On 1st February we will be deleting Panopto recordings which are over 5 years old and have not been viewed in the last 5 years. This is in accordance with the Lecture Capture Policy. See point 8.1 of the Lecture Capture Policy.
In future we will be running the same process outlined above every 1st September.
If you have any questions, including how to save old recordings, please email elearning@aber.ac.uk
Category: Panopto
Changes to Teaching Rooms: Re-introduction of Neck Mics
Information Services is working to re-introduce neck microphones in teaching rooms.
For those who are new to the institution or would like a refresher, neck mics are hooked up to the audio systems in teaching rooms, worn around the neck of the presenter, and can be used for Panopto recordings and Teams Meetings. Take a look at our FAQ on how to use the Neck Microphones.
Health and Safety Information
The reintroduction of neck microphones means that some additional hygiene guidance needs to be followed:
- Regular hand hygiene helps to reduce transmission of illnesses and diseases; please wash hands regularly and use the hand sanitisers on entry to buildings.
- To reduce contact points, only one person should use the neck microphone in a teaching session
- The neck microphone should be wiped down with wipes effective against COVID-19 as per other equipment before and after its use
- Although the neck mic gives staff greater freedom to move around the teaching room, staff are encouraged to maintain physical distancing of at least 2 metres, where possible, and maintain good hand hygiene practices before and after handling the neck mics (as noted in the Aberystwyth University COVID Risk Assessment October 2021).
- In most rooms, the lectern microphones will also stay in place and can still be used (provided staff stay near the lectern). In a small number of rooms, only a neck microphone will be available.
How will the rollout be managed?
Changes to the teaching rooms will be taking place gradually so you may notice the reintroduction of the neck mic imminently. All neck mics will be in place ready for the start of teaching in Semester 2.
Use the neck mic in Panopto
The neck mic can be used on your Panopto recording. When you start Panopto, change the microphone to Neck Mic by clicking on the dropdown menu to the right of the Audio field in the Panopto recorder:
Use the neck mic in Teams Meetings
The neck mic can be used as the microphone Teams meetings. To change your microphone in the Teams meeting:
Select the … more options button:
And then Device Settings
Under microphone select Neck Mic.
Further Help
We’ve got our Teaching Room Guide 2021-22 which outlines how to use the teaching room equipment. If you are having difficulties with the teaching room equipment in a centrally timetabled teaching room, pick up a phone and it will come through to the workshop.
Contact us if you have any questions (is@aber.ac.uk).
Welcome to new staff joining Aberystwyth University
We’re the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit. Based in Information Services, we work with staff across the university to support and develop learning and teaching. We run a wide range of activities to do this.
All the information that you need is on the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit webpages. We have recently worked intensively with academic colleagues to develop solutions in response to the Covid 19 pandemic. Our Supporting your Teaching webpages will help you with various teaching solutions.
We write a blog full of the latest updates, details on events and training sessions, and resources.
If you need to get in touch with us, you can do so using one of two email addresses:
lteu@aber.ac.uk (for pedagogical and design questions, or to arrange a consultation) or
elearning@aber.ac.uk (for technical queries regarding our e-learning tools listed below)
Panopto – available in Welsh
If you use Welsh as your default language in your web browser, or use the Welsh version of Windows, you’ll notice that Panopto is now available in Welsh.
- To view Panopto in Welsh on the web, in Blackboard, and if you use Panopto Capture – change your browser language (How do I do this?)
- To view the Panopto recording in Welsh – change your operating system language (How do I do this?)
To find out more about the partnership between Welsh universities and Panopto which made this happen, take a look at Panopto’s press release. We are pleased to say that in February 2021 Aberystwyth University was part of the initiative organised by Swansea and Cardiff University to lobby Panopto for this important change.
Mini-Fest: Assessment – 17th May – 21st May
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to announce its first mini-festival. The aim of the mini-fest is to bring together training sessions and workshops offered by LTEU around a particular topic with an external speaker. For this first mini-fest, we’ll be looking specifically at assessment. The mini fest will run from Monday 17th May until Friday 21st May and will be taking place online via Teams. Please book on the sessions that you wish to attend on our online booking system.
We are going to be joined by Professors Sally Brown and Kay Sambell to talk about assessment design post covid on Monday 17th May for a 2-hour workshop at 10.30am. Their paper Writing Better Assignments in the post Covid19 Era has been widely discussed across the sector since last summer:
Improving assessment and feedback processes post-pandemic: authentic approaches to improve student learning and engagement.
This workshop is designed to build on lessons learned during the complex transitions academics made last year when face-to-face on-campus assessment became impossible. A whole range of approaches were used by academics globally not only to cope with the contingency but also to streamline assessment and more fully align it with learning.
We now have an important opportunity to change assessment and feedback practices for good by boosting the authenticity of our designs to ensure they are future-fit. Drawing on their work undertaken throughout 2020, https://sally-brown.net/kay-sambell-and-sally-brown-covid-19-assessment-collection/ the facilitators of this workshop Professor Kay Sambell and Professor Sally Brown will argue that we can’t ever go back to former ways of assessment and will propose practical, manageable approaches that fully integrate assessment and feedback with learning, leading to improved outcomes and longer-term learning for students.
Professor Kay Sambell is an Independent Consultant widely known internationally for her contributions to the Assessment for Learning (AfL) movement in higher education. A 2002 National Teaching Fellow (NTF) and Principal Fellow Higher Education Academy (PFHEA), she is President of the vibrant Assessment in Higher Education (AHE) conference series, ( https://ahenetwork.org/) and Visiting Professor of Assessment for Learning at the University of Sunderland and the University of Cumbria. Kay has held personal chairs in Learning and Teaching at Northumbria University, where she co-led one of the UK Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning which specialised in AfL, and, more recently, at Edinburgh Napier University.
Website: https://kaysambell.wordpress.com
Professor Sally Brown is an Independent Consultant in Learning, Teaching and Assessment and Emerita Professor at Leeds Beckett University where she was, until 2010, Pro-Vice-Chancellor. She is also Visiting Professor at Edge Hill University and formerly at the Universities of Plymouth, Robert Gordon, South Wales and Liverpool John Moores and at Australian universities James Cook Central Queensland and the Sunshine Coast. She is a PFHEA, a Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) Senior Fellow and an NTF. She is widely published on learning, teaching and particularly assessment and enjoys working with institutions and teams on improving the student learning experience.
Website: https://sally-brown.net
In addition to Sally’s and Kay’s workshop, LTEU will be offering sessions and workshops over the course of the week:
How to make asynchronous recordings engaging and interactive
Pre-recorded asynchronous content has become a key factor in delivering courses and enabling the best learning experience for students at Aberystwyth University. There are several strategies that lecturers can use to make these recordings both engaging and interactive.
The benefits of asynchronous pre-recorded lectures are manifold, and most students – as the so-called YouTube generation – know this mode of learning extremely well (Scagnoli, Choo & Tian, 2019). Benefits include that students control their engagement with the content and value the convenience and flexibility that asynchronous recordings provide them with, in particular regarding the pace of their learning, and the repeatability of their engagement (Dale & Pymm, 2009; Ramlogan et al., 2014; Scagnoli, Choo & Tian, 2019). It is therefore essential that staff outline what is expected of students in terms of engaging with learning materials, both in pre-recorded videos and in-person sessions.
Drop in sessions: E-learning tools
We would like to offer staff members at the University the opportunity to join us for our drop-in sessions on using e-learning tools (Blackboard, Panopto, Turnitin and MS Teams) for learning and teaching activities. These will offer an informal opportunity to speak with our Online Learning Specialists and to address any problems or queries you may have.
All drop-in sessions will be held via MS Teams and there is no need to book, just click on the links below. *Please note that sessions with an asterisk (*) will be bilingual sessions, and all sessions without an asterisk will run as English-medium sessions.
These drop-in sessions will take place on:
19.01.2021 (10:00-11:00): Join Microsoft Teams Meeting*
21.01.2021 (14:00-15:00): Join Microsoft Teams Meeting
26.01.2021 (10:00-11:00): Join Microsoft Teams Meeting*
28.01.2021 (14:00-15:00): Join Microsoft Teams Meeting
02.02.2021 (10:00-11:00): Join Microsoft Teams Meeting*
04.02.2021 (14:00-15:00): Join Microsoft Teams Meeting
We hope that these sessions will provide you with an opportunity to clarify any questions about your teaching needs.
If you have any questions, please email lteu@aber.ac.uk.
Alternative activities to in-person teaching
There may be occasions where it is not practically possible for you to simultaneously deliver non-lecture activities (e.g. seminars, workshops, etc.) to students in-person and students joining via MS Teams.
In this blog post, we will explore some different options for delivering alternative activities for those students that cannot join in-person sessions. Before you begin to design an alternative activity, consider the following points:
- Which alternative activity will best emulate the experience that students in the original in-person session are getting?
- What are my intended learning outcomes and which activities will best achieve these?
- How long will it take me to plan an activity and do I have the capacity to do this?
- Think carefully about your assessment criteria – will the alternative activity that you provide allow the students to undertake the module assessments successfully?
- Clarity and focus are at the heart of any well-designed online activity. Ensure that students using your alternative activity know exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it. If you ask students to use any technology, you must provide students with clear and concise guidance on how to use these.
Welsh-Medium Continued Professional Development – What’s on?
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit offers several sessions for Continued Professional Development (CPD) covering a range of topics. We offer sessions in both English and Welsh and Welsh-medium sessions will appear in Welsh on the staff training website. Here is an overview of the Welsh-medium sessions that we are offering throughout the rest of the semester:
November 2020
16.11.20 (11:00-12:30): CDU: Datblygu eich arferion addysgu (D & A: Ar-lein)
17.11.20 (14:00-15:30): CDU: Defnyddio MS Teams, Offer yr Ystafell Ddysgu ac Addysgu syncronaidd (D & A: Ar-lein)
20.11.20 (14:00-15:00): Hanfodion E-ddysgu: Cyflwyniad i Turnitin (D & A: Ar-lein)
25.11.20 (11:00-12:00): Hanfodion E-ddysgu: Cyflwyniad i Panopto (D & A: Ar-lein)
Helping Students to Make Most of Recorded Lectures – Using Discussion and Notes in Panopto
Panopto recordings have been heavily used by students even before the move to partly online delivery. This year they rely on pre-recorded content even more. Facilitating active learning using asynchronous materials such as lecture recordings can be challenging. We have previously shared with you the guide on using lecture recordings for students outlining six key strategies helping them to make most of the recordings. In one of our previous posts we have also explored the use of Panopto captions and quizzes which enables your recordings to be more accessible and interactive. Today we would like to introduce you to two additional Panopto functionalities – discussion and notes.
