S3 Student System and Writing Cafe attendance monitoring

Had some great conversations with Dr Paul Dowland (creator of the S3 system we use at Plymouth for student module/programme and teaching logging). I wanted to see how I could utilise barcode scanning of campus cards as a means to monitor access to the Writing Cafe and also potentially use it for Learning Development Tutorials and teaching sessions.  The use of the barcode scanners mean that no student data is collected, other than number and date. Keeping things quick easy safe and secure.  This will help Learning Development to establish how much the Cafe and related learning devleopment tutorials are impacting on student learning in the long run, as well as widening participation. This should also completely cut back on administration and improve working efficiencies -  Exciting times!

Co-Chair for LearnHigher

I am thrilled to announce that I have now taken on the position of Co-Chair for LearnHigher with Amanda Pocklington (University of Exeter). Really excellent working group and a lot of exciting ideas to implement. LearnHigher is part of the Association of Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE). To quote from the site

'Learnhigher is a network for promoting and facilitating the development and dissemination of high quality, peer-reviewed resources for learning development in the higher education sector. [Their] aim [is] to support the development of such resources as well as conduct and disseminate research into the use and effectiveness of learning development strategies and materials.' LearnHigher.ac.uk

Catch of the Day: Wrasse poster wins a prize at ALDinHE Conference Southampton!

Very chuffed to have won a poster prize (at the ALDinHE Conference) promoting the new Wrasse website. It took a fair amount of time to design and create. All the design work was done in PowerPoint 2010.

What is Wrasse? Well, it stands for: Writing for Assignments E-Library. Its purpose is to help students understand what good academic writing is within the context of their discipline. This resource is on-line, so there are no barriers to learning internationally!

Wrasse has seen various forms of development since 2002, so the concepts have been well established. The interface has recently been improved but lacked a new hosting space. Since I took on support of Wrasse in November 2014 (kindly offered by John Hilsdon & Joe Allison),there has been a considerable amount of time, conversations and meeting to finalise the hosting.  This included the website developers (Yello Studio, Exeter) and systems experts here at Plymouth. Having Wrasse finally up and running, and winning a poster prize  has been a wonderful surprise.

We are currently looking to build the essay and report database so students have a much larger resource in which to benefit. I will add that this is not just a resource for Plymouth University but also for anyone wishing to support academic writing. Wrasse also features on the LearnHigher resources website. If you are interested in what we do in Learning Development at Plymouth University, or just interested in discussing Wrasse, please visit our external site.

Its only been a few months since I joined Learning Development at Plymouth University (as a Learning Development Advisor). I help run tutorials and workshops on academic literacy, also within the imaginative space 'The Writing Cafe' offering informal tutorials for passing students. A Plymouth University 2nd year photography student chose the Writing Café for her project creating a story about the individuals who worked in and used the space. Each person was photographed in a way that the student thought represented them well and combined with a piece of writing.  I thought I would go out of my usual comfort zone and write a poem. Inspired by the Cafe and others in my team...  This is the outcome:

Comfort in spaces

Talk or write, write or talk,

There is solace in the pen, there is comfort in paper;

Home is in a page, a book, a novel,

Illuminated.

Shadows and light, Plato’s cave,

Images of knowledge, the minds you touch,

Help another, lighten the load,

Find a space, escape a hold,

Clarity of vision, wisdom with love,

Peace within silence, the final abode...

Jason, 5th Dec 2014

Library and IT essentials (for student Induction)

I've been working with my colleague Julie Moody who is an Information Specialist (Health, Education and Languages) to help create induction materials for students requiring guidance on Library and IT services at their disposal. This is a follow on project similar to the work for the 'Paper: Enhancing student induction to Library and IT services in Higher Education' which I'm happy to report is being used this year to good effect.
I've just finished a banner which will be used on-line to promote this resource during welcome week, shown to the left.

Workshop introductions

Working with my colleague Rob Stillwell (Senior Learning Technologist), we have produced a series of introductory videos for ASTI (Academic Support Technology and Innovation) workshops that have been developed by the team.  These are very short around ~1 minute just to give a taster of what can be expected. These now appear, embedded within the workshop pages, as an example please feel free to visit the More with Moodle workshop page.  This workshop provides advance pedagogic benefits of using Moodle. The video also appears on internal Moodle course pages related to those workshops.

These were filmed using DSLRs, external sound recorder and LED lighting.

Moodle Stories - How I went from sceptic to enthusiast

I've been working on the following video with my colleagues to capture views of others using Moodle as a teaching and learning platform. I've been eagerly waiting for the release of the official ASTI news letter before publishing this to my own blog. The ASTI newsletter articles, current and past are available here for those who are interested.

In the above video Gary Strong (Lecturer in Paramedic Practice) provides some very frank commentary on his experience of using Moodle and shares some of his pedagogical approaches.
Further detail on this video available via the ASTI website:
http://technologyenhancedlearning.net/moodle-stories/ which also provides some chapter jumping options.

This interview was created using two cameras (Canon), seperate (Zoom mic), and editing (by me) performed in Premiere Pro CS5.5.

DigiThings video interview

Flea Palmer (Learning Technologist) recently interviewed Dr Emily Beaumont (Lecturer in Entrepreneurship) regarding the new DigiThings online course for academics. Here is the video I helped put together, capturing Dr Beaumont's experiences. It also gives insights into how this course also benefited her students.

This video with an evaluation can also be found on the ASTI website or visiting the DigiThings blog.

Paper: Enhancing student induction to Library and IT services in Higher Education

Collaborative development,
dissemination and student interaction

I have had the pleasure of working on an exciting project with colleagues within ASTI (Academic Support Technology and Innovation), which resulted in a journal publication.

Part of this project was devising a means of making induction more exciting for the participants. One approach used to increase student involvement was to create a game within the induction presentation inside PowerPoint, so initial contact would be much more exciting for attendees. This was based on the BBC show 'Pointless', although in this case, very much angled to University services and support specific questions (Special thank you to the BBC for giving the University permission to adapt their game show idea in this project). Thanks also extends to the ASTI team collaborators involved in the development work for this project.  The digram to the left gives a visual description of how this works.

The co-written paper with my colleague Julie Moody (Information Specialist -Health, Education and Languages) is available from the journal of Innovative Practice in Higher Education, which also details this process and looks at feedback from the students:

MOODY, J. & TRUSCOTT, J. 2014. Enhancing student induction to library and IT services in higher education. Innovative Practice in Higher Education, 2.

UPDATE: similar processes are now being implemented in 5 external institutions.

Teaching Fellowship: 'Getting Podcasting Right for Students and their Learning'

Podcasting for learning

Very pleased to have been awarded a University Teaching Fellowship (Plymouth University), with colleagues from the Faculty of Science and Environment: Dr Martin Lavelle; Dr Carrie Headlam; Dr Paul Hewson and Prof David McMullan. Congratulations to you all! I look forward to working with you more closely in this very exciting fellowship.

The work will involve research and development in the use of podcasting for students in the School of Computing and Mathematics, looking specifically at what really works well for our students. We also welcome our critical friend Dr Karen Gresty (Associate Dean for the Faculty).  Implementing use of the new DLE (Digital Learning Environment) at Plymouth with Moodle as the central modular learning platform.