Consult | Collaborate | Create
Due to some staffing changes, our always in-demand Media Team will be operating at a reduced capacity for the early part of next year. Team Lead From the 17th of December we say a temporary goodbye to Sofia Bazzini, Media
Read more
Since mid-July we have been working with a team of 5 interns. They have improved the accessibility scores of Blackboard Modules and contributed to various communications about the project. Emily, Stefan, Velina, and Sian are returning to their studies as
Read more
A new norm- Yes, it’s a phrase that divides the audience. Some of us are weary of the over used phrases (unprecedented, anyone?). Others are excited at the prospect of real change. In education I donāt think we really want
Read more
My children went back to school seven weeks ago. This blog post sat in a corner of my brain, waiting for when I had caught up on workload. That is unlikely to actually happen, and the raw edges of the
Read more
The Blackboard European Teaching and Learning Conference was online this year. 871 people attended from 276 educational institutions in 32 countries. Being online allowed attendees from further afield to attend such as the US, Singapore, and Lebanon. The conference ran across 3 weeks
Read more
The iSolutions restructure has led to a few changes for Digital Learning. On the 1st of June, the new structure took effect. Yes, we did keep the name this time (!) and we are very pleased about it. The team
Read more
Padlet is a virtual pinboard or online post-it board with a unique URL. The interface is straightforward, with customisable layouts, and backgrounds, plus some nice features to increase student engagement.
Read more
So, you’re moving your teaching online; have you thought about what images you will be using? You might be looking for a range of pictures to break up a lot of text in your Blackboard course, or you might need
Read more
Why 3D models? 3D models are useful in a multitude of disciplines: archaeology, architecture, anatomy, biology, geology, engineering and so on. This post will show you how to quickly embed models from Sketchfab into your Blackboard course in 5 simple
Read more
This post outlines the changes made in a module at the University of Southampton, moving from an individual written assessment to a group video assessment. Below, we will describe how the students carry out this task, what support resources are
Read more
Background We are working with colleagues in Medicine, Health Sciences, and staff at the Southampton General Hospital Emergency Department to capture a Major Trauma Resuscitation Simulation in 360 degree video. When viewed in a virtual reality headset, the audience is
Read more
Our final Connect event of 2019 involved ECS Teaching Fellow Oli Bills and a practical demonstration of gamification in lectures. For several years Oli has been working on Enhancement techniques for student engagement in cybersecurity education and his efforts have
Read more
Last week I (and my colleague Bobbi) attended the annual, national Association of Learning Technologists’ conference (ALT-C) in Edinburgh. The conference itself ran for 3 days and was attended by over 450 delegates, with others attending remotely via live streaming
Read more
At the SOTSEF Science and Engineering Day on Saturday 16th March, the Digital Learning team provided support to the Black Sea MAP stand with their Oculus Go VR headsets. These were used to take over 800 visitors, from 2 to
Read more
In January, Sarah Fielding and Chrissie Metcalf attended BETT ā an education showcase event hosted by Microsoft.Ā Bringing together 850 leading companies and 103 exciting new edtech start-ups, BETT gives its 34,700 attendees from the global education community an opportunity to
Read more
Why Open Days? At Open days we want to give prospective students and their parents a strong sense of the UOS experience and showcase our unique selling points when it comes to Programmes of Study. For courses which include a
Read moreScene setting Following our attendance on the BIOL1001 Fieldcourse in Spain earlier this year (outputs areĀ still in production), the Digital Learning teamĀ was invited to attend the SOES2030Ā Dale Field Marine Biology Fieldcourse in West Wales. Our mission was primarily to capture
Read more
Ready (Player One) The novel by Ernest Cline (and now a major 2018 feature film) sets out a future where most of humanity uses virtual reality software “to escape the desolation of the real world”. Sounds grim? Smartphones and tablets have become deeply
Read more
Here in the Digital Learning team, a number of the Learning Designers are working on completing our CM-ALT portfolios. Becoming a Certified Member of the Association of Learning Technologists is “a peer-based professional accreditation scheme developed by ALT to enable
Read more
The outdoor ‘office’ At the end of March, members of the Digital Learning Team accompanied staff and students on fieldwork for the BIOL1001 module, Experimental and Field Biology. Students visit the south of Spain for hands-on experience in identifying plants
Read more
Just before Christmas, the Digital Learning Team hosted a visit by Altro Orbis, a company specialising in VR experiences. We asked them to bring a couple of HTC Vive rigs (one of the market leaders in VR hardware) and invited staff from
Read more
What is Padlet? Padlet is an online pinboard.Ā It does not require any installation ā just an internet connection and it can beĀ accessed from anywhere and on any type of device:Ā mobile phones, laptops, tablets, or PCs. You can create and save
Read more
Earlier this month the Digital Learning team hosted the first workshop for the Hololens early adopter group. If you haven’t heard of Microsoft’s mixed reality headset, which enables users to interact with virtual holograms and real objects in the physical world, you
Read more
Why Virtual? The 2016 NMC Horizon Report described Virtual Reality in Higher Education as ā…[providing] contextual learning experiences that foster exploration of real world data in virtual surroundingsā. Interest in, and use of, virtual and augmented reality is
Read more
Who are you? The Digital Learning Team is made up of 12 people with a wide range of skills, expertise and interests. We challenge you to discover which of the team: is a Royal Television Society award winner went to
Read more