We want to inform you about essential maintenance scheduled for the morning of Tuesday, 2nd April, starting at about 8am.
During this period, all FMS TEL web services will be unavailable, and you may experience some performance issues for a short while afterward.
These are some of the main services that will be affected:
FMS TEL Sign in portal
NU Reflect, PGR CoP
MLE, Evaluation, Feedback
Identity, Dental Evaluation
FMS Projects, Personal Tutoring
Placements, Workshop Booking
Grad School SAS
WRS
Role Play North
This maintenance is crucial for ensuring the reliability and efficiency of our systems, allowing us to continue providing you with the best possible service. While we understand that interruptions can be inconvenient, please rest assured that we will strive to minimize any disruption and complete the maintenance as swiftly as possible.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and patience during this time.
Are you interested in an area of research but perhaps struggling to find the time to develop your idea? Did you know that we have a Faculty research group where you can join like-minded colleagues with similar research interests?
Four research sub-categories have been set up:
Digital – this includes digital capabilities, use of software, use of AI within a teaching setting
Fit for Future – this includes skills development, professionalism, employability, transitions
Teaching and Learning – this includes assessment and feedback, evaluation of teaching methods, innovative teaching methods
Widening Participation – this includes inclusivity, accessibility to teaching and opportunities, student experience
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
With the rise of Large Language Models (LLM) and their potential this year the FMS TEL Team have been successful in an application for funding. We are in the very early stages of planning out how we can integrate some of our services with a LLM whilst also maintaining security over the data.
We have looked at feedback from a recent survey and are taking on board ideas from colleagues and students, to help guide us through this exploratory work.
This is just the beginning and we will keep you updated on our progress.
We are delighted to share that our colleagues Leonard Shapiro, Iain Keenan and student Ella Hobbs have had their work on Haptic Surface Painting (HSP) published.
The paper describes the development and evaluation of haptic surface painting (HSP), a novel body painting approach that has been designed to support learner exploration and observation of anatomy. HSP involves the use of touch, sight, and food colouring to locate and paint the positions of muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones directly on to the skin. Having used HSP, medical students identified that the approach was accessible, flexible, and empowering, and provided positive impacts on their three-dimensional spatial awareness and cognitive freedom when studying clinically relevant anatomical concepts.
As part of work on the Exploring 3D Anatomy MOOC, brought to life with help from FMS TEL, Iain and Leonard have also developed this as an asynchronous workshop that students can follow at home with video guidance. This, alongside other Exploring 3D Anatomy exercises are available as a free course to a wider audience.
Last month we welcomed Nick Jensen to the FMS TEL team, as Senior Digital Skills Demonstrator.
Nick has joined the FMS TEL team to cover the role of Senior Demonstrator. Nick is co-ordinating a group of PGRs who assume the role of Digital Skills Demonstrators. As part of the wider remit of the department he delivers our digital skills provision, teaching students digital skills and techniques.
Nick brings insider knowledge with him, having previously been a Digital Skills Demonstrator himself for a four-year period from 2019 to 2023.
Using a problem based approach to help students help themselves, Nick and our team offer digital capabilities instruction in sessions that both directly and indirectly support student work (from undergraduate course assignments to PhD theses). We offer more than 100 sessions, serving over 2000 students each year. We deliver sessions both on campus and online.
“Having worked with the FMS TEL Digital Skills team for more than 4 years, applying to the Senior Demonstrator role was the perfect progression. I have previous managerial experience in the Further Education sector, and with my long-term career goals of procuring an academic support role in Higher Education, this role seemed like a logical next step. Since commencing the role some highlights have been running a staff training session for new and returning demonstrators, being involved with a Senior colleague in their interviewing processes and getting to put my own stamp on the teaching resources through re-vamping the content.”
FMS TEL have a stand at the Learning and Teaching Conference today, so come and say hello!
Come and visit us in the lobby of the Frederick Douglass Building and see how we can help FMS colleagues. We will also have a booklet of some of our best case studies and guides to share.
We also have a poster on display from Dr Michelle Miller and a video from Eleanor Gordon and Gemma Mitchelson representing the team.
A piece of research I have recently been involved in has been published in the BMC Medical Education online journal and is available to read now. It can also be accessed via the University library here.
The paper, titled ‘Evaluation of the Training in Early Detection for Early Intervention (TEDEI) e-learning course using Kirkpatrick’s method‘ focuses on the need for training of healthcare professionals in early detection of atypical motor development (cerebral palsy) in infants up to six months old.
Working in collaboration with Dr Anna Basu and Janice Pearse as Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), I developed a video-based e-learning course to address this need, with results from a pre-course and post-course quiz being analysed to evaluate whether participation in the course had improved knowledge and changed the behaviour of healthcare professionals.
TEDEI Course User Interface
The two-hour course used a Traffic Light System to both demonstrate abnormalities and also quiz users on their understanding of them, and the potential need to monitor/refer.
Traffic Light System
As demonstrated by the research, the course received positive responses from all stakeholders. Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) who have taken the course have improved their knowledge and confidence in this area, leading to better outcomes for families.
The course is available free to staff from Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. More information about the course, including access and booking, can be found on the University Website.
References
Officer, E., Johnson, M., Blickwedel, J., Reynolds, A., Pearse, R., Pearse, J. & Basu, A.P. (2023) ‘Evaluation of the Training in Early Detection for Early Intervention (TEDEI) e-learning course using Kirkpatrick’s method’, BMC medical education, 23(1), pp. 129–129.
FMS TEL will have a stand at the Learning and Teaching Conference 2023, and we’d love to see you on the day. Come and visit us in the lobby and see how we can help FMS colleagues. We will also have a booklet of some of our best case studies and guides to share.
If you have not already signed up to the Learning and Teaching Conference, you can do so on the conference website. Looking forward to seeing you there!
We are always hoping to improve the blog and make it more relevant to our readers. Please take 5 minutes to share your opinions about the blog and what you’d like to see.
