Dear colleague,
We hope you enjoy this month’s articles.
E-Learning Winter Fayre
The ELU is running a Christmas event that we are calling a ‘Winter Fayre’ in the SCR Lounge on the afternoon of the 3rd December from 15:00 – 17:00 followed by drinks (17:00 – 1800). There will be three main presentations of 20 minutes which are interspersed with breakouts of 20 minutes where the audience can visit various small displays/talks/demos of e–learning practice around QM and explore themes raised in the central presentations. Come and join us to see how our colleagues are using Mahara e-Portfolios, mobile devices and multimedia in their teaching. Mince pies and mulled wine will be an added incentive to join us. Places are limited so reserve your place now.
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Case study – Q-Review helps a student with disability
Sue is a 2nd year student studying Law at QMUL and currently has a learning disability, which most of her friends and teachers are not aware of. In a candid discussion, Sue discusses her learning experience at QMUL and shared that the recordings have been essential to her studies as she finds that the teaching at QMUL is at a much faster pace than what she was used to. She explained that they (students) write or type as fast as they can, but it is impossible to catch everything as the lecturer goes ‘really, really fast’. Sue feels that this could be due to that fact that there is so much to cover on the syllabus, and so lecturers try to do so much in the time slot given – even if it means that the students are not able to keep up. Being able to review the lecture and pause it while flipping through the textbook is one of the benefits that Sue cites. Please read the whole interview here.
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Q-Review – Securing your lecture recordings
The newer version of Q-Review has enhanced security features. You can choose to release all your lecture recordings only via QMplus (using the Q-Review Block), thus restricting access to your recordings only to the students within your course/module. If you would like to do this then please raise a ticket on Web Helpdesk and let them know that you would like this feature enabled for your module(s).
However, please note that if you enable this feature, you won’t be able to distribute any of your recordings via email or add your lecture recordings to websites. The only option would be to add the Q-Review block in QMplus. Also, you won’t be able to make your recordings accessible/available via any other QMplus course apart from that particular module. Go to our website to see what else is new with Q-Review.
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Book a Learning Technologist
If you…
- have a teaching idea that you would like to develop further and you would like to discuss how to go about doing it
- would like to develop an existing activity (face-to-face or online) but aren’t exactly sure what might work best
- would like to overhaul how you are using a particular technology
- are developing a new module and want to embed e-learning from the beginning of your curriculum design cycle
- or would like an expert to review your use of technology with you with a view to making practical suggestions for enhancements
Then make an appointment with one of our Learning technologists now! (please login to QMplus to make your booking).
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QMplus Update
We will release a QMplus update on Tuesday 16th December, it will take place between 7:00-9:00am. Click here to see all the details of this release.
In summary the following items are being released:
- Fixes to the grades area
- Minor tweaks to the design – such as links not showing clearly, and social media buttons being removed.
- Staff Cohorts
- Ability to move around courses on the Module Overview page
There is also some outstanding design and theme development work that may be included. These are still being tested for approval, these include:
- A news ticker – to display news alerts at the top of the screen
- A recent courses link – to display the most recent courses that a user has visited (top 5 or 6)
- A Profesional Services courses advert block – to display courses such as Health and Safety, Microsoft training, Anti-Bribery training etc.
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Learning Technologist Meetings
The e-learning Unit organises the Learning Technologists meeting every month in the E-Learning Studio as a platform to share good e-learning practice across QMUL and to give you updates on other e-learning activities. During the last meeting we discussed –
- QMplus (Upgrade, Roadmap and other issues)
- Q-Review – (Rollover, Upgrade, Op-out policy and Seamless setting for sections)
- Media Server
These meetings are relevant to anybody who is involved in managing e-learning activities within their school/faculty. We rely upon input from you to ensure that the services we run fit the needs of users across the college. Please pass on this information to your departmental e-learning contact or anyone else in your school/department who you think might be interested in attending these meetings. These monthly meetings take place on Wednesdays from 15:00 – 16:00 and the upcoming dates are: 19th November, 17th December, 28th January, 25th February, 25th March, 22nd April, 20th May, 24th June, 29th July, 26th August.
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Upcoming E-Learning Courses
Please follow this link to see our regular scheduled staff development sessions. Some of our upcoming sessions are –
- Q-Review – Recording your lecture and getting it online – 21 November 2014 10.00am
- Getting started with QMplus at Whitechapel – 03 December 2014 13.00pm
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If you have any ideas or suggestions for topics you’d like us to cover or examples of good practice in e-learning you feel we should be sharing with our colleagues, please email manoj.singh@qmul.ac.uk. If you have received this as an email, please feel free to pass it on to any of your colleagues who may also be interested.
If you wish to update your subscription to receive this newsletter via the elearning–practitioners mailing list, please visit the mailing list and select Subscribe or Unsubscribe in the grey panel to the left of the page.
Best wishes,
E-Learning Unit
