup

We hope you have enjoyed learning more about the work we do in FMS TEL, below are a few areas we covered and successes we had in 2023. If you have any suggestions for content for 2024 we would love to hear from you.


FMS TEL Successes

FMS TEL’s Ashley Reynolds was involved in a piece of work, entitled Evaluation of the Training in Early Detection for Early Intervention (TEDEI) e-learning course using Kirkpatrick’s method, in collaboration with Dr Anna Basu and Janice Pearse, which was published in the BMC Medical Education online journal. Read our blog piece from March 2023.

Simon Cotterill, Gemma Mitchelson and Michael Hughes succeeded in securing funding from the Educational Research Development and Practice fund to explore use of A.I. with contextualised and personalised data.


Conference

FMS TEL attended Newcastle University Learning and Teaching Conference 2023 with a stand, where we answered questions about what we do and how to contact us, and handed out a booklet detailing some case studies of our work.

FMS TEL stand

We also displayed a poster by Dr Michelle Miller and presented a video from Eleanor Gordon and Gemma Mitchelson.

Dr Iain Keenan presented MOOC Adventures: From Conception to Reality at the Newcastle University Learning and Teaching Conference 2023. FMS TEL worked with Iain on this course and he highlighted how helpful it has been to work alongside FMS TEL to bring the course to life.


Software and Systems

We explained how you can create your own WordPress blog, and presented our experience of running this blog to the Directors of Education Forum.

With all the discussion of AI and ChatGPT, we blogged about ChatGPT, what it is and how it works. We reviewed AI Gamma.app, which is a tool for generating presentations, documents or web pages.

We were invited to review Audience Interaction System, and we profiled the FMS Feedback System, produced by our development team in FMS TEL.

We attended a great presentation on GigXR, which is a clinical simulation platform. It is an immersive technology which projects 3D holographic objects, which you can interact with when wearing a headset. We also introduced a new tool for PowerPoint which allows you to put a live video feed into PowerPoint: Cameo for PowerPoint.


Tips and Guides

We published a series called Taking Ctrl, which details keyboard shortcuts you can use to perform some actions. Here is an example: Taking Ctrl: Paste text without Formatting

We posted some advice on Spring cleaning your digital clutter, such as tidying up teams and One Drive, and we provided tips on displaying meetings in your Outlook Calendars

We had a special guest post by Module Leader David Thewlis discussing Overlays in videos using OpenShot Video Editor. We also featured work with Associate Lecturer Ann Johnson on developing Online Asynchronous Materials and looking at Unconscious Bias in Healthcare.

Prompted by an enquiry from Michelle’s poster presentation we detailed how to add audio to pdf documents.

We presented a case study on Giving life to old presentations, showcased a Branching Activity, bringing an exercise to life with videos in H5P and Canvas, and showcased some of our other favourite creations in H5P, such as interactive videos and 360 tours.


Michelle Miller Tributes

We’d like to take this opportunity to also pay tribute to our colleague Dr Michelle Miller, who sadly passed away in June of this year. Michelle was our Student Digital Skills Officer, training FMS students in writing long documents, using Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and much more.

Below are comments from some members of our team.

It was an absolute pleasure to work with Michelle. She was a ray of light who lit up the whole room. I loved her positive outlook on life (no matter what she was going through), and her passion for cats.

Tracy Connell

Such a truly lovely lady, and a big miss from the team.
Will raise a Guinness to her soon.

Ash Reynolds

Her empty desk is a cheerful nod to the vibrant presence she brought to our office. Always ready to help, she played a key role in my growth, both professionally and personally. I am very grateful for the impact she had on me.

Emily Smith

Michelle was an esteemed colleague who is a huge miss both in our TEL team, and across many of the schools that she supported. She was selfless and always willing to help. I feel honoured to have worked with such a wonderful colleague.

Gemma Mitchelson


Thank You!

The blog is edited by a different FMS TEL team member every month, and many team members have taken on this task, as well as contributing posts to the blog – thank you to all of you! Our thanks also go to those colleagues who have offered their examples of practice for us to showcase here. We look forward to working with many more of you in 2024.

ERDP Project: Exploring AI

As we develop our understanding of AI and its capabilities, we are looking at how advancing technologies such as ChatGPT might assist colleagues and students with day to day tasks. FMS TEL team members Simon Cotterill, Gemma Mitchelson and Michael Hughes succeeded in securing ERDP funding to explore such possibilities.

Project aims:

  1. To enable staff and students to access contextualised and personal data via AI machine learning software
  2. To investigate a process for generating AI responses in a more ethical way 
  3. To improve the University’s understanding of AI machine learning in an HE context.

We are investigating use of contextualised data, formatted​ with natural language, optimized for A.I. For example, using a student’s programme and module information, their timetable data, and MOF information to assist the student in accessing key information more easily.​ Later this could be enhanced with richer information, such as programme/module study guides, VLE course information and other sources. via APIs. Likewise, a chatbot for staff could draw together University, Faculty and School-specific information.

An exciting new feature to be explored is that of agents (aka ‘Assistants’) and their ability to take on different functions and different personas; effectively acting as a small workforce to support, user needs. Up to now, most of us are familiar with having a conversation with a single agent, yet there is growing scope for multi-agent use. In the visual below you can see an Ai Agents overview from Chat Dev. By setting instructions and ’embedding’ information into the system users can encourage each agent to behave differently. For example, “You are a member of the Design team who will come up with simple ways to achieve a set goal”, “You are a CEO who will talk to the CTO on what steps should be taken to achieve X,Y and Z.”…

A picture showing agents positioned in various roles, lead by a virtual CEO.

image source: https://github.com/OpenBMB/ChatDev

The technologies are evolving very rapidly. At an “AI Sprint” in late November, the FMS TEL team were able to work with newly released features from OpenAI; these make the embedding of customised information and personalising Assistants (agents) much more accessible. These and other new features support the integration of AI features within other systems. As such, there is likely to be a proliferation of new AI products and plugins based on these features – and hopefully eventually within the systems supported by FMS TEL. All work in our project will be cross-referenced to our university principles on AI which can be accessed here:  Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle | Newcastle University (ncl.ac.uk)

There are challenges to consider; in particular those related to Data Protection, which we continue to review. There are also financial considerations when using external AI services like OpenAI or via Azure API, which are metered (pay according to use), rather than fixed price plans, which need investigating as part of our intended trial/pilot.

We are in the early stages of fact-finding but will be reaching out to FMS schools in the new year with an invite to workshops to share our proof of concept.

Taking Ctrl: Ctrl Taken

control taken, wrapping up the taking control series

Thanks to everyone who submitted their favourite keyboard shortcuts. Here is a round up of all the shortcuts mentioned:

ShortcutFunction
Windows key +EOpen File Explorer
Windows: Ctrl + Shift + V
Mac: Option + Shift + Cmd + V
Paste text without Formatting
Windows: Ctrl + Z
Mac: Cmd + Z
Undo
Windows: Ctrl + Shift + Z or Ctrl + Y
Mac: Cmd + Shift + Z
Redo
Windows: Windows key + L
Mac: Control + Cmd + Q
Lock your Computer
Windows: Ctrl + Shift + T
Mac: Cmd + Shift + T
Reopen Closed Tabs
Reopen a tab in Chrome
Chrome: Ctrl/ Cmd + Shift + N
Firefox: Ctrl/ Cmd + Shift + P
Safari: Cmd + Shift + N
Incognito Mode
Windows: Windows + Shift + S
Mac: Shift + Cmd + 4
Snipping Tool
Windows: Ctrl + K
Mac: Cmd + K
Insert a Link
Windows key + left/right/up/downArrange Windows
Windows: F12
Mac: Cmd + Opt + I
Developer Tools Device Mode
Windows: Window + A > Focus Assist
Mac: Option + click Notification Center icon
Focus Assist/Do not disturb
Summary Table

We will be starting a new and exciting series in 2024!