Spotlight 2013
Recently eLearning attended Spotlight on Teaching and Learning. This was a symposium run by HEDC to allow university staff to come together and gather new ideas about good teaching practices and see the findings of research into teaching happening around the university.
eLearning presented a poster at the Creative Communication session about some of the work we have completed with Bill Anderson and Distance Learning in producing ePubs of course readers. You can find a copy of this poster below.
iPads
eLearning and ITS now have 2 sets of iPads available for use in University departments for teaching research and administration. The iPad loan scheme is a great way to get the most of out mobile technology without the large financial commitment.
Each set of iPads (3rd Generation) comes with a USB hub to charge all the iPads in one go. A MacBook can also be included so Apple Configurator can be used to manage App installation.
For more details check out the ITS website (http://www.otago.ac.nz/its/services/teaching/otago034345.html)
A recent user has been the Division of Health Science’s REACH Scholarship programme (http://tearawawhanauora.org.nz/2013/03/reach-otago-scholarship-for-year-13-maori-students-interested-in-health-career/) to give Māori students the opportunity to see where a career in health can take them and what opportunities the University of Otago can provide for them.
Here are some of the things they had to say about our iPads which they borrowed for a week:
I would consider myself very lucky!! The iPads were really handy and useful and it was easy to keep with the itinerary.
They were fantastic, being able to take notes, take pictures … made the iPads an integral part of my time down in Otago at the REACH programme
I really enjoyed using the iPads during the R.E.A.C.H scholarship. You could quickly get onto the Internet and it was good to take notes on.
We think this is pretty neat and an excellent use of the iPads.
Updates to Blogging and Podcasting Plugins
We have recently applied updates to some of the plugins on our Blogging and Podcasting service: Subscribe by Email and WordTwit These aren’t new plugins but updates to existing ones which brings some new functionality to the service.
Subscribe by Email
This updated plugin now allows for a more customised email to be sent when users receive updates from your blog. This is an improvement upon the text only email that was available before.
https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/help/extending-your-site/subscribe-by-email/
WordTwit
The update to this plugin now allows more than one Twitter account to be connected to your blog site as well as modifications to the security and verification procedures to connect your blog to Twitter. If you have been using WordTwit you will need to obtain verification tokens from Twitter to continue to use the service.
https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/help/extending-your-site/wordtwit/
We hope these updates help you make the most of your blogging experience.
