Tag Archives: induction

QR Fresher Hunt Around Campus⤴

from @ TecnoTeach

It is Fresher's Week, or Welcome Week, at University of Dundee, and students are starting a new journey in their lives.  Like all new journeys there are hurdles to overcome to get to the final destination.  During Welcome Week, my role is to provide students with their induction to the the IT systems that they will use at University to communicate, access materials and in some cases collaborate with others.  Over the past two years I have evaluated this system, observed students in their first few days at University and discussed some of the difficulties.  The main aspect that arises is finding their way about Campus and Dundee.

University is like a small town with lots of buildings, rooms, people and procedures and it is difficult to assimilate all this knowledge and locate various buildings in this maze-like community.  Likewise, Dundee is a large town with lots of places of interest that are sometimes never found.  The traditional method of finding places are organised guided tours of the University or local area or follow the crowd and all get lost together.  Today I decided to change from the traditional to the present and organised a QR Fresher Hunt for my First Year Primary Student Teachers and for new students across University in collaboration with Karen from Dundee University Students Association (DUSA).

The QR Fresher Hunt used i-nigma software to create QR Codes  with hidden messages that were revealed when students scanned the codes with i-nigma App on iPhones that were provided by myself for each group or using the students' own mobile devices that are compatible with i-nigma software.  The messages within the QR codes asked students to locate a key area in the University (Teaching Rooms, Reception Area, Assignment Location, Student Services, Bank Machines, Gym, Book Shop, businesses in dundee and local areas of interest, etc) with a specific task to do when they arrived there.

The activity started with a shy, quiet class who were still getting to know their peers and their lecturer.  When students returned from the QR Fresher Hunt the atmosphere had transformed into a lively class who undertook all activities and were eager to share the information, leaflets and knowledge about areas of University, with their peers.  More importantly, new friendships were made through this collaborative activity where everyone was involved in each task.

QR codes have a huge potential to be part of Education, whether it be to support or extend learning or to make learners engage with their learning environment rather than dismiss it.  Maybe the seeds I have sown today will scatter to a wider community where others will adopt this active approach to Fresher's Week but more importantly that our future teachers may use this method to engage, support, personalise and motivate the children of today's generation.

What's your preference – Pull or Push ?⤴

from @ eCurriculum Blog

This week we published our first podcast. It's the first of a series of short podcasts (and in the longer term - vodcasts) that we are planning this session.

The essential difference between a podcast and an audio file is that a podcast is syndicated. This means that, if you subscribe to it, feediconthe podcast is automatically supplied to you when it is published - you don't have to go and "find" the information. You'll have seen the orange feed icon I'm sure. You see it on browser menu bars, on websites and in email clients. It's the new way to manage information. It's now often referred to as "pull technology", where the request for information originates from the client, with the reverse known as "push technology" where servers push data to the client.

Feeds can also be embedded into websites using feed widgets. Therefore it's perfectly feasible to provide dynamic content to course websites using this method. e.g. a feed with local exhibitions for art students, a current affairs feed for journalism & politics or late travel deals for tourism students.

We had a great deal of discussion in the team about the best way to provide access to our new podcast service. Mark would use iTunes, Celeste uses Google reader and I prefer the RSS reader integrated into MS Outlook. So because of the range of alternatives that people use now we've provided a few options.

If you use iTunes simply click on the link; If you use an RSS reader copy and paste the code provided; the final alternative is to open the link and save as a favourite feed (an option in IE7) or a live bookmark (FireFox).

Check out our very first podcast here

The ever reliable Lee and Sachi LeFever from Common Craft have a great short video that describes RSS really well, although as I've already mentioned the reader software they talk of is not the only option now.