Online Training with Lynda.com

Lynda.com, recently made available to all staff and students at SHU, is a site containing high-quality video training on common and specialist software packages. There are videos on a wide range of software, from general tools, such as Microsoft Word and Google Drive, to specialist tools, such as Final Cut Pro and SPSS. In addition…

2014/15 sites are now copied

The process of automatically copying Blackboard sites for the 2014/15 academic year is now complete, and you will be able to access your new sites and start preparing them. Staff enrolments will be carried across to the new sites. You will need to use the Staff Enrolment Tool in the Control Panel to add any…

Google Apps for Education – Overview

Sheffield Hallam University has provided Google accounts for all students for some time, but has recently introduced them for staff too. This means that staff now have access to several very useful online tools which can be used to encourage collaboration amongst students, collaborating with colleagues, and work from varied locations. The key tools that…

What is a Virtual Learning Environment?

This is part of a regular series of articles exploring some of the terms used in e-learning (view other articles in the series). We’ll do our best to break down the jargon and explain what things are from a basic perspective. A Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is an online space that is used to support learning…

What is an Electronic Voting System (EVS)?

This is part of a regular series of articles exploring some of the terms used in e-learning (view other articles in the series).  We’ll do our best to break down the jargon and explain what things are from a basic perspective. An ‘Electronic Voting System’ (EVS) is a system that allows presenters to ask multiple…

Introducing Google Apps

This message is on behalf of Brian Irwin, Head of Technology Enhanced Learning, and Nigel Williamson, Head of IT Support We are pleased to announce that staff can now access the online applications provided by Google using their institutional login. Students have been able to access these tools for the past two years alongside their…

PebblePad

PebblePad is an online environment that supports students and staff with creating, maintaining and sharing e-portfolios. For many years PebblePad has been available only in two faculties, D&S and HWB.  Work is now underway to make it available across the institution. Later today we will connect PebblePad with single sign-on (which means users will use their University login to access it). …

Archiving Blackboard organisation sites

Each year at the start of September we archive Blackboard organisation sites from the previous year (2012/13 in this case). This is to clean up the view for staff and students and ensure the correct Blackboard sites are used in the coming year. This year Blackboard organisation sites will be archived on 16/09/2013. This does not…

Reminder: Blackboard upgrade this weekend, 26-28 July

This is a reminder about the Blackboard upgrade taking place this weekend.  We expect the upgrade to start at 6pm on Friday 26th and be completed in less than 24 hours. However Blackboard should be considered at risk on Sunday 28th, which means it may not be available if additional time is needed. This will…

Learning Objects blogs and wikis to be disabled

In May 2012 we discontinued the ability to add Learning Objects blogs and wikis to Blackboard sites as part of a two year programme to phase them out. The final step of this programme will be to disable them completely on the system on the evening of 24 July when our license expires. This means that old…