Core area 1: Operational issues
a) An understanding of the constraints and benefits of different technologies
“Online can be the privileged mode. Distance is a positive principle, not a deficit.”
Manifesto for teaching online – Digital Education, University of Edinburgh, 2016
The University of the Highlands and Islands comprises thirteen campuses stretching from Orkney and Shetland to Argyll and Bute. Since its inception, the University has been a pioneer of blended learning and remote learning.
As an Instructional Designer with the Educational Development Unit, one of the main parts of my job is helping lecturers turn Word docs, PDFs, or PowerPoints into interactive reusable learning objects. There are two main authoring tools that we use at UHI for creating online learning resources, these are Articulate 360 and Forge.
Forge
Forge was developed by my colleague Mark as an in-house programme that would substantially speed up the process of creating HTML-based learning objects and make it more user friendly. There is no need for users to be able to code as the interface provides options for adding text, images, videos, and Bootstrap classes1.
Forge is quick and easy to use and because it was created in-house, UHI has been able to make it available to all staff across the partnership without incurring extra costs. However, it also doesn’t have a team of developers constantly working on it, so it does have a few little quirks that I have learnt to get used to, for example, it works most smoothly on Firefox.
I will often create the initial object, and encourage the academic to make future updates and revisions themselves. Or if they wish to create the resource themselves, I point them to online guidance and am on hand to provide extra support if necessary, sometimes I will also provide an itroductory lesson. The benefit of this is that lecturers are able to keep resources up to date themselves without having to wait until EDU has the availability to help and it frees up our team to work on projects that require more specialist knowledge.
Any interactive content previously needed to be hand coded, which is time consuming. The open source tool H5P has provided a solution to this problem. I use H5P elements to create interactions like quizzes and image hot spots which can help to increase students understanding and engagement. The drawback of H5P is that the options available aren’t very flexible, for example, hot spots are one size and if this is too large or too small for the image there is no way to change it.
Articulate 360
Articulate 360 is the other authoring software that we use in the department. My first experience with Rise was during my interview preparation for the role I am now in at UHI. Part of the interview required that you show a learning resource you had created or been involved in creating. I had never worked in Instructional Design or education before but really did not want to turn up empty handed so I signed up for a trial of Rise and used it to create a short course on Inventory Photography for the National Trust for Scotland. I found the software very intuitive and enjoyable to use and was able to include video, images, and quizzes to make the resource more engaging. Now that I have worked as an Instructional Designer for some time, there are things I would change; some basic things like adding copyright information and alt text to images. I would also reflect on the way the information is laid out and think about adding Storyline elements that make it more interactive for the student.
The major drawbacks of Articulate 360 are the cost and restrictive nature of the licence. The EDU have a team licence with three ‘seats’ which can only be switched twice a year. As there are five developers in the department this means that there needs to be a specific reason for one of us to get a ‘seat’. Because of this, I didn’t get the opportunity to use Rise again until I had been in my role for some time. Another drawback of the licencing structure and the cost of obtaining more licences or purchasing a personal licence is that teaching staff are not able to log in and update their courses once we have created them. Any updates must be done by a developer who has access to the original file.
Using Articulate professionally as part of a team I find the Review/Feedback section which allows team members to add comments to specific sections and streamlines the revisions process to be particularly useful. For example, I was brought onto a project for a three-part course on ‘Covid Dementia Education in Care Homes’ the comments and review section allowed me to see where revisions had been requested by the academic and the other developer could also leave responses as to whether these revisions had been done or if I needed to do them. The other advantage of using Articulate 360 to author a course is the integration of Storyline elements into Rise. Storyline allows for the creation of bespoke interactions that can be much more complex than anything produced with H5P and therefore gives the designer much greater freedom. For example, I can choose the size of hotspots so they fit with the image or even decide to make them invisible so the student has to search for them.
1 Bootstrap classes are a collection of HTML, CSS and Javascript tools that can be used for building responsive web pages and applications. (Tomislav Bacinger, toptal.com)
b) Technical knowledge and ability in the use of learning technology
When considering the best way to help staff bring their teaching online, whether in the context of blended learning, flipped classrooms, or fully remote learning, there are many tools and resources at our disposal. It is important that I evaluate which ones will best suit both the academic and the learners.
Creating a new suite of online resources
The aim of the project was to create a new module within the well-established MSc in Infection Prevention and Control to be delivered over one semester fully online. As there is the possibility that lecturers may wish to update the resources themselves in the future, perhaps to include more up to date links or examples, it was decided the learning objects would be created using Forge.
The academic writing team provided me with the content in Word documents that outlined the basic structure and layout. There was also a request for a hotspot interaction where the students would view a hospital bathroom and think about what areas could be particularly high risk from an infection prevention point of view.
My role was to take the Word templates and create a set of interactive digital resources using my knowledge of Forge and the principles of Instructional Design to make them attractive and engaging for students
When creating the resources my focus was on how to make them as engaging and informative for the students as possible. Some writers had included images in their templates, however, not all of them were available for us to include due to copyright. In this instance I would search for a similar image with a creative commons licence or in some cases contact the original publisher of the image to ask their permission to use it. It is important to always use images with permission or that have open licences because otherwise we would be opening up the university to potential lawsuits. I will explore this issue further in section three.
When I was selecting images, mostly of different kinds of viruses and bacteria, I tried to think about what students might see in the lab and used a mixture of photographs showing cultures growing in Petrie dishes and highly magnified images taken using an electron microscope. I included this variety of images not only to illustrate the text but also to help consolidate the information visually for the students.
I also thought about how the text information was presented, and where appropriate used bootstrap panels and alerts to signify things of note or denote activities or further reading suggestions. I also used panels and accordions to break up lists and subheadings and make the page more visually appealing and the information more digestible.
For the topic of The Built Environment the lecturer wished to present the students with an activity where they would look at a hospital bathroom and find the areas that could present a high risk of infection. The obvious choice for this was a hotspot image, however, I felt that using H5P to create it would not present enough of a challenge for MSc level students. I chose Storyline instead because the hotspots could be made invisible and the students would look for them with their mouse. Although I had used Rise before I hadn’t had the opportunity to work with Storyline and was unfamiliar with how it worked but I knew what the finished results looked like. I found and completed a LinkedIn Learning course on the subject. Using what I had learned I created a scene with layers that would appear when an invisible hotspot was clicked. After showing it to my line manager she suggested that I make some changes, for example, a counter and that I prevent the same spot being counted more than once. This was slightly above and beyond what I had learned so I consulted with a colleague who had more experience with Storyline and between us, with some trial and error, we found a way to make it work. Each area could only be clicked once and once all 11 risk areas were found a congratulations screen would pop up.
As I develop my knowledge and experience of Storyline I may look to build on the interactivity of the resource.
Catherine Campbell, Programme Leader, MSc Infection Prevention and Control provided this testimonial in relation to the project:
“To create resources for a new module, the EDU team set up preliminary meetings with the tutoring team to explain the process. The teaching team had a good idea of what could be produced using Forge thanks to the EDU Showcase materials. A Microsoft Teams area was set up for the project which enabled the tutor and programme leader to monitor progress and respond to queries. Although unfamiliar with this mode of working, the IPC team gradually improved their interactions with the EDU team using this platform. The Tasks area was particularly useful in showing which sections of the learning materials needed to be updated; which required feedback and which were ready for students. Robyn used this with ease and successfully kept track of the 10 -12 sections for the six modules of the course. The learning materials were meticulously read to ensure that statements were substantiated with academic references; that links within the text worked and that each image was attributed. Robyn sourced new images where necessary, reversed searched those that were unattributed or created new ones.
Robyn then used the revised documents to create the Forge mini-websites. To make sections of text easier to digest and navigate, paragraphs headings were used to create accordion pop-out sections. Where the text was overly dense, Robyn placed images to make the materials attractive to the reader, often creating panels for the text to achieve a better design. Colours, fonts and layouts were chosen sensitively to ensure coherence and particular talent was shown in creating a hotspot interactive resource for students. Feedback from students has been very positive; it is difficult to learn online and Robyn has put much thought into choosing the tools she has at her disposal to create as interesting a learning experience as is possible.
The discipline of the EDU team in producing learning materials to such a high standard has prompted the teaching team to think more carefully about how they themselves write materials. In turn, students are exposed to better quality materials and a higher standard of academic writing. The first resource was created in time for the start of the new module, and all of programme modules will follow the same format for 21/22 delivery. To date, students have found the resources to be excellent and easy to use. The programme lead will support the lecturers to update the materials as necessary. This has been made straightforward with clear instructions being provided by the EDU team on the Forge platform.”
Updating an older suite of online resources
One of the major factors when redeveloping these resources was time, they were very large in some cases up to 70 pages involving interactive elements, a lot of animation and Flash was going to be effectively obsolete in a few months’ time. I felt that a straightforward copy from Flash to Forge would not be the right approach. The pages on Flash were very small and most only contained a paragraph or so of text. I discussed it with my colleagues, and it was agreed that we would take a more holistic approach to the layout.
I am very interested in learning animation however, due to time constraints learning to make the animations myself was not an option. I made a list of the animations I felt were crucial to the learners understanding of the subject and Andy Blackall who had created the originals remade them in Adobe Animate.
Interactions were mostly drag and drop or multiple-choice quizzes. The quizzes were embedded throughout the resources and intended to help the students cement their understanding but did not require a pass score or for scores to be recorded. H5P worked well for these as it is quick to put together and integrates easily with Forge. I also used it for some of the diagrams to create hotspot interactions with the aim of increasing engagement for the student.
I learned a lot from this project in terms of interrogating the existing content and prioritising the elements that would be most beneficial to the student. Recreating an old resource also gave me a greater appreciation for the processes we now have in place when closing a project. Source documents and images are all saved in a shared folder, I consider this to be future proofing as I appreciate how much time it would save if resources ever needed to be remade
Visit the Anatomy, physiology and health resources page
Testimionals from staff:
“We powered through the Integumentary PP today and the students enjoyed engaging with the quizzes. Their words “it solidified their knowledge” brilliant news as they have closed books to study for. The students and I are delighted with the PPs, they are fun, clear and concise. The class of their own accord also visited the cardiovascular system and are really enjoying the information there too. This is a challenging system to recall, but using EDU PP and the Khan Academy have made it an engaging way to learn about the human body.” – Lecturer, Beauty
“This is fantastic! Would it be possible to use these resources in one of my modules? They’re exactly what I’m looking for for a new module, and here they are already made!” – Lecturer, Integrative Health
c) Supporting the deployment of learning technologies
For teaching staff who are delivering learning and teaching face to face, they have the choice on whether they use the Brightspace UHI VLE or printed handouts.
In the exceptional context of the pandemic, people and institutions faced a sudden need to adapt very quickly their means of communication and modes of delivery in learning and teaching. In education, the need to migrate from traditional classrooms to online systems was urgent, and the shift required digital tools and resources to support teaching (Careaga-Butter, Badilla-Quintana & Fuentes-Henríquez, 2020).
My role was assisting teachers and supporting their transition to teaching online.
While acknowledging many students, particularly those on under grad or FE courses who may be younger, prefer synchronous learning (Nguyen, Netto, et all, 2021) we felt it was important to consider the burden that the move to fully online learning and teaching placed on some students. Therefor it was important to encourage staff to use the virtual learning environment rather than relying solely on live-streamed lectures. For example, with everyone being locked down, students may not have access to a shared family device during the day or have enough bandwidth to join a live lecture. Brightspace provides learning resources for the students who might not have access to synchronous learning due to the aforementioned reasons and does not put them at disadvantage because they still have access to the asynchronous resources. It has a great deal more functionality than a PDF or Word doc does on its own. Brightspace provides various ways for the students to interact with the content, their peers, and the teacher. My role is to support staff by assisting them in populating their Brightspace areas (shells) and recommending tools that can improve the student experience.
When students and teaching staff access a module, the first thing they will see is a visual table of contents that clearly lays out the course components and shows what percentage of each is complete. I divide the learning resources section into submodules containing the learning materials and any assignments for each session. The clean and clear layout improves the student journey by preventing the frustration of not being able to find a document or realising that something has not been done because it was overlooked.
Brightspace tools such as quizzes and the ePortfolio encourage active learning which increases student satisfaction and motivation as has been shown by research on the value of active learning (Freeman et al., 2014). Unlike with H5P, Brightspace quizzes can be graded which helps the teacher to evaluate their students understanding of the material and identify areas that need revisited. The graded quiz I created for Animal Welfare and Environmental Ethics must be completed and the pass rate achieved before a student can move on to the next section of the course. The quiz can be taken as many times as the student wishes with the highest mark being recorded because the purpose is to ensure that they fully comprehend the subject before they embark on field work.
(The following paragraphs have been moved from section 2B and a concluding paragraph added, as suggested)
Forge is available to all staff at UHI and many have begun to use it to create their own resources in place of PDF or Word handouts. There are guides on topics like creating and exporting Forge files and using Brightspace that can be found via the EDU support portal. However, I find that for some people it helps to have a remote tutorial where I video call them on Teams. Although teaching staff are experts in their field I am aware they have varying degrees of digital literacy so a one on one is useful to assess their level of confidence and address their specific needs.
In one case, a tutor was looking to remake old resources through Forge. I shared my screen with him as I took him through the basics of Forge and showed him how he could add things like alerts and accordions. I also explained how he could change the font colour and that I would advise this if he has text in coloured panels to ensure there is enough contrast between the text and the background. I recorded the session so he could refer to it later and also created a cover template for the resources using PowerPoint instead of in Photoshop so that he could use it himself.
For more basic queries, like uploading a Forge resource to Brightspace, I took a similar approach where we set up a Teams meeting and I guided the tutor through the process using screen sharing. However, rather than recording it, I put together a quick guide Word doc with screenshots showing the different steps. The reason I used a slightly different approach here is that I know how busy the teaching staff are. Sending a Word doc that can be saved on the computer and lays out the same steps we had just gone over seemed the most straightforward way for him to access the information if he needs a reminder in the future.
By supporting teaching staff with the deployment of learning technologies such as Brightspace, Forge and H5P I helped to ensure that students did not miss out on vital learning opportunities as a result of the pandemic. Both I and the teaching staff had to learn to think creatively when coming up with ways of delivering learning outcomes that would usually be taught face to face, especially in the case of things like field trips. The innovations in creating new resources, like building virtual field trips using Forge, were born out of necessity and a desire for students learning in 2020/21 not miss out. However, I also see them as presenting long-term opportunities to open up new ways of learning and teaching that would not be possible without the use and continued development of learning technologies.
Evidence
Screenshots of feedback from a staff member, Brightspace areas that I have populated and a graded multiple choice quiz. Click images for a larger view.
