The Digital Learning team promote and support the best use of technology at the University to enhance the student learning experience. We are all about connecting ideas, people and expertise, as well as making high quality and impactful learning resources.

To support this the Digital Learning team run a series of events to share tips, good practice and innovative education examples from across the University from staff and students.  You also have the opportunity to find out about new learning technologies and how these are enhancing student education.

This community of practice is extended online with our Connect channel in Microsoft Teams.

Recordings of past online webinars are below.

Remote teaching: how can staff include people for whom there might be barriers to access? A panel discussion where staff and students will share their experiences

Bobbi Moore will facilitate this panel discussion featuring a range of staff and students from University of Southampton, each with a unique viewpoint on the advantages and challenges of teaching and learning online. There will be opportunities to pose questions to the panel.

Engaging an international cohort of learners: tips from the open online course (MOOC) programme

This session will present learnings from our programme of open online courses (MOOCs) on how to engage learners in online education.
The majority of our learners are outside the UK and so it will consider the design elements we put in place to encourage globally-located learners to interact with our courses.

Engaging students in online learning

Join John Schulz as he presents some of the ways used to engage students on the UoS online MSc Education.
John will particularly focus on the importance of writing a narrative to hand hold the student on blackboard, the role of ephemeral videos to create community and then some strategies to prevent the webinar becoming another lecture.

How can students help each other and you in online teaching?

Practical tips for ways students can support you and their peers in online learning, both during synchronous sessions and asynchronous study. 
We’ll share examples of work students have been involved in, and explore their expectations and suggestions for learning and teaching online.

Answers and advice from MLE Team

Join Dean Wall and Louis Pliskin from Managed Learning Environments Team for a live Q&A around Blackboard, Blackboard Collaborate, Panopto and other tools they manage. All questions welcome.

Accessibility – Quick wins using UoS tools

In this webinar, Tamsyn Smith and colleagues will share some top tips to improve the accessibility of your content when teaching remotely.

A Collaborate walkthrough

Join colleagues from Managed Learning Environment Team as they give a guided tour of Blackboard Collaborate. The tour will also include a deo of the breakout rooms feature. A recording will be available after the session. This event will run twice this week and will be hosted in Blackboard Collaborate.

Looking back – looking forward

The final Digital Learning Connect webinar before Easter (8th April 2020). We’ll be hosting the event in BlackBoard Collaborate which will give everyone a chance to experience it. In the session, we’ll be sharing some of our experiences and recommendations based on what we learned from the rapid switch to online learning and teaching.

Before the session on Wednesday 8th April (1430 – 1515), vote on the topic which is most important for you. Vote the topics UP and DOWN over at the Padlet for this session: https://padlet.com/digital_learning1/lookingback

We’ll aim to cover the topics depending on the ranking in the session on Wednesday afternoon. 

Tests and quizzes in Blackboard

MLE and CHEP will demonstrate the quizzes and tests available in Blackboard for formative use.  CHEP’s quick guide to alternative to exams and class tests is available from https://go.soton.ac.uk/c9c

  • Date: 06/04/20
  • Time: 11:00-11:45
  • Speaker(s): Graham Robinson (MLE), Helen Carmichael (CHEP) and Colin Barnett
  • Link to recording: http://tiny.cc/dlconnect08rec

‘More than a dumping ground for lecture slides’: what do the Blackboard and VLE awards tell us about how students like to learn online

In this session, we’ll explore students’ feedback as to what they value in a virtual learning environment, share some examples, and reveal the shortlisted courses for the 2020 Blackboard & VLE Awards.

Tips for Video Production at Home – Q&A session

In this session, we will be answering any questions you might have about producing videos in the comfort of your own home. The format is a bit different from previous webinars Digital Learning has offered. On Monday 30th March we will be sharing some resources for people to go through prior the session. We will send further instructions ahead of the event!

Panopto – How to live stream, the new no-install recorder and going bitesize

Graham Robinson from the Managed Learning Environment team will give a demonstration of how to record with Panopto with the standard recorder, the new beta recorder (which runs in your browser and doesn’t require any installation) and how to live stream. The Digital Learning team will talk about whether your lecture should be more bitesize for distance learners and there will be plenty of time to answer questions from the chat.

Vevox – what are my options for remote teaching

Join us to consider our institutionally supported polling tool, Vevox, and the options for using it in remote teaching.

Case studies using MS Teams in teaching

Dr Kamil Zwolski, Associate Professor in International Politics, who will talk about how he has been using MS Teams in his teaching. Kamil will share PAIR Partners, an initiative he started that uses MS Teams to generate and collect student feedback for his department.

Introduction to using discussion boards in Blackboard

Teaching remotely

Some of you may not have participated in a Teams meeting before, so this will be a chance for you to see what it’s like and troubleshoot in the company of friends. We’ve prepared a few basic slides, so you’ll be able to see how to share a presentation in Teams.

Typed chat will be available, but for video/audio we’ll be relying on your turn-taking skills. We’ll mute your microphones at the start of the session – you’ll need to unmute to be able to ask questions. Guidance on webinar etiquette will be available as part of a webinar toolkit soon.

We will endeavour to answer questions about MS Teams, Panopto (recording and live streaming), audio recording in PowerPoint, discussion forums in Blackboard, Vevox and more.

  • Date: 20/03/20
  • Time: 09:30-10:30

AND

All of our posts about DL Connect

10 things you can do now to make the next few weeks easier

Posted: 24 March 2020

Over the last week or so, we have been asked questions about how to deal with remote teaching and tools that might help us in these uncertain times. Here are our top tips to make the next few weeks a

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Vevox graphic showing students participating in lecture on devices

Vevox @ Connect

Posted: 20 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

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Little boy playing a mobile game against his sister.

Connect: Gamification

Posted: 15 January 2020

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

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Excellence in VLE Awards trophies 2019

Connect: VLE Swap shop

Posted: 9 August 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

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Attendee trying out a camera

Community of Practice: The basics of video production

Posted: 28 May 2019

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

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Birds-eye view of people drinking coffee around a table with laptop and tablet used to represent ecoffee at SGH.

ecoffee @ SGH: Universal Design for Learning

Posted: 10 April 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

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