Welcome to our first newsletter of 2022.
The E-Learning Unit is becoming the Technology Enhanced Learning Team!
Following the organisational changes in the ELU last year, it has been decided to change our name to the Technology Enhanced Learning Team, or TELT. This better reflects the terminology used across the sector, and will help position the TELT for a post-pandemic context in which the gap between “Learning” and “E-Learning” is narrowing. The roles of the TELT and the members of the team are not affected by this change, although titles, websites and reference to the team will be updated to reflect the change.
We have also moved from our office in Scape at Mile End to join our colleagues in IT Services and other Professional Services departments in the new DeptW building located half way between our Mile End and Whitechapel campuses.
Welcome to our newest Learning Technologist
The Technology Enhanced Learning Team welcomes Ryan Bishop to the team. Ryan joins us as a Learning Technologist, coming all the way from Australia, where his most recent post was as the Head of Curriculum Teaching and Learning at the Brisbane School of Distance Education. His first day with the team was Monday, 24th January, and he joins Alysa, Annette and Raqib in our Training and Support strand, where he will be supervising the Support team as well as assisting with our Staff and Student Development programmes.
Let’s meet…
With the growing importance of digital education we also have a growing network of staff across the organisation in roles supporting the use of technology in teaching and learning. In this new regular feature in our newsletter we meet one of those members of staff and find out a little more about who they are and what the priorities are in their part of the organisation. We hope this will highlight the great staff we have and the range of work that is going on across the University.
This month we meet Jonathan Anegbeh, Learning Technologist, Web and Computer Support Officer in the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences. Jonathan tells us a bit about himself and some of the projects he’s working on in his School.
New videos for Zoom and Teams
Did you know that there’s a video channel on QMplus Media specifically dedicated to learning more about the technologies we support?
Over the last few weeks we’ve added new videos to help support you in the use of Zoom and Microsoft Teams. You can find these and all the other videos on use of QMplus, Q-Review, Assessment and feedback, digital accessiblity and more on the E-Learning Video Guides channel
New videos are added regularly, so keep checking.
If you’ve any suggestions about videos you’d like to see, please send your suggestions to elearning@qmul.ac.uk.
A new self-directed study area for QMplus Assignments
We have created a new area on QMplus for to support users with getting started on Assignments. This course area is designed to replace the basic training sessions we have previously been running on Assignments and includes video and text guides created by the TELT as well as links to external resources.
The course covers the basics, such as the options for setting up an assignment, using the grading and feedback tools and using Turnitin.
The course area, which complements the self-directed study area for QMplus Quizzes, is available now and can be accessed on QMplus here. Keep a look out for an Advanced Assignments course work in future.
Choose your own thumbnail for Q-Review videos
A Q-Review thumbnail image is what you see before you click to play the video. Historically, the image used has been a random selection from the very first portion of the recording. For recordings made in a teaching space, this is often an empty room, or just the instructor standing at the front, waiting to begin. And all of the same course’s recordings may have nearly identical images shown.
To address this, you can now select any moment from the video to use as the thumbnail and preview image. For staff, this can help to identify which recording is which, and which one you may want to view, or add to a collection, or post somewhere for students. It also allows you to choose a more enticing image for your viewers.
See our Choose your own image in Q-Review article for more information on how to do this.
P.S. You can also choose thumbnails for videos on QMplus Media/Kaltura.
Making use of the QMplus Media/Kaltura video player for Zoom recordings
Recordings made in the cloud in Zoom are automatically transferred to QMplus Media (Kaltura). Once there, the full features of Kaltura are available.
If you choose the appropriate settings when recording in Zoom, your recording will appear in the Kaltura player taking advantage of the flexible picture-in-picture format. Your viewers will have the ability to customise the playback of your video including making the video of the speaker larger or positioning it differently on the screen or choosing to focus on either the presentation or the speaker.
See our Zoom recordings and the QMplus Media player for more information on how to do this.
Training and Support
We offer support for the following technologies:
- QMplus (Moodle and Mahara) – the online learning environment
- Q-Review (Echo360) – lecture capture and recording system
- Blackboard Collaborate, Zoom and Microsoft Teams for teaching
- Turnitin – originality and plagiarism detection
- QMplus Media (Kaltura) – video recording, storage and streaming
How can we help?
There are a number of ways that you can get help with our learning technologies. Apart from raising a ticket on the IT Service Desk you can also drop in to see us online or Book a Learning Technologist.
- Our drop-in sessions are online every Tuesday and Thursday, from 1-2pm. There’s no need to tell us you’re coming; just drop-in via the Blackboard Collaborate link on our E-Learning Online Support area on QMplus.
- Should your inquiry require more discussion, you can Book a Learning Technologist via the BALT QMplus page . You can book a session of up to an hour to discuss your ideas and issues with one of our Learning Technologists.
We also have a number of self-directed training areas online for staff to proceed through at their own pace:
- Getting started with QMplus
- Getting started with QMplus Quizzes
- Digital Accessibility
- Sensus Access
Do you have a training need or need extra help?
Please complete our training survey and let us know (takes less than 1 minute).
What are you asking the Helpdesk?
The top queries in January were related to providing access to QMplus course areas. releasing greades, finding users in QMplus hub and accessing Online Surveys, …Read more in our common support questions article.
