Newsbytes 35

newsbytes Issue 35 - Spring/Summer 2012

Stimulating and supporting innovation in learning

Contents 1 • e-Fair preview 2 • Workshops & show and tells 3 • Keynote speaker: Doug Belshaw 4 • Excellence Gateway case studies • Adobe Captivate 5 • Colchester Institute video case study 6 • Green agenda 7 • Events round-up

The e-Lympics comes to West Herts College The starting gun is primed for the e-Lympics, the 12th Eastern region e-Fair, taking place on July 5th at West Herts College, Watford, pictured above.

With the Olympics taking centre stage this summer, the Eastern team are fit and ready to provide a champion day full of e-learning best-practice, networking opportunities and technological innovation.

There will be a varied programme of workshops, drop-in show and tells, and a selection of exhibiting service and resource providers.

JISC InfoNet's Doug Belshaw will give the keynote speech, 'Inspire a generation: making it onto the

podium in the digital age'.

This year's workshops include: l 'Personalised

distance learning toolkit' - Joe Dale, Essex ACL; l 'Developing

an effective interactive learning poster' - Aaron Burrell & David Mullett, University Campus Suffolk; l 'Easy

interactivity with Moodle' Charlie Williams, Oaklands College; l 'Interactive

smartboard and touch screen assessment' - Mike Watkins, West Herts College; l 'Using

the Wordwall' - Amanda Hammond, West Herts College.

8 • UCS augmented reality • Technology review

BOOK NOW!!!

Be educated and inspired by workshops and show and tells, network with other providers, and be in with a chance of winning ILT-related prizes. Book your e-Fair place now: http://bit.ly/efair2012

Comment Gerard Hayes, JISC RSC Eastern Manager

e-Lympics 2012 - Tec

"Every year the Eastern region e-Fair has contained a wealth of invaluable content, inspiring the delivery of increased learner experience across the FE and skills sector.

"The successful format of workshops, ‘show and tells’ and exhibition has enabled the sharing of a variety of experiences, successes and solutions towards overcoming pedagogical and technological challenges and barriers.

"Everyone who attends the e-Fair takes away an individual perception. Last year we had a variety of positive comments – 'having the chance to interact and gain further knowledge on a one to one basis was great', 'I enjoyed the Screencasting session', 'different ways of facilitating learning can also save money!', 'e-safety Emma Bond was fantastic!' and 'networking invaluable'.

"At the end of the 2011 event, the ‘fair goers’ planned to 'research some of the 'tools' being advocated','continue promoting EdTech as support for L&T environments' and 'Investigate Xerte and Screencasting'.

"When that starting gun ‘fires’ the day opens with a keynote

by Doug Belshaw. The various ‘track and field’ events will hopefully satisfy the varied tastes of our provider community.

"To support the day and also showcase new technologies there will be augmented reality and other apps provided by RSC Eastern.

The ‘closing ceremony’ will include a presentation of prizes as well as recognition of contributors' invaluable input."

This year's e-Fair will feature a selection of engaging workshops, which should both enliven and educate practitioners in the Eastern region.

content to Moodle using the quizzes, forums, glossaries and the add-on game module. This will also include a look at Smartphone compatible activities (iPhone, Android and Blackberry).

'Personalised distance learning toolkit' - Joe Dale, Essex ACL This workshop will showcase the LSIS RRF funded ACL toolkit, which features a range of step-by-step tutorials designed to support foreign language tutors in creating personalised distance learning opportunities for their learners through a digital repository.

'Interactive smartboard and touch screen assessment' - Mike Watkins, West Herts College This workshop will take you through setting up and implementing interactive Smartboard assessment to make your assessment feedback more engaging.

'Developing an effective interactive learning poster' Aaron Burrell & David Mullett, University Campus Suffolk The team will explore how we can effectively employ location awarebased technologies, including QR Codes and Aurasma’s Image Recognition software, to develop interactive learning posters and more.

'Easy interactivity with Moodle' Charlie Williams, Oaklands College - This session will look at quick ways to add interactive

'Using the Wordwall' - Amanda Hammond, West Herts College The presenter will use a selection of Wordwall activities to check learning using the new interactive handsets. WordWall is an activity maker for the classroom, used with the WordPad2 audience response system, allowing all students to participate in learning.

There will be a variety of informal drop-in show and tell sessions throughout the day, bringing together the region's best practice in e-learning. At last year's event over twenty providers worked tirelessly to showcase their ILT

chnology at its best

initiatives and e-learning expertise. Here are a few examples to whet your appetite for this year: Equinoll - Broadland Council Training Services - Online learning resource for equine work based learners. Interactive resources on a stick.

Google Apps for Education (GaFE) - City College Norwich - How GaFE is being used within CCN and in other institutions throughout the educational spectrum.

Interactive pairs games & interactive online tutorials Peterborough Regional College Using Visual Basic 2010 software to create an interactive pairs game, tutors can choose, change and modify the images easily, then use interactive whiteboards to run the game to reinforce learning with the whole group.

Google Docs for data sharing in class activities - West Herts College - Forms from Google Docs are used to collect data from class activities to populate a spreadsheet. Tables showing

results can be shown to the class immediately on the screen.

Tracking BTEC grades in Moodle - Bedford College - The college has developed a sophisticated Moodle plug-in to track students’ progress against criteria and units for BTEC qualifications.

There will be a drop-in surgery from JISC InfoNet's Doug Belshaw, pictured top right, as well as virtual surgeries from JISC Legal, Digital Media and Netskills.

Services and exhibitors this year include JISC TechDis, LSIS, Xtensis, SCRAN, EDINA, who will be available throughout the day to offer advice, support and guidance.

Delegates can also have their say during the event in the video diary room. Practitioners will be able to share their favourite experiences, insights and eureka moments of the day.

All of our workshop, show and tell and diary room contributors will be entered into a draw for a mystery prize, which will be drawn at the conclusion of the event.

Staff News Keynote Kate 'Inspire Gregory a generation: has returned from making maternity it onto the leave podium and is back in thesupporting digital age'the - Dr WorkDoug based Belshaw, learning JISC InfoNet sector within the eastern region.

How can we break through “the I am pain really barrier excited to inspire to return to learners? my WBLHow elearning do we role passand the with batonthe of current digital skills? economic How do stresses we ensure and staff theand changes students that all get areout occurring of the blocks? within the sector, think this is a time for providers In his keynote to bepresentation, looking to save Dr. Doug money Belshaw whilst will maintaining serve as excellent pacesetter training for theresults; day, and we reflecting can help onimplement his research any changes around open to e-learning, education, online digital assessment, literacies andmobile mobilelearnlearning. ing etc... which can help to achieve At a time this.” of budgetary constraints, fragmentation and Contact marketisation, Kate atDoug k.gregory@ will argue rsc-eastern.ac.uk that we need to be more, not less open in our learning and teaching practices. He will draw upon evidence and resources from JISC-funded projects and programmes, as well as ideas from his thesis and further afield. Ultimately, Doug will argue that we need to collaborate to compete and be successful in the digital age.

Doug is a Researcher/ Analyst at JISC infoNet, provides support to the JISC Developing Digital Literacies programme (http://www.jisc. ac.uk/developingdigitalliteracies), manages the Open Educational Resources infoKit (http://bit.ly/oerinfokit) and is the author of JISC’s Mobile Learning infoKit (http://bit.ly/ mobilelearninginfokit). He has also recently completed his doctorate on digital literacies.

A former teacher and senior leader in schools, Doug has an interest in education at every level. He is co-kickstarter (with Andrew Stewart) of Purpos/ ed (http://purposed.org.uk), a co-operative organisation provoking debate around the question, 'what is the purpose of education?'

News in brief Adobe Captivate Are you looking to create digital learning content for your learners? Do you want to be able to track learner progress through online assessment? Then you may want to consider exploring Adobe Captivate.

This is an intuitive suite that enables the user to create engaging and interactive learning objects without any prior coding or design skills.

Latest Excellence Gateway case studies Essex ACL Broadening horizons with blended learning; technology toolkit for foreign language tutors As part of an LSIS Regional Response Fund project, Essex Adult Community Learning (ACL) has created a toolkit, which

You can convert PowerPoints to interactive online lessons, create screencasts and assessments that can be tracked by your VLE. At RSC Eastern we are currently offering limited training to those who are interested in learning the basics of Adobe Captivate.

If you are interested please contact Ben Hutchens at b.hutchens@rsc-eastern.ac.uk

Video case study RSC Eastern recently spent two days filming a video case study at Peterborough Regional College.

Showcasing the college's LSIS-sponsored employment service, the RSC team were able to interview a number of figures from the region's recruitment sector, as well as film a variety of engaging footage. You can watch the film at http://bit.ly/rscemedia If your educational establishment would like to benefit from a video case study, promotional film or events recording, or, would like to have training in filming, sound or video editing, please contact Ryan Bradshaw at r.bradshaw@rsc-eastern.ac.uk

classes, based on online content and collaboration. Since 2010, this blended learning environment has improved retention as students can work at hours that suit them, and has given teachers more time to work on future lessons and other tasks.

Epping Forest College 'Creating a collaborative classroom using the Xerte Online Toolkit'

provides training for foreign language tutors in producing digital resources which combine audio, video, text and communication activities. The toolkit, which is now an integral part of a blended learning language course, has also developed tutors' skills in using technology for teaching and learning. The main aim has also been to provide an alternative and flexible method of delivery, especially where funding cuts have impacted on the cost of running taught courses.

Oaklands College Creating collaborative classrooms online with LAMS (The Learning Activity Management System) e-Learning Developer, Charlie Williams, has improved efficiencies at Oaklands College with the introduction of LAMS. Charlie has worked alongside teachers at the college to create activities for a range of individual tasks, small group work and whole

Souad Kouachi, a Science Lecturer at Epping Forest College has utilised the Xerte Online Toolkit (XOLTK ) to create a collaborative learning environment for her students.

Souad briefed her learners on how to use the Xerte Online Toolkit to develop dynamic learning objects.

Her learners were soon able to create presentations containing learning objects as well as assessment activities, which they now use in the classroom to reinforce learning.

To read more go to the Excellence Gateway website: http://www. excellencegateway.org.uk • Share best practice and promote your e-learning efforts on the Excellence Gateway, email r.bradshaw@rsc-eastern.ac.uk.

Lights, camera, action at Colchester Institute

Diary dates 09/05/12 - Xerte Showcase, SmartLIFE Low Carbon Centre, Cambridge, Free 09/05/12 - Designing location aware learning activities: QR Codes & Augmented Reality, University Campus Suffolk, Ipswich, Free 09/05/12 - e-Safety: Developing Effective Practice London, Free 18/05/12 - e-Learning Forum, Cambridge Regional College, Free 23/05/12 - Digital Creativity 2012, Islington City Learning Centre, London, £50

It was lights, camera, action at Colchester Institute as an internationally renowned film company came to shoot an LSIS video case study on the college’s enviable e-learning environment.

Brickwork Lecturer, Chris Holland, took centre stage, as Evans Woolfe Media, whose clients include the BBC and Amnesty International, spent the day filming students and staff who have been using the Virtual Bricklaying Suite.

The resource, which utilises ActivInspire and the Promethean Whiteboard to allow students to lay bricks on a computer screen, first came to light as an LSIS Excellence Gateway case study in 2011.

Chris Holland, pictured far left, was very happy with how the day went, and has been surprised, and pleased, by the attention.

“The film making was an enjoyable experience, I am amazed that I have created such an interest in my work."

Late in 2011, LSIS decided that they would fund the creation of three video case studies, and invited all JISC Regional Support Centres to submit ideas.

JISC RSC Eastern’s application was successful, and Colchester Institute’s e-learning project joined a WBL provider from the West Midlands region and another non-RSC project, to become LSIS’s leading examples of best practice in e-learning.

Barry Kruger, LSIS Head of Web Services, explained the motivation behind the good e-practice videos.

“For over 5 years, LSIS has been working in partnership with the JISC Regional Support Centres to identify, capture and disseminate good e-practice. Every year we work with the RSCs to identify engaging good practice and then commission and produce a handful of video ‘vignettes’ that enable users of the Excellence Gateway to see practitioners in action and hear their views and observations."

Chris Holland now hopes that this publicity will help to continue the development of Information Learning Technology within the college and in the wider FE and skills community.

• You can watch the video and read the original Excellence Gateway case study at http://bit.ly/cibricklaying.

01/06/12 - VLE Forum, University Campus Suffolk, Ipswich, Free 14/06/12 - Technical Managers Forum, The Goldsmith Centre, Letchworth, Free 19/06/12 - Moving to Moodle, Colchester Institute, Free 22/06/12 - ACL/WBL Forum, Broadland Council Training Services, Norwich, Free 29/06/12 - Learning Resources Managers Forum, ACER, St Ives, Cambridgeshire, Free 05/07/12 - The e-Lympics: JISC RSC Eastern e-Fair, West Herts College, Watford, Free Book now at http://bit.ly/ rsceevents

Staff news Shri Footring has returned from her secondment with JISC Advance and is back supporting ACL and also WBL providers. During her absence these sectors were covered by Ben Hutchens. Ben is continuing his work with the RSC team, with a focus on developing our services.

Green agenda The new national RSC website has advice on the technologies and initiatives you can use to improve your green footprint. http://bit.ly/jiscgreen LSIS have included the Reaching Forward Index for Sustainable Development toolkit on the Excellence Gateway website that will help you decide how well your organisation is delivering sustainability. The tool examines indicators on leadership, learning, organisational capacity and partnerships. Users can save the results and then revisit the index some time later to see if any progress has been made. http://bit.ly/egtoolkit

The Lancashire Global Education Centre is holding the 'Equipping Students with the Skills for Our Changing World - Sustainable Development' event in Manchester on May 23rd.

The conference is relevant to FE curriculum teams looking to embed sustainable development into the delivery of courses. http://bit.ly/lgecsustain If you’re not able to make it to the conference you can download the resources: http://bit.ly/lgecresources 'Greening the FE and HE Sectors Conference' takes place in London on May 30th.

The day will examine the FE and HE sectors’ progress, whilst detailing latest policy information, case study examples and technologies to aid in the delivery process and realisation of the government targets for carbon emission reductions. http://bit.ly/greenfehe

TechDis Transformers: tools for changing lives Since 2011, JISC TechDis has been working with the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) on three projects to ‘improve take up and understanding of assistive and mainstream technologies for the benefit of disabled and disadvantaged learners.’

Outputs from the first two projects (Toolbox and the TechDis Voices) will be formally launched at the National Digital Conference on May 30th and 31st.

Toolbox (tbx) A collection of resources and tools specifically aimed at helping disabled or disadvantaged learners to understand, gain and improve those skills that are most valued by employers. Designed for users to access and explore themselves, the Toolbox contains many hints and tips that you won’t find in standard training materials.

The TechDis Voices JISC TechDis is working with CereProc to create two high-quality, youthful and modern voices (Jack and Jess) that can be used with free Text to Speech tools. This project gives every post-16 learner in every publiclyfunded learning provider in England the chance to support their studies. They can be installed on your network, downloaded to staff PCs and learners will also be able to obtain the voices directly without staff assistance.

We anticipate benefits for many learners including those with visual impairments, dyslexia or for students whose first language is not English.

Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) SBRI encourages technology solutions to specific public sector needs by inviting a broad range of companies to bid for funding.

JISC TechDis promoted and

managed two competitions specifically aimed at exploring and developing new assistive technologies to support independent learning, working and living.

MyDocStore iansyst are developing a multiplatform, accessible document conversion and management tool which will use cloud, desktop and mobile based file management and address the missing link in accessible transfer of files. http://www.mydocstore.org.uk/ Navitext System Associates are working on a portable software application that exploits recent advances in text mining to investigate a means of processing documents to provide a range of accessibility enhancements. http://www.systemassociates. co.uk/applications/navitext.aspx uKinect Using Microsoft Kinect technology, GameLabUK are developing an interactive gesture recognition programme to help people with learning difficulties who use Makaton sign language to communicate. http://bit.ly/gamelabuk Portable Sign-Language-to-text Translator (PSLT) Technabling Ltd developed a software prototype for translating sign language (including BSL) into text and commands, capable of working with smart phones, netbooks, notebooks and tablet PCs. http://www.pslt.org/ • http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk

Eastern innovation is showcased this spring ACL/WBL Forum - ACL Essex, Harlow - February 2nd The forum was opened with an inspiring presentation from Nick Morrison and Quaco Cloutterbuck from the DigitalAGE. They gave an overview of their NIACE ACL funded pilot project, which has empowered ICT students at a local college to help the elderly within their community engage with technology.

RSC Eastern's Catherine Bone, and Elaine Szpytma gave an introduction to e-Skills - a 9 module course developed by RSCs that learning providers can implement in their organisations.

The course empowers teaching staff with the basic skills to use technology for teaching and learning. During the session, they ran a hands-on activity in creating and using QR Codes to make learning more engaging.

After the break, Nola Marshall, Curriculum Manager for ACL Essex gave a briefing on their Blended Learning Toolkit for Modern Foreign Languages, which is funded by the LSIS Regional Response Fund. Nola highlighted some of the low cost and free tools they have incorporated into their toolkit, which enables tutors to deliver a blended style of learning more effectively and efficiently.

For more information contact k.gregory@rsc-eastern.ac.uk or b.hutchens@rsc-eastern.ac.uk. e-Assessment Showcase Hertford Regional College March 30th, pictured above Our e-Assessment showcase event was a huge success with a vast amount of good practice shared.

Basil Kellerman showed how using a combination of ‘Bamboo tablet’, ‘PDF annotator’ and ‘Mimio Studio Tools’ he was able to

deliver targeted rich media feedback.

Trevor Franklin demonstrated the innovative submissions he receives, including animated PowerPoint and vodcasts. There were other examples of audio feedback including using ‘Windows sound recorder’ to assess Food Academy students’ work and using ‘Smart Board Tools’ to assess Motor Vehicle students’ work.

Mark Beardsley used a learning styles (VARK) approach to show that the majority of students on his course had a preference for visual and audio learning styles.

Using video feedback via screencasting his students' level of engagement increased.

Andy Ramsden of University Campus Suffolk (UCS) discussed implementing a location aware e-Assessment engine based around the use of QR Codes to enable students to submit their answers. Andy also showed how staff are using iPads to enhance the formative feedback process using the iAnnotate and ShowMe applications.

Roy Currie's presentation highlighted Bedford College's progress tracking grades within Moodle. They have customized the ULCC community ePLP module and grade tracking system, integrating Googlemail to achieve an homogenised system.

• For related resources go to http://bit.ly/deliciouse.

WBL 2012 On March 21st the Eastern, London and South East RSCs welcomed a host of WBL providers to Woburn House for the annual WBL Conference. This year's theme focused on the use of mobile technology within the WBL sector.

Keynote speaker was Dr Doug Belshaw, the author of the JISC Mobile InfoKit. Who better to introduce and demystify the audience to the elements of mobile learning?

Barking and Dagenham College showed how they implemented their eportfolio system with examples from the building industries, with the particular emphasis on its use via mobile phone by one of their assessors Jason Curtis from RSC West Midlands then discussed a recent project exploring which tablets worked best within a WBL sector. Input from RSC Northern regarding their similar tablet project led delegates into a period of networking over lunch.

The afternoon kicked off with a fabulous interactive session from Adam Blackwood on what you can do with a mobile phone by the use of free apps. His energetic presenting style kept participants all awake post lunch.

The final session for the day was from Erica Neve, Royal Artillery CPD. Erica showed how they had implemented Moodle and the criteria required for developing an app for soldiers in the field.

The day was a great success and we look forward to similar sessions in 2013. Resources can be found at http://www. delicious.com/stacks/view/ IayUHK

Technology review New potential for mobiles with LTE/4G

UCS brings publications to life using augmented reality

LTE/4G are two new protocols for data on mobile phones, such as the Nokia Lumia 900, pictured. They will use the bandwidth freed up by the switch to digital television in the UK and are already in use in the USA and Germany.

They will provide data transfer speeds to your phone which are faster than most domestic broadband (e.g. 17.2Kilobits/ sec download and 9.0Kilobits/ sec upload speeds compared with domestic broadband speeds of 15.6dKilobits/sec down and 1.8Kilobits/sec up).

If you would like to find out more about LTE/4G book your place now on the Technical Managers forum at the Goldsmith Centre in Letchworth on June 14th.

Dr. Kamran Kordi of Deutsche Telekom Research (T-Mobile in the UK) will be on hand to provide information and to answer your questions.

Pinterest Pinterest is a social content sharing system based on images. It provides a visual interface, allowing users to collect related links onto themed ‘boards’ by ‘pinning’ the link and an associated image from the linked page to that board. It includes features to share and discuss content, and allow other users to add to the collection. This could be used to create a visually arresting index into subjectbased collections. http://www.pinterest.com

University Campus Suffolk (UCS) is believed to have become the first UK university to use free Aurasma technology to augment their new 2013 publication.

The new UCS Connect app, which is available to download for free from the Apple App Store and Android Marketplace, brings the institution’s latest publication to life by allowing prospective students to reveal rich content such as videos and messages simply by scanning static images with their smartphones and media tablets.

Professor Mike Saks, UCS Provost, said: “UCS is a leading edge model for higher education in the future and this use of Aurasma’s technology is a very good example of how we are always looking forward and pushing boundaries to develop new and exciting opportunities for our students.”

Led by the UCS Marketing and ELEVATE teams, UCS joined forces with Aurasma, the world’s leading augmented reality platform, to develop the UCS branded version of the Aurasma app.

Available on iPhone3GS, 4 and 4S, iPad2 and high-powered

Android devices, Aurasma uses advanced image and pattern recognition technology to identify and understand images and objects in the real world, blending them with rich interactive content such as videos and animations called ‘Auras’.

Martina King, Managing Director of Aurasma, said: “UCS’s focus on innovation perfectly complements Aurasma’s cutting edge technology. Aurasma is changing the way people access educational information, with 13% of Aurasma usage now within the sector.”

UCS will be hosting a joint event with RSC Eastern on May 9th exploring the pedagogical uses of augmented reality, and will also be on hand to showcase some of their latest developments at the e-Fair on July 5th. On both dates their ELEVATE team will show delegates how to employ location aware based technologies, including QR Codes and Aurasma’s Image Recognition software, to develop interactive, location aware learning activities.

Watch the video introduction to the UCS Connect app here: http://www.ucs.ac.uk/seemore