Friday, 24 January 2014

award winning mobile technologies in Fieldwork

The now highly commended case study (see figure) of colloborative work by Adel Gordon (a member of STRiPe Research Group) and Janet Jackson, University of Northampton, Julie Usher, Blackboard (previously University of Northampton) in using mobile technologies in Fieldwork for Environmental Sciences  was presented on 23rd January 2014 at 

Effective use of mobile technologies to enhance learning, teaching and assessment

,

Context take from the paper:

"The culture, practice and pedagogy of academic disciplines such as geography and environmental sciences are based around in the field activities as well as traditional learning in face to face, online and laboratory scenarios. Downward et al (2008) have argued that environmental scientists are uniquely positioned to pilot mobile technologies, because they work across so many different contexts.
figure 1

Figure 1 depicts the varied contexts in which environmental students are now expected to work. Within each of these disciplinary contexts learners should have access to all the resources they need, as well as the ability to capture, reflect on, develop and extend their ideas into other contexts.


As Kukulska-Hulme et al (2007) note, mobile learning may offer a solution to this problem, by encouraging students to use “portable tools that support observations, interactions, conversations and reflections, within and across various contexts of use...” (p.53).
With this in mind we wanted to find a solution that could facilitate students’ learning both within and across these contexts."

To read more, read the full paper at Good Practice Guide "Mobile learning:How mobile technologies can enhance the learning experience" page 2  published by UCISA.

Reference

Kukulska-Hulme, A, Traxler, J, and Pettit, J, (2007). Designed and user generated activity in the mobile age. Journal of Learning Design, 2(1), pp 52–65.

Other related links:

Tuesday, 24 December 2013

Virtual reality in Teaching

An ongoing project, which is a collaboration between the Dr Naomi Holmes (Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Northampton)  Dr Scott Turner (Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies, University of Northampton) and Adel Gordon (Learning Technology Team, University of Northampton). All of whom are members of STRiPe Research Group.

Virtual field trips are not a new idea, but with the release of the developer version of the Oculus Rift providing a more affordable immersive/virtual reality equipment, could virtual field trips become immersive virtual field trips at reasonable cost? Is this a good idea?


The Oculus Rift (http://www.oculusvr.com/), a device whose popularity with gamers is increasing, is under investigation of tool for preparing for field trips. The demo of a house and gardens in Tuscany that comes with the Oculus Rift (available through the Oculus Rift developer centre https://developer.oculusvr.com/) is being used as the basis of the test. 


Students come in, put the headset on, after an initial orientation, walk around the house, and gardens, later fill in a questionnaire on the experience, as well as talking to the two investigators. Part of the procedure is the students are told they can stop at any time and restart if they want at any time during the session.

The research questions revolve around
- Do students like the tool?
- Do students think this tool could be used for:
   - preparation before a field trip to try out ideas.
   - a way of describing a trip when they come back.
   - a replacement for field trips.
- What are the limitations of the approach?
- Where else could it be used, if anywhere?
- Is there some procedures that need to be put in place to enable effective use of these?



Preliminary results will be released in the near future.

Funding for this work has come from the University of Northampton's Innovation Fund.




Related Links:

Saturday, 7 December 2013

Junkbots: it is not one thing! - Activities, session plans, presentations

The School of Science and Technology at the University of Northampton have been working with local schools to create robots made from junk. This is an initiative by the University to introduce environmental sustainability, engineering and computing to students and has been funded by Northampton Enterprise Limited and east midlands development agency (emda). 


For more details on the junkbot building exercises


Robot programming activities 



For more details on the waste management activities
Introduction to waste management, its impact, recycling and reuse. An introducing to the idea of making robots from rubbish.



This and other posters at Engage 2013 can be found at: https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/engage2013/poster-party

Wednesday, 4 December 2013

New issue of Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education

The new of issue of the journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education is published today. See below for contents.

Vol 5, No 1 (2013)

Table of Contents

Editorial

EditorialPDF
Rachel Maunder, Simon Sneddon, Scott Turner, Anna Crouch1-2

Articles

‘During the course of the programme my attention shifted and deepened – I was more interested in developing myself as a person’: Evaluating a careers award in higher educationPDF
Wayne Clark3-20
Using the student voice to enhance the teaching of undergraduate courses with high failure ratesPDF
Erik Blair21-37

Critical case studies

Being there: strategies for incorporating the student voice into the learning experience of a large first-year marketing course in a New Zealand universityPDF
Mary FitzPatrick, Janet Davey, Dorothy Spiller38-48

Work in progress

Doctoral Training Partnerships: a work-in-progress review of the postgraduate researcher experiencePDF
Rebekah Smith McGloin49-57
Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Capturing the Distance (Online) Learner ExperiencePDF
Rachel Fitzgerald, Paul Corazzo58-64

Book reviews

Book review: A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Qualitative Research (Silverman, 2013)PDF
Wayne Clark65-67


ISSN: 2041-3122



The Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education can be found at: http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/index

Saturday, 30 November 2013

Junkbots – it is not one thing!

Junkbots – it is not one thing!:

The School of Science and Technology at the University of Northampton have been working with local schools to create robots made from junk. This is an initiative by the University to introduce environmental sustainability, engineering and computing to students and has been funded by Northampton Enterprise Limited and east midlands development agency (emda). 

For more details on the junkbots project go to: http://junkbots.blogspot.co.uk/ 

This and other posters at Engage 2013 can be found at: https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/engage2013/poster-party

'via Blog this'

Tuesday, 26 November 2013

DOIs and Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education



Reposted from:  http://researchsupporthub.northampton.ac.uk/2013/11/26/dois-and-enhancing-the-learner-experience-in-higher-education/


DOIs and Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education

I mentioned in a previous post that the University had recently registered with CrossRef to allow us to allocate Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to published articles.
Our first use of these has been within Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education (ELEHE), the university’s first open journal.  Each issue of the journal now has a DOI, as does each article within the issue. For example:
There are a couple of advantages to having DOIs assigned to articles.  In the first instance the DOI helps the reader locate the originally published copy of the work – even if the publisher moves the article (say to a different web address) the DOI system will redirect the reader to the new location.  This principle underpins the second advantage: the DOI acts as a unique identifier for the work and so can be used as a shorthand for referencing it.  For example, in the forthcoming REF exercise HEFCE have asked for DOIs, where possible, to be supplied instead of full text copies; these will be used by the REF team to access the research outputs directly from the publishers’ websites (HEFCE, 2013).
CrossRef places certain conditions on publishers wishing to assign DOIs to their journal articles.  One requirement is that editors should, where available, show DOIs against items within their articles’ reference lists. (Towle and Howe’s article demonstrates how DOIs appear in ELEHE reference lists.)  It is easy to imagine how these will build a complex interlocking network of scholarly outputs and form the raw material of future bibliometric tools and services.
Another CrossRef requirement is that publishers should make provision for perpetual access to their journal content.  This means that if an online journal ceases publication, past issues should still be accessible to readers.  A number of publishers have joined theLOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) scheme to support this requirement – but that’s a subject for another day.
Going forward, any future publication within the Northampton Open Journals collection will also benefit from the allocation of DOIs.  If you would like to know more about creating your own electronic journal then see our information for editors or get in touch with Miggie Pickton.

The Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education can be found at: http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/index

Sunday, 17 November 2013

Editing and STRiPe: Scott turner

The STRiPe actively takes part in disseminating practice. As an example of this a member of the group's journal editorial activities include:


  • Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education.
  • Innovation in Teaching And Learning in Information and Computer Sciences



Journal: Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education
Taken from: http://elehe.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/meet-editors-dr-scott-turner.html



Employment

  • 2008-mid 2009 Learning and Teaching Coordinator (0.5PL), University of Northampton
  • 2001-current Lecturer/Senior Lecturer University College Northampton/University of Northampton
  • 2001  Research Assistant, University College Northampton
  • 1995-1996 Research Assistant, University of Oxford/Medisense Ltd.

Memberships

  • 1993 Member IEE/Institute of Engineering and Technology
  • 2003 Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (including the IEEE computer Society)
  • 2007 Member of the British Computer Society
  • 2007 Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Awards

  • 2007 Teaching Fellow

Research
  • Robotics
  • Problem-solving and computer-related pedagogy
  • Genetic Algorithms and Neural Network Applications
  • Signal Progressing


The Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education can be found at:http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/index



Journal : ITALICS

Taken from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/journals/italics/italics-editorial-board


ITALICS - Innovation in Teaching And Learning in Information and Computer Sciences



Members of the Editorial Board:

  • Stephen Hagan (Editor in Chief), University of Ulster
  • Tom Crick, Cardiff Metropolitan University
  • Neil Gordon, University of Hull
  • Alan Hayes, University of Bath
  • Lyndsay Marshall, Newcastle University
  • Andrew McGettrick, University of Strathclyde
  • Rebecca Strachan, Northumbria University
  • Scott Turner, University of Northampton
Details about the journal can be found at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/journals/italics