Every Friday, a member of the Learning Technology Team will be at either Park or Avenue Campus to deliver a session as part of the month’s themed events. On the first and third Fridays of the month we will be in the CTC (MB6) at Avenue Campus. On the second and fourth Fridays of the month we will be in the T-Pod (Park Library) at Park Campus. Laptops will be available at both of the venues. Each session will begin with a thirty minute mini session on a specific theme, after which time there will be an open session in which staff can discuss any aspects of NILE and technology enhanced learning. If you would like to come along to one or both of the sessions, please just turn up – there is no need to book.
For the full schedule of events please see the Learning Technology Training page.
The report for this year’s Mobile Survey has just been published.
This annual survey forms part of the Mobile Access to Learning and Teaching (MALT) Project. You can find out more about the project in the Projects area of the LearnTech tab in NILE.
The report provides a brief summary of the main findings of the survey, including an overview of technology ownership among staff and students, trends in mobile use, and feedback on the iNorthampton mobile app.
You can read the report here: Mobile Survey report 2011/12 (PDF 613 KB).
Using mobile devices can give you a lot more freedom in how and where you work. There is a huge range of apps available to help you deliver a presentation (or lecture), as this is a common task in the business world as well as in education. The apps cover everything from preparation to delivery, the downside being that as these are often aimed at the business market, they can be expensive. Here are some of the ones we’ve come across that you might find useful.
Creating/editing your presentation
The slickest choice for this must surely be Keynote, for iOS (Apple) devices. You can import existing presentations into the app, via email or cloud storage services like Dropbox – it will accept presentations created in Keynote (on the Mac) or Powerpoint (on a PC). You can also create a presentation from scratch, including images, tables, charts and animations. It even has an area for presenter notes. If you have an iPad 2, when connected to a video output the presenter display will allow you to see both slide and notes, and your audience will only see the slides.
For Android, Google docs seems sadly lacking in the absence of a presenter view for Google presentations. However, there are other options – QuickOffice or Documents To Go will both allow you to display Powerpoint files on your device for free. Both these apps have Pro (paid) options that will also let you create and edit presentations on the device.
Delivering your presentation
If you want to use your device to deliver the presentation, there are a few different options to consider. You can connect the device directly, using a VGA or HDMI adaptor. This is the easiest option, but it does restrict your movement (which can defeat the point of using the device in the first place). Alternatively, you can connect your device to the presenting computer using wireless or bluetooth:
- You may want to use your device as a simple presenting tool, to control navigation through the slides. In this case, apps like i-Clickr for iOS and Presenter for Android should do the trick.
- If you have the presentation on your device, there are also apps that will allow you to transmit it to the presenting computer. AirSketch for the iPad will allow you to project a whiteboard, images or PDFs (so convert your presentation first), and Scatterslides for Android works in a similar way for Powerpoint slides (note this requires a free client to be installed on the presenting computer).
- If you want to get really clever, you can even use a remote desktop application to run the presentation from your own computer via your mobile device, thus avoiding any embarrassing software version problems or incompatibilities. Apps like Splashtop and TeamViewer can do this for you, as long as you have a reliable connection.
The downside to the wireless connection method is that these apps generally need to be on the same wireless connection as the presenting computer – and to be able to find each other on it. This works fine on wireless that uses keys to authenticate, but often won’t work on secure wireless networks that use a browser login. If you’re planning on trying any of these, we strongly recommend a test run before the day of the presentation.
If you have any comments on the information above, or you’d like to recommend other apps that help you with learning or teaching, please feel free to add a comment or to email the team at LTSupport@northampton.ac.uk.
Disclaimer: these posts aim to recommend functionality, not particular products or services. The app world changes fast, and any third party app may not be available forever. Always make sure you have a back-up option.
We’ve been hard at work building a library of videos which support staff and students in the use of NILE, Turnitin, and a growing number of web tools and software. They live in our NILE Help tab, which you can get to by following this link http://bit.ly/AeFbFR where you’ll find our new and growing library of DidiVids designed to help you use NILE more effectively. I hope they’ll be really useful to you, so I would really like your feedback on them. If we get good feedback, I’ll do more. If it’s bad feedback, I’ll cry a bit, but I’ll get over it. We are committed to improving the student experience, and offering support after hours is something we’re working towards. Check out the DidiVids and let them improve your life.
Last week I presented on the iNorthampton project, at the Blackboard User Conference in Durham. The theme for the conference was ‘openness’, which links with the key aims of the mobile project – to open up access to information, and opportunities for learning, in new contexts and spaces.
For this session, I focused on two key elements of openness – inclusion (that is, making learning and support available to the widest possible range of users), and making University data more accessible. You can view the slides from the session, titled ‘The University in your pocket’, on the LearnTech Slideshare pages.
Inclusion has been an important concern for the team from the very start of the project. Thanks to the mobile survey that ran last academic year (and is just closing for this year), we are already aware that not all students and staff have smartphones. We’re also aware that some users find using a mobile device challenging. The project team has a number of measures in place to try to address these issues where possible:
- All of the information in the app is available in other places, usually via the University website or NILE. This means that in most cases, the app is simply another option for accessing information, and although it may be a benefit for those who prefer to use smartphones, it is not a requirement for those that don’t. We have also tried to cover as many platforms as possible – there are versions of the app for iOS, Android and Blackberry, as well as a mobile web version for those with other types of phone.
- For users who have smartphones, and who prefer not to use their own data allowance, the University is continuing to extend wireless provision across the campus. The LearnTech team also has some mi-fi (mobile wi-fi) units that staff can borrow for field trips etc., although the coverage, bandwidth and speed of these are still quite limited.
- For specific learning and teaching projects, we have a small number of mobile devices available that staff can borrow, to allow those who don’t have smartphones to take part in planned activities.
- For users with additional needs, we still recommend to staff that they provide alternative options for any mobile learning activity. We are also working closely with the suppliers to test the apps for accessibility*.
- Training and support is available for any users on request.
The other important concern in opening access to University information was in surfacing information from a range of complex University systems, and presenting it in a coherent and user friendly way. To enable this, the project team included key staff from the web team, Marketing, Corporate Information Systems and the Library, as well as Student Services, the LearnTech team, and the Student Union (please note that some of these teams have changed post-PSR). If you would like more technical details about how the data is fed in to the app, please contact the team.
The project team will be getting together next week to start thinking about the next phase of iNorthampton. if you have any feedback you would like us to consider, please send it to the dedicated email address: mobilefeedback@northampton.ac.uk.
Thanks
Julie Usher
*Although there are no independent accessibility standards for native apps, there are some for mobile web apps, and the main platforms all publish their own accessibility guidelines for developers (see this blog post from Henny Swan for more links). With help from Student Services, we have tested the iOS app using VoiceOver (Apple’s built-in screen reading software), with some positive results, although the Android version is currently less readable. We are also working on improving the high contrast view of the app.
The iNorthampton app is developed by a US company. For more information about section 508 compliance and VPAT documentation, or if you’d like to contribute feedback or help us with testing, please contact the team.
For more general information on accessibility and web content, see the Accessible information page on the University website.
For more info on mobile accessibility, see the TechDis Mobile Learning for Inclusive Practice page.
Did you know that you can now change the order of the modules you are enrolled on in NILE?
By default, the courses and modules you’re enrolled on are listed alphabetically in the My Modules box on the front page of NILE. If you are enrolled on lots of courses, this list can sometimes get unmanageable. Now you can re-order the list, to show your most used sites at the top.
To do this, first click on the cog icon at the top right of the My Modules box:
Then click and hold the arrows on the left of a course name to drag it up or down in the list, and click Submit to save your changes:
We have recently discovered that some assistive technologies do not work well with Turnitin. Screen readers like JAWS work when non-standard settings are selected, but are hard to follow and navigate.
So, if you anticipate asking a student with additional needs to submit their work online, please contact the team for advice, at least two weeks before the first submission is due.
Many subjects in the School of Social Sciences are creating Welcome sites on NILE. They aim to provide information and ongoing help to prospective students considering studying at the University and to support new students in their first year of studies when they arrive.
Faith Tucker (SL- Geography) has provided some feedback from the Geography Welcome site which was made available to guests on NILE earlier this year.
Faith explains in her evaluation document the types of content they provided and which areas were accessed most by students. The most popular areas were “Study with us”; “Assignments”; “Teaching Staff”; “FAQs” and “Useful links”.
In total there were 1131 hits in September 2011 – most occurring between 14th and 20th September. This demonstrates how prospective students utilised the site to supplement their ongoing awareness of the Geography courses.
Direct Student feedback on the most useful areas include::
“the Welcome Week timetable and also getting acquainted with Blackboard before the start of the course”
“timetable, teaching staff, course/module information”
“the module information so I knew what to expect, and the tutors so I knew who was who”
The Geography department will continue to update and use the welcome module and are considering providing a link to the site to those attending Applicant Visit Days in the early part of 2011-12 to evaluate the level of success for students pre-entry.
This case study looks at how the School of Social Sciences Criminology Division used Hand Held Voting Units with a quiz to help improve interaction and engagement with students in the course Welcome Week activities.
It’s here – the University’s official iNorthampton app is now available to download from the Blackberry App World!
The new Blackberry version has much of the same functionality as it’s Android and iPhone counterparts – it allows you to check maps, search the staff directory, get updates on news and events, and more. And you can download it for free now – just search for ‘iNorthampton’ on the Blackberry App World.
Unfortunately we haven’t yet been able to include the library search in this version, due to differences in the way apps are built for the Blackberry platform. You’ll notice also that the iNorthampton app for Blackberry doesn’t include the mobile version of NILE, but the good news here is that mobile NILE is still available for Blackberry users. Simply download the separate Blackboard Mobile Learn app, which is also available free from the App World, and search for Northampton on the first screen.
The iNorthampton app is a work in progress and we’re always keen to hear your feedback. Help us to improve on future releases by adding your comments to this blog, or emailing them to us at: mobilefeedback@northampton.ac.uk.
