Technical guides and online learning
The technical guides section contains practical information about making the best use of software currently available in a teaching and learning context. We hope to expand this section to include guides to tools that may be of particular interest to EBL practitioners and learners.
- Using wikis as a learning and assessment tool in Economics
The aim of this document is twofold: first to examine the institutionally supported “Confluence wiki” within the Blackboard VLE and consider whether it is the best choice for allowing 3rd year UG students enrolled on the Labour Economics ECON30631 unit in order to create a collaborative labour economics encyclopaedia or textbook online. This document will also consider some of the externally provided wiki alternatives and attempt to weigh up the pros and cons of each. Second, it will examine how mathematical formulae can be created by both staff and students to be used within wiki pages and discussion posts. - Comparing Blackboard Confluence with a customised WordPress installation to support the ‘National product supply management workshop – exercise’
The aim of this document to describe the process involved in replicating features of the WordPress-powered collaborative exercise currently offered to students of the MEDN62212 unit on the Masters in Public Health programme using the Confluence wiki tool which is ‘powerlinked’ from the Blackboard (Bb) VLE system. (note: technical issues refered to in this document were current at time of writing but may now be resolved) - Personal Journal Writing and Collaboration Tools to Assist Doctor of Practical Theology (DPT) Students.
The aim of this document is to act as a specification detailing the provision, ongoing support, maintenance and administration of self-reflection/journal writing and collaboration tools and how these tools could be used to assist an enquiry-based approach to learning. - Using Google Docs for collaborative working
Much student EBL work is collaborative (much like in the ‘real world’ of work) and Google Docs and similar free online tools such as Zoho offer an easy way of working as a team on documents without the hassles of editing multiple copies of the same file and controlling the master copy. - InterLoc and SBLi evaluation workshop
Link to the workshop support site. A group of students, academics and technical staff were asked to evaluate and reflect on the prossibile uses of InterLoc and SBLi.
InterLoc is a tool that supports Digital Dialogue Games for learning and thinking. These structure, scaffold and organise collaborative multimedia dialogues.
Scenario Based Learning Interactive (SBLi) is a software suite designed to enable the creation and delivery of scenarios as an aid to problem-based learning or enquiry-based learning. - Pimp my Browser: A guide to using Web 2.0 tools to customise your internet experience
Link to the workshop support site. PmB took a non-technical look at what Web 2.0 really means and the impact it may have on the way teachers and students use the web. Participants found out how Web 2.0 tools can be used to create a personal web portal, network effectively, share resources and collaborate with others online. - Create Structured Documents using MS Word (PDF, 210Kb)
Creating correctly structured documents is important if you intend to share your documents electronically. This guide explains why and how to do this using MS Word. - Teaching and Clickers
Personal Response Systems (or "Clickers") are attracting the attention of academics as a means of making their lectures more interactive. These engaging slides were presented as part of a stimulating mini-conference held at CEEBL, March 26th 2010. How to use Clickers is explained by these slides: Using Turning Point/Clickers