VLE supplier presentations – update

There have been some changes to the venues and schedule of supplier presentations for the new VLE. The new details are:

Wed 5 April
9.00-10.30 – Canvas, Court Room 1 & 2
11.00-12.30 – Brightspace, Court Room 1 & 2

Fri 7 April
11.00-12.30 – Blackboard, Court Room 1 & 2

The suppliers who were presenting on 6 April have withdrawn from the process.

All staff are invited to attend these sessions – please sign up at https://stirling.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/vle-presentations-2. Student participation is being co-ordinated by the Students’ Union.

Also, a reminder that there will be a drop-in session in Training Room 1 in the Library from 10am to 4pm on Monday 10 April where all students and staff are invited to test each of the systems and provide feedback.

FROM VLE to LMS – Sign up for supplier presentations

Following the feedback sessions that ran for staff and students in January and February, the University has now gone out to tender for a new VLE (currently Succeed) for implementation for academic year 2017-18.

The interested suppliers will be presenting their solutions to the University as follows:

Wed 5 April
9.00-10.30 – Canvas, Pathfoot C21
11.00-12.30 – Brightspace, Pathfoot C21

Thur 6 April
11.00-12.30 Synergy Learning (Moodle), Cottrell 2B87

Fri 7 April
11.00-12.30 – Blackboard, Cottrell 2B87

All staff are invited to attend these sessions – please sign up at https://stirling.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/vle-presentations-2. Student participation is being co-ordinated by the Students’ Union.

In addition, there will be a drop-in session in Training Room 1 in the Library from 10am to 4pm on Monday 10 April where all students and staff are invited to test each of the systems and provide feedback.

Digital Assessment Forum – 20th February, 12.30pm-4.30pm

Visiting Speaker: Dr Susie Schofield, University of Dundee
An opportunity to explore themes and issues around assessment in the digital domain with external and internal speakers. Our Keynote speaker, Dr Susie Schofield, will deliver a presentation entitled Improving digital assessment literacy through online feedback dialogue: the interact case study. We will encourage the sharing of good practice across the disciplines around the use and value of appropriate learning technologies. Lunch will be provided.

For further details of the event, including speakers and topics, download the Digital Assessment Forum Schedule.

Please book here: https://succeed.stir.ac.uk/webapps/oslt-signUpList-BBLEARN/single/signUp.jsp?course_id=_370_1&content_id=_879742_1&gt

If you have any questions please contact: Sarah Anderson, Academic Development Coordinator academic.development@stir.ac.uk

Find out more about Academic Development: http://www.stir.ac.uk/learningandteaching/
HR&OD department, Cottrell Building, University of Stirling, FK9 4LA,
T: 01786 466129
E: academicdevelopment@stir.ac.uk

From VLE to LMS – Digital Learning Environment – Feedback Sessions

The sign-up sheets are now available in Succeed for staff members to sign-up for a VLE Feedback Session.

To book, go to Succeed -> Learning and Development – My Learning -> From VLE to LMS – Digital Learning Environment – Feedback Sessions-> and book into the relevant session.

If you would like to arrange a session specifically for your faculty please contact Sarah Grayston or Kirsteen Young.

Please see the previous blog post From VLE to LMS : Next Generation Digital Learning Environment for further information.

 

From VLE to LMS : Next Generation Digital Learning Environment

Information Services (IS) is beginning a tendering process for the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) with a view to implementing a new integrated, next generation Learning Management Sysetm (LMS)  in time for Academic Year 2017/2018.

IS is interested to hear colleagues’ views on what a digital learning environment should offer and are keen to hear of positive and negative experiences with the current platform, Succeed/Blackboard.   Over the coming weeks a series of feedback sessions will be held, and academic and support staff are invited to attend these to share their views. The sessions will be arranged with each faculty and colleagues will receive further details on times and locations when these have been confirmed.

Please contact Sarah Grayston (sarah.grayston@stir.ac.uk) for further details and subscribe to this blog for updates.

 

 

BYOD4L – informal CPD opportunity

‘Bring Your Own Device for Learning’ (BYOD4L)

16-20 January 2017

BYOD4L is a bite-size facilitated open course offered over 5 days for educators and students in HE but also anybody else who would like to learn with us as to how we can utilise our digital devices for professional, lifelong and lifewide learning.

Together we will explore the following topics based on the 5C Framework:

    • connecting
    • communicating
    • curating
    • collaborating
    • creating

Using an inquiry-based approach that will enable us to learn with others and/or on your own within a supportive community. You are very welcome to join one or all of the above topics and work towards an open badge or two. There will be seven open badges available in total. One for each topic, one for the community and a course badge if you successfully complete the whole course. All work submitted will be peer reviewed and can be used as evidence of CPD.

There will be regular updates at https://byod4learning.wordpress.com/, and please also follow @BYOD4L on Twitter to keep up-to-date with all course announcements and activity. The course hashtag is #BYOD4L.

You can join the Google+ community at https://plus.google.com/communities/115166756393440336480 where discussions and collaborations will also take place.

Each evening there will be a tweetchat between 8-9pm GMT. There is an opportunity to both listen in and contribute to a discussion on Twitter via the hashtag #BYOD4Lchat. In the previous three iterations of the course this has been a vibrant learning space where participants share ideas and learn together.

Please note, this is a registration-free course. You can access all collaborative spaces and resources without additional logins.
BYOD4L is openly licensed and has been developed by colleagues at Manchester Metropolitan University and Sheffield Hallam University. This is the 5th time BYOD4L is offered since January 2014.

We look forward to seeing you on the 16th if not before.

Neil Withnell, University of Salford @neilwithnell,
Alex Spiers, University of Liverpool @alexgspiers,
Sheila MacNeill, Glasgow Caledonian University @sheilmc

Recording when Using Presenter View in PowerPoint in Lecture Theatres

This is a follow up posting to the Using Presenter View in PowerPoint in Lecture Theatres posting made yesterday. This one explains how to ensure that when you are recording a lecture and you have Presenter View in PowerPoint switched on that you record the main screen version (where your actual presentation is being shown full screen) rather than the Presenter View on the presenter’s PC on the desk (which would include all the slide notes).

The trick is to start the Presentation Show in PowerPoint first, before you start the recording in Camtasia Relay. If the Show is running then Relay will allow you to choose which ‘screen’ you want to record, the Presenter View one (which you probably don’t want to record) or the main screen version that is being shown on the projected screen to the students (this being the one you probably do want to record). This video shows you how to do this and also explains a trick about switching between applications using Alt + Tab to bring Relay back to the front to start the recording after the PowerPoint Show has been started.

Using Presenter View in PowerPoint in Lecture Theatres

Some staff have reported issues displaying presentations properly in lecture theatres. Many of these issues are caused by the existence of something called ‘Presenter View’ in PowerPoint which essentially splits the regular one-screen desktop into two, one of which is shown to the presenter on the PC in front of you on the desk in the lecture theatre (with slide notes and a preview of the forthcoming slide), the other of which is shown to the students on the projected screen behind you. This has implications for things like browser windows opening (and displaying fine to you but not being seen by the students) and Camtasia Relay recording the presenter view rather than the full slides. This video will hopefully explain what’s going on. Sorry it’s not super high quality, it’s been done on a mobile phone and is subject to me putting my fingers over the microphone a bit halfway through. So it’s not going to win any Oscars for Film Production, but it might help you show web sites and record your presentation appropriately.

 

Succeed Scrolling Issues on iPad

There is a known problem scrolling some Succeed content on the iPad when content is being delivered in HTML format. The video below demonstrates the issue.

It shows that scrolling down on a page showing many icons is fine (as shown in the section 00:00 to 00:04 seconds in the video), but then if you go into a Learning Module in Succeed (built up of HTML pages) and try to scroll down on the main part of the page (as shown from 00:10 to 00:12 in the video) then this will not scroll properly. What users have to do is scroll by specifically placing their finger on the bar that separates the main part of the page from the Course Menu on the left and scroll up and down using that (as shown from 00:13 in the video onwards).

Also, it is recommended to set items to open in a new browser tab in Succeed (rather than in the main frame of the page) so they display more readily on tablet devices.