DMU e-Learning Symposium

We are running our second DMU e-Learning Symposium at Highpoint conference centre (on Glenfield Road, Leicester) on Friday 16 May. This event will be a celebration of the achievements of our project. We have 100 academic, academic-related and external staff involved, and we are pretty pleased about that.

The following evidence has been taken from our draft flyer...

Background
Over the past year, the e-Learning Co-ordinators have been working with key people across the university on the Higher Education Academy/JISC Pathfinder Project. This nationwide project involved 28 institutions with completion by May 2008. We have been exploring the potential for using Web 2.0 technologies in the curriculum. The programme for the day includes a keynote speech from Lawrie Phipps of JISC on “Learner-expectations, technology and formal/informal learning”, together with the following choice of workshops, that have been borne out of our own and others work in the field of Web 2.0 and education.

Programme

9.30 – 10.00 Registration and refreshments

10.00 - 10.30 Welcome: Professor Steve Baskerville, Richard Hall, where next for DMU?

10.30 – 11.15 Keynote 1: Lawrie Phillips [JISC]: learner expectations of technology

11.15 – 11.45 Thinking time and refreshments

11.45 – 12.45 Morning Workshops 1 [details below]

12.45 – 13.45 Lunch

13.45 – 14.45 Afternoon Workshops 2 [details below]

14.45 – 15.15 Thinking time and refreshments

15.15 – 16.00 Keynote 2: Dr Nicky Whitton [MMU]: Games, Technology and learning

Workshops

1. Introducing podcasts into the curriculum and their reception by students

Malcolm Andrew (HLS) will be showcasing how he developed and integrated video podcasts within Blackboard to support Year 2 Pharmacy students and will show student feedback from this exercise. He will give an overview of the technology and will provide recommendations for other practitioners who are thinking of using it.

2. Social networking and educational bookmarking

Heather Conboy (Humanities) and Steve Mackenzie (HLS) will demonstrate and discuss models for extending student engagement through social networking and educational bookmarking tools, like del.icio.us, Ning.com and Facebook

3. Using wikis to enhance group tasks

Mike Leigh and Lucy Mathers(CSE) will highlight the impact of using wikis in Blackboard on student group work, whilst Jon Philpott (Registry) will offer insights into how wikis can be used by staff teams to build shared knowledge bases

4. Building and engaging with personal learning environments

Derek Harding (Teeside University) will lead a discussion about the use of tools like iGoogle to build Personal Learning Environments with students and to enhance personalisation of their learning.

5. Embedding mobile technologies in the classroom

Tim Linsey (Kingston University) has been involved with the Rapid Reaction project at Kingston University. He will lead a session on developing your use of mobile and handheld technologies to support student learning.

6. Multi-media in the curriculum

Jon Tyler and Richard Chipps (AAD) will demonstrate the development and embedding of streaming video and make recommendations for other practitioners

7. Student engagement and motivation with Web 2.0 tools

Harish Ravat (BAL) will lead a discussion about the need for a change in our e-learning practice in HE, in light of student expectations and the rise of web-based tools like Facebook, del.ici.us and YouTube.

8. How would a weblog blog on a weblog blog if a weblog could blog blogs?

What do you mean that the title doesn’t make sense! Mohammed Kassam (HR), and Alan Brine and Phil Adams (Library) will give tips on common-sense blogging for readers and writers in order to enhance the student experience.