cpd – Fresh and Crispy

December 16, 2019December 16, 2019

Watt Works and In at the Deep End

On this first day of the winter break, I will be reading “In at the Deep End“, a new resource from the Learning and Technology Academy at Heriot-Watt University.

Our thanks to friend and advocate of lecturers and author of the original Lecturer’s Toolkit, Phil Race:

Link to 'In at the deep end: video and booklet, and 'Watt Works' open resources from Heriot Watt University produced by @Martha_Caddell,, written by @profsallybrown, @kay_sambell and me https://t.co/NCvfFUZc4s #lthechat @it_se
— Phil Race (@RacePhil) December 10, 2019

It’s also worth calling out the other resources to be found on the Inspiring Teaching website:

In at the Deep end – a resource for staff new to teaching.
Watt Works – quick tips.
Watt Works activity sheets.

Lots here for getting your teacher’s head back in the right place in advance of 2020.

If you prefer your tips in Video form, there’s also a YouTube channel from the LTA at Heriott-Watt featuring Phil Race and his wife Sally Brown that’s also worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmhOCPbOa9jVMDVKufGLuGw.

Cross posted on the LTEC Blog [private resource].

December 12, 2017

#ALTC Winter Conference – Day One

2017-12-12_09-39-20 Today, was day one of the 2017 ALT Winter Conference (#altc) and I was supposed to chair the 10:00 am session “The Great Sussex Podblast” to have been delivered by Pete Sparx, George Robinson and Tab Betts from Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) at the University of Sussex. Unfortunately, problems with the Conference Webcasting platform (Blackboard Collaborate Ultra) and it’s back up (Blackboard Collaborate Classic) meant that the session had to be cancelled. Hence, my first opportunity to moderate a webcast of any kind passed me by! The guys did, however, create a video, slides (bit.ly/podblast-altc) and you can hear the Podblast podcasts here: soundcloud.com/teachingwithtech/sets/great-sussex-podblast-digital.

In other events, there were five tweet chats. I was able to participate in VLE Minimum Standards—Lessons from the Sector (hashtag: #UCISAVLE) and watch the
#altc blog showcase (hashtag: #altcshowcase).

I then had a meeting to attend so I will need to catch up with the other sessions via the webinar recordings and wait for the storify versions of the tweetchats:

- “Player Two has entered” – Learning through console-based video games (hashtag: #consolesDGBL_ALT)
- Learning by numbers: how can analytics help educators? (hashtags: #learninganalytics #altc) and
- Open educational practice: #oep A DIY manifesto (hashtags: #altc #oep).

I will have more time tomorrow to attend the live sessions.

October 10, 2017

#OpenEdMOOC Week 1

2017-10-10_1838 Though signed up to the EdX Course in good time, I’ve only just today, already half-way through week 2, gotten around to exploring the resources and activities for Week 1 of George Siemens’ and David Wiley’s (or is the attribution the other way round) open course on an Introduction to Open Education (hashtag #OpenEdMOOC).

On first viewing, the structure is interesting. The course is available as an xMOOC (with the possibility of an optional certification) on the EdX platform. In this version, there are weekly exercises, that are assessed — I’ve missed the deadline for the first one — and the usual mixture of text, video, readings and discussion. This version will cease to be available, shortly after the course ends, unless the $59 certification fee is paid by the end of October. But there is also an xMOOC version, made available under a CC BY licence at URL linkresearchlab.org/openedmooc, with largely identical content.

So my initial question is why did George and David chose to present their course on Open Education in a format that is “Open” only in the sense of free to register and also in the form of an Open Education Resource that satisfies Wiley’s 5Rs that come up in week 3. Another question that will be interesting to reflect on later, is where will the most useful course discussions take place? In the walled garden of the discussion boards on EdX (analogous to an institutional VLE) or in the wider network?

Personally, I expect to remain at least one week behind, so I already know that I’m likely to find the xMOOC version of the course more accessible. I also expect most of my contributions to be made via this blog and any discussion to take place on Twitter.

June 26, 2017

My CPD in 2016: Part 2 #LTHEChat

#LTHEchat is another ongoing twitter chat that takes place one hour every week during University term time (on Wednesdays at 8:00 UK time). The purpose is to discuss various issues around Higher Education. The event was launched by Sue Beckingham (@suebecks) of Sheffield Hallam University and Chrissi Nerantzi (@chrissinerantzi) of Manchester Metropolitan University in October 2014. Since 2015/2016 the event has been organised by a rotating team of volunteers who run it for a semester.

My first time attending #LTHEChat was November 5th, 2014. In 2016 I attended twenty times as is evidenced by my tweets from my timeline (search #LTHEChat). When I cannot attend, I typically read the story which is published shortly after the chat. In 2016, I read 6 of the curated stories.

In 2016, I was invited to join the organising team during the January-March semester and I led the organising team in April-June. Organisation #LTHEChat means contacting the host, setting up the blog post, programming the automated tweets for account @LTHEchat, attending the chat and encouraging the community, curating the story and, in my case, creating a network map using TAGSexplorer. I was involved in the organisation of ten of the 2016 chats.

I was also awarded the Golden Tweeter award in July 2016.

Here is a summary of mt LTHEChat activities that counted towards my CPD in 2016. In the titles (A) means “attended” [1 hour CPD], (O) means “organised” [3 hours CPD], (S) means “read the story” [30 minutes CPD].

13th January 2016, We are back #LTHEchat No 42 with #BYOD4Lchat (A). Story: #BYOD4Lchat #LTHEchat Day 3, January 2016: Curating.
20th January 2016, #LTHEchat No 43 with Prof. Norman Jackson (A). Story: #LTHEchat No 43 with Prof. Norman Jackson,
3rd February 2016, #LTHEchat No 44 with Chris Wiley @Chris_Wiley: Using music creatively to enhance non-music teaching (S). Story: #LTHEchat No 44 with @chris_wiley Using Music creatively to enhance non-music teaching.
8th February, I join the team. See I’ve been invited to join the LTHEchat team.
10th February 2016, First bilingual #LTHEchat with Julie Tardy @jtardy81: Integrating complexity in curriculum designs. (OA). Story: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-45-with-julie-tardy-julie-tardy-integrati
17th February 2016, #LTHEchat No 46 Sue Watling (@suewatling): Digital inclusion and accessibility (OA). Story: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-45-with.
2nd March 2016, #LTHEchat No 47 02 March Dr. Sam Illingworth (@samillingworth): Interdisciplinarity in HE learning and teaching (OS). Story: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-47.
9th March 2016, #LTHEchat No. 48. 09 March. Open Education Week special with Leo Havemann @leohavemann and Javiera Atenas @jatenas (OA). Story: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-48-with-leo.
16th March 2016, #LTHEchat 49. 16 March. ‘Students are asking questions’ with Haleh Moravej (@HalehMoravej) and students of MMU (OA). This was the first of the LTHEchats that specifically targeted students. Story: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-49-students-are-asking-questions-with-hal.
6th April 2016 (OA), #LTHEchat 50 6 April – Students as Partners with Professor Julie Hall @julieh8 and students. Story: LTHEchat 50: Students as Partners with @julieh8 and students.
13th April 2016, #LTHEchat 51: Networks of distributed creativity with Laura Gogia, Frances Bell and Catherine Cronin (OA). The Storify is here: LTHEchat 51: Networks of Distributed Creativity. TAGS: http://hawksey.info/tagsexplorer/?key=1D_AwcE2CWpEbmZyx4zsuxZ5Nb3ZvzzZXZ0dS3bNhFh8&sheet=Archive.
20 April 2016, #LTHEchat 52: Managing negative use of social media and cyberbullying, Dr Bex Lewis (OA). The Storify is here: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-52. The TAGSexplorer 6 visualisation is here: http://bit.ly/lthechat52.
4th May 2016, #LTHEchat No 53 with Dr Mark McGuire @mark_mcguire (OA). The Storify is #LTHEChat 53: Connecting Classes. The TAGSexplorer 6 visualisation is LTHEchat 53.
11th May 2016, #LTHEchat 54. 11 May. ‘Students are asking questions … about assessment and exams’ (A). The Storify can be found here : https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-54-student-questions. Network visualisation using Martin Hawksey’s (@mhawksey) TAGSexplorer: http://bit.ly/lthechat54.
18th May 2016, #LTHEChat 55 : Bilingual German/English May 18th – Opening-up HE for non-traditional students, Martina Emke (@martinaemke) (OA). The Storify can be found here http://sfy.co/d11VP. The TAGSexplorer 6 visualisation is LTHEchat 55.
25th May 2016, #LTHEChat 56: Innovative Pedagogy in Higher Education, with Prof. Ale Armellini (@alejandroa) (S). Storify: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-56.
June 8th 2016, #LTHEChat 57: Open CPD with Chris Rowell @chri5rowell (A). Storify for Open CPD: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-57-open-cpd-with-chris-rowell.
June 15th 2016, #LTHEChat 58: Distance Learning with Simon Horrocks (@horrocks_simon) (A). The Storify: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-57629476cd8e8c523eda4a36.
1st July 2016, #LTHEChat 59: Essay mills and academic verification: The sky is falling. The sky is falling! With Dr. Mike Reddy, @doctormikereddy (A). Story: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-59-essay-mills-and-academic-verification-.
13th July 2016, EXTRA #LTHEchat: What do we know about the experiences of online learners? with @helenbeetham and @loumcgill (S). The Storify is here: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-60. A TAGSExplorer and searchable TAGS archive for the chat is also available.
14th September 2016, #LTHEChat 61: Part time learners. With Linda Robson @LindaOpen (A). The Storify is available here. As there were over 800 tweets this has been curated to make it more easily readable. The visualisation is available here with thanks to Chris Jobling @cpjobling.
21st September 2016, #LTHEChat 62: Assessment and student engagement. With Dawn Alderson @dawn_alderson and Robert Dragan @robert_dragan (A). Story: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/lthechat-62-assessment-and-student-engagement.
5th October 2017, #LTHEchat 63: The University Library in the 21st Century. With Isobel Gowers @Isobel_Gowers (S). Story: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/the-university-library-in-the-21st-century.
12th October 2017, #LTHEchat 64: Students are asking (more) questions.(A). The Storify is available here.
19th October 2017, #LTHEChat 65: Feedback and feed-forward: language and timing. With Phil Race @RacePhil (A). Story: The Storify is available here.
2nd November 2017, #LTHEchat 66: The porous university (S). Storify of the chat.
9th November 2016, #LTHEchat 67:Using data and artificial intelligence to improve learning and teaching. (A). You can view the Storify here.
16th November 2016, #LTHEchat 68:What motivates us to use digital tools for learning and teaching? (A). The storify is available here.
23rd November 2016, #LTHEChat 69: Student induction or information overload? With Clare Thomson @ClareThomsonQUB (S). The storify is available here.
7th December 2016, #LTHEchat 70: Linguistic diversity in the classroom and online. (A). The storify available here.
12th December 2016, #LTHEchat 71: Christmas special with Daniel Scott (A).

You’ll also find some of my reflections on individual chats by following the LTHEchat category in this blog.

June 22, 2017

My CPD in 2016: Part 1 #HEAChat

As part of my maintaining my professional registration as a Chartered Engineer (C.Eng.), I am now required to record and reflect on my CPD and have my training records for 2016 audited by the IET. This has meant going back through my calendar and trying to recall all the CPD events and activities that I was involved with for the last 18 months so that I can populate my historic data and then hopefully continue to record events in more real time thereafter. The IET has an online system for this called Career Manager, but once I’m up to date, I think it will be more beneficial to me and my readers, if I record my reflections in this blog and link those back to the IET’s records.

As part of my submission, I have been recalling my attendance at the monthly #HEAchat and here is a record if the events that I participated in last year. Those marked with an asterisk I actually participated live on the night. I consider those to be worth 1 hour CPD. The others that took place last year, I didn’t participate live, but I did follow up by reading the Stories. I am giving those a weight of 30 minutes CPD.

For the first two events, there doesn’t appear to be a working link to the stories neither in the blog posts nor my twitter archive, but I’m assuming that there must have been and that I read through the stories. If anyone has working links, perhaps they could let me know via the comments.

The four dimensional conference (*)

27th January 2016

Blog: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/blog/four-dimensional-conference-using-social-media-conferences

The rearview mirror: Embedding conference learning in your teaching practice

27th February 2016

Blog: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/blog/rearview-mirror-embedding-conference-learning-your-teaching-practice.

It looks like I made a story for this one: See Unofficial Storify of #HEAchat/#LTHEchat February 2016.

Teaching Excellence in Arts and Humanities

30 March 2016

Story: https://storify.com/HEA_chat/teaching-excellence-in-the-arts-and-humanities

Teaching and Learning in Law (*)

27 April 2016

Story: https://storify.com/LTHEchat/heachat-and-lthechat-27-april

New to Teaching

25th May 2016

I failed to attend this one following my accident last year! But I certainly read the story whilst recuperating.

Story: https://storify.com/cuthbert_kate/new-to-teaching-what-makes-for-a-successful-entry-

HE Teachers as Pedagogic Researchers (*)

28th June 2016

Story: https://storify.com/jess1ecat/heachat-28th-june-2016

Connection for Retention- building effective learning relationships (*)

27 September 2016

Blog: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/blog/connection-retention-building-effective-learning-relationships.

A post I made at the time: #HEAChat/#LTHEChat on Student Retention.

Story: https://storify.com/Mannerings69/connection-for-retention

Striking a balance between internal and external pressures for using survey data

26th October 2016

Blog: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/blog/striking-balance-between-internal-and-external-pressures-using-survey-data

Story: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/blog/striking-balance-between-internal-and-external-pressures-using-survey-data

Interprofessional partnerships & collaborative practice (*)

25th November 2016

Blog: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/blog/interprofessional-partnerships-collaborative-practice

Story: none published?

All in all, I reckon that that’s 5 hours CPD event by participating in the tweet chats and 2 hours self learning in 2016.

April 26, 2017

Inclusion is the key to successful TEL

In this article published by Turning Technologies – makers of audience response system TurningPoint, clickers and ResponseWare – Professor of Chemistry Education at the University of East Anglia and National Teaching Fellow Simon Lancaster (@S_J_lancaster) discusses how he is encouraging his colleagues to use Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) to engage students in lecture theatres. Here is a video of Simon’s keynote from the 2015 Sheffield Hallam University Learning and Teaching Conference in which he expands on and demonstrates these ideas.

Reposted from the LTEC Blog.

March 2, 2017

Getting Started with Assessment and Feedback in HE

On March first, Prof Sally Brown, recognised expert in Assessment and Feedback for HE, delivered a Webinar on Getting Started with Assessment and Feedback as part of the Transforming Assessment series. The recording of the seminar, both as a Blackboard Collaborate session and on YouTube is now available and well worth watching as part of your CPD.

The link to the seminar page provides access to the many resources for beginners in HE assessment mentioned in the Webinar. Sally Brown (twitter @ProfSallyBrown) and her partner Phil Race (@RacePhil) are both regulars at the weekly #LTHEChat. Both they and the Transforming Assessment resources are well worth getting to know.

[Cross posted from Getting Started with Assessment and Feedback in HE, Learning and Teaching Enhancement Centre (LTEC), College of Engineering, Swansea University.]