Follow these steps to use an Office Mix Placement inside a module in Blackboard:

1. Go to the module you’d like to use.
2. In the Tools menu, select Office Mix.
3. In the Link Name box, type a name.
4. Configure any additional settings you’d like.
5. Click Submit.
6. When you return to the Module, click the item that you just added.
7. When the item appears, use one of these methods to select a mix:
   • By URL: A simple way to select a mix is to visit the Office Mix website, watch a mix, and copy/paste the URL in the dialog. This method makes it easy to include mixes that have been created by other people.
   • My Mixes: Select a mix from your My Mixes page. In order to prevent students from having to sign in to view a mix, only those mixes with permissions set to Unlisted or Public are shown. You can find our how to set these preferences here
8. After you have selected a mix, click Yes to confirm that this is the mix you’d like to use.

NUTELA is pleased to announce the winners of its 2015 Peer Recognition Awards.

The awards are designed to recognise University staff who go above and beyond the call of duty to help their colleagues, schools and units to adopt forms of TEL (technology-enhanced learning).

This year’s winners Gigi Herbert (Development Officer within the Curriculum Development team at the Careers Service) and Graham Patterson (Computing Technician with Sage Faculty IT) have both been integral to helping other staff to adopt innovative technologies in their teaching.

Gigi was responsible for helping Careers Service staff to adopt technologies such as Grademark and Turnitin in their year-long Career Development Modules.

She was nominated by her colleague Salome Bolton. Salome said: ‘Gigi has been fundamental in developing the team of six to help manage the complexities around student assessment and enhancing learning through the innovative use of technology.

‘[She] helped each team member work through these issues and address any problems using individual support and training.

‘[We] have received very positive feedback from students informally and via our student-staff committee about the additional benefits of being able to access their feedback online via this system.’

Graham has worked tirelessly helping staff in the School of Civil Engineering (CEG) to use mobile technologies in their teaching.

For this a tablet devices (Android based) were issued to each all incoming students in CEG from 2012.

Henny Mills (Senior Teaching Associate, CEG), who nominated Graham said: ‘Graham has been central to the introduction and management of the PEARL project and without him, the use of tablet devices within the teaching environment of CEG would not have been such a success.

‘When I was not able to deliver the tablet inductions sessions due to other teaching commitment, Graham run the sessions for up to 100 students, which is well beyond the scope of an IT Technician.

‘The use of these devices has revolutionized teaching delivery in CEG and improved student experiences. This would not have been possible without Graham’s support and enthusiasm for technology-enhanced learning.’

 

Graham added: ‘Using these mobile devices is great because it encourages interaction between lecturers and students and means that lecturers can poll immediate feedback during classes.’

NUTELA Chair, Laura Delgaty, who helped to choose the winners, said: ‘We had some great entrants this year and it was tough deciding on the winners.

‘I think everyone at Newcastle can be really proud of how staff are working together to support each other in using these innovative new methods in their teaching.

‘We are excited this year to offer these awards. The focus was on recognizing colleagues that have gone out of their way to help others at the University learn about or use technology.

‘We asked for peer nominations focusing on how these individuals contributed to the advancement of others using technology and how this related to NUs LTSE.’

Do you have an extra-special colleague who has helped you with incorporated TEL into your teaching practice? Do you want to recognise someone who has provided excellent support or advice on TEL to your school, unit or faculty? Watch out for details of next year’s competition on the NUTELA blog or email: nutelaops@newcastle.ac.uk for more information.

Our fourth Pizza Pop and Practice event will be on the topic of “Social Media in Teaching”

Is social media friend or foe?

• How can I jump into the Twitter stream?
• Can I generate conversations and connections around blogs?
• How can I use Facebook in teaching?

 

This workshop is focused on helping you improve your teaching practice – we provide the hands-on support and the pizza!

Print off a poster for the workshop

Hashtag #social3p

Workshop materials

• Pearltrees case study on the Enterprise Shed (click images to open other websites and case studies)
• Phonar case study (Opening up photography teaching)

Twitter

• Library guide to twitter for teaching
• 30 ways to use twitter in the classroom
• Connecting Twitter and LinkedIn
• Storify example

Blogs

• Blogging slides
• Urban design blog and case study 

Facebook

• Politics case study
• Civil Engineering case study

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Has someone helped you? Has another member of University staff gone out of their way to help you use technology? Would you like her/him to be recognised? If so, let us know!

NUTELA is offering two peer recognition awards this year. We are looking for nominations of staff members who have contributed to peer support or the mentoring of others learning about and/or working with technology.

It might be someone who has helped you understand the purpose of a specific learning technology, or someone who has been instrumental in progressing Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) initiatives in your unit. You are welcome to nominate any member of staff at Newcastle University.

The nomination process is simple. In 500 words or less, just answer these two questions and send your response to nutelaops@ncl.ac.uk.

1. How has this staff member contributed to your learning, working or development with TEL?
2. How has this contributed to the Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Strategy

The deadline is April 30, 2015. NUTELA will review the applications and make a decision. All nominees will be told they have been nominated, and will be invited to present their work at the year-end NUTELA conference in June, 2015. The award will be presented by Suzanne Cholerton, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) and the winners will be invited to the Vice-Chancellor’s Celebrating Success event.

Laura Delgaty
Chair
NUTELA
l.e.delgaty@ncl.ac.uk

 

  Office (at home)  Fabio Bruna CC BY 2.0.

This Practice based workshop was the third of four focused on helping you improve your teaching practice with hands on support. We covered:

• How do I map drives on my computer?
• How can I access resources away from campus?
• How can I access software away from campus?
• Who can help me with: Filr, RAS (Remote Application Service), EndNote?
• How can I teach virtually: Lync (Skype), Adobe Connect?

Handout – Lync and Adobe Connect for meetings and teaching remotely (pdf)

Other relevant resources in response to questions on the day:

• Software Licence information, what’s available across campus and what is available to staff on home devices:
• Remote Desktop Connections off-campus
• Sofware Available on RAS
• Software Requests for RAS and Clusters

 

 

As we watch signup figures rise day by day for out third free online course with FutureLearn, The Enterprise Shed: Making Ideas Happen, Katie Wray, Lead Educator, for the course explores why we should all be joining her in The Enterprise Shed…

Firstly, let me unpack ‘enterprise’. For me, enterprise is about making creativity, problem solving and ideas practical. This makes it relevant across all areas of education, not just business. Where enterprise is applied to creating a new venture, it is commonly known as ‘entrepreneurship’. We are increasingly aware of entrepreneurship, through the steady creation of new businesses (particularly in austere times), but also through the media. From this awareness we can each draw our own conclusions about what an entrepreneur is? The Enterprise Shed challenges a variety of definitions of an entrepreneur and looks at enterprise and entrepreneurship at a grassroots level. On the course you will be introduced to a whole bunch of entrepreneurial individuals and teams, not all of whom refer to themselves as ‘an entrepreneur’.

So if you can be ‘entrepreneurial’ (behave like an entrepreneur) without actually being an entrepreneur (starting a new business venture), who is ‘entrepreneurial’ and what can you do with your ‘entrepreneurialness’*? We are committed to exploring this with you throughout the course, and to supporting each participant to draw their own conclusions about how they can make change in their own context. Our other commitment is to exploring your ideas, to collecting insights into what a solution looks like, and to help you to turn that idea into something tangible.

This course is about you; it is about your role, through your ideas, in making change. There are 3 main reasons why you should commit 3 hours per week, for 4 weeks to The Enterprise Shed:

1. You will develop confidence in yourself as a ‘doer’. You will do this through analysing the behaviours of other entrepreneurial people that you will be introduced to on the course, and drawing conclusions about the way that they ‘do’ and what you might ‘do’ when approaching your own challenges, problems and projects.
2. You will discover ideas that address problems you want to play a role in changing. You will do this through identifying problems, sharing them with others, creating and collaborating on ideas generation, and developing solutions together with peers on the course.
3. You will have the opportunity to meet people and build networks. WE will do this by forming virtual and physical networks around the globe, which can outlive the end of the course. You will meet people that share your passions and drivers to make change in your world, find out where you can go for help, and collaborate to achieve impact.

The Enterprise Shed is not just a course, but a place where you can go to think, and critically, to do. Join us from 30th March 2015 in The Enterprise Shed and make your ideas happen.

Rebecca Fisher, Entrepreneurial Development Officer in our Careers Service, who is helping Katie develop the course wrote recently about what that experience is like over at the Rise Up blog.