Mac fright

Earlier today I went to help a new academic set up his resource lists. Normally this would have nothing to do with the SCALE-UP pilot but, horrors of horrors, his monitor was connected to a Macbook. Instead of reassuring me that I've got nothing to worry about when in the new teaching room, it made me realise just how different they are to PCs. I definitely need some familiarisation time with one (my Mac-loving son will be earning his keep before he goes back to uni). On a positive note, many of the functions were the same, so providing the students and I don't need to right-click, refresh a page, or use a delete key we'll be fine...

Scaled down

Just to add to Jane's frustrations, we've also found out that the tables are about a foot shorter in circumference than the carefully researched recommendation by Robert Beichner. I've peeked at the tables when walking past the room and I very much hope the students like one another as they'll be sitting very close to each other to work in their groups. Good job collaboration is key in all this!

BYOD

(click on image to view full size)

Well, the nightmare came true: the Centre for Academic Quality and Development sent out a terse email announcing that Mac Books have been selected, will be stored in a charging cabinet and will NOT have dual booting capability. Furthermore, teaching consoles in the Scale Up room will still be Windows based (yeah, I know....)

My team and I have recovered from the shock (and outrage at the lack of consultation or even listening) and are preparing for a teaching and learning environment somewhat different from the one we had envisaged.

We aim to have both a tech and a non tech activity available for our sessions and rely on the flipped classroom approach - access to websites taking place outside of the class with the workshops reserved for discussion and project work. That's fine - it just seems a shame given the technological aspirations of the Scale Up room with its fancy new lap tops and Apple TV.

The screenshot above (from our pre-course survey) above is interesting.  Out of 20 students responding so far, none has an Apple pc or lap top and only 6 have iphones. Almost all do have laptops or wifi ennabled phone so the BYOD solution has potential.

I have stated in the module guide that BYOD will be the expected norm but that Macbooks are available. I expect some may want to have a go on them, but dishing out and collecting in 100+ laptops would eat into a good portion of a 50 minute session, never mind teaching OS X basics. So I am just hoping that the promised "flooding" of the room with wi fi, and the cooperation of students in bringing smart phones, tablets and even laptops, will mean that we can spend some sessions on digitally based activities.

I will be getting to work on these over the next few weeks.
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In other - better, news..... our bid for funding for student mentors (through the Changing the Learning Landscape project) has been accepted :D

The aim is to have two students working with us each week to float between groups, observing where students have difficulties and helping out. They will then take these observations and use them to support library staff in creating universal resources to teach digital literacy skills. We also plan to work with the mentors on a conference paper and presentation next year. I'm really excited about this aspect of the project and can't wait to get started on recruiting!