ALT Winter Conference 2015 (Day 2)

I am hoping to attend at least part of a few ALT Winter Conference sessions today, notes below.

Jessica Gramp (UCL): Welcome to ‘Moodle My Feedback’

• Moodle plugin being developed at UCL – this was an update on progress as it has been showed at previous events.
• Adds My Feedback to profile block.
• Problems with default Moodle included feedback is stored in TurnItIn – this tool aggregates links back to TII, rather than having to go into different courses to find them.
• Tells you if students have looked at feedback.

Using Social Media Data in Learning Practice and Research

• 9 minute demo video: https://vimeo.com/147996126 using Facebook data, visualized, for research.
• Overall I took that the point here was there are a huge amount of possibilities and questions from this.

Gaming the Conference: can Playful Interactions Engage Delegates

• #altcgame
• Some details on the game that took place at the conference.

Arena Blended Connected (ABC) rapid curricula development at UCL

• Presentation on an approach that has been found to be a great way to engage academics.
• Previously did not have a coherent way to talk to academics about their programmes, they have adapted Ulster’s approach from JISC Viewpoints project.
• “Connected Curriculum” – wider framework for good design at UCL: this is the C part.  A and B help with the structure to reach those outcomes.
• Core to the approach is a “Gamestorming” 90 minute workshop, have a high energy discussion on what to do.  Consider issues such as what learners should be doing, mockup of examples of modules (broken down by learning types), etc.
• Argue best to not start with assessment as to allow for mindset that anything could be assessed.
• Use session to bring in other elements such as high level costing of module development, impact of including videos, etc.
• http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/ele/

TFPL – Dashboards in Excel Made Easy

• Not an ALTC session but another webinar I attended today.
• How to build dashboard combining one function, a chart, some data validation.
• Used COUNTIF to count a total from data.  COUNTIFS for multiple.
• Use bar conditional formatting and then create chart from there.
• Add data validation with tool-tip for interactivity on page.
• Then format the worksheet as a dashboard – basically calling on data elsewhere through a visualised approach.
• Overall this was relatively straight forward stuff.

The Future of Learning: Project-based teaching and assessment supported through new media technologies

• I didn’t attend too much of this one but when I came in then there was a discussion of some of problems with current university education, including the student focus on grade and the resulting concentration on what the exams will be.
• Presenter’s research has just reconfirmed that content heavy education leads to rote learning.
• Need to align assessments with what you really want the students to learn.
• About personal journeys – only way to ensure students take subject to heart.

Author: iangardnergb

My name is Ian Gardner and I am interested in various topics that can be seen as related to learning, technology and information. To see what I am reading elsewhere, follow me on The Old Reader (I.gardner.gb) and/or Twitter (@iangardnergb). View all posts by iangardnergb