You may have read or heard this morning about the launch of Futurelearn (http://www.futurelearn.com ) , the UK’s answer to Coursera, Udacity and other MOOC platforms. If so, you’ll have noted that Loughborough is one of the 21 UK institutions currently involved. So, what exactly does this mean? Futurelearn is offering a range of MOOCs,Read more
Last summer the Materials department, within the School of Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering (AACME), took the strategic decision to capture all lectures on modules with distance learners across three MSc programmes. The experience was reviewed by their Postgraduate Teaching and Learning Committee last week, with some key points emerging: – Feedback from students to theRead more
The September TurnItIn UK User Group meeting was hosted by Leeds Uni this year. It followed the usual format of a position statement by the host, an overview of the development roadmap and case studies from users. There are big changes under way at TurnItIn, in response to a massive increase in the demand forRead more
Recently a number of colleagues have asked whether there is a guide to Twitter aimed at academics who have never previously tweeted. Fortunately there is – an excellent introduction, produced by Amy Mollett, Danielle Moran and Patrick Dunleavy of the LSE Public Policy Group, and made available under a Creative Commons licence. Using Twitter inRead more
[from Jisc press release 12/09/13] Jisc, the UK charity which provides digital services for education and research, is today writing to UK universities to outline proposed refinements to the organisation’s funding model. Since the publication of Sir Alan Wilson’s review of Jisc in February 2011 it has enhanced its integration with the sector to deliverRead more
I read an article titled “8 Ways Screens Are Ruining Your Family’s Life” based on an interview of more than a thousand children in America, in the Huffington Post. Conducted by a clinical instructor at Harvard, the study was to find out how technology was impacting the lives and relationships of children aged between 4Read more
If you’re lucky enough to have a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet (expensive but, dare I say it, cooler than an iPad) , you may be interested to know that there is a way of ‘mirroring’ the tablet’s screen on a bigger HD display, such as a teaching room projector. This is despite the fact thatRead more
As the University considers a step-change in its strategy around lecture capture, the Jisc Legal service have very helpfully published a new checklist aimed at tutors covering the questions you consider around copyright and othe IPR issues before embarking on recording your lectures. We’ll adapt this and build this into the support resources we giveRead more
Personal Tutors have a central role to play in the support – both academic and pastoral – that is on offer to our students. Guided by Academic Quality Procedures Handbook, and in particular by Appendix 16 – Personal Tutoring and Academic Guidance: Minimum Standards, a new Teaching Centre resource has been created to support the work of colleagues, asRead more