Consult | Collaborate | Create
As education becomes increasingly interactive, students expect richer, more immersive ways to engage with their subjects. 360° virtual tours in education give students a realistic preview of the environments they will study in, whether that is marine research facilities, coastal
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Guest speakers from both Medicine and Health Sciences have shared some really illuminating insights over the past year. It’s been a great opportunity to highlight good practice, and the ways that both simple and more ambitious innovations can transform learning.
Read moreWe’re excited to announce the arrival of AI Structure Generator part of the new Design Assistant in Blackboard Ultra. The AI Structure Generator is a new AI-powered feature designed to give you suggestions for Ultra Learning Modules, the building blocks
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We had a shorter eCoffee programme this year but no less packed with useful content! The opportunity for colleagues to come together and discuss how technologies can enhance our teaching, learning and working practices is always appreciated.
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The Digital Learning team proudly announces the winners of the 2023 Blackboard and VLE Awards. This accolade recognises positive pedagogical considerations and great online course design. The contributions to online learning and the effective use of virtual learning environments (VLEs)
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It’s been another year packed with tips, tools and tricks for eCoffee@SGH. We’ve been inspired by colleagues across Medicine and Health Sciences, sharing valuable ways technology is being used to enhance education and working practice. Colleagues from Digital Learning have also led a number of sessions, inviting discussion on how particular tools and techniques might be used in healthcare education.
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In this post I discuss the ethical issues that are developing with the use of some AI image generation services.
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It’s been a while since the “@SGH” part of eCoffee has been strictly accurate, but we’ve had another year of valuable virtual meet-ups.
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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.
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Rewarding excellence. The 2022 Blackboard and VLE award nominations are open. Nominate your module to be shortlisted today.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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What is Virtual Reality (VR)? Here in the Digital Learning team, we are constantly looking into new tools and technologies that will enhance education. This year was no exception as we invested time and effort into the world of Virtual
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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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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
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In May’s eCoffee session we welcomed back Ayala Gordon and Jonny Vaughan from the Digital Team, to discuss how we provide simple, accessible, relevant, useful information, not just via university websites but digital services as a whole. In keeping with
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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
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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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The end of February was the annual Media Team trip to the British Video Expo (BVE) at ExCel in London. In the past, we have used the event to investigate new equipment, chat to other industry experts and learn new
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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
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Nominations are open for our seventh annual Blackboard & VLE Awards. Students have the opportunity to feed back on what they’ve found particularly helpful to their learning and invite recognition of the staff who are supporting them in this way. A ‘virtual
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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
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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
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In October’s eCoffee we looked at ways Microsoft Teams can support collaborative working and learning. Teams is part of Office 365 (https://www.southampton.ac.uk/365) and works in conjunction with Office 365’s SharePoint, helping build communication and context around documents stored here. Setting up After creating
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