What's the (Share) Point?

Sorry for the lack of blog posts (again!)  It's proved to be a busy summer this year - even taking into account that we've had no major upgrade and no major renovation works. 

That said, I've been able to get on with lots of little bitty things.  The biggest one of them all, and a project that has been on my wishlist for a good few months is to develop a booking system that automates most of the processes for us as an e-learning team.

Historically, we sometimes forget to tell staff development who attended a course (sorry Sue!) and we don't always do evaluations.  But I think it would be really nice to see how many people attend particular courses, and to identify patterns of attendance, as well as to solidify the evaluation and feedback process.

The main problem is that as a team we all have our fingers in different pies and as such aren't consistent in the way we process our training.  This is because we are usually dashing from one place to another. 

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I thought about creating a booking system that was automated, and would allow us to automatically gather evaluations.

In short, I wanted to:

• Advertise available courses browseable via a calendar with an RSS Feed so that we can display up and coming courses
• Allow people to sign up for the courses themselves
• Receive a notification when a course is full so that we can decide to put additional courses on to meet demand
• Automatically generate a reminder email the day before giving them details of the course - title, venue, start & end times
• Generate an email after the course with a link to the evaluation form and any resources and links to accompany that course
• Generate an email 3 months after a person has attended a course with a follow up, asking whether they have used what they have learnt, and whether they would like a refresher, or access to supplementary materials.  I also wanted to give them the opportunity of creating a case study using what they had learnt.

I thought it was a tall order.  The details started coming to me when a friend of mine got a job in the Oxwich Bay Hotel.  She was telling me about hotel bookings, conferences, rooms etc and it made me think that it was all possible.

I then proceeded to look at our VLE (Blackboard) as I recalled being on a training session run by Blackboard's Trainer, Pepijn Kalis and he was talking to us about workflows.  I distinctly remember being the only one who properly understood the functionality (having used something similar but clunkier) in a previous job.  I hadn't started in e-learning at that time, I'd been offered and had accepted the job but hadn't started so it was all new to me.

Since we have upgraded to Blackboard 9.1, we have switched the Workflows functionality off.  So Blackboard as a tool was out.  I then went to look at open source event booking systems.  The best of the lot seemed to be Eventbrite, but we weren't able to tweak it to what we wanted, and it wouldn't generate the emails the way we wanted.  I blogged about Eventbrite and its capabilities here

My 'lightbulb' moment came in June, when I attended some of RSC Wales' fantastic series of webinars - "RSC Summer Bytes" and in particular, the webinar given by Hannah Mathias of St Davids Catholic College (presentation here)

She showcased some of the things she had been able to do with workflows, and that made me think that it was feasible.

Why has it taken me till now?  I needed to think things over, and to work out what it was that I actually wanted.  Then I had to work out whether I could do it in SharePoint, and I've had some productive discussions with staff here in ISS. 

Anyway, it is work in progress - I've got the first part of it done thanks to a nifty download from Microsoft's website called Microsoft SharePoint Designer.  My next steps will be to create the forms that will go in the front end, and hopefully link it to a database so that we can collate the statistics and generate our reports.

Look out for more details on my progress soon.

Top Ten Tools 2011

Yesterday (30 June) marked the event of the fourth annual unveiling of the Top Ten Tools list.  Every year during June, members of the e-learning team get together with a couple of other speakers from within the University to showcase the tools identified by staff as having been the most useful this year.

The concept was started as a result of some inspiration from Jane Hart and her top 100 tools list.

This year, the process was slightly different.  Previously, the team have approached "known" e-learning champions from across the University and asked them to submit their top ten tools in order of preference.  When we looked at last year's results, we decided that the data gathered was skewed as we were only targetting known elearning champions.  This year, we thought we would try and extend it to all staff.

The analysis has not yet been carried out fully, but I do know that including all staff resulted in a much smaller return.  However, there were still 69 different tools listed as a result of this year's survey.  Focussing on the top ten, there were 5 new entries.  The presentation can be found on Slideshare, though some details and links can be found below:

Google Docs came in at number ten this year, down four places from 2010.  Google docs is a free, online office suite consisting of word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and database applications.  The beauty of Google docs is that it can be saved "in the cloud" and allows for collaboration.  Google Docs requires a google account, but can be accessed at https://docs.google.com/#home.

QR codes was a new entry to the top tools list altogether, coming in at number 9.  With the advent of mobile technology, QR (Quick Response) Codes are becoming increasingly common in the media, in shops and around the home/workplace.  Elen Wyn Davies, Deputy Subject Librarian spoke to the lunch and learn about the Library's use of QR Codes in the library catalogue.  (Presentation and links to follow).

Netvibes was the entry for number 8, a new top ten entry for this year, though it did initially feature in last year's tools.  Ironically, it replaces iGoogle in the 2011 list.  This is largely to do with the fact that several staff are using the "public facing pages" to feature an aggregation of blogs, news and resources that are related to their subject.  iGoogle's shortcoming is that it doesn't allow for both public and private pages.  Netvibes can be accessed from http://www.netvibes.com


In at number 7, dropbox was another new entry.  It has been around for a few years though has never featured in the top tools list.  It allows for remote storage, sharing and syncing of files over several computers (with an internet connection).  Users will need to create an account.  A video and details of how to create an account can be found at http://www.dropbox.com/

Youtube was the sixth entry in the list.  There have been several instances of youtube being used in various formats across the university, particularly in Modern Foreign languages.  Chris Hall give a short presentation on YouTube and an exciting up and coming development at Swansea University:  The creation of our own streaming server.  (Details to follow).  This will be launched formally at the start of the next Academic Year.

Blackboard made an appearance at number 5.  Blackboard is the VLE or Virtual Learning Environment used in Swansea University.  Ironically, Moodle was in the top ten last year (2010) largely we think to the presence of the RSC Wales staff, who use it for their work with FE.  Blackboard can be accessed from http://blackboard.swan.ac.uk

Last year's number one tool went down three places to number four.  Delicious is a social bookmarking tool, and allows you to create an acocunt whereby you can save your favourites (or bookmarks), tag them appropriately and share them with others. 

However, some of the respondents put Delicious/Diigo down, which prompted me to create a combined category.  Earlier this year, it was decided that Delicious was going to be sold, and people panicked (including myself!) and promptly moved their bookmarks to other platforms.  Diigo was my tool of choice, and I have accounts with both.  This might explain part of the reason that Delicious fell from the top spot.

It was mentioned in the meeting that both can be combined but this is something that I have to look into in more detail. 

Delicious can be found at  http://www.delicious.com/ and Diigo can be found at http://www.diigo.com/user/helenmd

Number three's entry was Firefox/Chrome.  As last year, these aren't perceived as "tools" in their own right, but both browsers have plugins or add-ons what are pretty nifty tools.  Firefox can be dounloaded from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/new/ while Google's Chrome web browser can be found at http://www.google.com/chrome/

Blogs were the number 2 tool of 2011.  Respondents used a combination of Wordpress and Blogger, or simply used the word "blogs" so these three entries were combined.

... And Finally!  The top tool of 2011 was twitter.  This is my weapon of choice, and the amount of problems and queries that I've managed to solve with the assistance of colleagues on twitter has proved its worth, not just to me, but to my colleagues also.  Twitter also comes with desktop/web widgets, so you don't have to rely on the web pages to keep up to date with your feeds.

Twitter can be found at http://twitter.com/

CPD23 - Continuing Professional Development

I am following an online course - cpd23.  I heard about it through a colleague's twitter account.  It appears to be aimed at librarians, but I thought it would be useful to follow it up anyway.

I currently work at Swansea University in the e-learning team.  This involves helping to run our VLE (Virtual Learning Environment - Blackboard) and support/training for all things e-learning. 

I enjoy the training aspects of the job, and am very support focussed, probably stemming from my background in lecturing (FE) and IT Support.  My interests lie in accessibility, developing and delivering new resources/training and marketing/promotion.  I am also interested in open source software and mobile technology.

I see myself progressing along with the introduction of new technologies, though whether this would be general, or whether I'd follow a specific route remains to be seen.

Training Bookings

I have recently been thinking a lot about the training courses that we offer within the e-learning team, and am looking at how the process can be streamlined to make our training process and sessions more efficient. 

One of the features that I particularly like about our VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) is the sign-up tool.  This allows the instructor/lecturer of a course to filter their students into different groups, and has options for the students to sign themselves up with a variety of options, as well as randomizing the selection.  This powerful tool allows students to sign up, tells them how many places on that list are remaining and if the option has been set, they can add themselves to a reserve list.

Basically it is a booking system.  However, we don't have a central booking system for booking our training courses, it is all done manually.  Unbeknown to me, a colleague had come across such a system that appears to do the job, is easy to use, and best of all, FREE (though you can pay for higher packages and different services).

EventBrite (www.eventbrite.com) is the tool in question.  The front page of its website simply states, "Eventbrite empowers you with simple but powerful tools to manage, promote, and sell out your event. It's free to sign up and get started".

I've only had a quick look at it, but there are several options to make this quite a nifty little tool.  It gives you the option to set up a web page specifically for the booking, use discount codes (if needed) and lets attendees register online.  Eventbrite will even handle the transactions for you (for a fee).  There is built in integration with social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  Search Engine Listing is available, as are a host of web based tools relating to transactions, reserve lists, automatic name tag/check in generators as well as the ability to manage recurring events.

From what I've seen, You can also have it synchronised with your calendar, so you'll never miss another training session or meeting again!

An update

It's been a while since I blogged here, no particular reason other than that I have been focussing on Twitter and also on some larger projects.

These last few months have seen a few developments, namely the Blackboard Conference, this year held in Leeds which I will blog about later.  The other main development job-wise is the HEA project on "Developing an Inclusive Culture".  Assistive Technology support is part of my job, so it has made sense to look at these separately.  To this end, I have created an additional twitter account for myself, @assist_tech.  I also have an assistive technology blog - http://assistivetechnology.swan.ac.uk/. 

This blog will remain, though it is hoped that I will become more active.  I am going to change the focus slightly, and look at technology that is available and how it can be used in education, rather than just being support driven. 

A Success story?

In April 2009, we launched the Blackboard Knowledgebase.  The idea behind this was that it would be a bilingual, searchable help facility.  There are some nice features within this, but, as always, there is some room for improvement.

The knowledgebase is available publicly - obviously an account is needed to access the administrative features, though potentially it can be searched by anyone.  Each article is available both in English and Welsh, and users can either browse through the categories or they can "Ask a Question".  This is a nifty little feature that lets you ask a question in natural language (yes, even in Welsh!) while it offers you answers that may be of interest.  The more you type into the question box, the more it filters down.  You can then click on the answer you want to view or submit the question.

What's unusual about our Knowledgebase, is that it doesn't actually just service Swansea University.  It is but one of the success stories emerging from the SWWHEP Project, its content serving Swansea University, Swansea Metropolitan University and Trinity University College (now officially University of Wales, Trinity St David).

When the knowledgebase was launched, there was no fanfare, no fuss, just a little gentle prodding as a result of queries (email and telephone) to the Blackboard teams at each institution.

Having reviewed it today, and produced Wordle  clouds for each month since June 2009 (when we decided to collate the search terms), it seems that, after the blank entries, the spam and joke entries (What does the morning after pill have to do with Blackboard, technology or e-learning?) we still recorded 11,457 hits.

When I say hits, I mean users who actually went to the knowledgebase and used the Ask a Question feature, clicking the submit button at the end.  Unfortunately, we've not been able to record those who browsed the knowledgebase, nor those who asked a question and found their answer.

What I've been really surprised at over the last year, is the nature of the queries:  Look at October 09 - the start of term for many .  Wordle Tag Cloud  There were no out and out Favourites, though Blackboard, Turnitin, Courses and Timetables all featured quite prominently.

Fast Forward to April 2010.  This is around the time that most students are handing assignments in, or have other, related deadlines.  Wordle Tag Cloud.  No prizes for guessing which was the most popular query!

For almost all of these, there were articles in the knowledgebase, and for those that weren't, they have been duly added.  By using Wordle tag Clouds, we, as a team, have been able to visualise what the most popular queries have been and roughly when they occur.  This year, we will promote certain articles at certain points in the year, thus promoting the knowledgebase as a whole and also trying to reduce the number of queries that we get at that time of year.

You might be wondering why I think this has been a success, particularly since over 11,000 people haven't been able to find what they are looking for.  Well, there are a number of reasons.  Firstly, this was a new service offered without any fanfare or official launch.  I think that if that many people are using it (and more who have been successfull in their searches) then it's working in some form.

Secondly, I can now estimate which queries will occur at roughly which time of year - this will help us in the coming Academic year as we will be able to promote FAQs in a more timely fashion.

Finally, one of our plugins, Turnitin, changed their interface TWICE during the last academic year.  This led to some confusion, as well as the fact that use of Turnitin at the three institutions collectively went up by approximately 30%.  That would go some way towards explaining its frequency.

Where next?

Although I feel that the knowledgebase was a big success, there is still room for improvement.  We have just upgraded to Blackboard 9.1, so the articles need to be updated to reflect this.  This will be done over the next few weeks.

I am hoping to incorporate the wordles from the last academic year into Blackboard, and use them as a tool to promote the relevant knowledgebase articles when students and staff need it most.  This will then, hopefully, serve to improve the amount of traffic going to the Knowledgebase.

Then there is the option of expanding the knowledgebase to include all things Web 2.0, not just Blackboard.

If anyone reading this should want to see the wordle diagrams for each month, then please feel free to leave a message.

Helen

Top Ten Tools for e-learning

RSC Wales ran an event on Wednesday 30 June 2010. I was originally booked to attend, but as one of the presenters dropped out, was asked to present.



Looking at the nature of the programme of the day, I decided to take a presentation that I had prepared for another session based on the top tools for elearning.


The presentation itself is on slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/lsdavihm/top-ten-tools-for-e-learning.  


Links to the tools within the presentation are given below:


PowerPoint


This is not necessarily a tool per se, but Powerpoint is used along with the likes of Adobe Captivate or Camtasia to record presentations and interactive learning content, thus rendering it a bona fide elearning tool.


Mind Maps


Many people use Mind mapping to organise their thoughts, plan their teaching, plan revision or organise/research essays. There are several commercial applications but also a few free mind mapping products available. Some of these can be found at:


Text2Mindmap: http://www.text2mindmap.com/  - This is useful for those of you who prefer lists but would like to try out mind mapping


Bubbl.us: http://bubbl.us/  - This particular application allows collaboration


Free Mind Mapping Applications (for download):


FreeMind: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download


XMind: http://www.xmind.net/


VUE (Visual Understanding Environment): http://vue.tufts.edu/  (This is more visual, I haven’t looked at this in great detail).


Moodle


This is a VLE, or Virtual Learning Environment, and interestingly, not one that we use in Swansea University! (We use Blackboard, though people tend to view it as a vehicle/platform rather than a tool). However, Moodle is Open Source and can be downloaded from the internet at http://moodle.org/  .


Google Reader


Google reader is a place for you to collect RSS Feeds (links to headings/headlines on your favourite websites) and read through new content at a glance, clicking through the link to the relevant site for more information. You will need a google account for this, both can be accessed from http://www.google.com/reader .


Google Docs


Google Docs is a free, online office suite of tools containing a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation function. A google account is required but the big advantage of Google Docs is that they can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection, and allows for collaboration, locking documents when they are being edited. Google Docs can be accessed from http://docs.google.com/ .


iGoogle


iGoogle is a personalised google page, or web portal. You can fully customise this, adding blog posts, RSS Feeds, news, email, calendars, tasks etc to make yourself more productive. A google account is required but igoogle can be accessed from http://www.google.co.uk//ig .


Wordpress


Wordpress is a blogging tool. A blog, in its simplest term, is almost a diary of events. You can usually insert pictures and videos, and can talk about anything and everything. Wordpress is one such brand. It can be downloaded onto your server as part of your website, or you can create an account on their site: http://wordpress.org/ .


Firefox


Firefox is an internet browser, rather like Internet Explorer. What makes Firefox stand out as an elearning tools is the array of add-ons that it has.


Within the Conference, I mentioned one such application called Greasemonkey, and an example of how it was used with the Creative Commons Attributions licence. (Instructions to follow)


Firefox: - http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/


Greasemonkey Add-on: - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748/  


Other Firefox Add-ons: - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/  


Twitter


Twitter is known as a microblogging platform. It is very similar to status updates in that your post must be 140 characters or less. During the session, I demonstrated a few uses of it, and related some examples of how it could be used in education.


http://twitter.com/


Social Bookmarking


Social Bookmarking is the term given to web based bookmarks (or favourites). You will need to create an account, but you can save any bookmarks and can access them from any pc with an internet connection. Other great features of this is that you can tag, or categorise your bookmarks, and you have the ability to create a network of other users, and can share bookmarks.


Delicious: http://delicious.com/


CiteULike: http://www.citeulike.org/


StumbleUpon: http://www.stumbleupon.com/


Diigo: http://www.diigo.com/


It was nice to have some interaction with the audience, as they were from all different education sectors. Some were regular users of the tools, but I hope that there was something in this session for everyone.


I enjoyed the discussion, and the questions raised as to why we ran the survey the way we did. It certainly gave me ideas to take forward!


I also had time to throw the questions back to my audience by asking them what their favourite tools were. Tools that were discussed were:


Opus (Digital Workshop): http://www.digitalworkshop.com/


Lanschool (Classroom Management Software): http://www.lanschool.com/


ComicLife(Use your photos to create albums and comics): http://plasq.com/comiclife-win


CrazyTalk (Facial Animation Creator): http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/  


Snapz Pro X (Screen Recording software for MACs): http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/  


If you have any tools that you’d like to talk about then please comment, or send me a tweet @HelenMD if you’re on twitter!