Event: Working collaboratively? Can wikis help?

Wikis? What are they? What have they got to do with education? How can they help with collaborative group work? In a similar vein to the recent session on blogs, the next Lunch & Learn is on wikis, what they are and how they might be useful in university education. The session will look at these issues and show examples. You'll also get a free lunch with very nice sandwiches.

E-mail Carol David in SDU to book a place.

Lunch & Learn
Tuesday 6th November 12:30-1:30pm
Staff Development Unit

Event: E-Learning & Cakes

Fancy a coffee, some cake and a chance to find out what's going on in E-Learning here at Swansea? The next E-Learning and Cakes session will on Friday 9th November at 11:00am in Room 703 on the 7th Floor of the Library building. It's not a formal meeting but a chance for anyone who is interested in using technology in learning to share what they are doing and find out what others are up to.

Event: Taking the Equal Opportunities legislation into the classroom

A Learning & Teaching Seminar from the Glamorgan Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching -

"Taking the Equal Opportunities legislation into the classroom: 10 things to think about in your teaching"

Beverley Bentley-Jones - Equalities Manager, Human Resources

21st November 2007, Time: 12.00 – 2.00

Venue: University of Glamorgan

This is not about treating everybody the same. The phrase "equal opportunities" trips readily off the tongue, sometimes shortened to "equal opps", to the extent that we sometimes forget what it means. For our purposes, it means ensuring that everyone in the classroom has the same opportunity to learn—and by extension, to get their qualification. In the end, it is up to us to provide those opportunities, but up to them to take them.

Glamorgan CELT events are open to all with an interest in Learning and Teaching and Equal Opportunities but prior booking is essential.

For more information on CELT seminars please visit our new website: http://celt.glam.ac.uk

E-Learning Showcase – come and find out what other people doing?

The next Lunch and Learn takes a slightly different approach from previous sessions. This time we’ll be sharing two experiences of e-learning in action.

Chris Jobling: Engineering -‘The Blackboard Quest’, which helps students explore the various features of Blackboard while at the same time getting them to actively review the course materials.

Lori Havard – ‘Letting the Genie Out’ - Creating successful interactive information literacy activities for busy medical students.

As usual there will be a free lunch. The avocado sandwiches were particularly nice last week :-)

Date: Tuesday 30th October

Time: 1-2pm

Location: Staff Development Unit

A view of students today?

I'm not sure I agree with everything this video (by Micheal Wesch - the same person who produced Web2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us - and his Anthropology Class) is trying to say. However, it does raise some interesting questions.

Event: What has blogging got to do with learning and teaching?

Blogs? Blogging? RSS? You may well have heard of these and sometimes it may seem, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, that even my dog has a blog. You may be asking ‘how do they actually work and what use might they have in higher education?’ The next Lunch & Learn session, as well as providing you with get a free lunch, will look at these questions and show some examples of blogs & blogging being used here at Swansea.

Lunch and Learn: Enter the Blogosphere
Friday 19th October 1.00pm to 2.00pm
Staff Development Unit

New Learning Lab wiki

You may, or may not, have noticed that the Learning Lab wiki looks a bit different. It's hopefully a bit easier to use and you no longer need to have an account to add anything or make changes. You do need to enter a password to 'log in' - see the front page of the wiki for more details.

As well as text and images you can also add video, calenders, spreadsheets, arrange meetings and so on by using the 'Insert Plugins' tool and following the instructions.

The purpose of the wiki is to enable you to -

• find and share useful websites, materials, learning objects, training, articles etc.
• see what other staff at Swansea have found useful
• tell others about resources you have found or recommend
• anything else related to using technology in learning & teaching

Happy wiki-ing!

Crafty, confessional and travellin' librarians?

It's true and you can find them all in the list of the Top 25 librarian bloggers compiled by the Online Education Database. They compiled the list to answer the question "which librarian bloggers have the biggest reach?"

Any chance of a Swansea librarian breaking into the list?