Posts by: rjhowe
Are you struggling to use NILE? Do you want some help getting started with Word, Excel or PowerPoint? Do you know how to access LinkedIn Learning to get loads of technical help and support?
The Learning Technology Team are hosting a series of student drop in sessions to help with basic NILE and Microsoft Office problems.
NILE will be down for scheduled maintenance. Between the 28 December and 29 December you will be unable to login to NILE to access resources or submit any assessments online. Other University systems should not be impacted by this work. [Detailed information about the nature of the maintenance is shown at the bottom of this posting.]
If you were planning on making use of the Christmas vacation to get a lot of work done that involves NILE, please make sure that you log-in and download any resources that you need before Saturday 28 December.
Students – If you are due to submit assignments during this time, please be assured that your deadline will be extended to reflect this downtime. Please check with your Module Leader for more information relating to assignment deadlines.
If you have any questions about the NILE downtime, please contact Rob Howe, by emailing rob.howe@northampton.ac.uk
Detailed information on the nature of the maintenance.
Blackboard is currently hosted with Managed hosting in Amsterdam. As part of updating contracts, there is a move of the physical hosting from Amsterdam to Amazon Webservices (AWS) in Frankfurt. There will be a full data migration from Saturday 28 December and then the NILE service will continue to be unavailable until Sunday 29 December for quality checks and to allow web services redirections to take place. This blog will be updated if there are any changes to timescales.
The key benefits of this move will be:
- Updating of all patches and fixes since August 2019.
- Higher uptime (99.99%).
- Continuous release which means less time needed for downtime during the year.
- Quicker implementation of patches (Currently we have to take the service down to implement any patch or fix).
- Features implemented quicker (Currently we only schedule major feature implementation once a year).
- Ability to stage move to Blackboard Ultra – the latest release of Blackboard – with higher levels of accessibility and usability.
NILE is integrated into the Active Blended Learning (ABL) process at The University of Northampton and we need to ensure that it is being used effectively by staff in order to provide a quality student experience.
Building on the guidance which was initially produced in January 2012, the framework has now been updated to cover the minimum standards which are expected on a NILE site. This was approved at University SEC in March, 2019 and is subsequently being used as the basis for the new NILE templates which have been developed for the 2019/20 academic year.
[Post published on behalf of Ale Armellini]
The purpose of this paper is to introduce an evidence-based, transferable framework of graduate attributes and associated university toolkit to support the writing of level-appropriate learning outcomes aligned to Active Blended Learning (ABL), Northampton’s approach to learning and teaching. An iterative process of co-design and co-development was employed to produce both the framework and the associated learning outcomes toolkit. There is tangible benefit in adopting an integrated framework aligned to the principles of ABL, which enables students to develop personal literacy and graduate identity. The toolkit enables staff to write assessable learning outcomes that support student progression and enable achievement of the framework objectives. Embedding the institutional Changemaker attributes alongside the agreed employability skills enables students to develop and articulate specifically what it means to be a “Northampton graduate”. The uniqueness of this project is the student-centred framework and the combination of curricular, extra- and co-curricular initiatives that provide a consistent language around employability across disciplines. This is achieved through use of the learning outcomes toolkit to scaffold student progression.
See the full paper on the framework of graduate attributes and ABL
Keywords: Active blended learning, ChANGE, COGS, Employability and entrepreneurship, Graduate identity, Personal literacy, Active Blended Learning, ABL.
Nick Petford (VC, Northampton) was asked to keynote at a recent Northamptonshire Health and Wellbeing Board but due to his hectic schedule, was unable to attend in person. Rather than sending his apologies, Nick made use of Kaltura to record his presentation and ensure that he was able to contribute to the event.
Following a short test to ensure that everything was working as expected, Nick tucked himself into one of the bookable small rooms in the Learning Hub at Waterside and was able to complete the recording without any assistance. This was then uploaded and available to send to the conference Chair a few moments later. Nick was then able to rush off to the next appointment on his schedule.
Nick Petford keynote
Commenting on his experience, Nick said,
“I really valued the easy and flexibility which Kaltura provided to record the presentation. I used my own laptop and booked a room which was available to any member of staff – there was very little technical preparation and no special equipment needed.”
If you have not yet had the chance to have a go with Kaltura to create any type of video recording such as a presentation or feedback to students, then please contact your local Learning Technologist.
