Get started with PollEverywhere!

Would you like to make your teaching sessions more interactive? We now have a license for PollEverywhere software which you can use to ask questions and get responses from  groups of students of any size. You might already be familiar with ‘clickers’ but with PollEverywhere students will use their own mobile phone, tablet or laptop, and you have much more choice in the type of question you can easily ask.

Next Wednesday (27/11/13) at 1pm we will run a training session in which we will show you how quickly you can start using this software and how easy it will be to integrate it into your teaching.

Please bring your laptop (that you have admin rights on and that has internet connection eg Eduroam) and we will get you started in 50 minutes.

The session will be in Room 0.15 Cochrane building. Please sign up here to let us know you are coming or if you would like to know more.

CORTEX Discussion Forum

CORTEX now has a newly integrated discussion forum, allowing anyone to open discussion around a specific topic. Please note that all submissions are moderated before they are published. The forum can be accessed here or viewed at the bottom of this page.

Xerte Online Toolkits

Xerte, developed at Nottingham University, provides a set of tools for teachers and elearning developers to create accessible interactive learning materials easily.

Xerte Online Toolkits is a server-based environment for creating content. We have installed it at Cardiff as part of a pilot, which means that members of the University can create and edit content in their web-browser, without installing any additional software, at https://xerte.cardiff.ac.uk.

Xerte can produce learning materials that are media-rich, with images,  sound and video, charts, quizzes, interactive drag-and-drop exercises, hotspots and annotated diagrams. But creation is simple: you just select pre-defined page types and fill in a few parameters to create each slide.

To find out more about Cardiff's Xerte installation, visit the Cardiff University installation. (Requires login)

Questionmark Perception (QMP)

Information Services provide a centrally supported Questionmark Perception service available for formative assessments. The system is available via Learning Central through the Blackboard Connector, or through the systems own web interface.

At present the undergraduate medical curriculum makes no use of this service, but it is expected that the new curriculum will make extensive use of online assessment, and QMP will likely be the system used.

At present it is necessary to contact Information Services prior to running an assessment through QMP to ensure QMP has the necessary capacity (current licensing restricts the number of concurrent users on the system) when the assessment is run.

Enhancing Content Accessibility

MEDIC e-learning are to invest in a resources upgrade enabling the access to module content from platforms such as the iPad. The increased use of non-Adobe Flash enabled devices means focus has been directed on adapting development whilst maintaining the level of interactivity previously only possible through use of the Adobe Flash Player plugin. Students using the self directed learning area in the new Cochrane building have been making extensive use of the Clinical Skills modules for OSCE revision, with many frequently using iPads to do so.