The Vice-Chancellor’s Education Excellence Awards aim to raise the status of education at Newcastle University by rewarding individuals and teams who have made a marked impact on the student educational experience.
The 2023 winners of the Vice-Chancellor’s Education Excellence Awards have now been announced, with two winning submissions out of a very competitive field of nominations:
Dr Carys Watts School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sport Sciences
Dr Watts receives her award for her sustained, and much valued, record of achievement and dedication to student learning and support. She is commended for her excellent work on the Support to Study, Virtual Exchange and Study Abroad initiatives, and more generally for her collegiality and passion for teaching.
Carys commented “I am delighted to receive this award and to be recognised for progressing student mobility, co-creativity and enterprise activities. Working with some incredible colleagues and teaching a diverse student community keeps me motivated, reflective and innovative in my approach to education”.
Rosalind Beaumont School X
Rosalind receives her award for her record of innovation and creativity in support of student learning and staff development, both within her School and Faculty and more widely across the University. She is praised for her teaching excellence, dedication to sustainability, and for her support and contributions to the University’s Professional Standards Framework scheme.
Rosalind remarked “It’s an honour to be recognised by my peers for my work with both students and staff in different educational contexts at Newcastle over the last 15+ years. I’m here through a lot of determination, luck, and the countless conversations with colleagues and students which have helped shape me into the educator and colleague I am today. Thank you to all of you who have been part of my development so far – there’s always more to do, so let’s get on with it!”
The panel, chaired by Ruth Valentine (Interim PVC Education), were extremely impressed with the scale of impact, breadth of activity, and the creative approaches to education and student support demonstrated by all awardees.
On Friday, at the end of this Art of the Possible event, we got together with Dr David Kennedy, Dean of Digital Education, to look back over the main themes and to find out his views on some of the common questions and challenges running through the week.
Many thanks to David for this conversation, to all our speakers and presenters who have contributed over the week, and to colleagues who have come along and shared their insights and questions.
Let’s keep these conversations going!
You can catch up on recordings and resources from links on this blog:
In this Art of the Possible presentation, Jack Ennis and Jo Robinson-Lamb from NUIT’s Digital Adoption Team walked us through some of the AI driven productivity tools that are already available in Microsoft products and then whetted our appetites with previews of Microsoft products being developed now.
What is possible now – Editor, PPT Designer, MS Designer, Bing Chat
What is coming – Copilot
The Copilot videos that Jack played in the session were omitted from the recording – to see them follow the links we have added in the recording or go to them directly with the links below:
The Learning & Teaching @ Newcastle University podcast was launched in the 2021 Art of the Possible week Blended learning: effective practice. This monthly podcast celebrates the great things we are doing in learning and teaching here at Newcastle University.
In each episode we hear from a wide range of guests, and guest hosts to discover more about their stories and the work behind their stories. These can be long form conversations, magazine style articles, and much more.
In the latest episode (episode 37), Ben Steel from LTDS sat down with Pro Vice Chancellor Education Professor Ruth Valentine and Dean of Digital Education Dr David Kennedy.
AI text generating technologies have been around for a long time, but they have made significant advances in recent years. Most are trained on extensive data sets and are capable of producing human-like written content quickly and easily. There has been a lot of media coverage of these tools recently (in particular ChatGPT) with concerns raised about the risk they present to academic integrity.
As with all emerging technologies, it is our role as educators to explore and investigate the opportunities they provide to our students’ educational experience, as well as to consider any potential negative impacts. Ben, Ruth and David discuss Newcastle University’s response to these tools, with a focus on the five principles for the use of AI at Newcastle.
You can find this episode (and our back catalogue) at the following places:
Next time we are going to look at our 2023 Art of the Possible week AI in Education, with highlights from our sessions.
So, remember to download, like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from. If you are new to podcasts, you will see some useful links on each episode page.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly changing landscape, with new and innovative tools emerging constantly. But how can you keep up-to-date with the latest developments and trends in this fast-moving field? In this blog post we will share some of our favourite articles on AI to help get you started:
To find out more about AI at Newcastle University, and keep up-to-speed with new and emerging developments in the use of AI in teaching and assessment, please visit our Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle site.
This year there have been many conversations about AI in Education – at School level, with our students and between colleagues. Next week we have further opportunities to keep the conversation going and learn together. What’s clear is that no one person is the expert in this fast moving space.
Over the week we have a number of in-person and online events. We will also be adding to this blog over the week. Come back to see posts about AI, outputs from our events and the next AI themed episode of our Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle podcast.
Add your thoughts
Throughout the week we will be collating questions and opportunities and adding them to two Padlet boards. Get involved by adding your own thoughts to these boards or upvoting ideas that resonate with your own. At the end of the week we’ll revisit these with our Dean of Digital Education, Dr David Kennedy.
We have a few places left on many of our in-person and online events:
Monday 26 June
Embracing the AI Landscape: Debbie Kemp from the University of Kent will open our week, sharing and reflecting on how she has incorporated AI in her teaching and assessment. Online 10:00-10:45
Introduction to AI: a one-hour overview from LTDS and FMS TEL colleagues. In person 14:00-15:00
Wednesday 28 June
AI and Assessment: a one-hour session exploring the impact of AI on assessment. In person 10:00-11:00
Embracing AI @Newcastle: find out how colleagues at Newcastle University are embracing AI in their teaching and learning. Online 14:00-15:00
Thursday 29 June
Hands on Explore AI Tools: Join us in the Herschel Learning lab to try out a range of AI tools. In-person, bring your own device: 10:00-11:30
Microsoft 365 and AI: Join the NUIT Digital Adoption team for an overview of what is currently possible, and what the future holds, for AI in Microsoft 365. Online 14:00-15:00
AI in Education Retrospective: Dr David Kennedy, Dean of Digital Education will present his thoughts on the week and comment on outstanding challenges going forward. Online 14:00-15:00
We’ve refreshed our Inspera support guidance materials on the Learning and Teaching site, where you will now find links to our new range of webinars and marking how-to videos. We will continue to expand our online guidance resources over the summer.
This blog post outlines how to use Ally to improve the accessibility of your teaching materials within Canvas.
Ally is a built-in accessibility checker that is integrated into Canvas which automatically checks course materials against WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards.
From an instructor perspective, it delivers guidance to improve the accessibility of their course content. For students it provides accessible alternative formats such as audio, electronic braille, epub and more.
Alternative Formats
Ally automatically generates alternative formats of your course files, so students can access the information they need, in the way that they need it.
Formats includes:
Electronic Braille
Audio
Immersive Reader
PDF – OCR
PDF – Tagged
HTML, Semantic
ePub
Translated Version
BeeLine Reader
For more information on these alternative formats, visit the Alternative Formats section of the Ally website.
The below video explains alternative formats in Ally, demonstrating how they are accessed and used.
Alternative Formats in Ally – Explanational video
Instructor feedback
Ally provides you detailed feedback and support to help you make your materials more accessible.
The below video explains the instructor view of Ally and how to improve the accessibility of your materials:
Instructor Tools in Ally – Explanational video
Further Resources
For more information on Ally in Canvas, please visit our Ally For Canvas pages on the Learning and Teaching website.
All learning resources we create should aim to be accessible as possible and this includes video content. For the purposes of this blog, we will be looking at video captioning in the Panopto (also know as Recap) system.
When discussing video content, we are referring to recordings that are provided to students for educations purposes (that is delivered via Canvas), for example lecture recordings, teaching presentations etc.
Captioning in Panopto
The ReCap service (Panopto) provides the ability to add ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) generated captions to your recordings.
The University recognises that automatically generated captions are not 100% correct and have published a captions disclaimer for viewers.
We recommend reviewing automatically generated captions and making light-touch edits before making them available.
For further guidance on captioning video content and FAQs, please visit Captions and Transcripts pages on the Learning and Teaching development website.
This blog post outlines how to make Canvas pages accessible using the Rich Content Editor (RCE). Many of the techniques and tips are similar to those discussed in creating accessible documents.
The Rich Content Editor within Canvas is a powerful tool for create engaging content, blending text with multimedia resources. With a built-in accessibility checker, you can make some great content that not only looks good but is also accessible.
1. Text Headings
Use a hierarchy of headings such as Heading 2, Heading 3 and Heading 4. The heading options are limited in Canvas compared to other software, with the highest level of heading starting at Heading 2. Using headings allows easier navigation for all users, as well as allowing screen readers to identify and describe the structure of a document.
When selecting a font size use a minimum of font size 12 (which is the default font size setting in the Rich Content Editor in Canvas). For the main text of the page, use the Paragraph setting. It’s also best to keep your use of bold and italic text to a minimum
If lists are used in the page use bullet points for items that aren’t sequential or numbered lists for sequential items.
When using colours in a Canvas page, do not use colour alone to convey meaning. If someone has a visual impairment, including colour blindness, the emphasis you’re trying to create by using colour will be lost.
Please also be mindful of the colour contrast. This means the colour contrast between background and foreground content should be great enough to ensure it is legible.
Always use alternative text (or ‘alt text’) to provide a meaningful description of an image. Alt text allows screen readers and text-to-speech tools to read aloud the content of an image to the user.
Alt text should be clear and concise (1-2 sentences) and explain the relevant content of an image. Alt text is limited to 125 characters, so use that wisely and try to describe the key elements of the image.
If your graphic has text in it, this should be added to the alt text also.
If an image is there only for appearance, you can mark it as decorative.
Tables can be great for organising information. However, if used incorrectly, they can be difficult for people to navigate using assistive technologies.
If you add a table to your document, be sure to use it for data and not for layout or document design.
It’s important to ensure that your table has a header row that repeats itself when the table extends beyond a single page. When deciding on a structure for tables, remember they are read from left to right and top to bottom.
Use hyperlinks to describe where the link will take the user. It is recommended that you create descriptive text about where the URL will take the user so it can be easily read by a screen reader. For example, the “Semester 1 – Assignment Brief” details can be found in the Assignments section of Canvas, where “Semester 1 – Assignment Brief” is the hyperlink. Avoid using ‘click here’, ‘read more’ or ‘for more info’. Also avoid underlining text for emphasis, but rather use the bold function.
Guidance on how to create, edit and remove hyperlinks can be found in the following guides:
Use the built-in accessibility checker in Canvas to identify any accessibility issues on a page. This tool can help identify any accessibility issues in your pages, ensuring they meet the necessary standards. They will guide you, step by step, on how to make your pages more accessible.
