E-portfolio is not just for helping to manage personal tutor groups and keeping track of supervisions.
Did you know you can also use it for assignments?
Graeme Redshaw-Boxwell explains: ‘You can use it to set up supervision groups for classes you teach.
‘the students would use the blog and link evidence against particular competencies (including the GSF).
‘They can also use tags to filter the blog posts and export as a rich text document so that you can mark them.’
This is an easy and informal way of assessing how students interact and gaining a sense of how much they understand outside more formal assessment techniques.
Graeme’s running lots of workshops over the summer so you can either refresh your knowledge of using e-portfolio for supervision and personal tutoring or think about new ways of using it for assignments.
Some people appear to be having problems with viewing the blog.
This is due to a centralised policy applied by Newcastle University’s IT Service that forces any intranet site viewed through Internet Explorer to be displayed using “Compatibility Mode”.
This will render any site as if you were using Internet Explorer 6 or 7, which is why you are unable to see some parts of the blog or get an error message.
IT Servicedesk responded, “Internet Explorer is going to be rolled relatively soon and then SAP will support the relevant sites in standards mode, at that point that flag will be flipped.”
If you want to view the blog in Internet Explorer you can disable this setting by following these steps in the browser:
Tools -> Compatibility View Settings, then uncheck ‘Display intranet sites in Compatibility View’
Or you could use a different browser to Internet Explorer.
In the first week of this course we have been delighted have our distinguished Visiting Professor David Breeze, as a guest expert. As many of you will know, David’s jointly authored classic ‘Hadrian’s Wall’ (written with Brian Dobson) and his edition of the ‘Hadrian’s Wall Handbook’ are the most widely read studies of the Wall ever published. You’ll see David’s contributions in steps towards the end of week 1. We particularly liked his statement “…part of the fun of the study of Hadrian’s Wall is that certainty is difficult to achieve..” – no doubt a theme we will revisit as the course unfolds!
To hear more from David you can view the panel discussion we recorded last year on “Why build the Wall?”
On our second run of Hadrian’s Wall we’ll be using this blog to address some of the frequently asked questions that arise on the course. A couple of learners have asked about the length of the videos.
You’ll find that all of our videos are under 5 minutes in length. That has been done intentionally so that no single step requires too much time. While this can be disappointing for a topic you are interested in, it works very well in practice, particularly if you consider the course in full with approximately 20 steps in each of 6 weeks. The short videos also force the educator to distil in a clear way what the main points are.
We know from research (eg this paper from Philip Guo) that when videos are longer that learners can lose interest. If you’d like to read a little more about some of our thinking on building the course have a look at our blog post on Educational Vodka.
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.
NUTELA Peer Recognition Award winner Gigi Herbert [Right] with Salome Bolton, who nominated her.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 Patterson Peer Recognition Award Winner
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.
An interesting article which looks at the most effective way fro students to take notes and use those notes to help their learning.
Interesting comments which suggest a different strategy might be the best for students using their electronic devices to take notes. https://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-most-effective-way-to-take-notes-41961
We have had so many words of wisdom and so much great footage from the Enterprise Shed. One clip we didn’t manage to include in the course is Sugata’s explanation of two very different kinds of entrepreneur: the aggressively directed entrepreneur and the reluctant entrepreneur.
We feature clips from many enterprising people in the Enterprise Shed. We haven’t always had the opportunity to expand on their stories and how they made their ideas happen. One person featured is Jack Fisher (jackfisher.org) a Newcastle graduate who now specialises in motion-based Time-Lapse photography.
Jack has always been interested in films and time lapse photography. His hobby has become his business in the last year. So how did he make it happen?
His advice is to just get out there and do it. Jack noticed that there were not many people making time lapse films in the UK and Europe. He was given a new film camera for his 21st birthday which he used to make a short film about the town he grew up in (Bath). He showed it to some city councillors who were so impressed that they commissioned a longer version which went viral. Jack has been inundated with work since then.
Jack used the Internet to research how to make these films. He says he was then in the right place at the right time, but the important things were having a go and showing people what he could do.
The Enterprise Shed: Making Ideas Happen is Newcastle University‘s third free online course on FutureLearn. It started today and runs for four weeks with around three hours a week needed to keep up. Or you can join anytime before Sunday 26 April, and work through it at your own pace.
I’d really encourage you to sign up and take part whilst the course is running though, as this course is a little different to the two we have developed and run previously. The Enterprise Shed is almost entirely dependent on learners interactions and participation.
It’s you that will make or break this course, and it has been really encouraging to see how readily people are connecting, sharing experiences, helping each other, and sharing ideas so freely and openly.
After only a day it’s turning out to be a really inspirational space to be in.
If you haven’t signed up, there’s still plenty of time. Come and join us in The Enterprise Shed, and help others make their ideas happen, as well as get support to develop and refine your own.
You never know, it might be the start or something new for you….
![NUTELA Peer Recognition Award winner Gigi Herbert [Right] with Salome Bolton, who nominated her.](https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/ltdev/files/2015/06/Salome-and-Gigi.jpg)
