Moodle mootings

RSC WM customised Moodle theme

A few notes and resources for those Moodlers out there in e-learning land.

Firstly you will see from the image above we've been playing around with some themes for our Moodle.  We've (Colleen our IT guru) managed to combine the simplicity of the custom corners theme with the snazzy icon set from the chamelon theme.  Simples!?  So for those of you who want a quick win to pep up you tired looking Moodle, go for a new theme.  Very little "tweeking"  involved.  Dload free themes from http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6552

• Still on the subject of themes, we also considered the flex page theme (free) from Moodlerooms.  This offers quite a significant change in the look of "course" formats.  Again, useful to revamp the normal topic or weekly view.  Access a useful tutorial on using Flex page here : http://michaelpenney.blogspot.com/2008/07/presenting-google-docs-inside-of.html
  

• I was passed this from our accessibility advisor. An excellent report advising the do’s and don’ts for visual impaired and blind users, for Moodle please keep this in mind when creating style sheets or content http://randall.test.opensourcery.com/clients/cannect/
  
  
• And this webinar (2nd half) covers innovate use of Moodle in the South West: link to the recording is on their website here:   http://www.rsc-south-west.ac.uk/index.php?p=11
  
  
  
• These links will be added to our Moodle wiki page which hosts many other useful Moodle resources: http://wiki.rscwmsystems.org.uk/index.php/Moodle 

• Finally.... the next UK Moodle Moot is April 14th - 15th in London . go to http://moodlemoot.org/ for full details. I attended one of thes a few years ago. They're well worth attending to get the lastest Moodley news.
  

JISC online conference 2009

I've just been into the first day of the conference. Very interesting keynotes, and discussions taking place.  Plus there's a "have a go" area full of useful resources and demonstrations.  Thought I'd share some of those with you;

• The EVOLUTION project - reusable materials
  
  

The JISC funded EVOLUTION project is an Open Educational Resources project that is disaggregating existing materials so they may be re-used and re-purposedfor different contexts or pedagogies. Click here to listen to a talk about the project and the materials available. If you would like to download the materials for review than please register to use the materials on our repository at www.employability.org.uk. Open to UK HE only!

•  LexDis - student participation, issues and strategies

This project, with the help of students, explored successful 'e-skills' and supporting strategies, including the use of assistive technologies introduced by e-learning and Web 2.0 type services such as blogs, wikis, social networks and mobile technologies. The outcome has been the development of an online database with student strategies, explanations about the technologies used and a series of one page guides with print versions. The latter have been provided to encourage staff to develop accessible teaching and learning materials. Some link to the work of JISC TechDis Accessibility essentials and all have links to further resources.

• The Design Studio: a curriculum design and delivery toolkit
  
  

The newly launched Design Studio is a developing dynamic web-based toolkit hosted by JISC infoNet which draws together a range of existing and developing resources around curriculum design and delivery and the role technology plays in supporting these processes and practices. The Studio will provide access to project outcomes and outputs from the JISC Curriculum Design and Delivery programmes as they are developed and will continue to be sustained as a community resource after the programmes end. A curriculum lifecycle concept provides a structure for this wiki-based resource and the primary portal to materials whilst tagging provides flexible entry levels to information based on e.g. themes, technologies and subject areas. This is a recorded (not live!) tour in Elluminate. Click https://sas.elluminate.com/mrtbl?suid=M.257864C26A4F22C5EE6DB9B8A536AD to view the recording. Access the curriculum change document that accompanies this resource.

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  JISC Digital Media videos

  
  
  
  

These are videos covering a range of topics, including those of interest to teaching and learning:  http://vimeo.com/user2187259/videos

• Internet for Image Searching
  
  

This is a practical tool for learning how to use the Internet to find copyright cleared images to support learning and teaching. The link below takes you to an online tutorial about the tool. http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/tutorial/imagesearching/

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  The Phoebe Pedagogy Planner tool

  
  
  
  

Phoebe is a pedagogy planner tool, designed to help teachers create learning experiences that are motivating and productive for both their students and themselves. It comprises a simple authoring environment and extensive guidance on teaching and learning with digital technologies. Phoebe was developed from 2006-2008 by a team from the University of Oxford, with funding from the JISC Design for Learning programme.

About Phoebe:

• Overview (2 pages, PDF format)
• Introduction and demonstration by Marion Manton, given at the University of Oxford on 28th August, 2008 (23-minute video)

Exploring Phoebe:

• Phoebe Pedagogy Planner
• Exploring Phoebe guide (12 pages, PDF format)

• You might also like to visit the website of the LDSE project, on which we are now working with colleagues from five other institutions.

get Teaching Inclusively

www.techdis.ac.uk/

JISC (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2009/03/hea.aspx ) have published details of the recently created online modules to aid and improve inclusive teaching. The 5 modules were created by various experts (including me :OD ) that cover the following areas;

• Preparing Your Learning;
• Delivering Learning (Lecture/ Classroom);
• Delivering Learning (Practical/ Fieldwork/ Placement);
• Delivering Learning (Online); and
• Assessing Learning.

They were created for academics to use and re-purpose for their needs. So get downloading and add or remove information to suit your needs. Each separate module was created using the new online version of Xerte (a learning packge design tool), it was very simple to use and being web based, meant that we could collaborate easily on amendments. An alternative would be eXe. Both create SCORM compliant "objects" than can be easily dropped into any VLE. And both are entirely free. eXe can also run from a portable flash drive, i.e. no messy installtion on your PC.

You should be able to see all of the material at www.techdis.ac.uk/getTeachingInclusively

You can export the files you worked on to mount on your own site if you wish – simply go back into the Xerte Toolkits folder that you worked on, and for each of the 5 items click on Properties and then Export, choosing either a Zip file or SCORM bundle which will then be downloaded to your PC, for you to do as you please with – you need to link to the index file for it to run in a browser. If you need any help just contact the Techdis helpdesk.

Widening participation

I was given a copy of an internal report by John Harvey Of Actiononaccess last May regarding a small survey on 3 Colleges delivering HE in 2008. These 3 Midlands based Colleges typified the diverse demographics, catchment, management, funding and partnerships between HEIs. I've been wondering how to promote this short report, and now seems quite prescient (see latest HEFCE call below). The report looked at how the recent HE strategies have included and embraced the WP agenda. Again some were already fully engaged with WP and others are weaving it into their internal and external progression plans. Complex funding and partnerships issues were common for HE in FE delivery, but the overall picture was positive. Generally effort seems to be ploughed into more Foundation degrees, closer employer engagement and enhanced support and awareness for internal progression. Also the use of the national HEFCE initiatives Life Long learning networks appear to be helping this remit. It was recognised that the FE Colleges were providing quality, flexible, and vocational study routes to students, responding to local employer needs. John tells me the report is on their site, but will also be included on the HEFCE 2009 HE in FE Best practice page – when it appears? In the meanwhile have a browse around their website, and in particular the reports on transferable practice.

In a post in August 08 I mentioned the two tools that were developed to help access to HE, namely ;

• http://www.accesstohe.ac.uk/ - it's been created in conjunction with UCAS.
  
• http://www.aimhigherwm-alps.org The excellent ALPS tool that Aimhigher created fairly recently
  
  

• You may also be aware that there is an Association for Collaborative Provision? Essentially, they are a small subscription driven partnership who aim to:
  

"...provide a significant voice in supporting the delivery of HE in FE, supporting the enhancement of its quality, and providing advice to individual

agencies and to education institutions as to how practice can be developed. It provides a non-partisan platform for member organisations to bring issues to

meetings to discuss and will, in the next 12 months, commence a series of workshops to focus on individual topics."

Our local ACP is based at Wolverhampton University, headed up by Ian Hart, Associate Dean, Education Partnerships.

• Recent HEFCE Request for widening participation strategic assessments
  

This document requests higher education institutions and further education colleges directly funded by HEFCE to submit widening participation strategic assessments. It outlines the reporting framework and provides guidance that sets out the expectations of HEFCE and the Office for Fair Access. http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2009/09_01/ . Assessments should be submitted by Tuesday 30 June 2009.

Self evaluation!

Dr Simon Ball from Techdis gave us another short and informative webcast last week on the latest offerings to improve accessibiltiy and inclusion for the HE community. Those inlcude;

• A new accessibility self evalauation service run online: http://www.techdis.ac.uk/getevaluated.
  

This service is open to all HE departments . It's a tool thats been proven and can really make a difference to your disability provision. Rememeber the latest SENDA regualtions put responsibility for A&I at indivual level. You can't hide behind ignorance any more. If a student feels that they are being excluded for any reason, any resulting litigation could fall on the lecturer delivering the learning - not the organisation!

• The Academy are funding organisations to the tune of £500.00 to run a seminar in 2009 focussing on the following thre strands: ethnicity, disabiliy, and widening participation. Contact inclusion@heacademy.ac.uk

• Latest accessiblity tools from Simons update:

• scan text using you mobile phone : www.scanr.com
• change your voice with morphVox
• highlight you mouse with Sonar
• The Sage dictionary & Thesaurus
• Create QR codes
• Virtual Magnifying Glass

• A free course covering Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. The course has been written by a Psychiatrist who has many years of experience using a Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) approach and also in helping people use these skills in everday life.

• Simon is due to write a book chapter covering the use of Second Life to assist learners with disabilities. Academics have already used Second Life to simulate hallucinations associated with extreme schizophrenia. See also http://previewpsych.org/ . See also my previosu posting on serious fun, which covers education use of SL.
  

• Next HE TECHDIS updates (run online - all you need is a browser) - Feb 12th -11:30 - 12 pm. Feb 17th 14:00 - 14:30. Contact: help@techdis.ac.uk

A & I

No, not artificial intelligence (well it is - kind of), but Accessibility & Inclusion. This is an accessibility update and announcement of a competition to win an Asus Eee PC.

This week I sat through one of the regular online presentations run by Dr Simon Ball of the JISC TECHDIS service. Simon uses the Webcasting tool Instant Presenter to run a focussed 30 minute live webcast. The next scheduled sessions are December 12^th at 2 pm and December 17^th at 1 pm, and will last for just 30 minutes as usual. The URL to log into (put it in your calendar next to the appointment….) is always www.instantpresenter.com/techdisonline78 for the HE Online Updates – just go to that URL 5 minutes before the start time and make sure you have sound switched on (and headphones if you share an office!).

Simon focuses on HE specific themes , including an update on the HEAT scheme. For those who don't know the HEAT scheme funds small scale projects that promote accessibility and inclusion using technology. It's currently in round three and there are some really fab ideas. Two that stick out in mind are the use of 2D or QR bar codes that can be "scanned with a mobile phone to receive information that can be read out, or read from the phone, or even link to a web site. And the second idea I liked was use of USB drives to send out resources on staff development courses. I briefly mentioned 2D barcodes in a previous blog posting that discussed Professor Mike Wesch.

Accessibility news Simon updated us on;

• The innovative Lexdis website, any technology that achieves this has been called an Assistive Technology.
  
• JISC TechDis has created a number of resources (on the excellence gateway) designed to enable staff to create effective, engaging and accessible learning materials for their learners.
  
• A new part of their website which explores the accessibility issues around mobile devices, focusing on Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones. Some really fab ideas in here.
  
• An update on the NE Scottish RSC initiative Open Source (free) Accessibility Apps. We will be giving these away soon, but you can just download them for yourselves.
  

Now for the competition.

In an attempt to raise awareness of the importance of ensuring accessibility in education, I am giving away a Linux flavoured Asus eepc. These Ultra Mobile PC's are becoming really popular in education and are reaching the cost (approx £200.00) that they can be given away to students! The competition is open to any of our supported organisations in the West Midlands delivering higher education. I am looking for innovative use of one of these PC's in the form of a short press release. This could be building upon existing practice or a wholly new use in a University or College. It's open to staff or students. The press release will be used by us to publicise the winning idea, either on our website or in printed media. We will conduct a follow up interview at the end of this academic year to determine how useful the eeePC turned out.

The only rules are:

• Open to RSC West Mids supported organisations,
  
• must be HE delivery,
  
• must supply a press release to me (http://www.rsc-wm.ac.uk/?/Contact%20 ) by end of November 2008,
  
• Winner announced in next HE ebulletin – early December 2008.
  
• The winner must attend a RSC workshop in Wolverhampton on December 14^th 2008 to learn about the free accessibility apps I mentioned above.
  

Accessible and portable software

Whilst online today at a live presentation I was told about a new publication TECHDIS have launched. That is http://www.techdis.ac.uk/getaltformat. This new publication is a guide to obtaining books in alternative formats. Well worth a look.

This visit to the site triggered a memeory of a recent TECHDIS publication I rediscoverd recently, namely inclusive practices. TECHDIS have a webpage dedicated to free software that improves the accessibility of IT for all abilities. There are some excellent resources cotained therein, from screen readers to moviemakers : http://www.techdis.ac.uk/getfreesoftware .

a similar service called ability net also publishes a list of free or lowcost software at URL: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/athome_shareware . during the online presentation I was told about the new Scottish RSCs website that has been set up to cover accessibility issues : http://www.scottish-rscs.org.uk/access/ . Of particualr interest to me on this site is the "accessapps" page http://www.scottish-rscs.org.uk/access/?page_id=217, which explains how to add portable (mostly Open Source) applications to a USB pen drive. They have even put toether a tutorial and video to explan how this operates. Excellent stuff. Reminded me of a blog post I made earlier this year when I told you all about Moodle on a stick. Go and re-read it here : http://he.rscwmsystems.org.uk/wordpress/?p=174

Then theres the portable apps web page which also has downloads and instructions on how to add Open Source applications (Moodle, Audacity, Freemind, Firefox, etc) onto a memeory stick and run them: http://portableapps.com/

Finally ~I learned that the Scottish RSCs have developed a plugin for Word called WinWord which appears has a toolbar to show you how to make your Word docs more accessible. Clever stuff, and free to you and me. Get the winword.exe and Xerte the free authoring tool from URL : http://www.techdis.ac.uk/getHEupdates