 Good morning to the first session of this winter conference. I will just introduce to you Kirstie Cooley from the University of Nottingham and I think she'll take it from there. Okay, thank you. I'll just share my screen. It's slow, it'll get there. Okay, can everyone see my screen? Okay. Yep, can you see my screen, Johnny? Right, okay, so I'll make a start. Right, so I'm going to talk to you today about everything really that we're all familiar with I think and it's really about the digital lockdown, what we've learned and the post pandemic practice that comes after that. I'm Kirstie Cooley and I'm a digital learning manager from the health and learning media team in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Nottingham. I've got a padlet and hopefully Johnny can pop that into the chat as well. It's just the link but I'd quite like you to you know put things in it sort of during the presentation but I do have some sort of questions and prompts at the end that I'd like us to perhaps reflect upon. Right, so okay this is March 2020. This is kind of where we were. Apologies for the sort of cheesy kind of meme but here we are looking on as COVID's about to absolutely smash the hell out of our practice and what we do and the academics having to keep the show running for the students as well and these are the kind of things I expect a lot of us were doing so we were training people, writing guides, getting IT kit ready as well in some cases, installing teams and lecture capture and the other kinds of software that people actually needed to put on their laptops and take home. I suspect everyone got totally screencasted out. There's so much to do wasn't there and there was phone support and then we also became kind of IT support at home as well so our roles kind of changed in that time too. So we're going back to March 2020 and this is at the University of Nottingham the same I expect as where you are as well is we kind of replaced the the lecture with asynchronous recordings and it was a kind of a bit of a like for like sort of thing and where we had more interactive sessions then quite soon as teachers got confident they switched from the kind of live seminar environment to live sessions with chat and the teaching role kind of became more of a facilitation role as well and in our particular school as well as some of the other schools in the faculty we had clinical skills and lab teaching and we've done a number of e-learning faculty kind of events in our faculty called Felthig and we had quite a few numerous creative solutions pop up for example we had some medical lecturers who actually set up a live stream studio green screen in in their house as well and use kind of household items around the house to simulate clinical learning episodes that was quite interesting and we had some interesting life sciences courses as well who sent microscopes home and got people to look at things in their ponds and all sorts of stuff so people have been very creative we also had the reality of what it was like and I think in the midst of this all we worked and lived at home some of some of our staff and students were volunteering we had student nurses who joined the front line they actually graduated early and joined the workforce and we've had people volunteering at the vaccine centres and all kinds of things and as we know I'm sick to think for those with you know younger children as well and caring responsibilities it was fraught with a lot of difficulties and stresses you know looking after ourselves and looking after our families so we've got we've got all that to contend with as well so I'll talk a little bit about what we did within the mid and free department so during the period of lockdown I developed two surveys with Rachel Best who's the undergraduate midwifery lead the first was with students who had to undergo the pivot with us so they they knew the staff you know they knew the systems already and we evaluated some of the changes that we'd made to make our systems like Moodle teams and Echo Lecture Capture more accessible more seamless for the students and then the second survey was with in June 21 and this was with brand new students that year who were actually inducted in lockdown at distance so they joined us essentially as distance learning cohort they didn't know any of the systems we had to induct them all online and we had the opportunity to evaluate kind of fresh if you like some of the changes further and refine them and present them back to colleagues and also at the time in the midwifery department they were developing new brand new curriculum which started just in September so that was something that had been ongoing before the pandemic but was launched as well to these new students so it's quite quite a challenging time I'd say okay so I'll just get back to the stream yard so just as a sort of background this is the kind of thing we already had at Nottingham so this is sort of where we were starting from is our Moodle system sits in the middle and we link out to everything so everything hangs off the sort of coat hanger of Moodle and we were quite lucky as well we've got a lot of e-learning objects existing our reusable learning objects all that kind of thing and I'm sure you'll recognise some of these as well so in using Moodle as the centre but we also had other systems being introduced I think the main one really was teams so we're looking at where we are and we weren't in a bad place from that point of view but also something obviously it's going to be a theme today is accessibility and this is this is something that as learning technologists we we know a lot about and we do take it very seriously but obviously when there's a lot of things going on around it some of these kind of principles might be might be getting lost within the sort of creation of content and delivering content to these students at a distance so again this is something that it's it's a kind of training issue I would guess and also what we had already was sort of five years of data on about 100 learning packages so this was ongoing survey data that I built into existing blended learning resources and they'd kind of just sit in the background it was very very light touch but it would give us a sort of idea of other learning packages the right length what do students like what they don't like and they they rated them so I picked obviously the best ones to put on this slide that they really like but actually this is absolute gold what they've put in to this and it's kind of fed into the sorts of changes that I've made but the challenge I think is getting that kind of learning out and about to people as well so that's kind of where we were we also had a lot of media content within Midwifery and we had a YouTube channel we have a YouTube channel I'll just go back sorry we've got quite a few bits and bobs and the latest ones we put on there are actually hand washing which was quite convenient really and that was about January or February of 2020 and just to show you some of the stats they've gone through the roof really you can see in March these have been used worldwide and actually about half of our you know our users are from India as well so you can see it went went mad there about March and actually October and that was a period of lockdown I think as well and you can see it creeping up again so it's it's something we had already and that we had open to the community as well and what Rachel Best and I decided to call this what we were doing we call it the agile improvement cycle so we drew a kind of map to say this is where we pivoted here this was all the pre-lockdown stuff going into this so we're using our existing knowledge and content and then we're making changes to Moodle and Teams here because obviously we had emergency timetables things were going straight onto Teams things were going on to Akko and all this kind of thing so the first survey and focus groups were here we implemented these new changes for the existing and the new students who came the September of 2020 this first cohort and then we surveyed them earlier in the year here and then again implementing these recommendations and they were just in time as well to put into some of the new curriculum stuff and there's a project going on at Nottingham as well within our school to look at more Moodle standardization so hopefully this will be able to feed into that as well just just the sort of interest thing really these are some of the things that we were either doing already and we wanted to keep and consolidate or you know there's some things perhaps weren't working but these are the kind of principles that we keep within Moodle the main problem they had was navigation between lots of different systems and they don't always join up sometimes they do sometimes they don't so we need to keep it kind of as seamless as we can again using Moodle as this kind of central service to hang everything from and that included the kind of timetable format as well and having consistent course layouts for the program which is we were kind of doing anyway but within each module I included a lot more e-learning digital system support as well so there's consistent information about where the teams are how to get the teams you know that kind of thing the teams recordings as well and keeping a weekly format and collapsible topics which we already had but what we didn't have was a shed deal of activities so instead of just topics we actually replicated some of the timetable within there and it was a bit of a you know a bit more long winded to do but actually students appreciated it a lot and the teachers did as well because they could see exactly where we were like week by week as we came through that lockdown also just above that as you know you might already you know you can link out directly to a teams channel which I'll talk about teams in a minute and also we already had these kind of digital sort of avatar markers for kind of different types of activities so we updated those to include the new activities that we've got and also putting in like a lot of more inline help and support so little screencasts using teams as a you know central place for the students to give them more support as well and that's those that was for staff too so this is just a couple of screenshots from one of one of the modules so you can see we've got collapsible topics with quite a clear timetable info and these little avatars there and the self-directed learning if we've got that and this is just a standard support page as well and again this is something we were doing already but it comes back to accessibility is having different options so they'll have captions which are automatic now although they're not fantastic and also let them download audio if there's already recorded presentation which I think actually our lecture capture system allows you to do now so some of them can listen to it offline if they haven't got fantastic connections so teams was a big deal for us and that's something that people hadn't really used before so we had to think of a good way to use it with our cohorts and this what we did actually emerged out of our teaching staff and a couple of things they did that we managed to get kind of consistent across the program and I think this is important so they don't have to think too hard about the technology but they can just go in and dive in they already know where things are going to be so what we did was had a team per cohort per course and use a kind of again a visual a visual sign to have got colors for different years and we've got the staff member on the team's tile as well so they can sort of see at a glance who they've got and numbering the topic channel so they represent the same order that's in the timetable as well and using zero one so they actually appear in the right order on teams and then within each of these the staff will add their session as a team's meeting within each channel so we link directly to that channel from Moodle so if they're in I don't know doing the fetal skull for example on Moodle they'll have a link for fetal skull teams channel and that means they can directly see that until exactly where they are and that's worked really well another thing came out of some of our surveys were students wanting to see the face of the teacher which is makes sense really but the teachers perhaps hadn't considered that in the kind of massive rush to go online so after that we kind of put the the undergraduate Lee Rachel put in place a stipulation say actually can you can you make sure you record yourself as well when you're talking and we've got one teacher who's very very hands on and she actually sat there with her own flipchart at home writing things on it as well and students really like that kind of that approach so things did evolve as we went on and we found a sort of balance within the surveys so I think you wouldn't be unsurprised here people liked teams for some things people liked engaged which is the lecture capture system for other things what they liked I think was a bit of a balance and they appreciated the ability to sort of stop star a clean echo recording and to bear in mind too that when you've got an hour recording or half an hour recording they're probably going to spend twice as much on it when they're engaging with it which is writing notes and stopping it thinking about it and if you've got some prompts as well for them to consider within the video then obviously they're going to be engaging with it for a bit longer so it was important not to just dump lots of stuff onto them I think I think we know that as learning technologists not to kind of put too much into the learning here's another thing to read I was going to take you another hour you know you've got to bear that in mind and students were at home the same as we were probably getting very fatigued by tool also this is one I did on the second survey and I wish I'd done it on the first one as well but I was just interested to see what sort of devices people were using for what kind of activity and obviously it helps you when you're designing activities to know what people are using so it looks like we've got a tablet user a consistent maybe not totally consistent tablet user but the majority are using a laptop or PC which is obviously probably the best tool for the kind of most of the sessions but then when they have the teams chats they would come in using more mobile devices obviously it's not a huge sample but it was interesting for that course and when I've previously done I've done kind of hands-up surveys with first years they'll pretty much always say that they mainly use a laptop or PC or Mac for their main activities and we also had general recommendations so this was built up over the surveys from the last few years and there's just a few key points I wanted to put in about that so vary the digital learning activities I think with with lockdown obviously we had quite prescriptive right we're going to have these systems being used because it was easier for the university to be able to support those but actually you know in reality there's a bit of reading a bit of video some quizzes something like that so it's varied and it suits students in different ways and they've got choice of how to access things I think that's something that's a general recommendation but I'm keen that we we kind of don't lose that and again don't overload the e-learning because that's when students will say this took me far too long and those those surveys were useful that asked them what sort of time was it taking the time expected and we also make sure in the blended learning content that we have a time set for each activity so they can see all right you want me to read that but you only want me to spend half an hour on it or they'll prescribe the sort of reading to do you know if they just want you to be aware of it or if they wanted to actually read it properly and make comments and regular consolidation of learning they do respond well to that I think especially being at a distance is having that kind of regular feedback that they're on track is important and we've had quite a lot of good use of Microsoft forms coming out particularly in our vet school who are using Microsoft forms as you might use a Kahoot or Socrative as a kind of student engagement tool during the session as well and I think that's that kind of those kind of techniques to keep students engaged during those team sessions have evolved and we've had some really good practice coming out as well just to make sure students are kind of paying attention and they're still there and also try and incorporate some tracking feedback into the design obviously about five years ago I put that feedback into the design of the blended learning and actually it's really paid off so having that that kind of knowledge and information obviously we didn't know there was going to be a pandemic but it does pay off just to have an idea of where you're at all the time and you can also give kind of quite direct improvements to students as well I've always thought well if we can offer audio as well as video and subtitles just offer them an mp3 that they can pop on while they're doing the ironing or say driving the car probably on the bus would be better and offering the sort of bite-sized video of a high quality what lockdown meant was everyone went home and recorded on their laptops using other powerpoint or the echo personalized capture software and there were there were good recordings that they were doing and we'd already done some of those within the blended learning and I think that's something the students have kind of got used to but they're not necessarily going to get when they're back in the classroom they might get a recording of the classroom which is often quite variable with the sound and also just giving them short intro videos to topics and courses making it personal having the person's face on there just to make them feel like they're more connected to the learning community I've got some links on there I'm not sure if they're accessible but I think if you're interested then just let me know okay so we're going to fast forward a little bit now so it's December 2021 obviously we've got Omicron as well which is a bit dubious isn't it we're mostly back in the classroom or we were anyway and recording lectures in the classroom teams are still being used so we are continuing to have that kind of blended approach particularly for tutorials and you know actually means the students time is perhaps better used so they don't have to travel in just for an hour and also we're building upon the sort of good practice on the virtual learning environment enhancements and the new collaboration engagement tools the MS forms the kind of padlets that sort of thing so this is I think where we are at the moment but I think what I'm interested in is where have we pivoted to so we were kind of thrown in the air spun about and then landed somewhere but I'm interested to kind of know where we are really where you are where we are as a sector and what we can do from from now on so I'm going to just put a few questions down and if you could go into the padlet link and just have a think about where you are as well and put some comments in that be really good and then we'll review that in about five minutes as well so these are the kind of things I've been thinking about and this is really in discussion with colleagues what is back to normal so we've got new skill sets versus maybe a very much online fatigue particularly when you consider the kind of what you know what else we've had to contend with we've also is online learning now just a replication of normal so is online learning just a now a lecture capture or a team session perhaps we could ever think about that there's years and years there's decades of e-learning pedagogy that's it's well researched it's well evidence but a lot of this I think was new to some people as well and it's it's almost as learning technologies you're saying yeah we've done this we know this we know how to do it but was it falling perhaps by the wayside in some ways and do we have a voice to be able to to say actually we've kind of already got this knowledge how can we make sure everyone else has got this knowledge this kind of relates to the other point is it online lectures I think when I first started working on I think flip learning a few years ago the kind of assumption was you watch an hour lecture before you come in and then you come in and do seminar but there's so much more to digital learning than that and I really hope that our colleagues as well can see the potential of online digital learning as more a lot more than just replicating what they were doing in the classroom and I was thinking as well you know instructional design all that kind of thing is it there still are we still making the most of what our skills are and is it still going on you know and how we ensure that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water that we keep all of the good stuff that's been learned all the new skill sets a good practice and maintain the kind of enthusiasm or you know try and infuse colleagues to extend their digital learning and practice into new areas that's kind of key I think that's maybe where the crossroads is that we're at now and I think I've already said that we've got new skill sets too I think not just taking calls about it but we're we've also learned a lot I think and I remember trying to teach people teams and distance learning kind of these kind of collaborative things before but now everyone has had to do that and this is something that came out of a discussion with colleagues is is the attitude to online learning in any way tainted by negative lockdown experience and all the stress around that so online working study and teaching and that's for I think for all of us but particularly for students and maybe for some academics as well is how do we separate those two and actually go back in with you know doing the things that work best and that's a point I thought it's worth exploring and also have well why am I asking you I'd like you to go and have a look at the Padlet but also put any questions into the chat and we've got about I think six seven minutes I'll open up the Padlet and we can have a look at that as well so hopefully you've got the link in the chat I haven't got the stream yard up so I'll just go back into the Padlet and have a look Kirsty if you wouldn't mind posting that if you wouldn't mind sharing me the link to the Padlet and I can put that in in the comments oh okay I'll put it I think I've put it in before you join us yeah there you go okay I'll just see if anyone managed to get the link before not yet so I won't share it just yet because there's nothing on it but is there any questions that have come that have come out so far questions or comments we had quite a lot of comment around the the perception of the workload increase the normalization of all that extra workload something we were talking about before we had to comment Daniel's comment at 17 was around a question around did you find that student engagement was higher on these longer recordings across all cohorts or just the midwifery courses and it would seem quite exceptional to have such consistent engagement across all courses no I don't think I think it was yeah we didn't get everybody's response to the survey so yeah the ones that did say that they enjoyed the recorded lecture engagement and it took me two hours or the ones who said they did but I think for some there are some issues around general kind of engagement and making sure people the students have kind of done engaged with the work totally I think there have been a few a few issues like that I'm not sure across the university they did some other kind of survey work across the university which you know would be interesting to sort of have a look at that so yeah I think it's variable but it's just worth bearing that in mind if you're making recordings is how people kind of access to it yeah following on from that very point Catherine was saying about lack of a personal use device is something that some of her students have struggled with as well so yeah yeah digital divide and yeah we had a policy of helping students with that and also with wi-fi dongles as well so there was kind of hardship policies in place but obviously not everyone's got the same space to work very conscious of that I mean you know we've a lot of us it's variable with all of us isn't it yeah and a theme that kept coming through was summed up by by Matthew Moran was that the concept of a pivot he said that he found it to be unhelpful in general because that implies a kind of considered strategic here and change in direction for a defined purpose whereas in fact a lot of this was just you know struggling to yeah it was playing around no I agree I agree with that yeah and pivots the word that's always been used I don't know if it's been used in your institutions as well but it's always been the sort of pivot to online learning isn't it I did actually google pivot before I did the presentation just see what came up first and it's kind of seesaw that kind of thing so it felt more like a roundabout isn't it really and then you end up sort of whizzing out the other side feeling a bit dizzy so yeah I agree with the terminology yeah yeah exactly and um I didn't make the point again um well the question really around the you know obviously we've all noticed that video has been much more you know used much more frequently now and whether or not that there's an over focus on that to the detriment of what actually makes you know good learning from all the you know previous pedagogy that if we just throwing that out the window we're just watching loads of videos now that's yeah worries me a bit that um yeah I don't know it's it's just kind of getting people to the headspace where they've got some time to actually think about this stuff more deeply I think everyone's been working on you know on on gas really haven't they maybe the dust needs to settle a bit as well I don't know what other people loads of stuff coming up and have it fantastic I don't think I have time to look through it but yeah it's really that's really interesting I was going to do this session something similar actually this week with our faculty but we got cancelled because of Omicron and that kind of thing so you know if that's okay I'd really like to be able to use some of this learning as well an experience yeah Jen asks a very pertinent question just recently around getting a picture around students expectations of what they want a need from this this post pandemic learning experience because yeah often often the focus has been on how it's kind of not delivered you know you know what I mean how you know it's been delivered and maybe not quite so much on you know how how uh yeah I mean this is something I was thinking about the other day because obviously we've got a little bit there's a few comments on here about high flex hybrid teaching and we've had for example we've got one module where there's a set of students from the Netherlands who were supposed to come but they couldn't make it over in the end because it didn't get time to sort it out so they they've had to go in and do hybrid with teams where you're sort of teaching through teams and recording it that way and we've got some guidelines for that as well but it's it depends on the classroom and what sort of technology you're in there but you know I I can imagine students actually quite like in that approach you know is that something that universities should offer a bit more actually get the classrooms up to scratch that kind of thing I mean I can imagine in terms of inclusion and all sorts of things it would be really really attractive I think personally but you know obviously from a teaching point of view there's that engagement factor isn't there making sure that everybody's properly engaged and they've got the same kind of experience as the classroom students well I think that's us coming just about up to time and lots and lots of comments there so yeah thank you very much for all your comments yeah I will have a read through really interesting okay well thank you very much Kirsty thank you much I hope everyone enjoyed that as much as we did here and we'll just say goodbye for now okay thank you then bye