KEATS – Page 2 – Digital Education

This article has been divided in two parts. Part 1 discusses how the SSPP TEL team works to boost staff understanding of digital accessibility baseline. Part 2 provides an overview of the TEL training sessions available on the subject.

Allyship:

“the state of being an ally (= a person who helps and supports somebody) to a particular group of people that you yourself do not belong to, in order to help ensure their basic rights and ability to be happy and successful in society”- Oxford learner’s dictionary

What does digital accessibility mean to me? It means being able to embrace a platform for its intended use, because the people building it know how to create a great user experience – anticipating, rather than reacting to the needs of our diverse learning community. Being an ally. Continue reading “Part 1: Embedding Digital Accessibility to the heart of everyday TEL work” →

Evaluation and Reflection

Part 2: Reflections on collaboration/cross-institutional working in response to and after Covid-19

12th April 202212th April 2022 Georgios Aretakis

This article has been divided in two parts. Part 1 explains the online teaching challenges created by Covid-19. Part 2 presents the outcomes and conclusions after 2 years teaching online.

The volume of shared working, and working through a time of crisis, has helped to build collegiality, camaraderie and significant trust between teams. I believe this is evidenced by the devolution of central services to Faculty TEL teams (and not solely explained by capacity reasoning). For example: the provision of the Echo Scheduler role, Syllabus+ access being extended to TEL; and hopefully – successful pilot permitting – the Kaltura Management Console Super User role. Continue reading “Part 2: Reflections on collaboration/cross-institutional working in response to and after Covid-19” →

Evaluation and Reflection

Part 1: Reflections on collaboration/cross-institutional working in response to and after Covid-19

5th April 202212th April 2022 Georgios Aretakis

This article has been divided in two parts. Part 1 explains the online teaching challenges created by Covid-19. Part 2 presents the outcomes and conclusions after 2 years teaching online.

Covid-19 forced almost all teaching online in extremis and for an extended period of time. This was followed by at least a year of crisis management; attempting to continue to deliver the core functions of the College in the face of a global pandemic. Almost overnight TEL went from a support function to being of central importance to teaching and learning. Tools that may have been peripheral became, in effect, core. New tools rapidly became universal. The barriers between the substance of teaching and its delivery mechanisms began to dissolve. IT and TEL colleagues deserve immense credit for the way they managed the sudden massive increase in demand for their services, time and expertise. With the crisis period of the pandemic hopefully in the past, we can now reflect on the enhancements that have come about in our working practices, whether these were created or accelerated by necessity and which we choose to keep for the future. Some of the observations below are concrete, others are my personal reflections or opinions voiced by colleagues. Continue reading “Part 1: Reflections on collaboration/cross-institutional working in response to and after Covid-19” →

Technologies

Credit Harmonisation at King’s College: Case Study at the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy

14th February 20221st March 2022 Georgios Aretakis

The majority of modules in King’s College use the 30/60 credit split. This structure was introduced over 15 years ago for undergraduate modules to replace the “course unit” model. However not all postgraduate modules were also moved to this new structure, meaning there were different credit values assigned to different modules at PG level. Continue reading “Credit Harmonisation at King’s College: Case Study at the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy” →

Evaluation and Reflection

Preparing students for success in the digital world- The process of creating the Essential Digital Skills Programme

31st January 202224th February 2022 Georgios Aretakis

Digital competence and confidence are thought to be critical for success in higher education. However, despite a significant proportion of learning being online and evidence to counter the idea of digital nativity, these critical skills are often not explicitly taught at university. The COVID-19 pandemic outlined why it is so important for students to have the digital capabilities required to thrive in their academic, personal and professional lives. This blog reflects on the process King’s College London went through to create the Essential Digital Skills programme. Continue reading “Preparing students for success in the digital world- The process of creating the Essential Digital Skills Programme” →

Technologies

Using Automation to Facilitate Flipped Learning

9th August 2021 Georgios Aretakis

With the move to fully online teaching, it soon became apparent the most advanced KEATS (Moodle) training session, KEATS 3: Personalising the Learning Experience, was not appropriate for synchronous delivery. The session was re-designed as a completely flipped session, but attendees would often miss the pre-work instructions. The use of Microsoft Power Automate was explored to automate instructional emails, but the uses of the tool were further reaching than initially considered. Continue reading “Using Automation to Facilitate Flipped Learning” →

Technologies

Tech Test Thursdays for Digital Capabilities

25th May 202125th May 2021 Georgios Aretakis

When the Covid-19 pandemic put us fully online, colleagues in King’s Academy needed to expand our repertoire with a range of evolving technologies. Since we lead educational development programmes and sessions, we strive to demonstrate intrepid, successful designs which make best use of our learning environments. In the foreseeable future those environments would be digital. This post gives a rationale for carving out regular time to test things out together, followed by details about how we set this up to be low-maintenance. Continue reading “Tech Test Thursdays for Digital Capabilities” →

Technologies

King’s Academic Skills for Learning on KEATS

16th June 202016th June 2020 kcl ctel

King’s Academic Skills for Learning was launched in September 2019 to provide students at King’s with resources to help them develop their academic skills. Students (and staff) can self-enrol via the KEATS (Moodle) dashboard. Continue reading “King’s Academic Skills for Learning on KEATS” →

Technologies

Careers & Employability: Creating a KEATS hub

18th May 2020 kcl ctel

Purpose

Clutter is never fun, be it when it’s the reason you can’t find an email or a long-lost t-shirt, sometimes you need to have a good sort through and re-organisation! Over the years, we had been gathering and developing a lot of careers information and as we accumulated more and more resources across over 10 individual KEATS careers courses, it was time for a de-clutter and sort! Continue reading “Careers & Employability: Creating a KEATS hub” →