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Baffled by Blackboard? Confused by Collaborate? Puzzled by Panopto? Well fear not. The Technology Enhanced Learning Unit will be running a series of workshops to help you get to grips with the various education technologies on offer.

The first session, \”Blackboard Made Simple\” will be of particular benefit to staff members who have recently joined the organisation.

Workshop Title	Date
Blackboard Made Simple	9th September 10:15 – 11:15
Using Tests and Surveys in Blackboard	21st September 10:15 – 11:45
Blackboard Accessibility and Ally	23rd September 10:15 – 11:45
Camtasia	29th September 10:15 – 11:45
Collaborate Virtual Classroom	30th September 10:15 – 11:15
An Introduction to Panopto	4th October 10:15- 11.30
Using Blackboard for Blended and Mobile Learning	5th October 10:15 – 11:45
Assessing student presentations online using Collaborate and Panopto	6th October 1:15pm – 2:15 pm
Vevox Polling Software	12th October 10:15 – 11:30

If you would like to sign up for any of the sessions, please do so via the Staff Development Workshop pages of the Staff Portal.

With the move to online teaching this year, many staff have uploaded video resources to Blackboard to support their learning and teaching. Although this is a good idea – videos can be an invaluable learning resource – the video files do quickly consume the available data quota assigned to each module. Often one video will equal a quarter of the total quota.

A far better solution is to host videos via Panopto. This system was launched at the University in September and is available on all Blackboard modules and organisations. As well as video hosting, Panopto can be used for lecture capture, creation of video learning resources and the submission of video and presentation-based assignments.

Find out more about Panopto on our Panopto page .

When you move recordings to Panopto, you will also need to remove existing videos from your modules in order to free up space for other resources. Be sure to remove videos from both the content areas in which they are deployed and the files area, which is where they are stored.

For more information about file management and optimal usage of Blackboard data quotas, please see our earlier blog post Finding your feet with files.

For more information about the topics discussed in this blog post, please email us at tel@worc.ac.uk

On Thursday 5^th November, the content editor menu in Blackboard will have a refresh, with new features and a cleaned up look.

To find out more, see this document from Blackboard

If you have any queries, please email us at tel@worc.ac.uk

A little later than usual, it is time for our annual Blackboard Housekeeping.

Please be aware that we will be deleting modules from the academic year 16-17 on 16th November. We will also be deleting all organisations with a 2016 or 2017 date against them. If you have any resources that you need to rescue, please log in and download them (or migrate to a newer module) before 16th November.

It’s been 15 weeks since lockdown began and during that time, we have all had to find and manage new ways of working. Online learning, teaching and assessment have become more important than ever and, here in the TEL Unit, we have been busily working away to support all colleagues and students across the University with their transition in to the world of online learning, and to help make that transition as smooth as possible.

What have we been up to?

We’ve been a little quiet on the social media front recently, and with good reason! The last four months have been the busiest our small TEL family has ever experienced and we’ve worked hard on a range of activities to support the University:

Collaborate Training

• Just before lockdown we anticipated the move to online and put on 9 ‘emergency’ Collaborate workshops with 106 staff attending.
• We’ve also carried on providing training and support for Collaborate as more and more colleagues started teaching online.
• The recent all staff meeting was also carried out using Collaborate with our biggest ever audience of over 500 at one point.

TEL Website

• We also put together some timely advice about working and teaching remotely on our webpages and we’re continuing to keep these updated https://uwtel.co.uk/remote-working/

Day to day support

• Online drop in sessions were held twice a week, every week for 10 weeks giving staff the opportunity to drop in and get help from our Academic Learning Technologists along a range of topics, including using the virtual classroom, creating videos, populating materials online, Camtasia and accessing support materials.
• Our calls for support through our dedicated TEL@worc.ac.uk email and through the IT Services desk were busier than ever.

Dementia project

• Prior to lockdown, we were commissioned by Dementia UK to work in partnership with them to produce an online course aimed at people interested in becoming Admiral Nurses. We worked on this project alongside supporting our own staff and students during lockdown and are very proud of the results. Paul Edwards, Director of Clinical Services at Dementia UK outlines the rationale for the module on their web site https://www.dementiauk.org/our-new-admiral-nurse-module/ and you can access the resource itself which is openly available here https://www.dementiauk.org/elearning/#/

Open Days

• We’ve assisted comms with moving open days online, utilising tools such as Camtasia and Collaborate and provided specific staff training for this.
• We also ran some specific drop-in sessions to help staff prepare their video presentations for the virtual open day.
• A new project to open up Blackboard to allow prospective students to self-register and attend virtual events and taster sessions is now underway and should be ready for pre-sessional teaching on request

Blackboard Ally

• With new accessibility guidelines coming into force in September 2020, it’s more important than ever to ensure that our online content is fully accessible for all our students.
• In preparation for this we have implemented an extension to Blackboard which allows students to download content from the VLE in alternative accessible formats depending on their needs.
• Ally also allows tutors to see at a glance how accessible their content is using a colour coding format and providing directions on how to improve accessibility. It’s also possible to produce a course report to track all the content in your course. (this is only visible to tutors)

Online Exams

• With assessment weeks falling in the middle of the lockdown it was necessary to move all the exams and resits online at very short notice.
• This involved urgent liaison with colleagues across the University including Senior Management, Academics and Registry Services to ensure a consistent and useable system was in place.
• In May 78 online examinations took place with the vast majority running smoothly, with a further 172 resits and deferrals taking place in July.

Turnitin Training

• We have also developed a bespoke learning package to help staff in the use of Turnitin. This is available through the staff development Learn upon portal and can be accessed at any time.

Of course, our support doesn’t stop there. If staff have any queries about implementing their classes online next semester, or general questions about any of the tools we support, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team by emailing tel@worc.ac.uk

The easiest way to keep up to date with all of the news, guidance and support we offer, subscribe to our blog here. You can also follow us on twitter @UW_TEL

As always, check out our webpages at www.uwtel.co.uk for guidance on what tools we have to offer and how to use them.