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"LearnTech News"
Thomas Cochrane and Vickel Narayan from AUT University in Auckland New Zealand have piloted the use of an intentional community of practice model to transform lecturer CPD through the embedding of mobile web 2.0 technologies (http://goo.gl/eEQLZ / DOI: 10.3402/rlt.v21i0.19226). Their research over two iterations of the course has significant implications for transforming how lecturing staff approach their role, moving from a heavily pedagogical approach through andragogy to heutagogy. Heutagogy (student-directed learning) requires lecturers to undergo a reconceptualization of their role and to take advantage of the mobility offered by the various Web 2.0 tools (including Twitter, blogs, wikis, Skype) with their own learning experiences being scaffolded through sustained engagement and support; these latter two elements proving essential to their success.
Although they offer a different approach to the five stage approach to e-learning offered by Gilly Salmon (http://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html) Cochrane and Narayan’s approach is not new per se, just not so widely reported in academic circles. For example, they argue that “heutagogy … need not be the domain of postgraduate research students only” and having attempted a similar approach myself when teaching HNC law I would agree, but would also reflect that moving away from a didactic approach to a place where individual learners control their own learning journey requires a willingness to relinquish that control and permit a transformation of the teacher role into that of co-learner and facilitator.
Conceptualising students as transformative agents of change is not new, and the ability to take advantage of new technologies like the iPad have a real potential to see learning move up Bloom’s taxonomy to a place where creativity is not only more possible, but also more likely and even encouraged.
Cochrane and Narayan’s redesigned CPD course is actually similar to the Moderating Online Groups (MOG) / Collaborative Learning Experience Online (CLEO) CPD course co-ordinated by the Institute of Learning and Teaching here at Northampton, in that it encourages staff to take advantage of the benefits offered by new technologies and to incorporate them in the classroom by allowing them to experience using those technologies as a student. However, Cochrane and Narayan necessarily have the opportunity to provide lectures with real opportunities to implement their learning and experiment with Web 2.0 in their own learning environments as their course is run over 6 weeks as opposed to 6 hours which is the case with the MOG/CLEO. It will be interesting to see if their model can be implemented at Northampton resulting in a deeper embedding of Web 2.0 in our practice, particularly in more theoretical and academic, rather than the vocational programmes which formed the majority of the subjects taught by the New Zealand staff.
We’ve produced a short guide which we hope will enable new students and staff to navigate their way around NILE. The guide doesn’t cover everything that NILE does, but we hope it is enough to get started.
We have put a link to the guide on the front page of NILE but feel free to share this link:
Let us know of any errors and we’ll update the guide.
After the upgrade on NILE over the weekend you may have noticed that the My Sites box on NILE is not always showing all your sites. This is an intentional change in the way that NILE works to help improve performance and loading times on the Home tab. It has been known for the My Sites box to delay the page loading by 40-90 seconds!
To be able to see all your sites listed in the My Sites box you need to ensure that you are enrolled on no more than 100 sites. If you are on more than this then you will encounter problems.
To remove yourself from sites that are no longer needed, use the Manage my NILE sites box. Find the box on the left of your home screen on NILE and then click the name of the site you would like to remove yourself from. On the next screen tick the box to the left of your name and click ‘Remove’. Do this for each of the sites you want to remove yourself from and once you get below that 100 sites mark, you will be able to see all your sites listed.
If you get any trouble with this, as always, just get in touch and we’ll help 🙂
On the 16th July, 26 staff took the opportunity to attend the Learntech showcase (Sunshine and Showers) to find out about the latest innovations in Learning Technology at Northampton.
Those attending had the opportunity to:
- Find out about the NILE upgrade happening on the 21st July
- Try out the video green screen
- Learn more about effective use of Smartboards and voting systems
- Try a range of video recording tools
- Understand more about grading and rubrics in NILE
- See how mobile devices such as the iPad may be used to enhance Learning and Teaching
- Find out what a CAIeRO is and how it may assist course development and redesign
- Understand more about Open Northampton and open educational resources in general
Staff feedback from the event:
Excellent 1:1 advice and immediate improvements. Thank you so much…..has saved me hours of slog and heartache
Staff are very helpful – The new NILE looks more ‘user friendly’
I like the intense enthusiasm of the LT team. The staff are very supportive.
Whether you attended and want to know more or where unable to attend then you can always contact the team at any point to followup on any ideas.
I came across this useful online tool while researching diagramming tools for students as an alternative to using Visio or struggling with the horrors of Word or Powerpoint to create them.
It only took a few minutes to create a simple diagram like this and export it as an image:
The positives?
- It’s free, there’s no registration required and collaboration over Google Drive (of a sort – just sharing really) is possible
- Source files can be saved
- A huge number of predefined shapes and images
The negatives?
- You do need an Internet connection
- Without frequent saves it is quite easy to move away and reload the page, which destroys the diagram
Find it at:
- What is changing in NILE on July 21st?
- What is SaGE?
- How do I use a voting handset to encourage in class participation?
- How can I use a SMARTboard more effectively?
- Why are iPADs and mobile devices so popular?
- What training is available to support my technology development?
If you have questions similar to those above or just want to come to see how the Learning Technology team are able to support you then please come along to the LearnTech Summer Showcase – Sunshine and Showers.
We want to know how we can ‘make your day’ or what is working for you (the sunshine) or ‘what is raining on your parade’ / areas we can improve (the showers).
When: 16th July between 10am and 2pm (turn up at any point between these times)
Where: TPod (1st Floor Park Campus Library)
Light refreshments will be provided during the day.
We will also be using this event to find out about further Learning Technology training sessions which are required later in the year. Whether you are able to attend or not then please complete our quick survey at :
https://survey.northampton.ac.uk/sunshine2013
The LearnTech team have collated the top 5 tips / things to do for summer 2013 (with regards to NILE)
1. All sites have now been created on NILE for 2013/14 academic year. You should check for variations of sites as there may be various sessions associated with your modules and then merge these if needed. Rachel McCart is available to assist with this work.
2. Once you have found your sites then you should add yourself to to them and also add additional tutors / externals (if known). Rachel McCart is available to assist with this work.
3. Ensure that content is accurate and current (If you have copied material from an existing site then only copy what is needed. Do not copy:
- Submit your work / Turnitin submission points
- University Support and Resources
- Announcements
- Blogs
- Grade Centre Columns and Settings
- Group Settings
- Journals
- Wikis
Please ensure that you DO NOT copy any assessment submission areas, or Grade Centre columns into the 13/14 site as they need to be set up from scratch and cannot simply be copied from last year.
Check the menu structure on the left of the NILE site to ensure this is still correct. Check the student view with edit mode turned off
4. Setup up the submission points for assessments with the correct dates for submission / release of grades. Refer to the guidance for details.
Students will automatically be enrolled onto sites if they have reached the PRE stage and have been correctly allocated on the Student Record System.
Even if you do not require support with migrating data, merging modules, setting up turnitin, please do still contact Rachel McCart to ensure that your module/course site(s) are showing on NILE, for 13/14. In addition, Rachel will also enrol you, and any other tutors you require, onto your NILE sites.
If you need further help and advice tthen please mail the LearnTech team or phone on x2696
Over the past few years NILE (the Northampton VLE) has become critical to the student experience and great efforts are taken to ensure that the service remains available at all times. The equipment behind NILE is hosted in a Tier 1 datacentre along with other critical systems such as banks and hospitals.
When anyone accesses NILE then the connection assumes that:
- The hardware behind NILE is up and running
- The software which is running NILE is up and running
- The network connection between NILE and the person using it is fully working (note that 100 s of connections may be involved in making this link).
On the 25th April, 2013 there was 10 mins of unplanned downtime which led to the following tweet from a student:
“80% of grade exam tomorrow and nile goes down, f**** useless”
This led to the development of a report on NILE downtime over the past year. From May 1st, 2012 to May 1st, 2013, NILE was actually unavailable for 7 hours and 40 mins. [Some of this would have been late evening / early morning and not noticed]. On the basis that this covers a 24 hour service – this period would have a total of 8760 hours.
This gives NILE a one year uptime of 99.91% against our contracted uptime of 99.8%.
Whilst we apologise for any unplanned downtime (ideally NILE should NEVER be unavailable), Northampton has done everything possible to ensure that we have the most robust infrastruture possible – it would be interesting to see the report of any tech service which has actually been available for 100% of the time over one year – we would certainly love to be in this position.
By the way….in responding to the Tweet above, whilst most grades may be available on NILE, the official location to get student grades is at www.northampton.ac.uk/results
Since the University has been using Turnitin, we have had a few occasions when a student submission is returning a 0% originality match and we have had to explain what it means.
If you are not familiar with the Originality report then please see the Turnitin video
The report is provided by an automated checking service which compares what is submitted by the students against any other paper which is held in the Turnitin database. It does not replace the expertise of a tutor in evaluating the content which has been written.
The reasons for a 0% match are:
1) The student has written a piece of work which is not in the Turnitin database. This work may be completely original or taken from a source which has not previously been submitted. The database will not necessarily hold details of books and journals which are held in ‘protected areas’ unless they have been previously used by another submission.
2) Whilst the risk is low due the the technology in use, the student may have found a way to submit work in a way that avoids the possibility of it being checked.
3) The settings which the tutor used when setting up the Turnitin assignment area may have reduced the sensitivity of the matching process.
The current guidance (assuming that the tutor is not checking all submissions) is to check all submissions which are in excess of a certain percentage. In addition a random sample of those below this percentage should also be checked.
