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"LearnTech News"
by Robert Farmer and Paul Rice
It’s no easy thing to create an interesting, engaging and effective educational video. However, when developing educational presentations and videos there are some straightforward principles that you can apply which are likely to make them more effective.
The following videos were created for our course, Creating Effective Educational Videos, and will take you through the dos and dont’s of educational video-making.
1. How not to do it!
This short video offers a humorous take on how not to make great educational videos.
- Prof. Oliver Deer discusses his approach to making educational videos: https://youtu.be/cKXx9GkeGGQ
2. Understanding Mayer’s multimedia principles
This 20 minute video outlines Richard Mayer‘s principles of multimedia learning and provides practical examples of how these principles might be applied in practice to create more effective educational videos.
- A Practical Guide to Mayer’s Multimedia Principles: https://youtu.be/m0GMZgaC7gM
3. Applying Mayer’s mutimedia principles
Because much of Mayer’s work centres around STEM subjects (which typically make a lot of use of diagrams, charts, tables, equations, etc.) We spent some time thinking about how to apply his principles in subjects which are more text based. To this end, we recorded a 12 minute video lecture which is very on-screen text heavy in which we tried to make use of as many of Mayer’s principles as possible.
- Are we ever justified in silencing those with whom we disagree? https://youtu.be/Dyu94dH2aeo
4. Understanding what students want, and don’t want, from an educational video
Given the current popularity of educational videos, and given the time, effort and expense academics and institutions are investing to provide educational videos to students, we thought that it was worthwhile to evaluate whether students actually want and use these resources. You can find the results of our investigation in our paper:
- Rice, P. and Farmer, R. (2016) Educational videos – tell me what you want, what you really, really want. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Issue 10, November 2016. Available from: https://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/article/view/297
5. Further reading
Mayer, R. (2009) Multimedia Learning, 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press.
https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/psychology/educational-psychology/multimedia-learning-2nd-edition
Rice, P., Beeson, P. and Blackmore-Wright, J. (2019) Evaluating the Impact of a Quiz Question within an Educational Video. TechTrends, Volume 63, pp.522–532.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-019-00374-6
This week I have been having a look at making the grade centre easier to read and navigate by applying colours. The grade centre can be a rather complicated beast, particularly when you have large numbers of students and various assignment points within a module. Searching and finding students work can be tricky, students who do not submit can be missed and those students at risk may fall through the net. By applying colour coding to the grade centre columns you can highlight various stages in the grading process including, ‘Needs Grading’, G grades and assessments that have not yet been attempted and let’s face it- a little bit of colour can go a long way!
Colour coding your grade centre can be useful for:
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Quickly highlighting at risk students
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A traffic light system to highlight various grades in the grade centre
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Quickly see students who have not submitted any work and those pieces that need grading
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Highlighting marks within a specific range, for example A grade students
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Spotting students work ‘In Progress’ (usually online tests or online submissions)
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Quickly being able to see student development (when traffic light system is employed)
To apply colour coding to the grade centre you can follow these quick instructions:
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Go to ‘Full Grade Centre’.
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Click ‘Manage’ and choose ‘Grading Colour Codes’.
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You will now see the Grading Colour Codes page. Select the box to allow you to add ‘Grading Colour Codes’.
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If you want to colour code items that are In Progress, Needs Marking or Exempt, click to change the Background Colour to your chosen colour (keep in mind accessibility issues).
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If you want to colour code ranges of marks, click the ‘Add Criteria’ button. Select the criteria for highlighting:
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‘Between’ two grades, ‘More than’ a grade or ‘Less than’ a grade.
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Choose a Background Colour and a colour for the Text.
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If you want to add more criteria, click ‘Add Criteria’ again.
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Click ‘Submit’ to apply the colour coding to the Grade Centre.
This will apply all of these settings across the entire module for all assessments (which means you only need to set up your criteria once). You can copy over these settings to other sites when you do a site copy highlighting the ‘Grade centre columns and settings’ option.
For a short video on how to do this follow this link: http://ondemand.blackboard.com/r91/movies/bb91_grade_center_color_code.htm
Go on give it a whirl- and let me know what you think: geraldine.murphy@northampton.ac.uk
There will be some minor updates to Blackboard Learn on the 18th of July 2016. These security updates will involve a slight change to the Turnitin interface. Under Site Tools>Turnitin Assignments, each assignment will be listed with a Delete Assignment link beside it (please see fig1 below).
Clicking this link will delete the entire submission point, all submitted papers and all grading. Please do not use this delete link unless you are absolutely sure you wish to remove the submission point. If you do click this link by mistake, a confirmation box will appear. Click on cancel to retract the request.
Fig1 - Turnitin delete link
Over the past few months there are a range of blog postings and updates which have been collated below for information and easy access:
NILE and SaGE updates
NILE 2016-7 – rolling out and onwards – new templates available for use
NILE guides have been enhanced with a completely revised layout and updated content
Update on NILE quality standards 2016-17
Best NILE Site – Student Teaching and Representation Awards 2016
SaGE – March Update – Dissertation Marking / Exempting Grades / Health and Safety
Pedagogical / developmental discussions
Have you heard about the CAIeRO and wondered what it was? Have a look at this posting on Demystifying the CAIeRO
Are you still referencing preferred learning styles? – perhaps time to think again
Staff Case Studies
Blended Learning and Physical Volcanology with Professor Nick Petford
Xerte software receives praise from Karen Brasher, Lecturer in the School of Health
Using Trello to Enhance Teaching and Learning in Fashion
Supporting understanding and engagement through continuous assessment
George Dimmock on How the Academic Librarians can help you.
Anne Misselbrook on content development with Xerte
Kate Swinton (CfAP) on Effective Feedback
Hannah Rose (Academic Librarian) on Aspire Reading Lists
James Smith: Blended Learning in Studio Based Modules
Sylvie Lomer (CfAP) on Active and blended learning
Education E-tivity Development: Tanya Richardson & Claire Dugan-Clements
James Underwood (Principal Lecturer in Teachers’ CPD) demonstrating an essay planning technique
‘Blogging for students’ case study video
Assessed Online Debates using discussion boards in NILE
Exploring innovative digital approaches to assessment project
Science and Technology Research in Pedagogy (STRiPe) blog
Blogs for Assessment in History with alternating ‘classroom’ and ‘online’ fortnightly structure.
Using Pinterest for Aesthetic Development: Elizabeth Palmer
How to be a page-turner for the right reasons!
Designing e-tivities: some lessons learnt by trial and error!
Making an impact in open education
Employability support for Geography students
Staffing updates
Welcome to new staff in the Learning Technology Team
Grateful student appreciates Learning Technology support
For any questions regarding the above articles then contact your Learning Technologists or email learntech@northampton.ac.uk
This summer, we’re moving away from using the Panopto system to expand and extend the use of our Kaltura MediaSpace platform.
We have enjoyed an excellent service from Panopto, but based on a number of factors, including lots of feedback from staff, we’ve decided to move away from Panopto and instead use our MediaSpace platform to support all our video capture, storage and streaming needs going forward to Waterside. This means we’re going to migrate your content out of Panopto and onto MediaSpace over this summer. So, if you use currently Panopto, can we ask that you do not create any new materials from now on, and instead start using MediaSpace instead.
If you’re new to MediaSpace then there are some useful Help videos at video.northampton.ac.uk, like this video and we are happy to run training sessions and 1:1’s on request, or you can email learntech@northampton.ac.uk if you have specific questions.
Please note, you will not be able to access Panopto beyond 8th July 2016. The videos in NILE will still be viewable by students, but staff will not be able to record any new videos.
There will be more communication from us, to ensure your content is transferred smoothly and that you are confident using the MediaSpace platform but if you have any questions, then please get in touch.
NILE will be upgraded between 6:00pm BST, Saturday 13th August and 6:00am BST, Sunday 14th August.
Northampton University is currently using the Blackboard 9.1 October 2014 release which will be upgraded to the 2015 Q4 release. The new features of this release can be viewed on the Blackboard Website. Please ensure that your browsers are sufficiently updated to keep within the supported levels of this new release.
While security fixes are applied to NILE throughout the academic year, the annual update ensures that we are providing the most stable release and latest features for both our staff and student users. The University’s hosting provider requires us to keep our version of Blackboard up to date in order to meet the 99.9% availability agreement over the rest of the year.
If you have any questions about the upgrade process, please contact Vicky.Brown@northampton.ac.uk
Question: What two things do these three statements have in common?
A. Individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style (for example, visual, auditory or kinaesthetic).
B. Short bouts of co‐ordination exercises can improve integration of left and right hemispheric brain function.
C. Differences in hemispheric dominance (left brain or right brain) can help to explain individual differences amongst learners.
Answer:
1. They are all false.
2. They are all believed to be true by around 90% of UK teachers.
Interested? You can read more in Paul Howard-Jones’s 2014 paper ‘Neuroscience and education: myths and messages‘ or in Pete Etchells’s summary of Howard-Jones’s research, ‘Brain balony has no place in the classroom’.
As in previous years, LearnTech have been working with colleagues in Curriculum and IT on the creation of new NILE course (programme) and module sites for the forthcoming academic year, only this year with a twist: instead of routinely copying over all teaching materials from earlier site iterations, we are taking this opportunity to review and ‘spring clean’ legacy content, particularly with a nod to the course evaluation and redesign coming out of recent CAiEROs.
NILE 2016-17 module template
The updated and fresh NILE template, proposed at (and tweaked on the back of consultations with) the SEC (Student Experience Committee) on 24th February and with the Learning and Teaching Forum, has resulted in the creation of 4,251 ‘clean’ sites, now ready and already receiving content.
Following the updated minimum NILE standards, LearnTech and Academic Librarians have so far worked with colleagues from the Schools of Education and Health running a total of 11 sessions covering changes to the template; reviewing and copying relevant content; checking curriculum data and reading lists and populating sites ready for the new student intake.
The Team is now working on the roll-out to the Business School and is in contact with subject leads from the Schools of Social Sciences, Arts and SciTech, identifying local support needs, creating online resources to help guide site population and working with colleagues from other University support teams to ensure everything is set up and in place for the new academic year – where possible, before the summer vacation strikes!
NILE Guides homepage
Since last summer Learning Technology has been hard at work to improve the online help we provide to staff and students who use NILE. The simple A-Z list of software provided, while helpful for some, wasn’t offering the best level of support.
Therefore, last September we launched NILE FAQs as a search-based solution to everyday problems. Trouble with grade centre? Simply type into the search box and we’ll present back all the most common questions we’re asked – along with, of course, the solution.
Now, to build on this, we’re pleased to release NILE Guides.
We’re aware searching for help is useful – if you know what the software does. But what if you only know what you want to do, and haven’t a clue which software is best suited for the job?
So we set about creating a new approach to guide you through NILE.
Start with what you want to do in mind (the task) and we’ll guide you – via a series of light-touch prompts – to the best tool for the job with three broad topics to choose from:
- communication
- content
- assessment
Within each, we’ve developed likely scenarios and provide recommended tools and workflows for each.
Where the software is used in the ‘regular’ way, we’ve linked directly to the supplier’s own help website. This way we can ensure you’re always provided with accurate and up-to-date guidance – provided the link doesn’t change!
Where the software is tailored for University, School or team workflows, we’ve provided our own set of guides to accompany the suppliers, to add further context.
NILE Guide is still in development and currently only available for staff. We’d like you to give it a try and provide feedback. A student section is being prepared and due for release later in the year.
- Case Study
Karen Brasher
Karen Brasher, a Lecturer in the School of Health, praises the Xerte software tool which can be used to create online content.
“I undertook a one-to-one session with Anne on how to use Xerte, with a view to making an on-line workbook. However, the training coupled with the comprehensive user guide, enabled me to explore a variety of ways to make my module resources accessible.
I have been using Xerte to produce materials for 2 of my modules. Xerte has enabled me to provide factual information in advance of taught sessions in a variety of different ways, including interactive activities, video clips and games. The resources I have produced are such that they can also be used as revision tools by the students.
Xerte
Xerte has meant that I can build on the work that the students have completed independently, and focus more on application and problem-solving in workshops. I have also devised a taster session and worked again with Anne on how to link this to the Foundation Degree in Health and Social Care website. The aim of the Xerte session produced is to give potential applicants an idea of the content and how we teach on the Foundation degree. It also provides an overview of some of the careers that someone with a Health and Social Care degree can do. I have thoroughly enjoyed using Xerte and have found it a very straightforward tool to use. I have felt supported by Anne, who has answered all my queries and as a result my Xerte journey has yielded some very professional looking results”.
This article is provided with thanks from Karen Brasher.
A quick Xerte guide is available here.
If you would like to book a place on a Xerte training session please contact Anne Misselbrook directly by email. Email: anne.misselbrook@northampton.ac.uk
