Who is your project team? Naomi Holmes and Adel Gordon
How much funding did you receive? £3,000
What is your project: Using mobile technologies in geography field work learning and teaching. The focus of the project was to use an iPad mini to collect data for a Habitat Survey assignment based at Delapre, Northampton.
Do you have any outcomes you can report? There was successful use of the iPad mini in ENV2123 for the Habitat Survey assignment. Students used the apps Fieldtrip GB and Skitch to collect data in the field.
Also used in other modules to facilitate learning including:
- Producing group presentations on ‘Citizen Science’
- Making iMovie trailers on ‘Conservation Biogeography’
- Working in small groups to research and present a research proposal
Various apps were used by the students and Apple TV was used to allow the students to present their work immediately in class. Students engaged well with the technology. They enjoyed the sessions and welcomed the opportunity to use creative learning techniques.
Showing posts with label Adel Gordon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Adel Gordon. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 June 2014
MApping: integrating mobile technology into geography fieldwork learning and teaching
Friday, 6 June 2014
Immersive technology devices and field work: Oculus Rift
.jpg) | Who is your project team? Scott Turner and Naomi Holmes, School of Science and Technology, Adel Gordon, Learning Technology- all University of Northampton |
| How much funding did you receive? £1,200 Poster available at: http://slidesha.re/1kvvUuX or http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1054675 What is your project? The aim was to investigate the potential use and the student experiences of using virtual reality (Oculus Rift) devices for field trips. Virtual reality field trips have been used by a number of HE institutions for a number of reasons:
The recent release of Oculus Rift, a relatively low-cost virtual-reality headset which tracks the user’s head movements, allowing users to ‘walk through’ a virtual landscape immersively, offers an opportunity to further improve the virtual reality field trip experience. Thirteen Environmental and Geographical Sciences student volunteers tested the Oculus Rift. The students used the Oculus Tuscany Demo software to work around a landscape, spending between 10 and 30 minutes in the landscape. No students had used an Oculus Rift previously. After using the devices they fed back through a questionnaire their views on its use from a learner's perspective. Do you have any outcomes you can report? From the questionnaires:
For more details contact: scott.turner@northampton.ac.uk | |
Friday, 23 May 2014
Visualising the field - VR and mobile devices
A recent workshop presented by Scott Turner, Naomi Holmes, Adel Gordon and Janet Jackson at Northampton Learning and Teaching Conference 2014- Northampton 2018: Planning, Designing and Delivering Student Success gave participants an opportunity to 'play with' some of the computing technologies they have been investigating as tools for Environmental and Geography Students.
Learning Across Contexts
A recent paper presented by Naomi Holmes and Adel Gordon at Northampton Learning and Teaching Conference 2014- Northampton 2018: Planning, Designing and Delivering Student Success discussed some of the technologies they have been investigating as tools for Environmental and Geography Students.
Tuesday, 13 May 2014
Mobile in the field
Mobile in the field - Learning Across Contexts, the next generation from Adel Gordon
This slide deck was presented at the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference, April 2014 - Dublin, Ireland.
This slide deck was presented at the Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference, April 2014 - Dublin, Ireland.
- 1. Mobile in the Field Learning Across Contexts – The Next Generation ADEL GORDON Learning Technologist University of Northampton @adelgordon
- 2. ABOUT ME ADEL GORDON Learning Technologist University of Northampton Adel.Gordon@northampton.ac.uk System Administrator for 11 years Focus on assessment technologies, Mobile and Blackboard/SIS integration
- 3. ABOUT MY INSTITUTION The University of Northampton has around 17,000 students (FTE) and around 1,500 staff All students and around 75% of staff are expected to use Blackboard. The Learning Technology team have responsibility over all things related to Blackboard…
- 4. WE’RE GOING TO LOOK AT… • Interdependencies when learning across contexts • Geographers’ use of mobile in the field • Lessons Learned • Future plans
- 5. OUR CHALLENGE #1 Lecture Theatre LaboratoryThe field Personal workspaceSeminar room Online / VLE
- 6. WHY MOBILE? “Mobile and wireless technologies support learning designs that are personalised, situated and authentic...” “mobile learning should aim to innovate and to discover what is gained through having portable tools that support observations, interactions, conversations and reflections, within and across various contexts of use...” (Kukulska-Hulme, Traxler & Pettit, 2007)
- 7. OUR CHALLENGE #2 Mapping “Desk based” Survey Identify & Delineate Overlay key Plan Data Collection Assignment BE ORGANISED! Students are required to:
- 8. OUR SOLUTION Tablets Image source: www.apple.com & www.tesco.com
- 9. OUR SOLUTION Skitch Image Source: www.evernote.com/skitch & Holmes (2014)
- 10. OUR SOLUTION FieldTrip GB Source: http://fieldtripgb.blogs.edina.ac.uk/
- 11. FIELDTRIP GB FORMS
- 12. HERE’S HOW WE USED BLACKBOARD Mobile Learn • All materials are mobile friendly with options for viewing • Discussion board for collaborative work
- 13. WHAT THE STUDENTS SAID Like having access to the forms before the fieldwork I like the bigger screen on the iPad mini – makes it easier to use the maps Being able to sync data once connected is great, and the FieldTrip GB app facilitates data collection really well I really like the iPad mini and having a 3G version makes it even better in the field FieldTrip GB is Great!
- 14. LESSONS LEARNED • Can increase engagement and support activities that are central to learning • Be clear about the aims and manage expectations (especially of internet availability!) • Importance of preparatory work
- 15. FUTURE PLANS Oculus Rift – pre fieldwork activities to enhance the usefulness of data capture and gathering in the field. In trials on generic maps and 3D environments student have commented that…
- 16. DO THIS NEXT Have a chat with staff and students about their practice. Particularly in subjects where field, lab, studio work etc is carried out. Consider the contexts in which learning takes place, and how the gap between them can be bridged using mobile. Get some mobile devices!
- 17. REFERENCES Brown, E. (ed) (2010) Education in the Wild: contextual and location-based mobile learning in action. A report from the STELLAR Alpine Rendez-Vous workshop series. University of Nottingham: Learning Sciences Research Institute (LSRI). Downward, S., et al. “Podcasts and Locations”. In Salmon, G. and Edirisingha, P. (eds) (2008) Podcasting for Learning in Universities. Maidenhead: Open University Press, pp. 57-69. Gordon, A., Jackson, J. and Usher, J. (2014) Learning across contexts - mobile for fieldwork in environmental sciences. In: Mobile Learning: How Mobile Technologies Can Enhance the Learning Experience. Oxford: UCISA. pp. 2-5. Holmes, N. (2014) Lake at Delapre. [Skitch image]. Kukulska-Hulme, A., Traxler, J., and Pettit, J., (2007) Designed and user-generated activity in the mobile age. Journal of Learning Design, 2(1), pp. 52–65. Blackboard Mobile – http://www.blackboardmobile.com/ FieldTrip GB - http://fieldtripgb.blogs.edina.ac.uk/ Oculus Rift - http://www.oculusvr.com/
- 18. THANK YOU! Adel Gordon Learning Technologist University of Northampton adel.gordon@northampton.ac.uk @adelgordon
Friday, 24 January 2014
awarding winning mobile for fieldwork
Effective use of mobile technologies to enhance learning, teaching and assessment,
,
Context take from the paper:
"The culture, practice and pedagogy of academic disciplines such as geography and environmental sciences are based around in the field activities as well as traditional learning in face to face, online and laboratory scenarios. Downward et al (2008) have argued that environmental scientists are uniquely positioned to pilot mobile technologies, because they work across so many different contexts.
 |
| figure 1 |
Figure 1 depicts the varied contexts in which environmental students are now expected to work. Within each of these disciplinary contexts learners should have access to all the resources they need, as well as the ability to capture, reflect on, develop and extend their ideas into other contexts.
As Kukulska-Hulme et al (2007) note, mobile learning may offer a solution to this problem, by encouraging students to use “portable tools that support observations, interactions, conversations and reflections, within and across various contexts of use...” (p.53).
With this in mind we wanted to find a solution that could facilitate students’ learning both within and across these contexts."
Reference
Kukulska-Hulme, A, Traxler, J, and Pettit, J, (2007). Designed and user generated activity in the mobile age. Journal of Learning Design, 2(1), pp 52–65.
Other related links:
Sunday, 29 April 2012
submitting and grading electronically
The university has produced a blog by Adel Gordon http://blogs.northampton.ac.uk/sage/ with some good advice on SAGE (submitting and Grading Electronically) and includes some of the problems.
Here are some of the useful advice, including some of the problems and ways around them.
Here are some of the useful advice, including some of the problems and ways around them.
As a bit of guidance regarding online marking, the standard specification of desktop PCs that are supplied through Infrastructure Services (IS) – at the time of this blog post – are up to the job of online marking. We recommended that you use dual screens, or use a large enough monitor so it can be split into 2 halves.
As part of ongoing work with the Psychology division, non standard specifications were put together for a more portable solution for online marking. e.g. a laptop, with a desktop docking solution (external keyboard and mouse and large or dual screen monitor), or a desktop PC with large screen. The basic standard spec includes one monitor. This is based on you keeping your old monitor to use as the second display. If required, you could add a second monitor when ordering equipment.
Have a look at the spreadsheet attached to this post. There are 4 sheets with different specifications, all of which have been ok’d by IS, but of course would depend on funding available at the time of procurement. All prices are subject to change, and you can obviously request other specifications from John Nicholson, the IS Procurement Manager.
… you can type directly onto a paper when marking in GradeMark? You can also strike through text!
Type directly onto the paper
Click on the Text button at the top right of the GradeMark document viewer, then click anywhere on the paper to type your comment.
Strike through text
Make sure you are in comment mode by selecting the speech bubble at the top right of the document viewer window. (next to the Text button in the image above).
Highlight the text you want to strike through and press Delete or Backspace on your keyboard.
The Learning Technology Team is always developing user guidance on the tools you use for your teaching and have recently added much needed guidance to the Help pages on NILE for assessment and grading. Have a look at the Help tab in the NILE guides section for updated and new guidance on Assessment in NILE (including SaGE).
We have also developed step by step workflows so you can be sure that you do not miss anything when you are marking electronically. Click on the link or image and choose the type of electronic marking you would like to use (submission using Turnitin or the Assignment Tool with or without grading) to go through the necessary steps and view the relevant help materials.
There is a new guide on the help tab of NILE that gives you an overview of the grading process in NILE.
The University uses the 25 point scale (you can find this in the staff and student handbooks). NILE, however, uses a 100 point scale that converts a corresponding number to a letter to maintain consistency across all tools (quizzes, Turnitin, Assignment Tool, Grade Centre).
This guide gives you details of the scale and how to set up the schema in your module site on NILE. It also gives you a handy table with the 25 point/letter/100 point scales so you can easily determine the value you need to enter when grading in NILE.
Some staff have found that they hit a limit when entering text into the general comments area when marking using GradeMark. Please be aware that there is a 5000 character limit on the information that can be applied in this area. Please note, however, that spaces and punctuation also count as a ‘character’. This works out at around the 750 word mark.
The rationale for this is that this section should provide general guidance on what the student has done well and where improvements need to be made. (Full commenting should be made throughout the main body of the document.)
Each comment made throughout the document (when you click within the page and enter text into the box) has a character limit of 1000, which works out at around 180 words.
This includes details of how to make Turnitin GradeMarked papers available to students on a specific date and making feedback visible using the Assignment Tool/Grade Centre.
Have a look at this guide to ensure your feedback will not be released until you are ready for it to be!
We have recently discovered that some assistive technologies do not work well with Turnitin. Screen readers like JAWS work when non-standard settings are selected, but are hard to follow and navigate.
So, if you anticipate asking a student with additional needs to submit their work online, please contact the team for advice, at least two weeks before the first submission is due.
The following bug has been brought to our attention today. Some files created in MS Word 2007, which have charts pasted in from Excel, cannot be reopened by other users because the chart corrupts the file. This results in the following error when you attempt to open the file:
According to Microsoft website this is a known issue with Office 2007. You can see more details about this on Microsoft’s support website.
This error has affected some tutors wanting to download student assignments that have been submitted through NILE. For files submitted to Turnitin, there is a workaround for this, which is to choose to download the submitted files in PDF format rather than the original (.docx) format. You may also be able to open the files using Word 2010 if you have access to this. Please note that this bug does not seem to affect those using the online grading tool (Grademark).
We would also recommend that any members of staff asking students to submit files containing charts should advise them to convert their file to PDF (e.g. using the Save As PDF option in Word) before submitting it.
If you encounter this error and would like advice, please contact the Learning Technology team.
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