Business Global Media Pedia

Last Friday I gave a workshop on Using Turnitin to Deter Plagiarism for academic staff at St Angela's College, Sligo . St Angela's is a college of NUI Galway and occupies a beautiful site on the shore of Lake Gill, just outside Sligo, and it is always a pleasure to visit there. The workshop was aimed at teaching staff getting started with using Turnitin . As we went through the practicalities of setting up a Turnitin assignment in their VLE (moodle) and discussed strategies and options, I stressed a few points. These are the take-home messages that I think are key when starting to use Turnitin. 1. Focus on the teaching : the 12 people in the group were concerned teachers. The last thing they want or need to become is "plagiarism police", with a focus on plagiarism detection. Turnitin is best used as a teaching tool, so make sure that the strategy you use, and every option you choose, is based on improving the learning for your students.  2. Turnitin does not detect p...

I'm currently engaged in testing out Kaltura , a platform for video, as part of a 3 year extended pilot at NUI Galway. It has a rather nice integration with Blackboard, which we're hoping to launch within the next few weeks. If any members of staff are using or creating their own video and are interested in being part of an initial pilot study in the next few months, please get in contact with me. For the moment, I'm testing the embed feature. So, here's a short video recorded during our guerilla video workshop with the participants in the PG Cert in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. video platform video management video solutions video player

The Calman Learning Centre Last week I travelled to Durham for the 2012 Blackboard Users' Conference . Coming immediately at the end of the Christmas/New Year break, it was a shock to the system, and a rude kick start to my brain. But I survived, and came away with my head buzzing. Now, if I can just get time to implement some of those ideas... The two keynotes , in particular, got me thinking about training and support for our academic staff in their use of technologies for teaching and learning.  The learning technology team at CELT aims to provide pedagogical support for staff in their use of technology, although often we end up dealing with queries about user accounts and basic support for our VLE, Blackboard. Our mantra is that we want to encourage each member of staff, from their current technology use, to do something a little more. We always keep in mind that the teaching/learning is key, and we're just using the technology to (better) support it. With this in mind, Gr...

This afternoon I am meeting the new group of students on the Learning Technologies module, part of the PG Diploma in Academic Practice. It looks like we have a great group of people and I look forward to working with them over the next couple of months, as they explore the use of technology in their teaching.

I was really pleased to be invited to give a presentation at the annual E-Assessment Scotland conference in Dundee last week. The conference itself is a free event, and attracted around 300 delegates, mostly from the UK. I'll write a blog post soon (when Blackboard is fixed) about the conference. In the meantime, here's my presentation, which I prepared using Prezi. It was my first Prezi, and I learned a lot in putting it together - but that's another blog post. Supporting Students' Writing Skills using Turnitin on Prezi Tweet

The upgrade of our Blackboard system to release 9.1 is progressing according to schedule. In the last few weeks, we’re received many enquiries about when the new system will be available and what changes staff can expect. When will I have access to my courses? It is intended that the new Blackboard system will be available for use during the week of 22nd August. There will be a new URL to access the upgraded system, but otherwise you will log on using your username and password as before. You will have access to all your courses for the academic year 2011-12. So, if you are an instructor on a Blackboard course currently, or if you requested access to a course within the last few weeks, you will have access to that new course on the new system. In keeping with existing policy, the new courses will be created as empty shells, ready for you to develop as you wish. What about the teaching materials in my current course? How can I get it into my new course? To facilitate the re-use of teach...

In CELT, we are busy preparing for the introduction of Blackboard 9.1 in NUI Galway. More information about the new system will become available over the next couple of weeks and you can expect a full schedule of information sessions and training opportunities. In the meantime, here is a recording of a keynote given by Sir Ken Robinson at Blackboard World 2011 two weeks ago. Tweet