RSC NewsFeed

Don’t look now but already one month of the new decade has come and gone, the economy has inched, marginally, out of recession and (tempting fate here) the worst of the winter already seems to be behind us.

Time to look forward to the spring, to this year’s JISC Conference, to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and to the ‘Rewiring Inclusion’ conference, looking at accessibility & social media on the 9^th of February.

The latest news of all three topics is waiting for you in the electronic pages of this edition of NewsFeed as well as the usual range of stunning online resources – this time including spinning globes to map out the web of your connections and a free online course in the financial markets from one of America’s finest institutions. There’s also an online percussion generator that is more than it appears to be and MyStudyBar, a comprehensive set of portable open source and freeware applications to support learners with literacy difficulties. Add to that the return of RSCtv and another bumper bundle is set to thud into your electronic mailbox.

As usual we’ve tried to include something for everyone in the mix but if there are other ingredients that we’ve somehow left out don’t be afraid to let us know using the built-in comment facility. We’d also like to hear from you if you’re doing something novel and interesting in the application of online technologies to teaching and learning. Share what you’re doing with the world.

Till then, sit back and relax and enjoy this edition of NewsFeed brought to you by your two Scottish JISC Regional Support Centres.

RSCtv
Spring and Summer Schedules
The return of the popular series of lunch-time online broadcasts created and delivered by staff from the two Scottish Regional Support Centres

JISC
Book Now for JISC Conference 2010
The theme of the 8th JISC Annual Conference is Technology at the Heart of Education and Research, and takes place in London on the 12th and 13th of April.
Sharing Information Can Beat Recession Says New Report
JISC and the British Library are calling for universities, colleges and public libraries to work together to help businesses obtain the information and knowledge they need.
Safeguarding – Meeting Your e-Safety Duties
A webcast which focuses on relevant statutory duties, areas of liability for institutions, tips on writing an e-safety policy and guidance on appropriate incident response.
DG MySpace – Latest Best of the West Case Study Added
A case study from Dumfries & Galloway College on their open source e-Portfolio solution.
Workshop: Using Digital Media in VLEs
New workshop from JISC Digital Media

Misc
Stepping Into the Future
A free half-day event at Jewel & Esk College for staff in the construction and trades curricular areas.
It is the Season for ICT Strategies
Two major ICT strategies have been announced recently, the BBC Technology Strategy and the Government ICT Strategy.
Revolver Maps
Interactive 3D visitor globes that can be placed on a website.
Catcher in the Rye Interactive Map
The New York Times have published an interesting interactive map of the journey of the book’s teenage narrator, Holden Caulfield, as moves around in Manhattan.
Winter Olympics Online Roundup
A list of online resources for those interested in the forthcoming Olympics,
Hands Symphony – Create and Share Percussion
Go online and choose a sequence of hand claps (thumps/clicks/slaps) which can be built into a set of percussive rhythms.
From Yarrow to Yale – Study the Financial Markets Online
Yale University now offers a range of courses under the title of Open Yale.
Event: 7th Enhancement Themes Conference (Bookings Open)
Booking is now open for the free 7th annual Enhancement Theme conference on ‘Graduates for the 21st Century: Integrating the Enhancement Themes’
Introducing the Apple iPad: Revolutionary?
Apple introduces its new tablet device. The iPad

Google News
New Chrome Extension Helps Maintain Focus + More Waves
A new guide for Google Wave and an interesting extension for the Chrome browser to limit your surfing time.
OU Signs up for Google Apps – 200k Students join the Cloud
As well as email, students will have access to Google’s other services including contacts, calendar, instant messaging and website creation.
Google Reader – Follow Changes to any Website
Google’s web-based service now allows you to follow changes to websites without an RSS feed.

Accessibility
RoboBraille wins BETT Award
RoboBraille offers a unique solution to the problem of converting text into Braille and mp3 without the having to be an expert in alternative formats
MyStudyBar
A comprehensive set of portable open source and freeware applications to support learners with literacy difficulties.
Rewiring Inclusion Conference
Organised by the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and JISC TechDis, the conference takes place on February 9th 2010 in Nottingham.
Lexdis – Helping you Make Reasonable Adjustments
Providing a wealth of guidance and advice for those who deliver learning and teaching, create e-learning resources or who support learners.
Creating Accessible Environments
Resources available to offer online access for websites and VLE’s allowing support for symbol readers online.

Snippets
Cold Snaps – February Snippets
Interactive games on a range of science topics; websites for students to create original artwork; digital moviemaking and a free 3-D online floor-plan designer.

Last week Widgit delivered an excellent workshop at the RSC SW Scotland which was attended by a wide range of delegates from colleges and universities (web developers, equality managers, information officers, systems librarians, VLE and communication coordinators and supported learning staff). Widgit are one of many software and hardware developers who produce and promote the use of symbols in learning and communication. They offer software and services to aid understanding of the English language and equal access to text regardless of literacy levels.

Now resources are available to offer online access for websites and VLE’s allowing support for symbol readers online. Widgit Point and Insite, both software plug-ins for online resources which allow reader to simply point with their mouse to a word they find difficult and a Widgit Symbol will appear to help them read it. Used along with TextHELP BrowseALOUD this offers a significant improvement to the readability of websites.

Follow these links to Moodle using Widgit Symbols and a case study of a school offering symbol support in its Moodle VLE to find out more.

Accessibility experts from the world of social media will be helping those in education to make technology adapt and enable people to use it, rather than the other way around, at an event in Nottingham called Rewiring Inclusion on 8 and 9 February 2010.

Rewiring Inclusion: Strategies, tools and techniques to promote barrier-free learning is organised by the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and JISC TechDis and will take place on February 9th 2010.

Guest speakers include Julian Harty from Google and Artur Ortega, the Accessibility Evangelist for Yahoo! Europe.

The closing date for conference bookings is 2 February 2010.

Download the full conference programme

Book your place online

Revolver Maps are interactive 3D visitor globes that can be placed on a website. Every visitor leaves an eternal dot on the globe, recent visitors are tagged by the labels showing flag, city and state.

Set up your own globe here

Modelling Practical Skills in Virtual Reality

Date: Friday, 5th March
Venue: Jewel & Esk College (Midlothian Campus)

This free half-day event is aimed at staff interested in innovation, simulation, and the feasibility of using such technology for learning. Examples will be drawn from the subject area of building, construction and trades.

The event brings together speakers from the SQA, Skills2Learn and VIBE – three organisations which are currently exploring the use of virtual reality to enhance teaching, learning and assessment. There’s also a chance to hear from the College of North West London who have been using the technology with their students.

Starting off with lunch (available through kind sponsorship by Skills2Learn) where you’ll have the chance to meet fellow delegates and talk with presenters, the day will consist of presentations and hands-on sessions that will allow you to see for yourself how students can benefit from the technology on offer..

Hosted at the new Jewel & Esk College Midlothian Campus, spaces are limited (40), so make sure to register early! Parking is available at the college, as well as good public transport links.

Click here to register your place

The SQA have been offering games-based assessment since last August in selected Skills for Work courses, with more to follow in coming years. This kind of assessment allows candidates to enter a simulated workplace environment and perform simulated tasks to demonstrate key competencies required.

Skills2Learn has worked with partners to provide practical training and assessments in areas such as plumbing, gas plumbing, solar energy, construction, and renewable energy. Their innovative e-Learning programmes are fully interactive, and make full use of audio, video, text and 2D/3D environments.

The SSAT and University of Salford have developed VIBE – 3D virtual worlds with a range of teaching resources for a range of subjects including,  engineering and construction & the built environment. The VIBE editor allows practitioners to supplement existing tasks, resources and content with their own material.

The full programme, including details of all of the presentations and hands-on sessions, will be available by the end of the week.

Programme

Click here to register your place

Friday, 5 March 2009

Aim

This one day workshop focuses on the effective use of digital media in presentations and online usage including the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). During the workshop attendees will discover how to improve the design of their presentation resources, know when and how digital media can be used to enhance learning materials and be able to successfully embed material in the VLE.

Audience

Anybody wanting to discover ways to improve the design of online materials and include multimedia resources within a VLE.

Content

• Use of digital media for teaching and learning
• Designing better presentations using software such as PowerPoint
• Designing for interaction
• Effective use of audio and video resources for teaching and learning
• Embedding media in your VLE or online environment
• IPR issues

Hosted by JISC RSC Scotland N&E, Edinburgh

Cost: £150

Book a place

A case study from Dumfries and Galloway College is the latest of a collection of 14 local case studies you can access from the RSC Scotland south & west’s website. A mix of articles, podcasts and video case studies, this resources is designed to share effective, practical and innovative practice around the SW region and among the wider community.

Access the MySpace case study

Access the Best of the West case studies

February also sees the return of the popular series of lunch-time broadcasts created and delivered by staff from the two Scottish Regional Support Centres. Sessions start at 12:30, just click on the titles to book a place!

Developed by European researchers, the RoboBraille service offers a unique solution to the problem of converting text into Braille and mp3 without the having to be an expert in alternative formats – in fact it requires no more skill than the ability to send an e-mail.

Essentially it is a free, e-mail-based service that translates text into Braille and audio recordings and is helping to bridge the information gap for blind and visually impaired people, giving them quick and easy access to books, news articles and web pages.

Users simply attach a text they want to translate in one of several recognised formats including plain text and Word documents to HTML and XML. They then e-mail the text to the service’s server. Software agents then automatically begin the process of translating the text into Braille or converting it into an audio recording through a text-to-speech engine.

Recently RoboBraille have been the proud recipients of two major awards.  Firstly the Access-IT Award@Learning Award in September 2009 and more recently the BETT Award for Special Educational Needs Solutions in partnership with the Royal National College for the Blind (RNBC).

For more information visit the RoboBraille website.

Last year Newsfeed featured the LexDis website and it is certainly a website well worth revisiting, especially since there have been some useful additions to make this resource even more user friendly.  Lexdis provides a wealth of guidance and advice for staff across FE and HE institutions who deliver learning and teaching, create e-learning resources or who support learners.

Find out how students work smarter!

Since 2007 LexDis have been working with students at Southampton University to identify successful technology based solutions and strategies that may help students and staff who (like the rest of us), work and learn in a world of complex computer based interactions introduced by e-learning and online social networks. 

Lexdis explores the experiences of disabled students when working in e-learning situations, coping with a wide range of teaching and learning materials, and the resultant resources and now provided on this website.  It is hoped that the Learner Voice is seen as central to the project to provide an insight into how students are managing their online experiences.

Supporting Staff Needs Too!

The project is designed to provide relevant information for students, managers, teachers, learning technologies and support staff.  A significant element of the Lexdis resource is based on learning from others and features many strategies adopted by students however is also a fantastic tool for staff who have additional support needs, and may inspire you to look at how others have found solutions and created reasonable adjustments to ensure they work more effectively and overcome barriers.

Take the Lexdis Tour

The team at Lexdis have make it even easier for us now to maximise the use of their wonderful resource by creating a video tour which comprises of screen shots taken on a a journey through the Lexdis website with commentary.                 Enjoy the ride!

www.lexdis.org.uk/tour