Welcome to Episode 5, a Podcast created live during Colin’s workshop at the Seda Conference on using Podcasting to support students and enhance learning.

The podcast itself is a collection of features reporting on people’s experiences at the conference. It was recorded live during the session by the participants, and roughly edited together during the 45 minute session. I didn’t quite finish it during the session itself, but 10 minutes of post workshop editing completed the job and got it online.

I’m hoping that it inspires everyone to have a go at podcasting simply due to how quick and easy it can be.

Any feedback or questions just get in touch at c.gray@napier.ac.uk.

Thanks!
Colin

This time around we’ve got a report for you from a recent SEDA event in London on Students Supporting Students. Then I talk to Christine Penman about her recent project involving wikis in language learning which won her an LTA award at the staff conference. Click the play or download button below to listen, or subscribe to the show in iTunes to have it delivered direct to your player.

As always, please do get in touch with feedback of any kind, especially on features or subjects you’d like covered in the future. Even better, if you’d like to record a feature yourself, from an upcoming conference, or on a recent project or paper of your own, then let me know – it would be great to hear from you.

To continue to make the show we really need feedback from you, the staff, to let us know how useful you find it. If ‘the show must go on’ please let us know!

Show Guide:

• 0:00 – 0:53 – Introduction
• 0:54 – 5:24 – Report from the ‘Students Supporting Students’ SEDA seminar in London
• 5:25 – 9:15 – Christine Penman speaking about her award winning language learning Wiki project
• 9:16 – 10:40 – Farewell and thanks

Show Guide

0:00 – 0:53 – Introduction
0:54 – 6:22 – Video for teaching and Learning: Mel-SIG Liverpool
6:23 – 14:38 – The Mentor Centre with Barbara Neades and Mike Parkinson
14:38 – End – Outro: Please get in contact!

Mel-SIG Liverpool

At the start of April Colin attended an event by the name of Mel-SIG. Mel-SIG stands for media enhanced learning special interest group, and it concentrates on any user of media in education.

We managed to grab the keynote speaker, Lindsay Jordan from University of the Arts London to give us a little summary of her presentation. She was talking about her 7 big benefits that video can bring to learning and teaching. Listen to the show to find out more.

The Mentor Centre

This episode’s featured resource from the LTA resource bank is one of our previous LTA award winners. The project was run by Barbara Neades and Mike Parkinson and centred around the creation of the Mentor Centrre. The mentor centre is a resource aimed at providing educators with the information they need to be able to work effectively as a mentor and to support students’ learning in practice. Listen to the show to find out more from Barbara and Mike.

Please get in touch!

After you’ve had a listen, we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch to let us know what you think, or to give us some ideas about future shows. You can contact Colin at c.gray@napier.ac.uk or leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

We also look at the recent Edinburgh Napier staff conference and the themes that came out of discussions there, before talking to Mark Huxham who won a LTA award at the event for his recent work on simple student feedback, called ”Tipping out the Bootgrit’.

And, as usual, we have plenty of news for you from the world of Edinburgh Napier, so turn off the emails for half an hour, lock out the students and have a listen – I hope you’ll find it worth the listen!

Listening to the show

The easiest and quickest way to listen to the show is to use the player that you’ll find on this page. Just plug in your headphones and click the play button. You should hear the radio show theme tune playing straight away. If you’re listening within Edinburgh Napier, sometimes your sound card or volume will be switched off – fire a quick email off to C&IT and they’ll be round to fix the problem as soon as they can.

Otherwise, if you want to listen on the move, maybe on your bus or drive to work, you can download the show and place it on any MP3 player. Just click the download link right next to the play button.

Finally, and most efficiently, you can subscribe to the show using our RSS feed. The broadcast, while being called a radio show, is actually delivered as a Podcast, and you can use iTunes, Juice or any other podcatching software to automatically receive it on your device. Use the RSS feed link on the front page to do this.

Leave us feedback

Please, please, please leave us some feedback after you’ve listened to the show. We’d love to hear what you think, good or bad, especially if you have any ideas for subjects that you’d like to be included in the future. We’d also love any questions you have for our educational experts in the office of the Vice Principal so if you’ve been wondering about how best to run an online discussion, how to give assessment feedback to your students or anything else, please drop us a message and we’ll include it on the next show.

You can do this in a few different ways:

1. Email me on c.gray@napier.ac.uk
2. Leave a comment on this page by clicking on the comments link and filling in the form.
3. Phone me on my Edinburgh Napier internal line, easily found under Colin Gray, Professional Development in the staff directory.

Show Schedule

If you don’t have time to listen to the whole show you can find your sections of interest by skipping to the show-time below.

0:00 – 1:05 | Introduction

News
1:05 – 2:25 | New professional development structure and contact details
2:25 – 3:05 | Sighthill Campus Opens
3:05 – 6:00 | Steven Bruce updates us on the WebCT replacement project
6:00 – 7:35 | Fiona Campbell on the next staff conference, including how to enter the LTA awards

January Staff Conference Feature
7:50 – 15:50 | Mick Healey talks about his feelings of the day, including where we’ve been and where we’re going based on the morning’s discussions around the LTA key statements.

Applying to and presenting at a conference
15:50 – 24.55 | Christine Penman talks about going through the application and peer review process and discusses what the most difficult parts of the journey were, offering tips on making it easier for yourself.

Featured LTA Resource
24:55 – 30:15 | Mark Huxham talks about his project ‘Tipping out the Bootgrit’ in which he solicited quick and easy feedback which resulted in a greatly improved student experience.

Outro and contact Information
30:15 – end

Each episode will bring you features on learning and teaching approaches from across the sector, including such things as technology enhanced learning, student support, feedback and engagement. You’ll get your chance to ask questions on these subjects and more, learning from the experience of other staff members as well as the Academic Development team. You’ll also hear from regular and guest presenters as they attend conferences, participate in seminars and talk to leading educators around the country.

We really want your feedback on this and will be shaping the show over the coming months based on your needs so please drop us a line, either via our Edinburgh Napier email to Colin Gray or Elaine Mowat, or by leaving a comment in the area provided below.

In this episode:

1. News, including the new ‘Be wise…’ site and a novel approach to student funding.
2. A chat with Karen Strickland about the new LTA resource bank and how it can help you.
3. A feature on novel, but easy ways to improve the support you offer your students,  saving you time while inproving the student experience.
4. A round-up of the events and workshops coming up within and outwith Edinburgh Napier.

Again, please please give us feedback on the show and let us know what you’d like to hear. Hopefully see you for the next episode!

Colin Gray – Professional Development