Teaching and learning in the digital age – Page 2

Interactive Web Pages help make MOOC a success by Dr Richard Mitchell

25 June 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

On June 15^th, Begin Robotics began – the second massive open online course (MOOC) from Systems Engineering running on the FutureLearn platform. One of its aims is to interest potential students in the areas of robotics, cybernetics, artificial intelligence and electronic engineering – following the success of Begin Programming, which we know has attracted students to do Computer Science at Reading.

A key novel feature of Begin Robotics is its use of interactive web pages both as exercises and to illustrate key principles – such as how a signal from a computer which can have a high or a low state only, can be used to set any integer speed from -40 to +40 using so called pulse width modulation. These pages build on work I have done and reported on the GRASS project blog:

http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/grass/blog/2015/01/30/screencasts-demonstrating-web-page-programs-for-tl/

There are two exercise pages each week, and those in the first week have proved to be very popular: for instance, Ed Ashby posted : “I thought the simulations were a fantastic way for distance learning, great to see instant results from our control inputs.” and Ann-Kristin Abel commented : “Great course so far! Loved the simulations, as they really help me understand the movement of a robot. Looking forward to next week.”

In the first exercise, the participants are shown a simulation of a two wheeled robot and have to enter the speeds of the motors driving each wheel. They then experiment with these working out how to make the robot move forward or turn at different speeds.

In the second exercise, they have to define what the speeds should be for each of four actions: going forward, turning to the left, to the right and going backwards, and they then command the robot to do each action, watching the robot move around the arena provided. Having done so, they select a race track in place of the arena, and have to steer the robot round it as quickly as possible.

: Second Exercise with the Race Track shown

To prepare for these exercises, I recorded screencasts explaining the tasks, demonstrating the web pages and for instance showing me steering the robot round the track in around 15 seconds.

There have been many enthusiastic posts responding to these web pages. These included one learner commenting that he had steered the robot round the track in about 12 seconds, but his six year old grandson had, after just three attempts, done it in only 7 seconds!

In addition, a teacher doing the course asked if these simulations could be made available outside the FutureLearn platform as he thought they would be useful for his key stage 3 and 4 students. This we are doing, so for instance the two exercises are available at

http://www.reading.ac.uk/UnivRead/vr/OpenOnlineCourses/Files/robot3.html

http://www.reading.ac.uk/UnivRead/vr/OpenOnlineCourses/Files/robot4.html

The demonstration of pulse width modulation is at

http://www.reading.ac.uk/UnivRead/vr/OpenOnlineCourses/Files/desmoPWM.html

Interactive page demonstrating pulse width modulation

Although it has required much effort to first produce these web pages, and then to make them compatible with the FutureLearn platform, the very positive reaction to them from learners and FutureLearn is very encouraging, so the concept could be utilised both in other MOOCs as well as in other teaching.

The two Systems Engineering MOOCs, which are both running in June 2015, and which will run again later this year associated with the BBC’s Make it Digital campaign this summer, can be found at

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/begin-robotics

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/begin-programming

Education online en-masse: Lessons for teaching and learning through MOOCs by Clare Wright, Clare Furneaux and Liz Wilding

15 June 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

On 24 April, 2015: 40 academic educators from 19 institutions came together to discuss key issues in MOOC design and implementation. The one-day workshop, hosted and funded by the University of Reading, a leading member of the FutureLearn MOOC consortium, offered the opportunity to evaluate practical lessons in designing and delivering MOOCs, particularly in relation to academic skills development. The focus was on problem-based discussion of approaches to teaching and learning and of the extent to which MOOC learning outcomes can be defined, measured, or achieved.

There were four presentations, each of which explored a particular issue related to the central theme, followed by group discussion around questions suggested by the presenters.

Dimensions of MOOCs: Shirley Williams (University of Reading) gave us an overview of some MOOC statistics and taxonomies, and highlighted some MOOC issues viewed from the ‘outside’ and from the provider’s view. As follow-up, she asked us to extend her list of MOOC dimensions, discuss how we should be measuring success, and consider whether and how we should compare courses.
Pedagogy as a service: lessons and challenges from the perspective of the platform: David Major from FutureLearn led us through some key lessons – and challenges – and asked us to discuss two major questions: Are MOOCs platforms for content and courses, or platforms for learning and pedagogy? How can we coalesce individualism from the view of courses, platform, educators and learning?
Repurposing MOOCs for language learning purposes: Liam Murray (University of Limerick) shared the results and recommendations of a team who evaluated a number of MOOCs to determine their potential to be repurposed for second language acquisition. Liam suggested that we consider two aspects of MOOCs in our groups: specialisation and adaptability.
Designing assessed group work for MOOCs: Marion Waite, Elizabeth Lovegrove and Abigail Ball (Oxford Brookes University) shared their experience with group work on the TOOC15 MOOC. They proposed we discuss why we assess in a MOOC and how we should do it. They also had us consider the issues and practical challenges associated with grouping students and peer review.

It’s hard to summarise the lively and far-ranging discussions that took place, but the round-table at the end of the day (shown in the picture above) helped establish some key lessons learned, some useful tips, and challenges to explore further.

Some lessons learned:

There is a longish history of en-masse online learning behind MOOCS (starting with Usenet groups), so it’s important to avoid re-inventing the wheel.
Initial MOOC-hype is dying down, but interest is still growing, as seen in takeup of repeat MOOCs.
MOOC measurement is best avoided, especially if superficial, e.g. if they are only about numbers signing up
MOOCs are a good way of marketing – a shop window – so need institutional support.
The learners you get may not the ones you expected, so keep assessing your learning goals.

Best practice tips from the day:

Keep your eyes open , e.g. educators can benefit from enrolling on other MOOCs as learners.
Keep talking to each other. It’s important to have Communities of Practice.
MOOCS should draw on best practice in T&L. Let pedagogy lead!

MOOCs – where next?

‘The walls of the institution are coming down to the level of the learners’ – there will be an opening up of practice in range and aims of MOOCs.
Types of MOOC will include:
- Tasters for University courses
- Retirees taking MOOCS for interest/enjoyment
- MOOCs embedded in f2f courses (eg basic Maths)
A lot could be presented as REF case studies, so reliable research context is vital.
MOOCS will get more specific/specialised as the market place gets more crowded…
but there will still be value in ‘Introductions to….’ MOOCs.
There will be more mixed x- and c-MOOCs.
There will be more training/professional MOOCs, but many people will still do academic MOOCs for enjoyment.
MOOCS will get better at delivering pedagogic aims.
There will be a wider range of stakeholders (e.g. employers).
Do MOOCs need to be assessed? If so, assessment must be paid for.
How can participants demonstrate what they have learned in non-traditional forms of assessment?

Overall, the workshop allowed presenters and delegates to share questions and lessons learned, and to consider how to take forward best practice in online en-masse learning. We very much hope to keep the dialogue going in the future.

Feedback from delegates:

‘Inspiring!’ ‘Constructive.’

‘Definitely worth travelling 600 miles for.’

Reading Lists at Reading: improving the student and staff experience by Kerry Webb and Helen Hathaway

3 March 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

The University is investing in an online reading list and digital content management system from Talis Aspire. Implementation at Reading begins at Easter 2015. This initial phase will involve Library staff transferring all 2014-15 reading lists (which have existing copyright cleared scans associated with them) on to the new system, ready for review and revision by the list owner, following training provided by Liaison Librarians. These lists and more if time allows, will be available to students in September 2015. If any departments not included within this initial phase would like to become early adopters, please contact Kerry Webb, the Library’s Course Support Co-ordinator (email: readinglists@reading.ac.uk). After this initial phase, we will then work with a wider range of academics to gradually integrate more lists. Our aim is to upload 75% of reading lists by 2016/17.

Academic tutors will be able to create online reading lists within a single interface, linked to from Blackboard. Using a simple bookmarking tool you will be able to link to items on the Library catalogue, items from our e-journals and subscription databases, external web pages and embedded multimedia. You will also be able to provide guidance to your students on approaches to specific resources, and will gain a faster, easier scanning request process incorporating assured copyright compliance. Automated checking of Library stock against your online lists will ensure faster ordering and more efficient library budget management.

Students will benefit from engaging with online reading lists providing real-time information about Library print material availability, direct links to our online resources and scans requested by academic staff through the Library’s scanning service, plus links to any other relevant resources and any guidance provided by you through annotations added to your lists.

The following are examples of lists produced using the Talis system (clicking on the title of a resource provides availability information):

Reading list with tutor annotations: http://readinglists.anglia.ac.uk/lists/8C8785CB-C465-298E-EB9D-91E170E4E600.html

Reading list with links to scans: http://resourcelists.stir.ac.uk/lists/28233A26-4435-71AF-5A2C-01FE1900C876.html

Reading lists set out in weekly sections: http://myreadinglists.kcl.ac.uk/lists/390BE867-9105-46F1-0EA7-4904093D94DE.html

http://readinglists.ucl.ac.uk/lists/28940452-8182-68BC-70AC-08123F69353F.html

Support will be provided in several ways: through online guides and screencasts, one-to-one, drop-in and bespoke training sessions, and making use of existing networks to assist colleagues with getting started on the system.

Find out more

Briefing sessions about the new system will be held at the end of the Spring Term, on Tuesday 24^th and Friday 27^th March, 1-2pm, in S@iL 107 (Library, 1^st Floor). These are open to all staff involved in the creation of reading lists on Blackboard, no need to book.

We hope that as many of you as possible will be able to see for yourselves what the system will be able to do for you and your students. These sessions will provide an opportunity to see how the system works, and members of the implementation project team from the Library will be on hand to answer any questions you might have about online reading lists.

Or, book up to attend the CQSD T&L session, ‘Online reading lists: TEL to improve student engagement’ on Wednesday 22^nd April, 1-2pm. For details of how to book, see: http://www.reading.ac.uk/cqsd/TandLEvents/cqsd-ComingSoon.aspx.

To find out more about the Talis system and what it can do for you and your students, go to: www.talis.com/reading-lists and http://www.talis.com/digitised-content/ or contact Kerry Webb, the Library’s Course Support Co-ordinator, email: readinglists@reading.ac.uk

10th LLAS e-Learning Symposium: looking back and looking forward on technology enhanced learning for languages by Pilar Gray-Carlos

10 February 20154 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

LLAS (Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies) recently celebrated the 10^th anniversary of the annual e-Learning Symposium at Southampton. During the past 10 years the e-Learning Symposium has provided an area where academics and educators in the field of linguistics and languages have had a common place to share innovation, creativity and results of the use of new technologies applied to teaching and learning languages.

This 10^th anniversary has provided an opportunity to briefly pause to look back and reflect on how we have tackled the challenges and opportunities in the past years. A reflection particularly highlighted by Marion Sadoux, (Director of the Language Centre, University of Nottingham, Ningbo) in her key note: “10 years on, challenging 10 venerable Assumptions about Languages and e-Learning” where she provides her experience on challenges, ideas and beliefs, that technology enhanced learning has brought to the language community. As key notes go, it is also worth mentioning both the opening key note on a very much in vogue area, MOOCs, given by Sara Person and Chris Cavey (British Council); and the closing key note: an account of a personal journey through digital and networked technologies, shared by Benoit Guilbaoud (University of Manchester).

Contributors to this 10th edition presented a wide range of projects. There were projects based on collaboration (Collaborative productions of learning objects on French literary works using LOC software, Christian Penman, Edinburgh Napier University; Identity and participation in telecollaboration, Francesca Helm, University of Padova Italy); projects for student mobility, (ICTell Project: virtual exchanges to prepare for student mobility, Marta Giralt and Catherine Jeanneau, University of Limerick); and projects that explore the use of mobile apps such as WhatsApp to prepare for year abroad (Isabel Cobo-Palacios, Billy Brick and Tiziana Cervi-Wilson, Coventry University) or twitter both for language boosting (Alessia Plutino, University of Southampton) and as a community of practice tool for language learners (Fernando Rosell-Aguilar, Open University). Together with a variety of papers on the use of wikis and blogs, reflection on MOOCS, blended learning, etc.

The symposium also offered the opportunity to participate in workshops such as the use of digital video and online discussions; blended learning techniques to maximise lexical retention; tips for telecollaboration with VLEs and using free digital tools (SpeakApps) for encouraging speaking and learning.

The world has become a bigger place, access to information is faster and varied, and the demand to respond to new tools for and manners of delivery is here to stay, so will the LLAS e-Learning Symposium be. It will continue to help us to stay connected, to explore, and to share our ideas with our colleagues not only in the UK but across the world.

Watch the recording of plenary sessions at https://www.llas.ac.uk/livestream or for more detailed information on some of the case studies visit http://research-publishing.net/publications/10-years-of-the-llas-elearning-symposium-case-studies-in-good-practice/

Talking Feedback: Using video to radically change essay marking by Emma Mayhew

19 December 20144 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

On this day, exactly two years ago, I sat in my study staring at Blackboard. 212 little green symbols were showing in Grade Centre. 212 3,500 word essays needed to be marked in the next three weeks. And they didn’t just need marks. Each of them needed a page of rich, detailed feedback, often crucial to student attainment and important to student satisfaction. In the HE sector higher student numbers and increasing student expectations look set to intensify further the pressure to deliver numerous pieces of outstanding feedback within an increasingly tighter timeframe but a tiny number of us are looking at this differently. After years of marking over 200 essays at Christmas and over 200 at Easter I finally decided to radically change the delivery of feedback to students. Encouraged by the work of the ASSET project, a few pioneers in the sector and the success of my own screencast suite, I turned to screen capture technology. In December 2013, 25 students on one of my Part 3 modules didn’t get their normal A4 feedback sheet on Grade Centre. Instead they received their own individual 6-10 minute MP4 file via Blackboard. Each video showed my face and my cursor circling essay text as I talked through their coursework in detail…

…and follow on questionnaires revealed overwhelming student support. From 20 respondents, 18 said that video feedback was better than written feedback and 17 said they would prefer video feedback next time. At least two key themes emerged from student feedback:

Clarity-Students see markers highlighting specific sections of text as they comment while face to face contact reduces scope for misunderstanding and increase the sense of individual attention.

Depth- It takes me one hour to mark and provide written feedback on a 3,500 word essay. Video feedback didn’t actually save me any time. I still spent one hour on each essay but here is the difference-my written feedback contains an average of around 350-400 words. My video feedback contains an average of around 170 words per minute so that’s around 1,360 words in a typical 8 minute video feedback recording. This is 3 to 4 times more than students would normally receive and explains why 18 questionnaire respondents said that they received much more detailed feedback than they typically would via written comments.

OK I can’t mark in my pyjamas anymore but I’m willing to sacrifice this because my small scale study suggests that using simple screen capture software to create video feedback does allow us to give much more in-depth, personal and very specific feedback at no extra cost to staff time.

For further information on how to use free and simple screen capture software to create video feedback please click on my 90 second screencast (http://www.screencast.com/t/mUy4dDHFdnyv), part of a range of 1-2 minute ‘How to’ videos on the Reading GRASS screen capture website (http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/grass/).

Goodbye Word; hello floating islands, dolphins and rainbows by Dr Emma Mayhew

7 November 20144 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

So you’re a lecturer at Reading and you find yourself going over and over information in handbooks, course outlines, books and journals with students-anything from tricky academic concepts to essay writing and ECFs. Of course it’s difficult in an age of information overload. Really important stuff gets lost and sometimes it’s hard to make our voice heard amongst all of the noise surrounding students. What’s the solution? Maybe written information isn’t the only vehicle of choice. We know that students respond brilliantly to visual information. A few of us at Reading have been focusing on exactly that. We’ve started using incredibly simple and entirely free ‘screencapture’ software, like Jing, to record what we’re doing on our screens. We’ve added audio to these short videos and occasionally even webcam footage of our faces. Some of us have even moved beyond PowerPoint and had a huge amount of fun (yes….fun!) with new, massively eye-catching and versatile presentation tools like Prezi (and this is where the floating islands, dolphins and rainbows come in) or Powtoon-and the makers really aren’t overselling their product when they describe it as “awesome”.

But will students engage with information delivered in this way? Yes they will and I know this because last Autumn I made a suite of ten 3-5 minute screencasts using Prezi on a whole range of topics-writing a great essay, marking criteria, academic and pastoral help, pre-arrival information and more. They have been viewed over 2,300 times by our students and I’m not even counting my staff training screencasts, one minute module summaries, animated quizzes, video essay feedback and conference paper summaries which bring my views to nearly 4,000 in the last 12 months…and it’s not just me! Cindy Becker and David Nutt have also seen a great response.

We’re so passionate about screencapture that the three of us have just launched the TLDF funded ‘GRASS’ project to support colleagues who would like to try this out for themselves. If you’d like to know more please click on the floating island below to watch our 90 second clip, visit or subscribe to our new website which is full of examples and ‘how to’ videos http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/grass/ , come along and see us all speaking at the CQSD showcase on 19^th November at 13:00 but most importantly, book on our first ‘Lunch and Learn’ session via Employee Self Service on Friday 28^th November at 13:00 in Palmer 103. We’ll be outlining our experiences and offering training at this event which includes a free buffet lunch and range of our own HOMEMADE CAKES! Goodbye Word and hello exciting, creative possibilities.

Flipped learning in a team-based situation with a dash of TEL by Dr Cindy Becker

24 October 20144 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

This is my new recipe for extending the academic year and helping to welcome our new students. As with any new recipe, some bits of it went really well and some aspects of it were less impressive – and there was one moment when I was in danger of failing to cook up any learning at all.

Along with my colleague Mary Morrissey, I have been working this year to introduce our new module EN1PW: Persuasive Writing. We have been ridiculously excited about the chance to share with our students all that we firmly believe they need to know about how to write practically and persuasively. We have devised a plethora of assessment tasks via blackboard (with help from Anne Crook and our other colleagues in CQSD) but I wanted to go one step further and use technology to enhance the learning experience even before our students reached the lecture hall or seminar room. Aware of the university’s desire to produce a more structured and active Welcome Week for our newcomers inspired me to create a quiz using screencasts, in the hope that students would feel part of our department’s community of learning from the off.

That was my first mistake. Because optional Part 1 modules are allocated to students on Friday of Welcome Week, I was not able to send out the quiz to the relevant students in enough time for them to use it prior to our first meeting. Lesson learned – this recipe would work better for a compulsory module.

Undeterred (I had by that time spent ages on my computer) I gave them the details of the quiz by sending out a document to them on Monday of Week 1, asking them to work through it prior to our first seminar in Week 2. (Richard Steward and I had worked hard to try to make this a bb quiz, but we could not guarantee that the screencasts would play reliably on every device a student might use, so a word document it had to be.)

The quiz consisted of 8 questions, all asking about aspects of writing with which new students struggle each year. The quiz was designed to go further than immediate learning: my idea was to use each question as a springboard to discuss other aspects of writing style. I was also keen to have them work in teams. In the seminar I asked them to get themselves into groups of four – they will remain in these groups for the rest of the term, for a variety of group-based tasks.

I went through the quiz, asking them to recall their individual answers (most had written these down on the sheet) and then decide on a group answer. That was my huge mistake: I just had not thought through in advance how to do this. Should I run through the whole quiz first, asking them to make their group choices, or run through the screencast for each question and then ask for their answers one at a time? I mistakenly chose the former option and ended up realising, too late, that it would have been more effective to have taken the latter approach. This was made more difficult because I had not thought to put the subject of each question on the question sheet, so it would have been easy to get lost had the student beside me not written the topics on her question sheet.

So, things went wrong from time to time, but generally I was pleased with the experience. I found that some of them had shown the quiz to their new flatmates, who I gather were impressed that they had been given a ‘fun’ task before the first seminar. Some of them had called home to discuss the questions. In the seminar it worked really well as a team-building task: they were so busy arguing over possible answers that they forgot to be strangers. I also realised that there were some things I would have assumed they would know which they did not. I am not sure, for example, that I would have found out that some of them were confused by prepositions if we had not been having such a free ranging discussing as a result of the quiz. I think that using animated screencasts really helped in this respect. Seeing a set of cartoons in a seminar set a tone of relaxed, discussion-based learning, which was just what I wanted to achieve.

It was all that I hoped it would be in terms of learning, and with the glitches now fixed on the question sheet I feel more confident about the teaching. I learned more about screencasts using ‘Powtoons’ software too – like the fact that each screencast will publish with a screenshot of exactly what is on the screen at the moment you press the ‘publish’ button. It took some time for me to go back and finesse all of the screencasts in the light of this, and even now I realise that I could have done it better by including an initial title screen. Still, that is the pleasure of teaching, learning and technology: there is always the next thing to learn, the next challenge to face. It is nice to think that I am learning just as hard as they are.

You can find the revised document here: EN1PW introductory quiz(2)

Are you interested in biological recording & monitoring with your students? By Dr Alice Mauchline

23 October 20144 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

The University of Reading now has ‘KiteSite’ – a free, bespoke mobile app for biodiversity recording on the Whiteknights campus. KiteSite has been designed as a generic tool to support field training in biodiversity and taxonomy at the University and it can be used in any module for field data collection. There is a supporting website available at:www.reading.ac.uk/herbarium/kitesite

KiteSite was developed in 2014 by a multidisciplinary team of undergraduates and staff with funding from the University’s Teaching and Learning Development Fund. It is available for Android devices from the Play Store and the iOS version is available through the host app EpiCollect. Full instructions on how to download and use the app are available on the project website along with links to online identification guides and ideas of how to use KiteSite to support teaching activities.

Features

KiteSite automatically records time, date and geolocation data; meaning that the first piece of data captured is a photograph of the specimen. The subsequent data headings can be filled in to the level of knowledge known about the organism (Organism group, Common name, Species name). They can be completed with all known information if the recorder has some idea of the identity of the organism or left blank if the organism can’t be identified. A confidence rating is asked for at the end of the data sheet which can be used for confirmation of correct identification. A notes section has also been included to provide a space to record any further information about the sighting.

Two sections of the data form have been customised to allow for groups to add their ‘Project Code’ and for individual recorders to identify themselves with a unique ‘User code’ (e.g. their student number). This allows for easy data extraction from a single teaching excursion and for students to submit their own data for assessment.

Data storage

The data are stored in a central database which is publically available and constantly updated. These data can be used in a multitude of ways to support teaching & learning; for example, they can be analysed to ensure that the students made correct species identifications; time series data can be examined for temporal patterns; spatial data can reveal species movements across campus; phenology data can be examined etc.

As the database grows, these data will become a valuable record of campus biodiversity. The records will supplement the activities of the Whiteknights Biodiversity Blog which collates records of all organisms found living on campus.

Mobile devices available

Several field-ready mobile devices (10 iPad minis and 4 Google Nexus 7s) are available to borrow to support the use of this app in fieldwork teaching. Please get in touch if you would like to borrow these devices or if you’d like to discuss ways to integrate the use of this app and the database in your teaching. I would also be very interested to hear via email (a.l.mauchline@reading.ac.uk), Twitter @UniRdg_KiteSite or via the Whiteknights Biodiversity Blog of your experiences of using KiteSite in teaching & learning activities on campus.

Facebook, iPads and ‘extreme’ microbes in Iceland by Dr Becky Thomas, Dr Alice Mauchline and Dr Rob Jackson

27 August 20144 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

This post relates to activities carried out on the EU ERASMUS Intensive Programme grant awarded to University of Reading to fund 10 students from each of Belgium, Germany and the UK, plus 5 staff in total from the three countries, to travel to Akureyri in Iceland. Once there, the grant funded a 2-week residential field course, including Icelandic students and staff, plus other lecturers from Reading, Iceland and Spain.

In July we set ourselves the challenge of combining technology enhanced learning, with a field trip to Iceland to sample ‘extreme’ microbes, with 34 students, many of whom had very little field experience. Also mix a multi-national environment with students from Belgian, German and Icelandic universities and you can see why we wanted to develop an effective online learning environment. The field trip had taken place previously in 2012 (see:http://ow.ly/A0EBo) and 2013, but this was the first year with so many nationalities involved. Our general objectives were to bring this diverse community together to teach them about microbiological techniques and processes, and to introduce them to environmental microbiology, by taking them into the extreme environments of Iceland to collect their own samples.

We chose Facebook as our platform for an online learning environment as we had experience in using it in previous modules, and with 1.23 billion active users, we hoped it would be something that many of the students were already using! We created the private group in February, and invited the students to join (making it completely voluntary). Initially we wanted to use it as a way to prepare everyone for the trip, posting relevant information and encouraging the academic staff who were involved in the trip to participate so that the students had a way of getting to know them before their arrival.

In the next stage we wanted to see whether we could use this Facebook group as a way of getting students to feel comfortable in preparing and posting a reflective blog post about their experiences on the trip. To do this we staged their learning, asking them to add short reflective posts within the private Facebook group, which could include photos and links. Not all of the students did this at first, but by the end many of them had done, or had at least commented on other peoples posts. The group also became useful for so many other aspects of the course. Simon Clarke ran a seminar, where students broke out into small groups and answered questions within this group by posting on the Facebook page. Simon was then able to discuss each group’s answers with the class, leading to some very active discussion. We also posted ‘breakfast quizzes’ which again lead to some very interesting discussion between the academic staff and students.

One element that worked very well was the use of iPads on the trip. We benefitted from investment made by the School of Biological Sciences into purchasing iPads, so that we were able to provide each student with their ‘own’ iPad facilitating many aspects of the field and lab work. For example we geo-logged each sampling location enabling students to record the conditions where their samples were taken, which helped when they came to interpret their findings.The iPads also meant that the Facebook group remained inclusive, not disadvantaging anyone who hadn’t brought along their own laptop, smartphone or tablet device.

At the end of the trip we ran focus groups with the students and staff to evaluate their perceptions of the use of the Facebook group during the trip. We are still going through all of the results, but the feedback was generally positive from both sides. The students and staff created their own safe learning environment, enhancing the experiences of both groups and enabling a different kind of learning which we couldn’t achieve otherwise.

As part of the assessment for the Reading students we set them the task of writing a short blog post about the benefits of fieldwork for microbiologists in a multi-national setting. They also produced short videos to demonstrate the process of collecting their samples through to their lab work. They created these entirely on their iPads and the results are really impressive. If you are interested then the blog posts are available here: http://ow.ly/A0OrW and we are currently organising a TEL showcase where we will discuss this project more, later in the new academic year.

Challenges of Web Residency by Dr Becky Thomas

30 July 20144 October 2019 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

We are living in an increasingly digital world; many of our students grow up immersed in this way of life, having access to a wealth of information online, often accessible wherever they are. But how do they use this appropriately in their learning, and how do we help them harness all of this information? These are some of the questions that Alice Mauchline, Alastair Culham, Mark Fellowes and I had when we applied for the HEA funded ‘Challenges of Web Residency’ project. All of us are interested in the use of various digital technologies, especially in their use for fieldwork, but we want to know more about how we can improve our practice in this area.

To kick off the project we attended the first introductory HEA workshop in London where we were introduced to the basic idea; that the way people use the internet can be categorised into either a ‘visitor’ or ‘resident’, although in reality these categories are more of a spectrum. The visitor uses the internet as a tool, accessing it for information when it is needed and logging off without leaving any real trace, whereas the resident lives a proportion of their lives online, using the internet in most parts of their lives often socialising and leaving a digital trace. (Further information here: http://goo.gl/Wom15).A second, interesting dimension is to consider how the internet is used differently in our personal life compared to institutional contexts and how this can be important for professional development.

How is this relevant to us as academics? In our first workshop we were asked to make our own maps and the intricacies of the idea began to make sense. Although many of us and our students use Facebook on a regular basis, if our profiles are private then our digital trace is restricted to those who we allow access, or our ‘friends’. This means that for most people Facebook would appear in between visitor and resident, along the spectrum. The other consideration is whether our use is personal or institutional; I use Facebook for my work (to communicate with students) and as a way of keeping in touch with my friends, so it appears all along this horizontal axis. I use Twitter in the same way, but it’s much more public, so appears closer to the resident side of the spectrum.

‘Visitor and Resident’ map that I produced in the first HEA workshop

In order to explore this within a teaching context, we ran a workshop in early March 2014 at the University of Reading with 35 Biological Science undergraduate and postgraduate students, asking them to complete their own maps and the results were really interesting. Many of them are ‘resident’ internet users, but the postgraduate students seemed to use this to their advantage by residing more in the institutional area (so they are increasing their online profile to benefit their future careers).

‘Visitor and Resident’ map produced by a postgraduate student in the workshop we ran at Reading

The mapping process was useful for the students and staff, forcing us to think more about our web presence (or absence!). It was also evident that the majority of students use the web for personal purposes much more than for their learning (upper half of all diagrams was more densely filled than the lower half). We did see a progression among students from year to year in their academic life towards more ‘resident-institutional’ web use, but how should we support this transition? We feel that we need to have a discussion with our students about their web identity and build this into the routine of student education with emphasis on employability. This is something that we have begun to explore on a recent residential microbiology field trip to Iceland (another post to follow soon).

Another interesting element was discussed at our final HEA workshop – with ever increasing class sizes, applications like Twitter and Facebook, could be used as a way for our students to ‘get to know us’ on a more personal level, which also opens up a discussion about whether staff have considered the implications of students ‘following’ them on Twitter or becoming ‘friends’ on Facebook.

We are discussing the idea of running a workshop early next year, to facilitate discussion across the University about digital literacies of our students and how we communicate with them following our participation in the project. If this would interest you then get in touch: rebecca.thomas@reading.ac.uk.