Final year medical student Callum Taylor led this month’s e-coffee@SGH session, with an inspiring look at some of the tools, projects and platforms that can help engage students. It was packed full of useful tips and information and showcased some really exciting resources.
Video is a great way to connect with students and a powerful means of sharing an idea, as demonstrated in Callum’s presentation using VideoScribe – attendees were all captivated by the drawn animations accompanying the talk. As Callum illustrated, these are straightforward to put together and the tool can be used for free, with a watermark-free paid version available.
Callum has been involved in developing education projects with MedSoc, such as Southampton Notebank and Short Courses, which help students support each other by compiling flash cards and through peer teaching sessions for extracurricular subjects.
Connect is another key project, and after being piloted in Medicine this year will be expanded across faculties this coming academic year. It gives staff a means of advertising opportunities to students, and users can subscribe to ensure they keep informed of relevant updates. Staff can use the platform to recruit students for involvement in a range of projects, and students have the opportunity to earn digital badges that certify the skills they have contributed, which can be added to their ePortfolio. To submit a project, use the online form here, or download the pdf version at the link if needed.
Attendees were also introduced to Biteable, another easy-to-use video tool that was used to create the Connect video here, as well as inspiring the MSc Allergy team. Powtoon is another popular option.
During the session, we also had a go at participating in a Kahoot survey, and Callum also shared his recommendations for web-building tools: Wix, Weebly & WordPress (appropriately, www!).
In our previous session, Scott Border talked about the value of student input in creating content, and it was great to see how the student-led projects covered in Callum’s talk further underlined this.
Join us on Tues 25th July (10-11, LF9) for a chance to re-visit some of the tools we have looked at this past year. We would love to hear about anything you’ve tried out, and we will be offering hands-on support as well as sharing ideas for future sessions.