K8ieMorgan

[k8iemorgan]

Designing an accessible educational resource

I have just completed a module based around inclusive technologies and was asked to design an accessible resource.

I thought I was quite aware of the different types of barriers to learning but after researching the topic it made me realise that I could improve the resources for students. I currently create video tutorials with Camtasia which the students find helpful, rather than having just step by step tutorials written in Word or Google Docs, but on reflection there could be so much more done to improve accessibility, particularly around the course resources.

Looking at 3 resources used at my organisation:

Course handbook

The first document I will reflect upon is a course handbook. The handbook is created in Word and converted to a pdf and is usually printed out for students and is also accessible on the course vle. It is quite wordy but does include a good range of visuals. There is a lot of information to incorporate into this document, but I think there are better ways to get this information across to the students.

Let’s reflect on this document in relation to a student who has adhd. They may have a very short attention span and prefer to be able to navigate through a document like this quickly and for it to include visuals and sounds in order to capture their attention more effectively.

I think this document would benefit from being turned into an EBook.

Assignment brief

Assignment briefs are written in Word and converted to pdf’s and placed on the course vle and the Google Classroom. They include a lot of text and some visuals.

Let’s reflect on this document in relation to a student who has dyslexia. There are a lot words to read through and although they can be printed out onto coloured paper or an overlay sheet could be used, they could be problematic to decipher for a student with dyslexia.

It would be a good idea to include a sound file (podcast) that reads through the assignment. This would also be helpful for visually impaired students.

Step by step handout

Step by step handouts are currently created in Word or Google docs and are put onto Google Classroom and the course vle. Step by step handouts are often used to help students to understand tasks and how to use software. They include text and images and can be made in Word or Google Docs.

Let’s reflect on this document in relation to a student who has autism. The step by step handout may be confusing to decipher and hinder the student's progress and become a barrier to their learning.

A better way to produce this resource would be to use a video capture software such as Camtasia or Screencast-o-Matic to create a video tutorial. It could also be made interactive so that visual and auditory input could be added for extra support and guidance. I currently create video tutorials for students, but an added bonus would be to add interactivity to respond to user input.

Design proposal

I would like to re design the course handbook based around a student who has adhd, but this proposal would improve accessibility for a range of students who have dyslexia, visual impairment and autism spectrum.

The handbook would be created as an EBook. EBooks can contain podcasts and videos as well as images and text. The EBook can also be interactive and pop up larger visuals and videos and incorporate fun quizzes based on questions about the course. A course handbook created as an Ebook would contain a wide range of visual and auditory content and would be much more accessible and interesting for students.

[k8iemorgan]

Copyright in education

Guidance and details about the appropriate exceptions to copyright for an educational establishment can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptions-to-copyright#non-commercial-research-and-private-study.

Students and researchers are allowed to make limited copies of all types of copyright works for non commercial or private study, but use of copyright material requires acknowledgement, this is due to the copyright law in the UK being changed in 2003. Some activities that were permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 are now permitted with some amendments. The restrictions were added to most permitted uses of copyright material (which effect education).

The restrictions:

permitted activities must be for non-commercial purposes; and

uses of copyright materials require acknowledgement

It is important that educational establishments and their staff think carefully about whether any of their activities are making money and consequently may not be for non-commercial purposes. This could be related to courses such as summer schools where applicants pay a course fee that solely generates an income for the educational establishment, or university research that is sponsored by a commercial enterprise. More information about the effect these copyright restrictions have on education can be found on this informative article on http://www.out-law.com/page-332.

My Organisations copyright policy

It was surprising to find that the organisation where I work does not have a specific copyright policy. There are copyright issues embedded into other policies and the most relevant one that I could find is our ILCT policy, which is held by the Library.

Copyright is widely discussed in relation to the Internet, software, music, video and more general statements are included such as: ‘Never transmit material such that it infringes the copyright of another person’ and ‘Observe all restrictions, including copyright, placed on the use of information, software and data.’ A restriction that specifically relates to my subject area within the ILCT policy is: ‘Do not download music files (e.g. mp3, wma) or video files (e.g. mpg, avi) unless they are non-copyrighted and are necessary for work purposes.’

Students often ask about whether they can use music if it is for a college project and it has been a bit of a grey area to understand the uses, but my advice is to use music that is copyright free and free to use which can be found online.

On doing some further research I found that there has been a further update to copyright law in November 2014 and these changes directly relate to exceptions to copyright in education and teaching. The pdf highlighting these updates can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/375951/Education_and_Teaching.pdf. 

It is good to see that changes have been made to help teachers deliver 21st Century multimedia teaching without risking the infringement of copyright. An excerpt from this document shows how the exceptions are now linked to a wider range of copyright works such as photographs, films and sound recordings:

‘The changes to the law apply these exceptions to a wider range of copyright works which were previously not covered – such as artistic works (including photographs), films and sound recordings. They also permit sharing of copies over secure distance learning networks. In order to carry out these activities, schools, colleges and universities simply need to make sure they hold the relevant licences.’ 

Thankfully, copyright law is being appropriately updated to meet current requirements. The previous law only allowed reprographic copying of literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works in relation to teaching, but this has been replaced to allow copying of any works in any medium and this now means that teachers can now display on an interactive whiteboard, but the use must still be fair dealing.

Copyright within example OER’s

When researching for relevant OER’s (Open Educational Resource), I came across a course called: Art frees the soul, the sixth street photography workshop. They have used a Creative Commons license. As you can see below the conditions of use allow the user to share alike within a non commercial arena, and they specifically mention that you can remix and share as you like.

Creative Commons License Suite

Six basic licenses are offered by Creative Commons:

BY (Attribution) BY-SA (Attribution–ShareAlike) BY-NC (Attribution–NonCommercial) BY-ND (Attribution–NoDerivs) BY- NC-SA (Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike) BY-NC-ND (Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivs)

There is a range of licensing and a good overview can be found here: http://www.saylor.org/read-the-fine-print/.

Another course that I thought could be relevant to my curriculum area was a character animation course. This had a custom license that at first I wasn’t sure how to interpret as it hadn’t used any of the usual licenses, but use a custom license that did not really tell you a lot other than it was at no cost.

Fortunately at the bottom of the page it had a Creative Commons license.

I would assume then, that this course is free to use and share, but not to amend or remix the contents. When I viewed the resources it was good to see that they could be shared in Google Classroom directly from the course page.

It is evident that it is always best to use a license to let people know what your conditions of use are as this makes it clear and less ambiguous and saves people having to contact the creator to ask permission to use it or ask what the conditions of use are.

[k8iemorgan]

Open Educational Resources

There does not seem to be a definitive description of what an OER is, but this broad definition of what they are (from OER Commons) gives an overview:

‘Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student or self-learner. Examples of OER include: full courses, course modules, syllabi, lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, lab and classroom activities, pedagogical materials, games, simulations, and many more resources contained in digital media collections from around the world.’

Basically the concept of EOR’s is the open sharing of teaching practices and flexible learning and they can be identified by the fact that they are free educational resources that are distributed globally. The positives are that it is great that they are free, they are easy to access and promote the use of digital media and they also promote sharing, but the challenges are focused on time and the willingness of practitioners to use the OER’s.

I have been looking at a range of resources available in my subject area of animation and games and I searched on Educause, Open of Course , Creative Commons and OER Commons. 

I found a character animation resource on OER Commons:  https://www.oercommons.org/courses/character-animation which could be very useful for my subject specialism. I searched on the Open of Course site and there were quite limited resources on there, so I think it may be quite a new OER. There were only two resources for digital photography: http://www.open-of-course.org/courses/course/index.php?categoryid=67 which may be of use when we use cameras for stop motion animation. I found a resource on Educause related to storytelling which is something I teach within my specialism: http://er.educause.edu/articles/2008/10/web-20-storytelling-emergence-of-a-new-genre. There was not a huge amount of content specifically aimed at my specialism which makes me think that it may be a good idea to actually contribute and share some resources on this site in order to share my own practice with others.

Pros and cons of using OER’s

OER’s are useful because they can improve knowledge, access to copyright free media, improve technical skills, improve the range of digital resources, they are free, they encourage sharing of practice and depending on the license used - some resources can be modified to fit specific topics. 

There may be some restrictions to the use of OER’s as they may have a license that states whether you can adapt them or if they wish them to be kept intact. It may be a restriction if you find a great resource that with some tweaking could be perfect, but the author restricts its usage.

[k8iemorgan]

The use of Social Media in the creative curriculum

I teach 2D digital animation, character design, motion graphics, graphics for games, vocational investigation, pre production, post production, drawing development, self-promotion, online identity and intellectual property rights... I have probably forgotten something, but that mostly covers it ;).

I teach level 3, 4, 5 & 6 at a Further Education College. I am passionate about FE & HE and I think that we do an excellent job of providing relevant skills that are applicable to the qualification but also, very importantly for the appropriate industries that learners are progressing into.

My personal experience with social media

I have personal Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+, YouTube and Vimeo accounts. I also have a College animation twitter account and a teaching twitter account. I put my course showreels on my Vimeo account, but the YouTube account is solely personal. I have a personal Blog on Blogger, a personal WordPress website, Behance and Tumblr.

I use @AnimNetwork to tweet about jobs, animation events, animation festivals, interesting blog posts and anything that would be useful for our animation students. This twitter account is linked to an animation network that I run through SocialGO (an online service provider through whom you can create an online social network).

Although I do have a Facebook account, I like to keep this personal and linked to family and friends and not use it professionally. It was suggested that we could create Facebook sites linked to our College, but I have not yet done this.

How is social media used in your organisation?

The College has a Twitter account, which I follow and they follow the animation network and me. I link to them or use hashtags as is relevant. The College also have a YouTube channel and often have live shows and interviews recorded in our own recording studio. There is also a College Facebook. A colleague of mine from another curriculum discussed his course Facebook page at a TeachMeet gathering on using digital technology and he finds it very useful and communicates with his students very effectively. As it has been running for a while now, he also has past students on there who can give advice to current students and who keep in touch. He has had no major issues, but he admits that it needs constant policing to ensure appropriate activity.

What are the pros and cons of using social media in my own specialist area?

There are mostly pros to using social media and there are lots of possibilities that I have not yet tapped into. It would be an idea to create a YouTube channel for the courses. Currently I show learners on the course how to create their own (if they have not already got one) so that they can put their clips on there to show their progress and to easily embed into their assignment blogs. I could also create a course twitter and instagram. I am deliberating about a creating a course Facebook, particularly after talking to my colleague who recommends this quite highly. Social media can increase learner engagement and help to promote and build communication skills and also help with their organisation by posting deadline dates and any upcoming events. The cons really are the actual administration of all these social media outlets.

What are the potential issues of using social media in education?

The issues are based around learners not using social media appropriately by making inappropriate comments and links and the possibility of problems with cyber bullying. Some tutors also worry about social media being a distraction and the fact that learners are fostering online communication, but not learning real life social skills.

How can these issues be addressed?

Not using social media appropriately – the social media needs to be administrated effectively by the tutors and they should intervene quickly when there are minor issues, before they become more serious, in the same way as you would with classroom management. Cyber bullying – This should be tackled in a similar way as above, but it needs to be made very clear that this is a very serious issue and disciplinary procedures would be undertaken. Being a distraction – If learners are using Social Media in a social capacity that is not related to the course in class, it should be dealt with in the same way that on going social chatting would be dealt with when learners are not focused. Not learning real life social skills – face to face communication should also be encouraged during lessons. Peer critiques, presentations, group work etc., so this would not be an issue.

A good example of the use of social media in education

As mentioned previously, I think a good example of using social media in education is my colleague’s use of Facebook. It is used in a positive way to communicate effectively with his course group. It fosters a community bonding within the group, good communication skills and they learn about portraying themselves professionally in order to build a positive online identity.

[k8iemorgan]

This is a poster to advise students and lecturers where to go to get support for learning new technology at our College. It made me realise that we need digital advocates as peer mentors for students and lecturers so that everyone has more direct access to support.

[k8iemorgan]

My Top 6  Educational Tech Tools

Here is a list of some of my favourite educational tech tools. They are in no particular order because that would be too difficult for me to choose! 

I had previously written this blog post and Chrome crashed! I lost everything, so I am taking a deep breath and starting again.... and this time, I am pairing it down to 6, rather than the 10 that just got lost in cyberspace! This will make me refine my thinking and also help me to re do the whole post again :).

1.  Camtasia - a great tool for recording your screen, I use this to create demo tutorials.

2.  Quizziz - my students love this and get very competitive! They can use their phones to participate and it comes with avatars and leaderboards and also provides you with data.

3.  Canva - great for creating wonderfully visual infographics and posters. This relatively new to me, I was introduced to it during my online Tech-Enabled Educators course. Great for teachers and students to use.

4.  Google - Classroom, Drive, Docs, Forms, Hangouts - loving Google for the collaboration and sharing elements.

5.  Thinglink - this is a great visually interactive tool. I should use it more to make interactive timelines, maps, posters, infographics etc., great for students to use too.

6.  Storify - This is a great tool for learners. They can easily drag and drop videos, links, images in to Storify to create a digital story or simply for collating their research visually.

During session 1 of Unit 2 for my course I was introduced to some educational tech tools that were new to me. Blendspace caught my attention and I definitely will be trying this out. It will enable me to build interactive lessons relatively quickly with the drag and drop tools - I’m looking forward to having a go and getting my students involved.

Another interesting tool that I was introduced to is Glogster. The only problem is that we do not have this at our College, but the price is quite reasonable, so I may discuss this at our next curriculum meeting if I think it may be worthwhile getting.

I have to admit that Blendspace is the tool that I definitely want to use and another tool that I want to play with is Office Mix, which is an add on to PowerPoint. It makes PowerPoint so much more exciting and interactive with screen recording, audio, video, quizzes etc.

[k8iemorgan]

Digital Literacy Infographic

I have learnt a lot by creating this infographic and by interviewing some of my learners who provided me with information about the barriers they have with using digital technology. The creative and digital industries require people to be skilled in industry standard software, but the Adobe suite is often still unattainable for some, even with the student discount; so it is has made me think of some strategies to put in place to ensure that students can access the software outside of their timetabled hours and that I can discuss affordable and free apps they can download and it has made me think of the process we need to undertake to develop learners digital skills.

[k8iemorgan]

(via TubeChop - Chop YouTube Videos)

[k8iemorgan]

Top 5 digital skills that employers will expect from my learners

1. Digital design skills.

2. Able to create products for the games, animation and SFX industry - using industry standard software (Adobe Suite and Autodesk Maya).

3. Basic digital skills - use of Microsoft Office, Google Docs and Apps.

4. Understanding of Intellectual property for digital assets.

5. Social networking (including online career resources such as Hiive).

I was asked to pin down the top 5 digital skills that I think that employers would want from my learners. As I teach a course based on Games Art and Animation it was hard to fine tune this down to the top five. The course is a blend of creative and digital skills and although the design starts on paper, almost everything then gets digitised. Learners develop skills in 2D digital animation, 3D modelling and animation, motion graphics, stop motion, compositing, sound and video editing, post production, digital image manipulation, games design, concept art, storyboarding and motion comics - it was hard to refine it down to just 5 main skills that would be sought after by employers. 

I had an idea of what I thought could be the main contenders, but I thought it would be wise to do some research and I came across an interesting report by the Creative Industries Council (CIC). It is a Creative Industries Strategy with a vision for 2020 and is an interesting read. It helped me focus on the importance of Intellectual Property issues and the importance of giving appropriate credit to authors and the ability to choose how your own work is shared by using Creative Commons https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ and the industry led Copyright Hub http://www.copyrighthub.co.uk/. I was already aware of Creative Commons Licenses and use this in discussions about copyright, but the Copyright Hub was new to me. 

The CIC report also reflected on the increased business activity in the animation, film, VFX and video games industries, due to the newly introduced tax breaks, which has ultimately led to a growing need for people with the right skills in this sector. This highlights the need for learners to have a wide range of skills in appropriate industry standard software to enable them to be equipped to fill these positions. Oli Hyatt (Co-founder of Blue Zoo) established Animation UK, a lobby group to provide a collective voice for the animation industry to work towards achieving an animation tax relief scheme. This hard work paid off and now that the tax relief is established, the animation industry has doubled in size in the UK.

I was deliberating about whether to include basic digital skills in this list, but on reflection I thought it was appropriate because basic digital skills are imperative skills to have in order to work, live and learn in the 21st Century. I would include blogging within basic digital skills, but it is surprising how new this is to a lot of my learners when starting the course.

I am generally happy with my top 5 choices, but if I could sneak one more in, I would definitely include online collaboration because I think this type of networking is so important, specifically within the creative industries. 

[k8iemorgan]

Reflecting on the Impact of learning technology in education

By reading a range of research on the impact of learning technology, I have learned that, to date the data is not yet conclusive, but does show some impact on the improvement of learning through the use of learning technologies. The overriding factor is how important it is for the technology to be used effectively by practitioners to ensure that it fits appropriately within the curriculum, and even  more importantly that they have the right support in place to enable them to implement it correctly and fittingly - this way the impact will be more evident.

It is imperative that organisations keep up with current and future trends and advancements in learning technology. They will need to develop strategies to ensure that they support their staff to feel confident in the use of relevant technologies within their practice. This will foster a positive atmosphere and will ensure that practitioners will be more innovative with their ideas and the methodologies of education will develop and evolve naturally and have the most impact.

The impact all of this has on the practitioner is that the use of learning technologies is changing their identity and role. We are becoming more of a facilitator and guide rather than an instructor. This has been gradually changing over the years and to keep moving forward we need to be creative, flexible and respond to changes and new technology.

“Teachers are increasingly becoming information guides rather than educational instructors. Consequently students are being encouraged, by these technological advancements in education, to take a more active role in their own education. This, however, is only possible because of how these new educational technologies have been used as a standard part of modern daily-life.” (The Future of E-Ducation: the Impact of Technology and Analytics on the Education Industry, 2014)

[humoristics]

Nissan has invented self ‘parking’ chairs. [video]

[thatsthat24]

Finally, I can fulfill my dream of reenacting the “Spoonful of Sugar” scene from Mary Poppins

[k8iemorgan]

I need these in my classroom for after the students leave! :)

[k8iemorgan]

….it is not educational technology per se, that improves teaching and learning, but; how the technology is designed and implemented; how teachers are supported to use it; how outcomes are measured; what communities are in place to support it.

Technology Enhanced Learning, 2014

[k8iemorgan]

Key digital skills for educators

I have been working on my online course (Tech Enabled Educators) and for one of the modules I had to create an Infographic about the key digital skills required for educators. I had to pick 5 essential digital skills and this was quite difficult because there are so many! Fitting these into 5 was hard...

This is my first ever attempt at creating an Infographic using Canva. This is a great software and is relatively easy to use, although it did take a lot longer to produce than I anticipated. I would have liked it to be more visual, but there was a lot to fit in because I was asked to annotate my reasons for picking the 5 essential digital skills. 

I have used other peoples Infographics before, and always intended to create my own, but didn’t really know where to start, but I will definitely be using Canva to create some Infographics for my students and will also use it with them so that they can create their own Infographics in class. There are helpful tutorials linked to the Canva site and you can search for images, shapes, lines within the software, or you can upload your own. It’s a great tool and I would highly recommend it.

By reflecting on my own digital skills I have realised there are some areas that I need to focus on improving such as gamification and online assessment. I have researched gamification before and I am sure it would be a great tool to engage and motivate my students, but I need to make time to plan how to use it in the classroom. I could also use online assessment tools more. I have used the college vle and Google classroom in the past, but we now have ETracker in our college and this can be used to do all assessment digitally and is something I need to investigate. I could also use more instant polls in the classroom by using Socrative. I have uploaded it onto my iPad and tested it, but hardly ever implemented it into the classroom. 

There are many areas where I am digitally skilled and I use these skills effectively in the classroom, but it is good to reflect on those areas where you keep meaning to use in class, but time runs away with you and it doesn’t happen.  

[k8iemorgan]

Here is a link to padlet with a small selection of some of the learning technologies that I find useful :)

I love thinglink and can think of so many uses for it. I came across this quite a while ago and keep meaning to utilise it within teaching because I could create interesting and interactive images for the students, but they could also use it to create interactive visuals such as interactive timelines on the history of animation.

I use Storyboard That with students when they first start creating storyboards for their pre production work for planning an animation, but I have also used it during induction for students to create a story about their first day at college and I have also used Pixton to create a digitial storyboard for a tutorial session about timekeeping - you can see some of these here: http://kteeselearning.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Adobe Voice is another really useful tool with which you can create animated videos quite easily which look professional. This can be used so effectively to create interesting informative videos to put on the vle or use in class. The students could also use Adobe Voice to create their own presentation of their research.

I was wowed by Office Mix - I had not heard of it or used it before and I am excited at the possibilities of this! There are so many tools you can utilise such as screen record, quizes and insert video.... I didn’t think I would ever use PowerPoint again, because I only ever use Prezi if I have to do a presentation, but this is a game changer. 

[k8iemorgan]

New to Tumblr

I am new to blogging in Tumblr, but have used Blogger and Word Press, so hopefully this should be a good experience. Looking forward to blogging on a new platform!

[k8iemorgan]

Selcouth — (ˈsel-ˌküth), adjective | Rare, unusual, and wondrous, selcouth connotes an air of mystery and unfamiliar exquisiteness, which has been unexpectedly discovered. Strange, yet beautiful, selcouth should be reserved to describe the extraordinary. This has got to be the word of the day, I think!