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‘Using Clicker Systems for Classroom Interactivity’ – Wednesday 2nd May at 1PM
The next session in the Emerging Technologies staff development series will be an overview of using Clicker systems (such as TurningPoint and Optivote) with your students.Clickers are also known as Audience Response systems and are used in a variety of ways, with aims such as increasing engagement, allowing students to answer questions in class anonymously, to check understanding of concepts, or to start group discussions.
The session will run on Wednesday 2nd May between 1 and 2pm, in the LINC Development Room (2nd floor of the LINC building) and you can book by going to the session page on the staff development pages.
We’ll look at what Clickers are, the reasons they are used in Higher Education, and how you can use them with your students.
Peter Beaumont
Learning Technologist
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IMPORTANT Information for Blackboard CE8 Users
Staff and Student access to courses within Blackboard CE8 will end on 30th June 2012; 70 days from today. By this time all users will be working in courses within Blackboard version 9.1.
Staff are advised to ensure they have planned for the end of CE8.
Have you got copies of your content? Have you created any access reports on your students’ engagement that you might need? If you still need to download/transfer content from CE8 course areas into Learning Edge Blackboard 9.1 you should do so as soon as possible.
Before June 30th
Access to CE8 courses is available to areas that have requested and been granted extended access.The archive process for CE8 courses began in January 2012 and all areas (except those with permission for extended access) were made unavailable. If you didn’t request extended access but realise you now require access to an old CE8 course area, this can be accommodated – please email [email protected] providing full details of the course that needs to be restored.
Beyond June 30th
Access to CE8 courses will not be available after June 30th 2012.
This end date is unfortunately non-negotiable.All CE8 courses will be archived in the summer. Archived courses will be removed from the system and stored in a non-public deep archive for a maximum of 1 year. Course data may be retrieved from the archive only in exceptional circumstances.
A countdown clock has been added to the systems status table on the Learning Edge login page to help you plan for the end of access to Blackboard CE8.
Meg Juss
Learning Technology Development Divisional CoordinatorIf you have any questions please speak to your Learning Technology Development contact or email [email protected].
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Creating Accessible Content
Creating accessible content is an important aspect to consider when putting content in Learning Edge. It is important to make sure information is easily available to everybody.
By using a simple tool from the Web to create content and using this in Learning Edge it can transform your course pages.
The tool can be found on the Web and it is a simple HTML Editor Tool which allows you to customise your content and differentiate content using colour schemes.
There are many HTML tools available but the one that has proved to be the most useful is shown below
Example of content created using the HTML tool
Colour coding the text allows the students to differentiate different areas such as readings, links to audio files, videos, discussions etc. and makes it easy for them to access the information.
Readings are linked directly to the library catalogue for easy access and by using the Learning Module option from Learning Edge this allows for easy navigation by providing a contents area.
If you would like to find out more information on how you could use to this tool to enhance your course pages contact the Learning Development Team on 01695 650 754 (or internal 7754)
Irfan Mulla
Learning Technologist
