Using Google+ to support students undertaking a research project, by Claire Stapleton

A Google plus community was set up for one year group who were about to embark on their research project journey. In Physiotherapy this starts in semester two of their second year where they are introduced to a selection of research titles. Students have a couple of weeks to view the titles and submit their preferences (we ask for the top three preferred titles, their preferred topic area and their preferred study design). The google plus community was set up to support students through this decision making process. They could ask any questions to aid their selection. All questions about title selection had to go through the google plus community discussion board in order to receive a response, which allowed all students to benefit from the answer and spark further queries. The benefit for the module leader was that there was no repetitive emails to respond to and sometimes students answered the questions between themselves. The advantages of using this forum instead of the KLE's discussion board was the ease of use on smart phones and tablets. At the time of releasing the titles to the students, they were on clinical placements sometimes with little access to internet connected PC's. You can also change the settings so you receive a notification when a comment or question has been posted. This feature allowed the module leader to respond to each query in a timely fashion. The discussion board also allows the members as well as the moderators to post information, files and video clips. The list of titles, a google form to submit their preferences and a screencast to explain how to use the google form were all posted on the google plus community page. The moderator can use a feature to create events which was employed to remind the students when they should be submitting work to their supervisor for formative feedback and for submission deadlines. Following the selection process the google community was of continued use when the students started to prepare their research proposals for submission, many queries were answered and students also posted interesting and useful information they had found to share with the rest of the cohort. The module leader as the moderator of the group has the capacity to remove anything deemed inappropriate however this issue did not arise. The google plus community for this cohort will continue to run into their third year and support them through the research project module. The use of this method of communication within the module was deemed a success with high levels of student engagement. This judgement was echoed by students who rated the following items on the module evaluation report for that year as 4.6 out of a possible 5, 'staff created an environment to ask questions and seek help' and 'the team were helpful dealing with queries'). A second google community will be created for the next cohort who embark on their research project journey.

Using a Google+ community to support students undertaking a research project by Claire Stapleton from Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://lpdcsolutions.blogspot.co.uk/.

StudyWrite, interactive resources to support students with Referencing and Understanding Plagiarism, By Dan Harding

StudyWrite was an innovation project funded by Keele University in 2012/13 a link to the project proposal and final report can be found here.  The project has continued to develop and has produced some really valuable interactive resources, an update on developments can be seen below

During the past 12 months, the StudyWrite project has been piloting interactive resources that aim to improve student’s understanding of academic scholarship. Following the conclusion of this pilot, staff and student feedback has been collated and used to develop StudyWrite into a resource which has shown to be of significant benefit to students.

Amongst the feedback received, some of the stand out statistics include:

StudyWrite Plagiarism (191 respondents)
91% of students feel that it has improved their understanding of plagiarism.
97% felt that the content was clearly explained.
81% reported that interactive activities helped them to understand the material.
90% now know where to go if requiring further help regarding plagiarism.

StudyWrite Referencing (129 respondents)
88% of students feel that it has improved their understanding of referencing.
92% felt that the content was clearly explained.
89% reported that interactive activities helped them to understand the material.
90% now know where to go if requiring further help regarding referencing.

During the past few months, StudyWrite has undergone a major re-design, along with the addition of a further resource that deals with note taking and assignment planning. These resources are now freely available for all Keele University staff and students to use and can be accessed at:

https://sites.google.com/a/keele.ac.uk/studywrite/


If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
By Dan Harding
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Learning Technologist

What are Learning Technologists sharing?

Blackboard tests- Item analysis,
This blog post from February 2014 by Tim Smale an e-learning Fellow covers the Blackboard tests - Item Analysis, demonstrating how statistics from tests can be accessed.

Ask-a-Techie episode 2

Keele Learning Technology staff answer questions put to them by colleagues at Keele

This webinar is aim at answering your questions on anything technology related (with application to the university).

Ask-a-techie episode 1 by Tim Smale, Matthew West and Dan Harding from Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5sxxgRWJsk&list=UU5ARRAoWR0H0ieYTweKOzXA.

Ask-a-Techie episode 1

Keele Learning Technology Staff answer questions put to them by colleagues at Keele


Published on 5 Aug 2014
Pilot episode from the Learning Technologies Advisory Group (LTAG)

00:00 - Welcome and Intro
01:03 - How to customise a Course HomePage in the KLE?
11:08 - Alternatives to Mediator - mobile friendly non-flash alternative to create learning packages
17:23 - What screen-capture type products would the panel recommend to allow us to create longer videos which we can edit (eg to use pointers, add annotation, use zoom)
20:43 - The new double-marking feature in Blackboard looks very useful, but how do we integrate it with Turnitin? Or should we stick to Grademark, which seems to have better marking tools as well as plagiarism checking, but no double marking?
24:25 - FRustrated Users Information Technology [FRUIT] mobile signal group asks... Q When are we going to have a decent mobile phone reception on campus? or is it a deliberate policy to avoid exposure to potentially harmful microwaves?
28:17 - Not sure if this is the right environment to ask this but... will it be possible to access the S Drive from outside the university?
33:44 - Are there any future plans to potentially move away from Terminal 4 and use a different form of content management system(s) that would allow more features etc?
35:40 - Close

Ask-a-techie episode 1 by Tim Smale and Matthew West from Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFAh31V4QHM&list=UU5ARRAoWR0H0ieYTweKOzXA.

A view from beyond the bubble

PebblePad Mini Bash July 2014

This blog post provides a summary from a recent PebblePad event.  It provides links to further resources and discusses developments to the PebblePad product.

A view from beyond the bubble

Jisc Digital Festival 

These blog posts offer reflections from a two day Jisc digital festival which ran in March 2014, links to resources from the event are included.   The event presented interesting insights into how Jisc will work into the future and interesting discussions on a range of topics related to the digital experience of learners
Reflections from day one of the Jisc digital festival
Reflections from day two of the Jisc digital festival