This spring, the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) is offering some interesting workshops open to both members and non-members:

"Podcasting in Learning and Teaching"

14 April 2010, Sheffield Hallam University Graham McElearney of Sheffield University and Andrew Middleton of Sheffield Hallam University.

£100 ALT members, £155 non members.

http://www.alt.ac.uk/workshop_detail.php?e=351

Booking deadline: 31 March 2010

"Using of Twitter in Higher Education"

4 May 2010, The National College, Nottingham Matt Lingard, LSE; Tony McNeil, Kingston University; Alan Cann, University of Leicester.

£115 ALT members, £155 non members.

http://www.alt.ac.uk/workshop_detail.php?e=349

Booking deadline: 20 April 2010

Are you interested in boosting your presentations with a more dynamic visual style?

If so, check out Pecha Kucha.

The Pecha Kucha organisation defines it as follows on their website:

PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

Although academic lectures are not the same as design pitches, this approach to visual presentation may give you some useful ways to think outside the box and enrich your lectures with short bursts of meaningful visuals.

There is a series of 'Pecha Kucha nights' taking place around the world, including Wales. If you click on the Pecha Kucha Nights page, you can see where and when they are happening, and find out more.

Links

• Pecha Kucha organisation - description of pecha kucha with examples you can view.
• Pecha Kucha night - events held around the world showing pecha kucha presentations. Check out upcoming events.

JISC Digital Media offers a series of fortnightly online surgeries on various topics around the use of digital media. If you miss a session, you can see the transcript, which appears in the archives a few weeks later.

JISC Digital Media Surgery: http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/surgery/

Below is the description from their website about the service:

WHAT are these sessions about?

JISC Digital Media are providing fortnightly one-hour online help and support sessions to answer any queries you have regarding digital media.

Join us here any time between 1.30pm and 2.30pm every other Wednesday.

Queries regarding any aspect of still images, moving images (including video), audio and how they can be used for teaching and learning are welcome. We will answer technical, workflow-related or general queries, and there is no limit to the number of queries that can be asked. No query is too simple to be explored.

An archive of questions and answers from each session is made available to support others in the community.

eLearning Development Fund

The fund aims to encourage appropriate and effective use of learning technologies at Aberystwyth University in ways that address the aims of the University Learning and Teaching Strategy, E-learning Strategy and specific needs of academic departments.

Applications for a maximum of £1000 will be considered, with applications for £200 or less being considered separately.

Proposals should be submitted to the Centre for the Development of Staff and Academic Practice, by 19 March 2010.

Funding Webpage http://www.aber.ac.uk/staffdevelopment/english/funds.htm.

Helen Howard of HEA Subject Centre for Sociology, Anthropology, Politics Visits AU 15-16 Feburary 2010

Click to view the interview here

Helen Howard is the Co-Director of the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics (C-SAP). The Centre has a national remit to engage with academic staff to improve the student learning experience through innovation and dissemination of good practice. Dr. Elena Korosteleva-Polglase (International Politics) 2009 BISA/C-SAP Teaching prize winner organised a visit to Aberystwyth University to discuss current teaching practices of the department of international politics. This was supplemented with visits to central unit staff in CDSAP, E: learning support and a presentation to the Directors of learning and teaching. In this short interview she reflects on the visit to the university.  

For more information

• www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk
• http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/resources/cymraeg.htm
• http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/subject_areas/elearning/
• http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/subject_areas/elearning/oer/

Information Services has won the Higher Education Libraries category of CyMAL's Marketing Innovation Awards, which aim to celebrate marketing innovation in Welsh libraries. Our entry was based on the Good Academic Practice day we held in the Guild of Students.

For the full story about the award, please see the Subject Support and E-Library Team blog.

More information on the event is found in the initial advertisement.

This is a description of technology that is essential for the E-learning Team. We have created this post as an entry for the JISC 2010 Conference blog competition (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2010/01/blog.aspx), as well as to give you a peek at how our team operates. ...

The Qwizdom interactive voting system has been increasingly popular for use with large classes.

Because using more than one set of Qwizdom kit for a single class session requires that students re-set the session ID on some of the handsets, we have just updated the PowerPoint slides that have instructions for students to include a slide for resetting the session ID.

If you are using Qwizdom with large classes, we suggest that you download the new student instructions PowerPoint slide from the Qwizdom Good Practice Guide. You can customise the 'Change Session ID' slide by adding in the session ID of your hub. This will make it easier to guide students through the process of changing the session ID.

Go to the Qwizdom Good Practice Guide page to download the PowerPoint.

If you have any questions, please email the E-learning Team at is-alto@aber.ac.uk.

There has been increasing interest in AU's Gwella Nexus site. The following sites have links to Nexus:

• SWW Enhancement Academy
• Enhancement Academy Weblog of the Higher Education Academy
• Gwella Enhancing Learning and Teaching through Technology for Higher Education in Wales
  • also in a particular posting of the Gwella blog Transforming Higher Education Through Technology

We also see visitors finding our site through Twitter and Delicious.

Since becoming available just prior to the launch on 21 October, our site has had:

• 465 visits
• 231 absolute unique visitors
• 843 page views
• nearly 51% repeat visitors

Our visitors have come from a total of 60 cities in 18 countries around the world (noting that Google Analytics counts the entire UK as one country). Of course, the UK, especially Aberystwyth, has provided the most traffic.

A map based on Google Analytics is shown below.  Countries in a darker colour green have had more visits.

eLearning Development Fund

The fund aims to encourage appropriate and effective use of learning technologies at Aberystwyth University in ways that address the aims of the University Learning and Teaching Strategy, E?learning Strategy and specific needs of academic departments.

Applications for a maximum of £1000 will be considered, with applications for £200 or less being considered separately.

Proposals should be submitted to the Centre for the Development of Staff and Academic Practice, by 19 March 2010.

• Funding webpage
• Guidelines - PDF file
• Guidelines - DOC file
• Application form - PDF file
• Application form - DOC file
• Previous winners - PDF file
• Previous winners - DOC file

Cronfa Datblygu e-Ddysgu

Amcan y gronfa yw annog defnydd priodol ac effeithiol o dechnolegau dysgu ym Mhrifysgol Aberystwyth mewn ffyrdd sy'n mynd i'r afael ag amcanion Strategaeth Dysgu ac Addysgu'r Brifysgol, y Strategaeth E-ddysgu ac anghenion penodol adrannau academaidd.

Caiff ceisiadau am uchafswm o £1000 eu hystyried, a bydd ceisiadau am £200 neu lai yn cael eu hystyried ar wahân.

Dylid cyflwyno cynigion i’r Y Ganolfan Datblygu Staff ac Ymarfer Academaidd erbyn 19 Mawrth 2010.

• Gweddalen Cyllid
• Canllawiau - PDF
• Canllawiau - DOC
• Ffurflen Gais - PDF
• Ffurflen Gais - DOC
• Enillwyr Blaenorol (Saesneg yn unig ar hyn o bryd) - PDF
• Enillwyr Blaenorol (Saesneg yn unig ar hyn o bryd) - DOC

...