News and Updates
A belated "Happy New Year" to you all!
As no doubt was the case for many XJTLU colleagues, the first few weeks of the new semester have proved very busy for the Educational Technologies Team. You may have noticed, for example, that Mahara (XJTLU's e-Portfolio/content sharing platform - coincidentally used to publish this e-Newsletter!) looks a little different and has some new features, this being the result of a recent major system upgrade. We've also been planning and preparing for the upcoming Learning and Teaching Colloquium, which will feature a "speed dating"-style educational technology showcase (more details concerning this exciting event to follow soon!). Finally, we also welcomed a new member to the team, Grzegorz Rogala, who takes on the role of Instructional Designer within both the AEC and IBSS.
From the entire Educational Technologies Team - good luck with your teaching and research activities over the coming months!
Contact us:
As always, the Educational Technologies Team would be very happy to hear from you, and if you have any feedback, comments or suggestions concerning this page (or any other educational technology-related topic), please don't hesitate to get in touch with any member of the team via:
Roland Sherwood - Educational Technologist: roland.sherwood@xjtlu.edu.cn
Na Li - Educational Technologist: na.li@xjtlu.edu.cn
Yezi Yang - E-learning Officer: yezi.yang@xjtlu.edu.cn
Grzegorz Rogala - Instructional Designer (AEC & IBSS): grzegorz.rogala@xjtlu.edu.cn
XJTLU Joins The Moodle Users Association
We're very pleased to announce that XJTLU is now an official, "gold-level" member of the newly established Moodle Users Association!
Many of you will know that Moodle is the software that powers ICE (XJTLU's virtual learning environment) as well as similar systems at thousands of other universities, colleges, schools and businesses worldwide. With the software having reached a high level of maturity, its creators recently announced the founding of an association intended to provide users - like us - with a way to have greater input into Moodle's future development. XJTLU has since joined this association (along with numerous other notable institutions such as University College London), and we're very excited about the possibilities this membership brings.
In short, XJTLU will now be able to propose the development of functionality and features requested by and which directly benefit its students and staff. This is truly a huge development and paves the way for future versions of ICE which are more capable, more closely aligned with our particular institutional learning, teaching and assessment practices, and more user-friendly than ever before.
We'll be bringing you more news about our engagement with the Moodle Users Association in the coming months. Until then, you can learn more about the association (and even apply for individual level membership, if desired) here.
Technology Spotlight
The focus of this month's Technology Spotlight is Online Lecture.
What is it?
Online Lecture – a powerful tool designed to enable academic staff to deliver interactive lectures online, as well as easily create and capture recorded content that supports blended and “flipped classroom” approaches to teaching and learning. Built upon the popular BigBlueButton web-conferencing platform.
How does it work?
Online Lecture is available now and can be added to your module area by simply selecting Online Lecture from the Activity Chooser:
Live, interactive lectures: After adding an Online Lecture link to your ICE module area students will then be able to join you in a virtual classroom where you can share your webcam’s video and audio; view and annotate PowerPoint, Word, PDF, etc. files via an interactive whiteboard; take questions from students - or even temporarily hand over control of the lecture so that they can present also:
If you choose to record your lecture, the recording will automatically be made available via your ICE module area shortly after the lecture finishes for students to review whenever needed. Of course, Online Lecture’s integration with ICE ensures that only your students can access and view lectures delivered in this way - and all of the above is made possible.
Capture of blended/flipped classroom-style content: The Online Lecture activity can also be used to easily create recorded content which supports blended or flipped classroom approaches to delivery of your module – or can simply provide a way for you to give your lecture in situations when scheduling or other issues might prevent you from physically delivering it in-person. Simply create an Online Lecture link in the usual way, upload your PowerPoint presentation to the interactive whiteboard, and then, when ready, press ‘Record' and give your lecture as you normally would:
When finished, your recording will then automatically be made available via your module area and can be viewed by students as necessary.
Note that all of the above is possible without the need to download and install any special software and – as a result of being tightly integrated with ICE – access to lectures and content created via the tool are only ever possible by those with access to the containing module area itself.
How do I get started?
Please contact a member of the Educational Technologies Team for further information.
Practitioner Showcase
Dr. Jun Xia: Using Mahara to encourage out-class student interaction in Civil Engineering.
Origin:
Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Contact:
Jun Xia, CE, jun.xia@xjtlu.edu.cn
Na Li, AEC, na.li@xjtlu.edu.cn
Yezi Yang, AEC, yezi.yang@xjtlu.edu.cn
Objectives:
To make it possible for teachers to interact with students out of the class in a more interesting and efficient way.
Background:
Dr. Jun Xia teaches in the Department of Civil Engineering. He guided his students to use Mahara as a platform to show how they are doing in different cities during in-the-field placement activities. In the module CEN112, Dr. Jun Xia also introduced students to use Mahara pages to show individual contributions for the group assignment.
What was done / Why use Mahara?
"There are two occasions that I used Mahara in my teaching activities.
The first is about the placement. I'm the placement officer for Civil Engineering and we have very detailed instructions and rules about the placement. All of our students need to work on the major related placement activities. Students will post their Mahara page every week after their placement work, so they will have photos and descriptions of their photos. In this way, I know they're working on site for placement during that time period.
On the other hand, I used Mahara in module CEN112. We had a group project at the very end of the module. Students will demonstrate the evidence about how they contributed in the group assignment. "--Dr. Jun Xia
(An example of student work produced using Mahara as part of Dr. Jun Xia's CEN112 module)
What worked well / Benefits for teaching?
"Before using Mahara, it is very difficult for me to check students' work on site all in the office. Most of them will go back to their hometown (out of suzhou) to do the on-site placement. I used Mahara because it can reflect what they are doing on their working site.
Another benefit we've got from Mahara is for the group submission assessment. Usually the group marks are based on group outcome, like the reports and their constructions. However, we do want to see what's the individual contribution of each group member. So I asked students to post Mahara log to show what's their contributions to the group."--Dr. Jun Xia
Easy to use?
"I had a brief introduction to Mahara from AEC colleagues in the last academic year, and then I started to explore Mahara. Generally speaking, Mahara is very easy to use. To create a Mahara page, I just need to easily drag and drop text, pictures and files on to the webpage. "--Dr. Jun Xia
Problems and/or issue?
"When I try to find my student in the search box, there will be many students with the same names listed as a search result. It is common for Chinese students to have the same name. If the search result can show some other information, so that I can correctly find my students and invite them into my groups. Besides, I also want the students to share their pages to academic advisors, but I found that I cannot find people who has not registered in Mahara yet. "--Dr. Jun Xia
"For the first issue, we will change the settings to show the full user name to make it easier to identify people with the same name. The second issue is related to LDAP integration and all what we can do is try every effort to promote Mahara throughout XJTLU and hope more and more students and staff will register in Mahara"--Educational Technologies Team
Student feedback:
- Interactivity
"It is just like facebook or the Moments feature of WeChat. It's interesting and attractive to students."--Liang Zhao (student representative)
- Critical thinking
"During my internship, I will search resources to support my opinions and photos. I think it deepened my understanding of what I've learned because I will always double-check whether it is correct or not."--Liang Zhao (student representative)
Conclusion:
"With using Mahara, students have learned more from the placement activities and group activities. They start to think about 'what I can present on my Mahara page as well my contributions to my module leader? ', and it's very good to see that students are thinking about 'What else I can do in the group to archieve the goal of the project '. Mahara is a good platform both for teachers and students."--Dr. Jun Xia
Tool Used
- Mahara