Category: Events

23rd February 202223rd February 2022

Our 10th Blackboard & VLE Awards gave us plenty to celebrate! In this post we reveal the winning courses and share some highlights from this year’s event.

A variety of mathematical equations on a chalkboard.

Luke Searle

Creating Content, Events, News, Reflection

Recently, I attended a two-day conference where experts shared their best practices, solutions and techniques, for accessing and creating accessible STEM content in higher education. This conference will inform strategies for creating accessible STEM content. The event started at 05:00

The Building Community Infographic that you can access via a link in this blog post.

18th February 202218th February 2022

Alison Ormesher

19th January 202219th January 2022

For this year’s 10th anniversary of the University’s Blackboard & VLE Awards, there are 10 award categories for staff nominations. Here, we are sharing a ThingLink infographic based on the category of Best Community. This infographic has some key statistics

Text: Blackboard & VLE Awards - Learner Support, with a cheerful female student working on a laptop in the background

11th January 202211th January 2022

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the University’s Blackboard & VLE Awards, we are offering awards in ten different categories this year. In the 10-minute video below, we delve into the Best Learner Support category.

Text that reads Blackboard and VLE awards with a star trophy to the right of the text.

Luke Searle

26th October 202126th October 2021

Rewarding excellence. The 2022 Blackboard and VLE award nominations are open. Nominate your module to be shortlisted today.

25th May 202111th January 2022

In person, eCoffee@SGH provided opportunities not only for peer learning and support with TEL tools and techniques but also for forging connections. Since we’ve been meeting online, that opportunity has felt just as important – if not more so. Sharing

Close-up of Excellence in VLE Awards trophy with text 'Winner 2021' and 'University of Southampton'

22nd February 202122nd February 2021

Events, Innovation

In a year of many challenges, one common story is that students feel short-changed by their online learning experience. It’s therefore been both heartening and humbling to receive 1235 nominations from students for our 9th annual Blackboard & Virtual Learning

Tamsyn Smith

13th July 202024th November 2020

On February 4th and 5th, Matt Deeprose and I took part in UDLHE Digicon. This was an online conference about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in Higher Education. It was our first time attending this event. The conference was wholly

This is the main stage at the iLRN conference 2020.

Paul Blatch

16th June 202024th November 2020

Captain’s Log: June 2020 I find myself in a strange world. The inhabitants are sentient yet look like cartoons. They appear to be talking to me in my own language, asking me questions about my latest work in innovation. No,

Group of people having a video conference.

James Allen

10th June 202024th November 2020

Like all current gatherings, the University of Kent and Kent County Council hosted this year’s Digital Accessibility Conference virtually. It ran from 9th to 11th June. In its second year, the conference aims to inform Public Sector organisations about digital

Close up shot of a woman using a laptop.

29th April 202015th May 2020

The university’s Virtual Learning Environment Awards were particularly virtual this year, with winners announced via a Twitter event and a Special Edition Newsletter. Students’ insight throughout the process is key, with student representatives taking time to select a shortlist from

20th February 202020th February 2020

At the point we launched this year’s search for examples of excellent use of virtual learning environments, we didn’t know we’d all be moving in! With learning shifted to virtual spaces, it’s useful to reflect on what this year’s nominations

Vevox graphic showing students participating in lecture on devices

17th February 202017th February 2020

Amie Fletcher and Isabel Whitley from Vevox joined us for February’s Connect event, to share some updates and suggestions for making the most of Vevox in teaching. The slides from the sesssion can be downloaded below. Vevox also ran a

7th January 202013th January 2020

Nominations for the university’s annual Blackboard & VLE Awards competition are now open, giving you the opportunity to feed back on what you find most helpful in a virtual learning environment, and to put forward examples of courses that do

25th November 201913th March 2020

December’s eCoffee involved an experimental live event: could we run a session about video meetings simultaneously as a face-to-face session and online for remote participants? While this sounds like something that potentially could involve specialist equipment and planning, we took

24th October 201916th May 2020

Ahead of this month’s eCoffee we asked colleagues for recommendations for tools that support organisation, planning and efficiency, and took the opportunity during the session to try some of these out. Office 365 and Microsoft Teams Office 365 includes various

Sofia Bazzini

9th August 20199th August 2019

At the start of October, we were invited to film the VC Awards 2019 at St Mary’s stadium. The VC awards are an event that members of staff at the University tend to look forward to and it is a

12th July 201915th July 2019

Our guest contributors at July’s Digital Learning Connect event were well placed to offer insight into what makes a successful virtual learning environment, having both won university Blackboard & VLE Awards, as well as making it onto the shortlist each

4th July 20191st December 2020

Medicine has seen continuing success over the seven years of the university’s Blackboard & VLE Awards, so in July’s eCoffee we explored some features of winning courses, sharing some ideas and inspiration ahead of the next academic year. Blackboard upgrade

Illustration of a group of women sitting with notepads as if at a conference.

Tamsyn Smith

28th May 201925th February 2020

I’ve been fortunate enough to attend (and present at) two education conferences in the last fortnight. Solent Learning and Teaching Community Conference 2019 First was Solent Learning and Teaching Community Conference. This event takes place annually on the third Friday

Mimi Lee

7th May 20193rd January 2020

As part of the Community of Practice sessions held monthly by the Digital Learning team, Joe Brett from the Digital Learning Media team presented an introductory talk on how to produce videos using modest filming equipment: a handycam/smartphone, audio recorder

10th April 20191st December 2020

This year saw our seventh annual Blackboard & VLE Awards, with students putting forward an impressive array of modules that offer valuable online support for their learning. Students’ insightful comments about why a particular approach works, or the benefits of

Tamsyn Smith

26th March 201927th March 2019

What is Universal Design for Learning? Why does UDL matter? To understand what Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is, firstly, we need to look back at the origins of Universal Design. Architect Ron Mace coined the term “universal design” to

Sarah Fielding

Events, Innovation

In January, Sarah Fielding and Chrissie Metcalf attended BETT – an education showcase event hosted by Microsoft. 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

26th March 201912th July 2019

13th December 20182nd May 2019

February’s eCoffee saw attendees taken on a series of virtual adventures, using Oculus Go headsets. Recent university Virtual Reality (VR) projects include creating interactive 360 experiences from footage gathered on field trips. This supports students in getting the most out of the trip by preparing

28th November 20182nd May 2019

Panopto: not just lecture capture was our theme for December’s eCoffee, looking at the various ways Panopto can be used to support teaching, learning and assessment. The university help pages for Panopto at http://go.soton.ac.uk/panopto are a great source to help you get started, and

Conifer and presents on a black boarder with the caption Digital learning Christmas challenge.