Making CPD fun - the 12 apps of Christmas

I've just signed up for this initiative - the 12 apps of Christmas - offered by the Learning, Teaching and Technology Centre at DIT, and facilitated by Frances Boylan. Based on a similar programme led by Chris Rowell at Regent's University London, this looks like a fun approach to continuous professional development and kudos to the LTTC team for implementing it.

The video on the site gives an overview of what is going to happen. Starting on Monday 1st December, and continuing for 12 working days until Tuesday 16th December, an app will be considered each day. According to the video, there will be a short demonstration of how the app might be used in a teaching and learning context, and there will be an optional exercise.

Like an advent calendar, there is a sense of excitement about what might be behind the next door!

Already there is an active twitter stream using the hashtag #12appsDIT, and numbers signed up for the event have reached 260. No doubt there'll be many more by the start of the course.

Welcome participant no 260! :) Roll on #12appsDIT on Dec 1st!
— Frances Boylan (@boylanfm) November 14, 2014

I'm hoping to find out about some new, useful apps and to learn more about embedding them in teaching practice.

12 Days. 12 Apps. 10 minutes per day.


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Blackboard Education on Tour comes to Dublin

This is a brief report from the Blackboard Education on Tour event which took place in Dublin last week, on Tuesday 4th November. First of all, I'd like to mention that the Irish user community really appreciated that Blackboard included Dublin in its tour, making it so much easier for us to attend. It was good to see such a great turnout from various Irish Institutions.

The programme for the day included 2 tracks: Product Discussion and Professional Development. I'd have loved to get to some of the Professional Development sessions, but because I was the only one from NUIG, I decided to stay in the Product Discussion track.

The event was opened by Demetra Katsifli who welcomed everybody to the event and spoke about Blackboard's development priorities for the EMEA region and some specific examples of where Irish/UK requests have influenced product design. The big one here is delegated and anonymous marking, which is starting to be addressed in the April 2014 release. She also mentioned the particular problem that we've experienced, the Irish language character set and how it works in Collaborate (hint: not very well). The good news is that they've fixed the issue for á, but we're still waiting for ú to be addressed.

Leading the evolution of learning delivery

Demetra then introduced the keynote for the morning, Brad Koch, Vice President for Product Management. Brad spoke about Blackboard's Vision (a world inspired to learn) and Mission (to reimagine education). His talk was very much in keeping with the message that Blackboard has been developing and communicating for the last year, and clearly influenced by Jay Bhatt, Blackboard CEO. See my notes from BbWorld14 and the Blackboard Teaching and Learning conference in Dublin earlier this year for more on this message.



Rather than go through each session in detail, I'll give an overview from my notes on each development/innovation.

Blackboard Learn SaaS
During his keynote at BbWorld14, Jay Bhatt announced that Blackboard is moving into the cloud. This means that Blackboard Learn can be implemented on one of three platforms: self hosted; managed hosted (in Amsterdam for us); or in the cloud SaaS. For cloud installations there are some specific advantages, including zero downtime for upgrades, scalable resource allocation, and protection from Denial of Services attacks. It appears that all managed hosted environments will eventually be moved into the cloud, but it's not clear what are the cost implications for an institution.

Support for MOOCs
Blackboard's open education platform openeducation.blackboard.com is now available and can be used at no charge by any Blackboard institution. It uses the SaaS platform. An institution can request an institutional account through their client manager.

Mobile
A new Mobile Learn for students is in design and will be available for iOS, Android and Windows. Functionality for instructors has never been supported in the app, so two separate apps will be developed, one for students and one for instructors, reflecting different workflows.

Blackboard's first app aimed at instructors is now available and works with any Learn installation running the April 2014 release (or higher). It is currently being localised from the US version to one that is more consistent with Irish/UK terminology.

The app (available for iPad only) will allow instructors to grade student assignment submissions using rubrics, and facilitates voice and video feedback. It also includes an individual risk profile for each student, which can be customised. Students at risk can be emailed from directly within the app.

Unfortunately it requires a data connection. Otherwise it looks like it will be a useful tool for instructors, as long as they have decent wifi.

November Release
On Tuesday we were told that the November 2014 release was due to launch next day (this was the October 2014 release). While the April 2014 release fixed about 400 bugs in the system, the November release addresses a further 560 bugs.

A roadmap for the March 2015 release will be available in December.

Collaborate
A new Collaborate app will be released at the end of the month and will include live video, web tour, private and group chat.

A new, Java-free, Collaborate experience will be in-browser, making it easier for students and instructors to join a Collaborate session. We should expect improved quality in both audio and video.

The new Collaborate experience will be available in the later half of 2015, though there may be some early availability to some institutions in Q2.

Blackboard Offline
This seems to be a facility that will allow students download their course content in context for easy access when not connected to a network. This could be useful for students in transit.

A building block will be released later this month. For students it requires a one-time download of an app to a laptop.

ULTRA - the new user experience
I first heard about the new user experience, under development, a year ago at the Eduction on Tour event in London, 2013. Stephanie Weeks gave a presentation at the time, and she gave another presentation on the same topic (though further developed) at BbWorld14.

In Dublin, we had some more demonstrations of the new design, which does look very nice indeed, and quite different from the current, now-outdated, user experience. The new "restful" API involves a much simpler navigation, with easy transition from the top level into courses and elements within courses. There will be a simple x button to close windows - instead of the dreaded OK button hidden at the bottom right of pages in the current design.

Within a course, there is a search function! There is a simple lock icon on a main course page to indicate (and toggle) availability. The email system will be properly integrated so that replies will come back into Blackboard.

All of this will take some getting used to, for many of our users. And so it was a relief to know that the new interface can be enabled at institution or course level. An instructor will be able to decide if and when they want to convert older courses.

However, it will be some time before this lovely new experience can be available to us all. It will be available for pilots and first tries towards the end of 2015. We should not expect to be fully migrated as an institution for 2 or 3 years!

The new interface requires the SaaS infrastructure.

Analytics

There was a session on the Blackboard Analytics product, which was described as more of a service than a system. This requires integration with various data sources on campus and produces analytics and reports at the student, instructor, course, sys admin and strategic level.

My impression is that it looks great at a strategic, institutional level. But it may be too much for individuals, students and staff.

Integrated Packages??

During his keynote, Brad mentioned that Blackboard will not be selling the Content and Community systems separately in the future, echoing the comment made by Jay Bhatt in Las Vegas at BbWorld14. It is still not clear what this means for costs for licensing institutions. The question was raised last week, but the response was very vague - in 2015 Blackboard will look at the "bundling situation".

This "brief report" has gone on a little longer than intended, and I haven't mentioned the newly resurrected Irish Blackboard User Group (BUG). I'll leave that for another day.


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Editathon on Vicipéid and Wikipedia

An Editathon on Vicipéid (the Irish-language wikipedia) and Wikipedia is being organised on Friday, November 7 from 09:00 to 13:00 in the computer lab in the S Block, NUI Galway. This collaboration was initally proposed by members of the Wikimedia Ireland Community and three of their members (Shannon Eichelberger, Eugene Eichelberger and Oliver Moran) have kindly offered to supervise the training and support of participants.

The aim is to highlight the value of An Vicipéid/Wikipedia as a learning resource and to improve its quality by encouraging Irish traslation students to participate in the event. The event’s theme is The National Monuments of Ireland. This was chosen on account of the Wikimedia Ireland Community’s previous collaboration with the international photography competition Wiki Loves Monuments.

Members of staff from Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge will also be present during the event both to support students and participate themselves. Training and support will be provided throughout the morning and certificates recognising their participation will be presented to all students. Refreshments will be available during the event.

There are 20 workstations in the lab and therefore 20 official places at the event. 8 places are being reserved for MA students taking Irish translation modules. The remaining 12 places are available to other students or interested members of staff.

Schedule:
09:00 – 09:15 Welcoming Address from Dónall Ó Braonáin, Príomhfheidhmeannach an Acadaimh
09:15 – 10:15 Initial Training
10:15 – 10:30 Tea/Coffee in Room 106, Áras na Gaeilge
10:30 – 13:00 Editing your choice of page on the theme of The National Monuments of Ireland
Please note: If you have appointments/classes during the morning, please call in for any part of the Editathon - even if you miss the training (support will be available throughout the morning)

Preparation
1.    To assist in the smooth running of the Editathon, you are asked to reserve a place by ordering a ticket (Ticéad MA for MA students or Ticéad Mac Léinn/Ball Foirne for all other participants)

Please note: As places are limited, you are encouraged to bring your own laptop and connect via WiFi. In this case, there is no need to order a ticket – please just show up when you can.

2.    You are also asked to create a Vicipéid/Wikipedia account in advance at http://ga.wikipedia.org and if possible, choose a national monument that you wish to work on and register your interest at
o    here  (Gaeilge)
o    or here  (English)

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Wikipedia Belongs in Education

St Leonard's Hall

The EduWiki 2014 event was held on Friday 31st October in the stunning St Leonard's Hall at the University of Edinburgh. Ever since I heard Toni Sant (Education Organiser with wikimedia UK) speak at the International Integrity and Plagiarism Conference (see previous post), which led me to join the Wikimedia Ireland Community working group, I have been fascinated at the potential of using Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects) to support student development in higher education. So, I was thrilled to be at the one day event in Edinburgh to find out more about the Wikimedia UK education projects.

This was always going to be a different crowd from my usual conference network, and there wasn't much tweeting in advance of the event, so I was a little nervous when I turned up at the social event on the evening before the conference. I needn't have worried, the small group that had gathered were as welcoming as could be, including a nacho-eating dog, and several wikipedians. A collection of tweets from the conference and the lead-up was captured using storify by Brian Kelly, who spoke at the event.

Floor Koudijs: Why Wikipedia is great for students

The event itself was opened the next morning by Peter McColl, Rector at the University of Edinburgh, and followed by a presentation from Floor Koudijs from the Wikipedia Education Program at the Wikimedia Foundation.  Her message was a simple one: Wikipedia belongs in Education. Using Wikipedia in the classroom, students will start as readers, but they are future contributors. There followed some discussion about academic staff attitudes to Wikipedia, where it is often not seen as a valid resource. But even academics will use it as a starting point for research, so the suggestion was: instead of fighting it, why not embrace it?

Wikimedia in Education

During the morning, we heard from a number of interesting speakers, including Wikimedians in Residence at various UK institutions including JISC, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the National Library of Scotland. Of particular interest to me was a presentation from Marc Haynes, former Wikipedian in Residence at Coleg Cymraeg, Wales, which enables teaching through Welsh in the universities in Wales. Marc described his role: working with academics across Welsh universities, training them in wiki editing, sourcing content that could be shared under a suitable Creative Commons licence, and building up content on the Welsh Wicipedia. Since NUIG has a particular responsibility to the Irish language, there would seem to be opportunities to do something similar for Vicipéid, the Irish language wiki. 

Also of immediate interst to me was a very accessible presentation from Martin Poulter, former Wikimedia ambassador at JISC. Martin spoke about his approach to academic staff development around using Wikipedia in education: a Wikipedia comprehension exercise. Rather than starting with how to edit, he demonstrated an approach which highlights academic qualities of Wikimedia articles - the quality scale, citation guidelines, peer review, authorship, collaboration, cultural differences and opportunities for translation projects. Coming at this from the angle of supporting academic integrity, rather than a focus on the technology, is a fantastic approach and one that I hope to use in the future. 

A presentation from Greg Singh, lecturer at the University of Stirling, showed Wikimedia projects in action. I was particularly impressed by the WikiBooks project Digital Media and Culture Yearbook 2014, where students worked in 12 groups of 6, to collaboratively produce an open publication. Marks were awarded for content, understanding and engagement. Student feedback was almost all overwhelmingly positive (11 out of 12 groups).

Beginners Workshop for New Campus Ambassadors and Educators

Instructor Basics

In the afternoon I attended the workshop delivered by Toni Sant and Martin Poulter  for people who are getting started, or thinking of getting started, with Wikipedia in their own institutions. The first part of this was based on the excellent Instructor Basics: How to Use Wikipedia as a Teaching Tool publication. Based on 5 key policies (free content, reliable sources, neutral point of view, notability, good faith), we were led to consider different types of student assignments that can be used to help achieve various learning outcomes. 

Rather than create a new Wikipedia article, which could be quickly removed due to lack of "notability", we were encouraged to think about: translating an article (useful for building up content on Vicipéid, for example); copy editing to improve the grammar or readability of an article; uploading illustrations to Wikimedia Commons on a particular topic or theme; adding new content to an existing article; using Wikidata as the basis of an assignment. Wikipedia also has a number of sister projects that could be used as the basis of students work: Commons, Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wiktionary...

At all times, the importance of interacting with the existing Wikimedia community was stressed, through writing messages on a user's talk page or on an article's talk page. This allows a student to practice skills in collaboration, not just with their classmates, but with a whole world of volunteer editors. 

Of course, students are likely to make mistakes when it comes to Wikipedia etiquette and although we were assured that the majority of Wikipedians will be supportive of fledgling editors, there are also stories of less than helpful behaviours. To support students and educators, we were introduced to the Wikipedia Education Extension which allows educators to register their institution and courses, and within this, identify clearly which articles students may be working on.

There is an impressive amount of online training for educators and for students, and my next step is to become a Campus Ambassador so that I can start to roll out projects at NUI, Galway.

WikiProject Ireland/NUIG National Monuments Editathon Nov 2014 

As a first step, I'm really excited that we are hosting our first An Vicipéid/Wikipedia Editathon this Friday!

Organised by Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge, CELT and the Wikimedia Ireland Community, the aim is to highlight the value of An Vicipéid/Wikipedia as a learning resource and to improve its quality by encouraging Irish traslation students to participate in the event. The event’s theme is The National Monuments of Ireland. This was chosen on account of the Wikimedia Ireland Community’s previous collaboration with the international photography competition Wiki Loves Monuments.

For more information see the event invitation.

No doubt you'll be hearing more about Wikipedia projects at NUIG soon!

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