This session is an opportunity to get to know the ALT Online Winter Conference site and find out how to get the most out of your online conference experience.more

Session proposed by: Elaine Topham Creating and maintaining an effective staff development strategy to increase digital literacy across the workforce can be a challenging task, but at the Grimsby Institute the Level Up process has had great success with both teaching and support staff. In just over 12 months approximately 60% of the staff have completed or engaged with the Level Up process, with over 10% of staff achieving their Gold standard. This has had benefits both in classroom delivery and assessment methods used, but also in workforce efficiency and streamlined processes. We have adopted an open culture of developmental...more

Session proposed by: Pete Sparkes The ‘Great Sussex Podblast’ was an event created and facilitated by Pete Sparkes, George Robinson and Tab Betts from Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) at the University of Sussex. A ‘Podblast’ is our spin on the “book-sprint” format, which traditionally involves a group of people working intensively as a team over a short period of time to create a book; only this time, participants would be tasked with producing a series of podcast episodes instead of book chapters. The event formed part of the university’s’ Digital Discovery Week; a programme of free sessions designed to the...more

Session proposed by: Fiona McCloy Flipped learning is the reversal of traditional teaching; where students receive learning materials outside class, allowing higher cognitive learning to take place in the classroom. Research shows the potential benefits of flipped learning in higher education; in terms of improved student and practitioner motivation and improved student attendance and performance (Hamdan et al., 2013). There is much interest in flipped learning in higher education, due to the potential educational gains and the learning technology now readily available to enable it. At Ulster University, the Office for Digital Learning delivered two Flipping The Classroom webinars to...more

Session proposed by: Anne Hole Digital skills are vital for individuals, institutions and society as a whole – but developing the digital capabilities of staff and students can be challenging. This webinar will outline and evaluate some approaches that have been used by the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) team at the University of Sussex to develop the digital skills of staff and students. I will explain why ‘digital productivity’ is an important aspect of digital skills development and outline a range of approaches and resources which have been developed to address this area, including workshops, blog posts and an A-Z...more

Session proposed by: Clare Thomson PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows. David Byrne PowerPoint was born in the late nineteen eighties in order that users could make best use of the graphical interface of personal computers. Since then it has become one of the most ubiquitous software packages in the world and is synonymous with the word ‘presentation’, despite the availability of many alternative packages. However, nearly forty years later it is much maligned as generating boring bullet points, slides crammed...more

Session proposed by: Nicholas Murgatroyd An increasing level of assessment in HE today is carried out through the use of e-portfolios such as Pebblepad or Mahala. However, the nature of most of these portfolios is that students submit completed work and this offers little chance for students to receive and react to developmental feedback. Over the last three years, the English Language Teaching Centre at the University of Sheffield has developed a system based around cloud documents and automation tools that allows teachers and students on the pre-sessional English course to interact on documents as they’re in progress, promoting a...more

Session proposed by: Georgina Blakeley This session draws on over ten years of experience of designing Level 1 introductory modules for Social Science students at the Open University. Approximately 40% of OU students starting Social Science modules have low prior educational qualifications: this statistic makes essential an innovative teaching support architecture to develop student academic and learning skills. Drawing on this ten-year experience has shown that the blend of teaching materials is crucial to support students in developing study skills and in learning how to become social scientists. This blend includes printed materials, online activities, audio and visual materials and...more

Session proposed by: Alice La Rooy At Brunel University London we have been testing the feasibility of digital written exams for the past two years. The approach we have taken is a “Bring your own device” (BYOD) model where students bring their own laptops to the examination venue. Following a successful pilot we are now looking to expand the number of digital exams. This session will be an opportunity for us to share our experiences with colleagues across the sector. More information on our project can be found on this ALT blog post https://altc.alt.ac.uk/blog/2017/10/byod-digital-exams-at-brunel-university/more

Session proposed by: Stephen Andrade At UWS, within the school of Health, Nursing and Midwifery, a pilot project has been running to explore and evaluate a hands-on interactive workshop incorporating Virtual Reality (VR) technology to enhance the teaching and learning experience. Through the use of immersive VR simulations that enables nursing students to view different sensory processing experiences. The session was designed to help students to better empathise with individuals who have sensory differences and to ultimately enable them to be more effective, person-centred practitioners. The webinar will consist of a short overview of what sensory processing is and how...more

Session proposed by: Ros Walker The Equality Act (2010) states that we must make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to enable all students to participate fully in their courses. For deaf/Deaf students this often means that videos should be captioned (or transcripts) provided. Captions also assist many other students, such as international students and dyslexic students. Since the introduction of lecture capture at the University of Huddersfield in September 2016, we have been looking at a variety of options for closed captions, for both our captured lectures and for other video-based materials. We are exploring a variety of ways of captioning videos and...more

Session proposed by: Chris Edwards Moves in higher education to provide personalised learning for students increase the importance of gaining and maintaining an understanding of the student experience. For some institutions, this increase in complexity may stretch current systems and data structures. The complexity is amplified where multiple start dates are offered to improve the personalisation of study. The Open University has, over the years, continued to develop its Supported Open Learning (SOL) methods and as an institution is now prioritising Personalised Open Learning (POL). This increases the importance of accessible detailed pathway information. We describe the development of one...more

Session proposed by: Philip Lewis At SysMIC.ac.uk we run an eLearning CPD module for postgraduate researchers in the biosciences. Over six months students work through twelve sessions of training learning maths and computing techniques that can be applied to their work. The course is run by a consortium of member institutions (UCL, Birkbeck College, The Open University, Univeristy of Edinburgh). Over the last 5 years over 1200 participants have signed up to the module with an estimated 5000 hours of learning completed. A key strategy to record evidence of achievement, and to monitor engagement is through incorporating survey activities in...more

This session is an opportunity to get to know the ALT Online Winter Conference site and find out how to get the most out of your online conference experience.more

Session proposed by: Jessica Gramp At UCL, we moved from using WebCT in 2008, with a mere 400 courses, to a Moodle environment with over 7,000 courses in 2017, covering every taught module and programme. Such a large environment is impossible for a team of only tens of staff to support single-handedly. Without the support of staff in particular roles, we would not have reached this target. University College London (UCL) is a large, research-intensive UK university, with a diverse and independent department structure. After many years, Moodle is now firmly entrenched in the UCL teaching culture. This is the...more

Session proposed by: Susan Greig This is a repeat of the presentation at ALT C 17 and will be co-presented by Sarah Sherman In this presentation, we will share the approaches and experiences of supporting a cohort of staff through CMALT accreditation currently in place at two different organisations (a consortium of six HE institutions in England and a large university in Scotland). We will demonstrate how an institutional cohort offers further benefits since it builds a network of support through regular meetings and activities, providing encouragement and dedicated time to write and reflect. The cohort builds a network of...more

Session proposed by: Shailey Minocha Virtual reality in education and for employability Shailey Minocha and Ana-Despina Tudor Virtual reality is becoming pervasive in several domains – in arts and film-making, for environmental causes, in medical education, in disaster management training, in sports broadcasting, in entertainment, and in supporting patients with dementia. An awareness of virtual reality technology and its integration in curriculum design will provide and enhance employability skills for current and future workplaces. In this webinar, we will describe the evolution of virtual reality technologies and our research in 3D virtual worlds, 3D virtual environments developed in Unity 3D,...more

Session proposed by: Kelly Terrell This webinar will provide an update on works which have been taking place over the past 12 months on EdShare at the University of Southampton. EdShare (http://www.eprints.org/edshare) was created in 2009 as part of a Jisc funded institutional exemplars research project and received a major upgrade in late 2015 to ensure its future sustainability. EdShare is running behind a number of well established educational resources sites including edShare@GCU, EdShare Southampton, eShare, Humbox, LanguageBox and with two further institutional instances due to launch soon. Whilst open educational resources (OERs) is at the forefront of the EdShare...more

Session proposed by: Lisa Donaldson This webinar will introduce participants to the concept of an ‘unconference’ – a participant driven conference that aims to maximise professional learning and collaboration. The benefits of this high energy and flexible approach in the field of educational technology will be outlined and excepts from prior unconferences will be presented. The webinar will then discuss the planning undertaken for a forthcoming eportfolio unconference and the rationale for this type of approach. The rules and facilitation styles for an effective and productive unconference will also be shared. The upcoming eportfolio unconference will feature a number of...more

Session proposed by: Teresa MacKinnon (Open Ed SIG event) Central to Open Educational Practice is a willingness to share our work with others. How we interpret that and put our sharing into practice will vary as it involves a range of very individual personal decisions. Open Educational Practice is “complex, personal, contextual and continually negotiated” according to Cronin’s research. This webinar will provide examples of existing sharing spaces and encourage a discussion of current practice. We would like you to join us, talk about the online spaces you currently use and discuss the rationale for the decisions you make. This...more

Session proposed by: Jennifer Dettmer Historically, the University of Bedfordshire Learning Development Team has operated a traditional model of academic support comprising writing, maths and study skills. This primarily included drop-in, targeted workshops and 1:1 appointments. A repository of online study skills guides and learning materials was also provided. For the last five years, the University of Bedfordshire has operated campuses located in Luton, Bedford, Aylesbury and Milton Keynes. However, over the last eighteen months, Study Hubs have been introduced in London and a further hub is planned in Birmingham. Although face-to-face support is offered at each campus and hub,...more

Session proposed by: Sarah Williams South Cheshire College / West Cheshire College is a recently merged FE College in North West England. The webinar will focus on the use of Class Notebook to provide a collaborative space for teaching and learning. Case study examples will be provided on the use of Class Notebook by both FE provision (Deaf Studies, Level 3 Electrical Installation, Level 3 Health Science) and an HE in FE course (PgCE/CertEd). Each Class Notebook has a collaborative space that teachers and all students can view, edit and contribute to. Each learner has their own section in the...more

Session proposed by: Megan Kime This is a work in progress presentation of a new induction course developed to support students on online distance learning (ODL) Masters degree programmes at the University of Leeds. The presentation will be led by Dr Megan Kime, Head of ODL Student Education, and Chris Thompson, Course Design Manager. The aim of this session is to open up discussion on the processes and challenges of re-use in digital learning, as the project moves on its next phase. Pathways to Success is a cross-service collaborative project developed in partnership with the University of Leeds Digital Education...more

Session proposed by: Teresa MacKinnon (Open Ed SIG event) A cosy hangout to mark the end of Year of Open 2017 and to look forward to #OER18. Bring your own hot chocolate and marshmallows to roast over our open fire, come and share your experiences of advocating for open. All welcome.more

Session proposed by: Steven Williams Note: This session will be via Adobe Connect (click ‘Join Webinar‘ to access) This session will offer an opportunity for discussion on effective tools and techniques when delivering webinars. This will draw upon experience of supporting various online sessions and workshops on different platforms. Projects such as designing and delivering staff development, disseminating student engagement techniques in distance learning and organising Teaching & Learning Conversations (TLC) events. This involves assisting colleagues in developing engaging and interactive webinars, appropriate delivery techniques, as well as familiarising presenters with the delivery environment. During the session, we will share our...more

Session proposed by: Elaine Topham Microsoft OneNote is an incredibly versatile, but underutilised tool and is free for use in education, available on all mobile platforms and can work offline.Add-ins such as Class Notebook and Learning Tools greatly extend the functionality of the software and provide a rich suite of tools for education and accessibility.Class Notebooks also integrate with many systems, such as Canvas LMS, making features such as setting assignments directly from Class Notebook into the LMS a time-saving possibility. Tutors can add documents, links, videos and other content such as Sway presentations into the Content Library for students...more