How to download your feedback from assignments

At this time of year students are submitting assignments and exams and, once marked, you’ll then want to view your feedback. We recommend saving off a copy of your feedback for future reference, to plan for future assignments and exams, and to provide evidence for job and further degree course applications. You should do this …

The Courtyard

The painting “A Courtyard in Chernihiv”, by Victor Onyschchenko, shows what I’d probably call a back alley. It’s that space behind the house (or beside the house) where you park your bike, play with the dog, kick a ball around, do a bit of experimental “gardening”. This courtyard is in a city far away, but …

Hybrid Teaching and Learning in HE: a futuristic model or a realistic model for the future? Summary and Reflection

‘Hybrid Teaching and Learning in HE: a futuristic model or a realistic model for the future?’ was a question addressed at a workshop held by the University of Nottingham in early 2022, when universities were ready to turn the pandemic corner. More than 150 participants from around the globe were brought together to share their …

Submitting dissertations and assignments

At dissertation time, we often get questions relating to preparation of documents and submitting online. Here are some of the things you can do to avoid problems previous students have had with submitting dissertations or assignments. Preparing your document, including converting a document to PDF Many dropboxes specify that a PDF must be provided.  Dissertations …

Word games and learning – make your own Wordle!

So have you caught the Wordle bug yet?  I have. And of course there’s a group of colleagues sharing our scores… It’s taught me a few things that I hope to apply to my digital learning design, particularly perhaps for revision and key learning points: Make it a small activity: Wordle takes a few minutes …

Open Badges in Moodle

Open Badges are a commonly globally accepted form of micro-accreditation that also provide motivation for students to complete a course, part of a course, or a series of tasks. Open Badges are verifiable and shareable, and they contain detailed information about the achievement and what the recipient did to earn the badge (evidence of learning). …

Anonymous forums in Moodle

We are occasionally asked about how staff can set up anonymous forums in Moodle. At the time of writing there is no official anonymous forum in Moodle. Moodle is designed to be, like the lecture theatre or seminar room, a safe learning space where students feel comfortable speaking in a community of learners. There are …

Word counts and Turnitin

We are often asked about Turnitin Word counts. Turnitin states that they use a word counting algorithm very similar to that of Microsoft Word but not identical. Some of the main differences include: Turnitin does not count the words in footnotes and end-notes. Turnitin does not count words in text boxes, So, if your whole …

Starting out with Xerte Online Toolkits: new URL

Xerte Online Toolkits is an Open Source content creation tool that allows non-technical users such as academic staff to quickly and easily build rich, interactive and engaging online learning resources. It has high levels of accessibility already built in. If we can describe Microsoft PowerPoint as a specialist program for creating presentations to deliver live …

Moodle quick wins #2: Should I add a file individually or in a folder?

You can upload files to Moodle as individual File Resources or into folders. There are generally more advantages to adding the files individually. You can do very much more with individual files that is not possible with files in folders. Folders in Moodle can only contain files (not any other kind of resource or activity). …