Thursday the 23rd of October saw the appearance of the Follow Northampton app in the App Store. The app is a freely available interactive guide to Northampton, and it offers a fresh perspective on Northampton’s rich historical, architectural and cultural heritage. The app, and the associated website, were created and developed by staff and students at the University of Northampton and members of the wider Northampton community. The project leads were Dr. Drew Gray, Senior Lecturer in History, and Sabine Coady Schaebitz, Director of the Collaborative Centre for the Built Environment. Technical support and advice was provided by Rob Farmer from the Learning Technology Team, and the app was built by Chris Collinge from wedoApps. Content was developed by BA History students (Roseanne Belcher, Gabrielle Cairns, Jasdeep Dhillon and Steve Robinson), photographs were provided by a BA Photography student (Peter Holmes), and audio recordings were made of a number of (actual and honorary) Northamptonians, particularly Peter Aiers, Andy Clarke, Peter James Norman, Professor Nick Petford, and Dr. Toby Purser.
The app and website were made possible by the award of a Learning Enhancement & Innovation Grant from the University of Northampton. And the great news is that work on the app and the website is set to continue, as a second Learning Enhancement & Innovation Grant was recently given, and this will allow the project to cover more locations, and will allow the inclusion of extra features into the app. We are hoping to launch a second version of the app in March 2015, which will include full offline access to the locations, improved navigation, and additional locations. A third version is planned for July 2015 which will include design and layout updates, the addition of social media sharing options, and even more locations. In the longer term, we hope to add videos, iBeacons, and augmented reality, and to make an Android version of the app.
Get the iOS app: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/follow-northampton/id919466161?mt=8
Visit the website: http://www.follownorthampton.co.uk
For anyone who doesn’t know, Blackboard is the software which powers NILE. We produce lots of our own Help guides and support materials and keep them under the NILE Help tab, but Blackboard also produce a lot of support which staff will find helpful. Right now, there is a YouTube playlist full of useful videos which you might want to take a look at. Some of the videos will be of more interest than others but there’s fifty-five of them so there’s sure to be some worth a peek at.
Click here to view the video playlist
If you want a suggestion then I’d point you towards the bottom of the list to Student Preview, which is a new feature on NILE. In fact, while you’re down there you could also look at how to upload Test questions to NILE using an Excel spreadsheet as it’ll make the process of setting up a Test on NILE much easier.
Have a look and get in touch with the team if you need any support from a real person.
learntech@northampton.ac.uk
Al
“Changemaking is simply where someone spots a social problem and does something about it.”
The Changemaker Certificate has been created and implemented by Fr Tim Curtis in the School of Health as a way of encouraging all staff and students across the University to explore what it means to be a Changemaker and also to award engagement with Changemaking through the completion of a Social Venture Canvas (SVC) that would be capable of attracting financial support.
The Certificate sits in two places at present: (1) tied to academic modules offered from the School of Health – SWK1051 and SWK3025; and (2) as an extra-curricular award not tied to academic credit. The route taken will depend on whether or not the academic modules are offered as part of individual programmes, with the idea being that anyone across the University can therefore participate.
Through a series of coursework activities that all feed in to and contribute towards attainment of each section, participants prepare a draft proposal for an SVC that will be both self- and peer-assessed. Work is assessed using a newly-designed ‘CM Assessment Rubric‘ that draws on and modifies a number of identified 21st Century Skills. Achievement comes either through attaining the Certificate in isolation at either bronze, silver or gold level; or, for students on SWK1051, the rubric provides clear links to either the gold, silver or bronze certificates, but uses submission deadlines and the standard UMF scores to determine achievement levels. While it may depend on the social venture being addressed and the work carried out by the student, students completing SWK1051 are most likely to attain the bronze certificate (which is around concepts of thinking and exploring a social venture idea), with some credit at silver. The final venture canvas would still require to be submitted to the Changemaker Certificate system however.
- For more on the Changemaker Certificate case study, please see Changemaker assessment final.
- To enrol on the Changemaker Certificate for yourself, please click here.
A number of staff are designing e-tivities (online learning activities) that require students to undertake some independent research and then share a link to the online resource with peers who can then click on the link and view the article for themselves.
If the article has been found and accessed through NELSON and the link shared with students who are not already authenticated through the University systems then they will be faced with either a dead link or an ‘Access Denied’ message.
In this situation the solution is as follows:
- Ask students to include the full reference for the journal so that potential viewers can access the article themselves via the Library ‘Find My Reference’ tool. By using this route, students will be prompted to login with their University login in order to get access to the article.
If this applies to you, please change your e-tivity instructions to ask for articles to be shared using the University of Northampton Harvard referencing style. Include this link to a Skills Hub video that shows quickly how to use the ‘Find My Reference’ tool. You might also want to include an example of how to reference a journal using the Harvard journal – guidance is available from the Help Tab in NILE.
The added bonus for the students, of course, is practice in Harvard referencing!
With thanks to Hannah Rose, Academic Librarian for helping us with the solution
Student perceptions of their learning and engagement in response to the use of a continuous e-assessment in an undergraduate module.
Naomi Holmes, School of Science and Technology
Dr. Naomi Holmes (School of Science and Technology) undertook the use of low-stakes continuous weekly summative e-assessment with a cohort of level 5 (2nd year) students. Biggs and Tang (2011) state that it is assessment and not the curriculum that determines how and what students learn. Learning needs to be aligned with assessment as much as possible to increase engagement, even if the result is that the student is “learning for the assessment”, and therefore accreditation. With this in mind the use of low-stakes weekly assessments was undertaken to help support learning (formative), and lead to accreditation (summative). Results show that both physical and virtual engagement with this (optional) module, and students’ learning and understanding of the subject increased because of this method of assessment.
The LearnTech team are:
Rob Howe – Head of Learning Technology
Rachel Maxwell / Rob Farmer / Julie Usher – Learning Designers
Rachel McCart – NILE Administrator
Adel Gordon – Learning Technologist (Science and Technology)
Geraldine Murphy – Learning Technologist (NBS)
Belinda Green – Learning Technologist (Education)
Iain Griffin – Learning Technologist – 0.8 (Health)
Al Holloway – Learning Technologist (Arts and Education)
Simon Thompson – Learning Technologist (Social Sciences)
Andy Stenhouse – Learning Technologist (Health)
Kieran McGovern – Learning Technologist 0.2 (No school alignment)
LearnTech Team - July 2014Front row (l-r) Rachel Maxwell, Geraldine Murphy, Belinda Green, Rachel McCart. Middle row (l-r) Adel Gordon, Julie Usher, Iain Griffin, Al Holloway, Andy Stenhouse. Back row (l-r) Rob Farmer, Rob Howe, Simon Thompson. Kieran McGovern - not available for photo.
The Learning Technology Team within Library and Learning Services has provided a number of tools to assist staff who wish to use video as part of their learning and teaching. These tools are simple to use and designed to enable staff to develop their own resources as required. The LearnTech team are not responsible for video production (filming and editing) for teaching purposes or for events.
The two key tools provided by the Learning Technology team are Panopto and Kaltura and these are promoted at regular training events or bespoke sessions can be setup for small groups depending on availability of staff and sufficient notice (at least one week). Requests should be directed towards the normal Learning Technologist for your School or via general email to the team.
If any staff wish to use these tools then they will need to ensure that they have the training and have assured themselves that the machines which they intend to use are setup correctly. (IT Services can assist with installations if needed).
If staff wish to contract to a supplier to do the filming / editing work then please contact production@northampton.ac.uk who will advise of the most appropriate next step depending on needs.
Data Visualisation has become an important aspect of our lives and the ability to present data in interesting ways has always had a role in teaching and learning. On behalf of Tableau Software, Andy Kirk recently presented a fascinating overview of the challenges of Art vs Science in data presentation.
The overall message is that the nature of the visualisation needs to be appropriate for its intent – is this exploring or explaining, thinking or feeling? So, for example, is a filter needed to explore the content or is a bold graphical statement required?
Andy refers to his excellent web site visualisingdata.com during the presentation – the ‘resources‘ section contains a massive selection of applications that could be used, including a ‘Web’ section where most of the free online tools can be found. We have already experimented with some of these – Tableau Public and Infogram, for example – but there are many promising new ones such as Numberpicture that we hope to review as they become more polished. The ability to link to live data feeds as well as static data opens up a wide range of possibilities.
The video is a little long – around 50 minutes – and the sound is quite poor (it was a webcast after all), but is highly recommended for anyone considering creating infographics or visualisations themselves or asking students to submit assignments in this format.
Click here to launch the video (slides from the presentation – large file! 85mb)
We are pleased to announce the release of the new version of iNorthampton, currently available in the App and Play Stores.
This release has addressed some of the feedback that we received about the app from staff and students, as well as it being built on a new development platform behind the scenes.
For those that have noticed that the old version hasn’t been updated for a while, this is the reason why – we’ve had to build it from scratch and re-visit the ways in which the data is pulled in from various institutional systems, which took much longer than anticipated.
So, the functionality remains similar to the previous version but with lots of new content. There are new Videos and Photos and updated locations and details in Maps like opening times and descriptions of shops and eateries on campus. As well as a new map of Northampton which contains points of local amenities like pharmacies and nightlife. Don’t forget that you can still use Augmented Reality on iPhone within the campus Maps.
We have added the Tours feature, which will take you around both campuses allowing you to move around areas and buildings.
We are still working on the dedicated iPad version, which will make more use of the larger screen size of the iPad to give users a more scaled experience of the app and its features. We hope to go live with this over the next few months. In the meantime if you want to get iNorthampton on your iPad you can download the iPhone version by searching the App Store and choosing to search for iPhone rather than iPad apps.
We now plan to move forward with developing more features and functionality within the app. The library tool was the most requested feature for improvements, and the Library and Learning Services department are currently reviewing the Library Management System. The ability to renew books and check their account on mobile will be included in the new system and we will hopefully be able to make that available through iNorthampton.
On Monday 10th November, Learning Technology and the Institute of Learning and Teaching will be co-facilitating a full-day workshop on Team-Based Learning with TBL pioneer Larry Michaelsen.
This is an opportunity to experiment with an effective, structured and learner-centred approach to teaching on-campus modules where students work effectively in groups. A combination of individual work, group work and feedback is used to create a motivational framework in which learners increasingly hold each other accountable for coming to class prepared (yes really!) and contributing to discussion.
If you want to learn how to use your class time for more than simply covering content, and focus instead on providing students with opportunities to apply their learning of core course concepts to solve problems, then this workshop is for you.
To find out more about TBL, please watch this short-ish (12 minute) video to find out more about Team-Based Learning or read this short overview.
There are only 54 places available, so book your place today.
- Monday 10th November
- Grand Hall, Newton Building, Avenue Campus
- Refreshments and lunch provided
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