First year fashion and surface design students have been given a fantastic opportunity to receive a substantial scholarship of £15,000. The Maggie Barwell Scholarship is awarded for ‘excellence’ and the full amount is given to support one fashion or surface design student spread over the duration of their degree studies exclusively at The University of Northampton.
A brief for applying for the scholarship was created. First year students applied for the award by presenting a selection of their first term’s work and creating a statement of intent with regard to their studies and their future aspirations. It was decided that the students should present their statement and examples of their work in a creative way through a blog using the MyPAD system. We have run the scholarship successfully in this way for the past 2 years.
Asking first year students to use a blog to present their work we feel is the way forward, and we supported any student to apply for the scholarship through a series of workshops where a member of the Employability team came and worked with the students to show them how to use the web tools effectively …
Watch the video: BA Fashion and Blogging
View blog examples: Example 1; Example 2; Example 3
Read more about the blogs: Using MyPAD Blogs
SaGE Essentials
This session is for both staff who are new to Submission and Grading Electronically (SaGE) and those who need a refresher on the current process. The event will cover the SaGE workflow including marking in Turnitin; passing grades to the NILE gradecentre; downloading grades to send to the SATs; and working with the External Examiner. (12 places)
| Date (s) | Time |
| 9/10/13 | 9:30-12:00 |
| 15/10/13 | 2-4:30 |
| 25/10/13 | 9:30-12:00 |
| 31/10/13 | 2-4:30 |
| 4/11/13 | 9:30-12:00 |
| 13/11/13 | 9:30-12:00 |
| 21/11/13 | 2:00-4:30 |
| 25/11/13 | 2:00-4:30 |
Register on https://www.eventbrite.com/event/7917592733
Adding value to your SaGE experiences [NEW]
Available for staff who already have SaGE experience but would like to attend a small group session to review their current processes and see if anything may be changed or improved
(Limited to 4 places)
| Date (s) | Time |
| 23/10/13 | 9:30-11:30 |
| 4/12/13 | 2-4:00 |
Register on https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/7918363037
SaGE Beyond the Basics (Rubrics)
A dedicated session for those who have already attended the SaGE Essentials session and are confident with the basic SaGE workflow. The event will focus on both the Turnitin and NILE rubrics which are currently available. Rubrics are useful for specific styles of marking and may only be suitable in certain situations. (12 places)
| Date (s) | Time |
| 17/10/13 | 2-4 |
Register on https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/7918451301
SaGE Beyond the Basics (Using the NILE assignment submission area / groups and video submissions)
A dedicated session for those who have already attended the SaGE Essentials session and are confident with the basic SaGE workflow. This event will focus on the NILE assignment submission area which may be used for both individuals and groups. It will also cover alternative styles of assignment submission such as video submissions. (12 places)
| Date (s) | Time |
| 24/10/13 | 2-4 |
Register on https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/7918517499
NILE Essentials – Making the most of your NILE site
This session will introduce the new NILE sites which are being used for all 2013/14 module and course areas. Find out the Top Ten most common mistakes with existing NILE sites and how to avoid them to improve the student experience. Attendees will develop confidence with working in their NILE area to add new and exciting content. (12 places)
| Date (s) | Time |
| 12/12/13 | 2-4 |
Register on https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/7918563637
NILE – Beyond the Basics (Encouraging collaboration and NILE interaction using Blogs, Journals and Wikis)
This session will allow participant to explore the Blogs, Journals and Wikis tools inside NILE which encourage greater collaboration. (12 places)
| Date (s) | Time |
| 28/10/13 | 2-4 |
Register on https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/7918585703
NILE – Beyond the Basics (Developing assessments using Tests and Pools.)
This session will explore the test, survey and question pool tools within NILE. These tools may be used with features such as adaptive release and the performance dashboard to allow greater student interaction with content and a higher level of tutor understanding of student engagement. (12 places)
| Date (s) | Time |
| 6/11/13 | 10-12 |
Register on: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/7918627829
Working with sound, video and lecture recording
Find out about the most recent advances which will allow you to capture individual student presentations or whole lectures. The session will provide an introduction to flip cams, Panopto and the new video tool embedded in NILE (Kaltura). (12 places)
| Date (s) | Time |
| 15/11/13 | 10-12 |
Register on: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/7918651901
Increasing in class session interaction using smartboards and the voting handsets
Many opportunities now exist to increase the amount of student interaction within traditional lectures. Smartboards are located in many of the teaching spaces but are often only used to display PowerPoints. This event will introduce the range of tools which allow the Smartboard to ‘come alive’. In addition to the Smartboard, voting handsets may be used to increase the amount of feedback students provide within sessions. This event will provide practical experience on using these tools. (12 places)
| Date (s) | Time |
| 19/11/13 | 2-4:00 |
Register on: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/7918698039
All of the sessions above are also available on request for bespoke events (such as for Subject group training). Please contact your Learning Technologist or mail LearnTech@northampton.ac.uk for details on arranging these.
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.
Audio can be awkward to create and include on a NILE site, but has considerable impact. It has been used very effectively on the BA Childhood and Youth welcome site in conjunction with student images to provide an alternative to the often used ‘talking head’.
Audioboo is a useful website where users can upload (for free) up to three minutes of audio. Whilst not recommended for assessed work, it could be used to collect audio from students or create audio content very easily yourself (perhaps as an alternative format for visually impaired students), just by using an iPhone[1] or Android device.
There is a fairly extensive library of podcasts that can be searched too (very like YouTube) for inclusion into course material.
At first sight, it doesn’t seem possible to embed audio clips into NILE, but – with a small amount of effort – it is fairly easy to do. The attached guide walks you through the process – we hope you find it useful.
[1] The iPad application does not – at the time of writing – allow recording. Search for (and install) the iPhone version on your iPad if you wish to record.
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.
Kate Williams (Senior Lecturer in Journalism & Broadcast Journalism) has used NILE (Blackboard) rubrics in conjunction with Kaltura videos to allow her students to submit videos through the Assignment tool on NILE, embed the video into their submission, and then marked the videos using a rubric. This allowed Kate to maximise the amount of time she spent feeding back on students’ work and less time worrying about technical issues. Kate also found that by using a set of definitive marking criteria she was more consistent, objective and transparent. Click the link below to view the case study.
Using Blackboard rubrics to grade video assignments
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 🙂
In this second episode of my LearnTech podcast series, I continue my talk with Anna Cox, who is a lecturer in the School of Education, on her interest in the use of iPads within a learning setting.
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:
