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  • Role play for learning: Developing a process to support student designed learning activities

    This 2014-15 project worked with students to develop a framework for supporting students in designing their own learning activities. Focussing on role play activities in a third year PoLIS unit (PL30548) as a test bed. The project began by upskilling the project leads through engaging in knowledge exchanges (conversations and workshop) with external academic experts in role play design. Following this a schedule and outline plan for the unit was developed and refined through peer review from our external expert.

  • Exploring the use of technology in the classroom

    Dr John Troyer from the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath discusses the importance of exploring the use of different classroom technologies, experimenting, and finding the right mixture for you.

  • Why I don't use powerpoint

    Dr John Troyer from the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath answers the question of why he doesn't use powerpoint (or similar presentation technology) in his lectures and the benefits of this approach.

  • What is (classroom) technology?

    Dr John Troyer from the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath discusses the broader question of what is technology in the classroom, as part of his thoughts on its use.

  • Academic representatives conference

    This 2013-14 project provided funding for a pilot, one day, conference style, training event for Student Academic Representatives across the University held in November 2013, in the newly opened Chancellors Building. The event combined enhanced training sessions to compliment the online training module, personal skills development activities and networking sessions to enhance the ‘informed student voice’.

  • Double blind marking on Moodle

    Dr Steve Cayzer from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath discusses some of the background and reasons behind the department exploring the use of Moodle for double blind marking. He then discusses the lessons learnt from exploring this use, producing a set of requirements.

  • International Conversations on Skype and Twitter

    Dr Wali Aslam from the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath discusses how and why he uses and combination of skype and twitter to engage his classes in conversations with students, academics, aid workers and journalists across the world. He then describes some of the lessons learnt in organising international conversations over skype for his classes, and some things to consider in advance.

  • Serious Games

    Dr Hannah Durrant from the Institute of Policy Research at the University of Bath discusses the rationale for embedding serious simulation games into the teaching of Social Policy and then discusses using the simulation game Democracy 2 with students working in a special technology enabled group-work room.

  • Structure Visualisation for All and Anywhere: an e-learning resource

    Understanding the structure of a compound or material is central to the learning goals in many areas of science and engineering including chemistry, pharmacology, materials and chemical engineering, and biochemistry. But structures are three dimensional and conceptually difficult to understand through the normal two-dimensional learning formats of lectures, lecture notes, textbooks and whiteboards. This 2013-14 project provided access to software and extensive database resources to all undergraduate and postgraduate students, undertaking Chemistry and Natural Science degrees, to allow them to view and manipulate structures in three dimensions using departmental computer resources and their own laptops, computers, tablets and smartphones.

  • Developing randomised e-quizzes for flexible assessment

    The aim of this 2013-14 project was to generate large banks of applied numeracy Moodle questions to support the teaching of basic maths in Biochemistry and Chemistry. We employed and trained six students studying these subjects to create new randomised question banks in Moodle XML using PHP. Mathematical expressions were coded in LaTeX for MathJax, so that when displayed in Moodle, they would be fully accessible in all browsers, on small screens and can be magnified or read aloud if required.