Digifest report
Day 1
Plenary session
explore what a digital revolution of learning and teaching means, and set the scene for how, through Digifest, we can make that revolution a reality. IDL
Some of the questions and answers from the plenary session. I thought that it was interesting the reflection that you can not use data on its own you will always need a person to interpreted the data and take decisions. DV
How does technology-enhanced learning contribute to teaching excellence? DV
Books:
Technology Enhanced Learning in Higher Education (John Branch, Paul Bartholomew, Claus Nygaard)
Rethinking Learning for a Digital Age (Rhona Sharpe, Helen Beetham, Sara de Freitas)
Idea that TEL should be based in Persons rather than Technology, should be seen as a social process.
What aspects can be enhanced? Speaker was focusing in :
- Teaching quality
- Learning Environment
- Student Outcomes
All enhancement requires evidence of effectiveness. Another discussion is how can we produce those evidences.
TEL strategies should include:
- Convince colleagues of the pedagogic value of TEL and support them to create new pedagogies
- Build confidence in using technology
- Encourage exploration and experimentation
3m apprenticeship target: how technology can support delivering at scale IDL
This session had a lot to do with analytics and reporting .and we were able to feed directly into JISCs project and input into future activity to develop tools to support apprenticeship delivery, tracking and reporting at scale
In terms of scale Dudley College have 3000 apprentices
Tools used
https://www.tiki-toki.com
http://www.covalentsoftware.com/
http://www.boardpad.com/
https://www.smartassessor.co.uk/SAAssessor/Account/
https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/get-involved/what-would-truly-digital-apprenticeships-look-like
The JISC Discover Tool NH DV
More informatin on this link: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/building-digital-capability
They introduce the survey beta tool that evaluates the digital capacity based in 6 areas. This tool produces results on an individual basis creating a graph where you can see where your gaps are and could be useful to check if a strategy has been successful comparing those results every year.
It was interesting to see parts of the functionality that they are working on where you can compare different institutions or different areas of your department (this functionality is not ready yet). I thought that the comparison tool was really useful as you can find gaps in digital capacity that other members of the department can help with.
I will definitely have a go at doing the survey and maybe we can compare our results if more people is interested. DV
Loving the alien – robots and AI in education (slides available) SW
Robots and AI – looking at what’s being used and the future uses. Interesting more than useful but good to see the advancements
Plenary and keynote from Geoff Mulgan IDL
Flipped laboratory teaching incorporating online assessments IDL / SW
https://www.learnsci.co.uk/
Will be talking to them about some engineering labs
Virtual lab simulations in practice – what do students gain? SW
Dancing from a distance, two halves of a whole: international collaboration in teaching and learning through videoconferencing SW
Flipping, pedagogies, mobile and more: case studies from the Hull Digital Technologies Network IDL
Two case studies talking about the implementation of attendance monitoring. Both cases were based on student card technology so students had to swap their card or put them close to a beacon that is just at the entrance of the room. One of the solution was done in house as a project lead by the computer department with the help of students.
Only major problem was finding enough data points to connect those boxes and they had two developers working on the code to make the interface possible.
Digital technology is fundamentally changing learning and teaching in higher education Debate IDL / NH / SW / HC / DV
Day 2
Social Media DV
Interesting session by a very good speaker (Eric Stoller) on good uses of social media and how twitter could be used as an example in extending communication in the HE. I like the idea of having a student in charge of the social media for a day and using twitter as a platform to share their views.
More Institutions are introducing twitter as part of their CPD programme.
JISC Business Intelligence System NH
Doing better things: transforming how we use Turnitin for learning IDL / SW / DV / HC
Colour coded feedback – traffic light system – like we tried did at Law
Video links in the quickmark comments
Audio feedback with background music (new one on me)
Idea – show students the comments and feedback then let them work out the mark (could be done as peer exercise I guess)
http://turnitin.com/en_us/community/educator-stories/item/engaging-learners-with-online-feedback
I found this a very useful session.
Interesting the way that they collect the feedback from students with sessions like guess your mark where they need to read the feedback and see if they can guess their mark, it makes them understand better the feedback given and the improvements that they need to do to have a better mark. DV
Idea that all feedback should provide instructions on how to improve, is not enough on saying what they have done wrong students should see what they need to do to improve and have a better mark next time. DV
What does a next generation learning environment look like? Debate IDL
Ultimately I came out feeling a little subdued. Like we are getting nowhere fast .
Samsung: innovation in education – E Board IDL / SW / AT / DV /HC
Nice demo, however nothing that Prowise don’t already do, and the software on prowise works better in my opinion
Ditto from me though it may be a cheaper solution at £2K v £4K but the prowise hardware looks better as does the collaborative software IDL
A Google-powered classroom IDL /AT
I thought that she was an excellent presenter (Natalie Mcguinness) and lots of food for thought about where we use google suite v where we use VLE . She certainly was an advocate
Google Classroom still very limited compared to the fully fledged VLE but….
Closing plenary and keynote from Lauren Sager Weinstein IDL / AT / DV
Fascinating amount of data they work from at TFL..learning analytics on steroids
It was really interesting how they can connect information from different methods of transport, the traffic lights and cameras that are reading car plates. Also the idea that some of these information is going to be accessible by API for other companies to produce apps or for students to play with it and maybe understand the relation between data or how to show these data in ways that are useful. DV
Stalls visited
Blackboard IDL
Just went for the freebie but no ticket for Milan
Cerebriam SW
Video cameras for lecture capture / broadcast that move with the lecturer – works on full body recognition – like the swivl but enhanced
I had the impression of being very similar to swivl but with the capacity to broadcast and being more compact. DV
Clickview IDL
We already have echo and kaltura but i could see some use for the type of material we use with the apprentices flipped learning so open mind still
HoloLens SW
AR layered over your environment so you can see around you as well – alternative to fully submersive VR
Labster SW
Pre lab simulations, pre lab testing etc
https://www.labster.com/about/
Solution Path SW
Analytics that sync to VLE, and include swipe card attendance monitoring
Turnitin IDL
Nothing new to report from Turnitin. Some changes to the roadmap . Waiting for an update on that

