Classic students get dynamic video feedback for modelling projects – Explore an ancient temple yourself!

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Recently at the GRASS Summer Conference, Matthew Nicholls shared his experience of giving Quicktime screencapture feedback for students . Students see their model along with layers of close observational feedback that take them through the physical representation they have built. Please click on the link below to see this method of active and highly demonstrable feedback.

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Sample feedback.mov
52.4 MB

 

LAST CALL for GRASS Summer Conference

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GRASS Screen Capture Summer Conference, 6th June,

11:00 am – 3:00 pm,
Meadow Suite, Whiteknights Campus

The GRASS Summer conference will showcase and celebrate the innovative use of screencapture throughout the University. The conference is an opportunity to learn from best practice and learning provision in a range of schools. We will consider some of the challenges facing colleagues engaged with technology enhanced learning and how these might be addressed.

The event will be fully interdisciplinary with case study presentations delivered by colleagues from a diverse range of disciplines across the university. The event is designed to support those who are just starting to use screencapture and to encourage more experienced colleagues who would like to develop and improve their use of this technology.

Speakers include: Lucinda Becker, Emma Mayhew and David Nutt – The GRASS Team,
Jane Setter – English Language and Linguistics
Patrick Lewis – Pharmacy
Nicola Abram – English Literature
Tim Lees – Built Environment
Robin Godfrey – Business Engagement and Transformation
Matthew Nicholls – Classics
Michelle Reid and Kim Shahabudin – Study Advice

We hope you will take time at the end of the academic year to celebrate the project and see how you can benefit directly from screencapture. If you would like to attend please email:

Julie van Vuuren , j.a.vanvuuren@reading.ac.uk you will then be sent full joining instructions.

Lunch and refreshments will be provided and, of course, we will be offering a range of homemade cakes!!!
Please our blog page https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/grass/ or click on this link to view this very short explanatory screencast http://www.screencast.com/t/HAjtfUoxO8jg. This session aligns with A1-A4 and K2-K4 3 of the UKPSF.

GRASS Screen Capture Summer Conference, 6th June, 11:00 am – 3:00 pm, Meadow Suite

summer-sweet-grass_product-shotThe GRASS Summer conference will showcase and celebrate the innovative use of screencapture throughout the University. The conference is an opportunity to learn from best practice and learning provision in a range of schools. We will consider some of the challenges facing colleagues engaged with technology enhanced learning and how these might be addressed.

The event will be fully interdisciplinary with case study presentations delivered by colleagues from a diverse range of disciplines across the university. Participants will be able to engage in streamed break-out sessions designed to support those who are just starting to use screencapture and to support more experienced colleagues who would like to develop and improve use of this technology.

Speakers include: Lucinda Becker, Emma Mayhew and David Nutt – The GRASS Team
Jane Setter – English Language and Linguistics
Patrick Lewis – Pharmacy
Nicola Abram – English Literature
Tim Lees – Built Environment
Robin Godfrey – Business Engagement and Transformation
Matthew Nicholls – Classics

We hope you will take time at the end of the academic year to celebrate the project and see how you can benefit directly from screencapture. If you would like to attend please email:

Julie van Vuuren , j.a.vanvuuren@reading.ac.uk you will then be sent full joining instructions.

Lunch and refreshments will be provided and, of course, we will be offering a range of home made cakes.
Please our blog page https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/grass/ or click on this link to view this very short explanatory screencast http://www.screencast.com/t/HAjtfUoxO8jg. This session aligns with A1-A4 and K2-K4 3 of the UKPSF.

Nicola Abram reveals how the entire English Literature cohort benefit from a screen capture approach

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In April 2014 I was asked to revise a compulsory Part 1 module, ‘Research and Criticism’ studied by our entire cohort of around 180 part 1 students. This module has an ambitious tripartite aim: to teach key skills and theoretical concepts needed to study literature, while engaging with a selection of literary texts. Recognising that the skills training could be delivered more actively than through a traditional lecture format, I set about constructing a suite of screencasts: a short (3-5 minute) animation giving the key content, and signposting further information, which students could watch at their own pace and return to at leisure ( examples below).

The screencasts are accompanied by a series of short formative tasks that require students to learn by doing. Although I admit I did not have a particular student demographic in mind when making this change, I realise on reflection that this staged development of writing skills offers specific support to international students and EAL learners, who may be unfamiliar with UK academic conventions and benefit from an atomised approach to writing with regular formative feedback.

The combination of screencasts and formative tasks harnesses the power of constructive alignment where teaching process and assessment method are calculated to maximise students’ engagement with the subject and/or skills being taught.

Qualitative student feedback affirms the usefulness of the independent guided study and regular submission of work:

“The first [formative] tasks such as the bibliography were very useful to bridge the gap into HE”,

“All the feedback I received was very helpful and helped me improve my work” and “The screencasts were also a fantastic idea”.

And a couple of examples:

Citations and referencing (by me) http://www.screencast.com/t/aT8PolyDuH

Interpreting your essay questions (content by Martin Symington, RLF Fellow) http://www.screencast.com/t/anEmCSRQxHBi

Introductions (by David Brauner) http://www.screencast.com/t/zhyQClRxexN

Proof-reading (by me) http://www.screencast.com/t/EXn2au7r8Wj7

Registration open for Spring Lunch and Learn, 22nd March – Palmer G04 ‘Screen Capture in Action’

Floating GRASS

As deployment of screen capture technology increases within our teaching practice and student support across campus, we thought it would be prime time to share some of these real life experiences.  Attending this relaxed event is a great opportunity to hear from colleagues about their use of different screen capture tools.  There will be examples of applications used in teaching and learning that may inspire a new look at these technologies.  You will hear feedback colleagues on how screen capture helps in real time with the student learning experience.  And of course we will not hide from the possible challenges that make technology adoption challenging – we will help you see how these challenges can be overcome.  As always participants will get advice on adopting screencast approaches with hands on demos, and a chance to play and learn with the technology.

As in previous sessions we envisage that there will be two groups, those who are still at the drawing board stage or those who may have come to one session in the past but have yet to get going, and those who are already producing screencasts but are wishing to troubleshoot or share ideas. The “GRASS” project team will be on hand to solve problems or discuss options. There is still room for those new to screen capture and who want to come and see what the benefits are for their teaching.

 

 To attend you can register by emailing Julie van Vuuren: j.a.vanvuuren@reading.ac.uk

 

This session aligns with A1-A4 and K2-K4 3 of the UKPSF.

Patrick Lewis from Pharmacy shares student feedback on accessing Quicktime lectures

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“I’ve been using the Quicktime screen capture option on my Apple laptop to record all of my lectures this term as screen casts. This is great in that it allows me to save an MP4 video file of my lecture, and isn’t limited in the length of the session recorded, however there is the downside that the videos tend to be huge (for one recent workshop this ended up being well over a gigabite). That obviously presents some issues, shall we say, with regard to posting these videos on blackboard. The way I have got around this is by uploading the videos to youtube, and then providing a non-public weblink to the students. This means that the video can only be accessed by those with the weblink, and the lecture doesn’t appear on youtube searches.

This has proved pretty popular with the students. Anecdotally I have had a lot of positive feedback, and in a somewhat informal way to get some kind of grasp on what the students actually think I sent a (entirely unscientific) questionnaire out to see what the part 4 pharmacists thought – and those that replied liked it.”

If you would like to see an example of Patrick’s Quicktime lectures please follow the weblink below, this one is on Parkinson’s Disease:

Jane Setter, Professor of Phonetics presents her experience of using flipped learning to support students with the development of transcription skills.

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“Flipped learning” was used to spend less classroom time on theory and more time on the practice and development of broad phonetic transcription skills in undergraduate and postgraduate English phonetics and phonology lectures. The undergraduate classes comprised of home students for whom English is their first language, whereas the postgraduate classes comprise largely overseas students for whom English is a second or foreign language. The data are for two separate year groups in each case and compare performance in two different transcription passages each used in flipped and non-flipped years. The results show general improvement in the final dictation assessment for both groups in flipped years compared with non-flipped years, although there is more improvement for the undergraduates than for the postgraduates for one of the passages and, in the other, the postgraduate marks worsened. Positive feedback from students to the flipped learning approach included:
‘Flipped learning is perfect for this subject area’
‘The approach allows students to watch your lectures in their own time, and at their own pace.’
‘It is useful to be able to stop the vodcast/lecture at tricker points and either watch the slide again, take more notes or do more reading around the point.’
‘We were able to spend time discussing any questions people had in class and then move onto transcription practice for the upcoming exam.’
‘I would rather do the transcription in class with the support of classmates and the lecturer than alone at home.’
‘Flipped learning is brilliant’
For an example of Jane’s ‘flipped’ learning lectures please follow this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIAmqXF6bBE

The ‘Patient voice’ in the School of the Built Environment

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Dr Timothy Lees, School Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of the Built Environment shares his experience of Screen capture:

‘Using screen capture technology as part of the teaching approach in construction science provides the students with a ‘patient voice’. The screencasts are used to demonstrate full worked solutions to tutorial problems students have already attempted both individually and then in groups. Each step in the calculation is explained and students benefit from being able to pause, rewind and re-listen as many times as they need to the solutions. Student satisfaction in the module has been high since the screencasts were introduced and the approach augments traditional delivery techniques such as lectures and tutorials. They also provide a very efficient way to support students in their developments, particularly in the area of maths, empowering the students to take ownership of their own learning and reducing the burden on the module delivery team.’

‘Informative and relaxed’ – GRASS Lunch and Learn

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A warm thank you to all the colleagues that joined the GRASS team for last week’s lunch and learn. We appreciate that time is precious in a busy term and hope it was an enriching experience for everyone.

Beyond enjoying a delicious lunch with homemade cakes – the session explored how screen capture could help HE Institutions with the fulfilment of T&L provision and performance, all in light of the recently published Green paper ‘Fulfilling our Potential’ which outlines key metrics underpinning the initial teaching excellence framework. The event focused on the highlighted areas of retention, attainment and satisfaction.

As in previous sessions we focused on giving general advice on adopting screencasts from real life applications at work on campus today – thanks to Emma, Cindy and David. We then broke out into smaller groups in which attendees had a chance to play and learn with the technology (while enjoying cake!).

We will be running further sessions – including our Summer conference – so if you were unable to attend, or have colleagues that you feel may benefit, please let us know and we will makes sure you get an invite.

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Study Advice video tutorials – 72,000 views can’t be wrong!

Kim Shahabudin and Michelle Reid, from Study Advice share their experiences of screencast for study skills:

When we released our first suite of screencasts offering self-access learning resources for study skills, little did we think that a mere two years later we’d be celebrating over 70,000 views!

Our initial motivation was reports from students that they would like to come to our Wednesday afternoon workshops but had other commitments at the time. We felt that simply filming the workshops would not work for mass dissemination – we aim for interactivity and so each workshop is quite different. We were also aware that students with heavy workloads were unlikely to prioritise the time to watch extended videos on what they perceived as extra-curricular topics. For the same reason, we wanted to make the screencasts as engaging as possible – but knew that we would need to choose a method that was sustainable within our very limited budget. These factors dictated a model of 5 minute screencasts focusing on particular aspects of study practices (e.g. structuring essays, answering the question, using evidence) that used the animation techniques available in PowerPoint to illustrate a spoken narration.

We were fortunate to receive some funding from the Annual Fund for our pilot project which we named ‘The 24/7 Study Advice workshop’. This enabled us to buy some additional hardware and software, plus provided some cover for our information desk which freed up our time to learn new techniques and develop a style and a working process. Our first suite of screencasts on aspects of essay writing was completed in summer 2013 and demonstrated to teaching staff at a launch event at the University. The enthusiastic feedback we received encouraged us to continue after our project funding ended. To date we have produced suites of screencasts on essay writing, referencing, preparing for exams and dissertations (31 in total), a one-off on understanding marking criteria, and have plans for more in the future, including one on using Turnitin formatively. In addition we have produced a few more discipline-specific screencasts on request, and have been able to share our experiences with staff interested in producing screencasts of their own.

Our initial motivation for producing the screencasts remains relevant, and we promote them via our website and Twitter account, and in teaching sessions in departments and individual sessions with students. They are also linked to by other institutions, both in the UK and internationally. , The very positive feedback we receive on our screencasts from these institutions shows their value as a promotional tool for the excellence of teaching and learning at the University. We use the screencasts in our teaching: as an illustration of principles, a way to vary the pace and format of a session, and as a prompt for discussions. In addition to our plans to cover more topics, we have recently started to add transcripts to the tutorials to increase accessibility, and are working on teaching notes to accompany them to encourage their use by staff within departments for timely study skills advice and enhancement sessions.

Perhaps our only slight disappointment is that, because our aim is to produce a coherent and consistent set of resources, we are tied in to our original model and cannot take advantage of the multitude of inventive ideas for formats and presentations that are now blooming across campus. However, the number of views just keep on rising – so we must be doing something right!

 

To view the self-access screencast visit:

https://www.reading.ac.uk/internal/studyadvice/sta-videotutorials.aspx