CLIPP Board

Best Practice CLIPPs

We’ve released several videos featuring staff from across the University sharing best practice in teaching and learning, talking about contemporary issues, how they worked to solve these problems and improve the student experience. Here’s a playlist on Youtube or you can look at individual clips below.

• Helping students with revision by using Podcasts as a revision aid tool – Pavel Albores
• Encouraging International students to take up placements through presentations – Dashi Alpion
• Enhancing students reflective practice and personal development using Pebble Pad, a pilot study. – Nicola Bullivant
• Understanding student expectations using SERVQUAL, a series of online surveys – Nicola Bullivant
• Providing informative feedback for students by using the Grade Centre within Blackboard VLE – Professor Helen Higson
• Raising Intercultural awareness for international and home students through creative workshops – Professor Helen Higson
• Improving communication to students using SMS within the Business School Placement office – Carolyn Keenan
• Working with large groups and setting students minimally supervised group work tasks – Pete Reddy
• Professional and social networking tools to improve student networking skills – Carolina Salinas
• Working with a very large group of students and how to provide feedback and support – Dr Patrick Tissington

In addition, Aston staff can find the videos and contact details in the CLIPP module on the VLE under ‘Video CLIPPs’.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=37B97B85632243B6

Integrated Systems Europe 2010

ISE in Amsterdam is a huge show and this year, despite the absence of major players such as Sony and Panasonic, there seemed to be more to see than ever. It was hard, therefore to cover everything in a couple of days but here are some of the highlights I brought back;
With well over 70 delegates (that we knew of) from UK Universities, Education is an increasingly important sector for this show and it was interesting to see some alternative lectern and teaching room furniture solutions from Asia and the US to compare with the standard UK offer.
LEDs were everywhere and wafer thin alternatives to LCD and Plasma screens were being sold hard on their energy efficiency as well as drop dead looks.
Multi-touch panels were equally prevalent and aimed at all sectors of the market. It was interesting to see both LG and particularly Samsung specifically targeting the education market together with the more traditional sector players like Smart. Clearly these panels are going to replace interactive whiteboards within the next couple of years.
3D is the biggest emerging technology offered in naked (no glasses), passive (standard red/green throw away glasses) and active (LCD shutter glasses) flavours. The latter offered the best experience but at over £50 for a pair of glasses are unlikely to find a much of a market in education until mass domestic take up forces the price down significantly. Passive technology is still improving and could provide a valuable learning tools for anything that involved 3D modelling.
Creston had an impressive but rather scary demo of digital connectivity and switching highlighting the inevitable “analogue switch-off” by PC and hardware manufactures within the next two years. Canny converters were available elsewhere at the show which will help a stay of execution for analogue but we are all going to have to face it eventually.
Most memorable phrase from the event – “an enhanced inking experience” used to describe software that smooths the rough edges off shaky handwriting on interactive boards.

Copyright advice and information from JISC

JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) has just published three new advice documents on copyright and digital media. Copyright is a perpetually hot topic about which many people are underinformed (including myself) and so these documents should prove to be informative, illuminating, supportive and reassuring.

The documents are Copyright: An Overview, Audiovisual Copyright: FAQ and Copyright & Still Images: FAQ. There is also an invitation to contact JISCLegal should you wish to discuss legal opinion in relation to copyright matters.