Event: Pedagogic uses of EVS

Engaging Students Through In-Class Technology (ESTICT) is a UK network of education practitioners and learning technologists interested in promoting good practice with classroom technologies that can enhance face-to-face teaching.

We are holding our first event on  Thursday 26th November 2009 at University of Leicester.

 

The aim of the day is to share best practice in the use of in-class technology, with a particular focus on the pedagogic uses of electronic voting systems (also known as ‘clickers’ audience response systems ARS, personal response systems PRS). This event is aimed at those both those with experience of EVS who wish to share their best practice and those with an interest in the technology that would like to know more.

Programme
Thursday 26 November 2009

09.30 – 10.00 Registration and coffee
10.00 – 10.15 Welcome and introduction
10.15 – 10.30 Networking event
10.30 – 11.15 Keynote : Dr. Steve Draper, Senior University Teacher, Dept of Psychology, University of Glasgow. Steve is an acknowledged expert in the field of EVS and has published widely on it’s use in Higher Education.
Title: Ways to improve learning with EVS: some deep procedures for teachers, and what
software features matter for these. Abstract.
11.15 – 11.30 coffee
11.30 – 12.00 Mark Goodwin, Teaching Fellow, GENIE CETL . ‘Teaching bioethics using electronic voting technologies’
12.00 – 12.30 Mark Russell, National Teaching Fellow and Principal Lecturer, School of Aerospace, Automotive and Design Engineering, University of Hertfordshire. ‘Tracking student progress with EVS’
12.30 – 13.30 Carvery lunch
13.30 – 14.30 Workshop : exploration of the pedagogical models which can be used EVS
14.30 – 15.00 coffee
15.00 – 15.30 Reports from workshop groups
15.30 – 16.00 The future and aims of the ESTICT community

 

To register for your free place on this event, join our Ning  community http://estict.ning.com/
where you will find full details of the event and a registration form. Deadline for registrations 6 November.

reflecting on eVoting

Following the launch meeting of the EVAF 4ALL JISC project in Edinburgh last week, I got to thinking about our uses of eVoting. The EVAF 4ALL offers two important features:

1. It will allow students to track their own progress in answering voting question, thereby giving the potential for a large amount of personalised feedback.
2. It will allow staff to review the questions they have asked and find out which ones are potentially useful for future use. The system allows the identification of questions which are ‘easy’ (everyone gets it right), banana skins (where the majority all get the same wrong answer, useful for correcting misunderstandings of key concepts) and scatter gun answers (no-one knows the answer and there is a spread of responses, useful for using in peer instruction scenarios).

Electronic voting encourages interaction and engagement in the lecture, which is just another way to reform lectures from one way transmission of information to a meaningful conversation. Students are told to expect to assimilate content OUTSIDE the lecture and look forward to interaction and understanding during the hour lecture period instead.

Surely this is something we should be aiming for and gives us a reason to get up in the morning?

Will electronic voting tick all the boxes on our pedagogic wish list?

• students reading content outside the lecture in their own time
  
• better engagement in the lecture
• direct personal (automated) electronic feedback on progress
• staff reflecting on student understanding and changing their teaching to address any issues raise