DLTE – Developing Your Online Teaching

Community Building and Engaging Students

DLTE’s Moodle Community space Developing your Teaching and Support for Learning Online is updated continually, and the latest resources include 

• Ideas for ice-breaker and community building activities for the start of the trimester. These can be materials in Moodle to work through in their own time, or activities for use in live webinars. 
• Planning how you and your students can spend your timetabled sessions effectively. This includes keeping students engaged, tips around student prework for sessions and tools to keep students on track.
• Conversations on online learning podcasts with experts from around the globe. Download each episode, grab some headphones and go for a walk while you listen in on our conversations.

Support for students and staff

Students can find quick guides and introductory videos for Webex, Panopto and Teams on My Napier. The Subject Librarians offer subject-specific webinars and online support materials for students in any module by request. 

Staff can receive support for all aspects of technology enhanced learning from their local Learning Technology Advisor who continually provide 1:1 consultations and group sessions. The Subject Librarians offer a Digital Library Skills Programme on alternate Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon, and session topics will be updated on the Training and Events Calendar. DLTE run fortnightly Help with Teaching Online Q&A and the monthly Online Teaching Show & Tell sessions.

Latest Technology Updates

Webex Meetings is continually updated with new features which are summarised here.

You may wish to explore:

• Breakout rooms allowing students to work in private online rooms away from the main meeting.
• Animated reactions (emojis) allows the presenter to get a sense of the audience response by asking participants to give a quick thumbs up/down, happy/sad/laughing/surprised face, applause and celebrate.
• Display of streaming video, accomplished by enabling the optimise for motion and video setting when sharing your screen or application.
• Polling can help to engage students in your live sessions. Webex has a polling feature as per this overview video Also see this site’s articles on Mentimeter, a more sophisticated polling and quizzing tool, which is also available to staff. 

Microsoft Teams also supports breakout rooms which are created at the start of a scheduled meeting. Further details about breakout rooms are available in this Microsoft quick guide and help video. Microsoft Teams is a great platform to support student group working as well as live teaching, and to request a team workspace for your module then use the UniDesk form. 

Graphic tablets and pens allow you to write and draw on whiteboards and other applications such as PowerPoint, and are a great way to create dynamic presentations in recordings or in live teaching sessions. A Wacom Intuos graphic tablet is available to order from IT Procurement, and has been used successfully by colleagues such as this example in the shared practice database.

Recorded presentations are an increasingly popular assessment format, and the Moodle Assignment provides a convenient submission and grading space. Students can create videos using a variety of recording applications, including the Panopto, and this staff briefing gives an overview of the submission options. The assessment for learning section on Moodle community provides a range of excellent resources related to open book exams and alternative forms of assessment.