0125 Open STEM: open educational discipline-specific resources for professional development in HE
Barrie Cooper, Margery Clarke, Tom Browne, Andrew Pyper, Simon McGirr

In 2009/10 the University of Exeter obtained HEFCE funds for a JISC-managed Phase-1 project called Open Exeter to develop an institutional infrastructure for OER (Browne & Newcombe, 2009). It concluded that for OER to become sustainable institutionally “all the elements of OER must be seen as an integral part of scholarly endeavour” and that “the OER agenda should be formally incorporated in accredited staff development programmes” (Browne et al, 2010). Subsequently, the presenters in their role as academic developers at the University of Exeter obtained further funds for a HEA-managed Phase-2 OER project called Open STEM to develop discipline-specific professional development resources for educators in HE.

This demonstration will present the fruits of the work from the Open STEM project. These include professional development activities and case studies drawn together in an overarching pedagogical package, suitable for use and repurposing by academic developers and individual academics. Our evaluative studies show that discipline-specific resources can significantly help to improve the engagement of HE teachers with the UK Professional Standards Framework.

To promote a sense of exploration as an individual through these resources, our Educational Technologist has built our pedagogical package in the Open University's VLE “LabSpace” and coupled this with Prezi, a free online canvas-based presentation tool, as a front-end. We will demonstrate these resources and the benefits of this approach for self-directed exploratory online learning. Participants with a network-enabled device and a free LabSpace account will be able to engage in a hands-on exploration of these resources and we will provide physical copies of a selection of our academic development activities with which delegates can engage. We will conclude with some narrative evidence regarding the effectiveness of our discipline-specific resources for academic development.

Our primary aims are that delegates use, evaluate, repurpose and share our array of openly available academic development resources and that educational technologists experience an effective, visual method for reducing the linear nature of a commonly-used VLE.

0097 How personal can personal response systems get?
Charlie Cai, Dragos Ciobanu

Interactive voting in lectures has been proven time and again to engage students with the subject matter and foster deep learning in face-to-face sessions in numerous disciplines(1)(2).These encouraging results led some institutions to further developments such as the University of Edinburgh EVAF web-based system(3) which allows students and teachers to review votes cast during interactive sessions thus supporting independent learning, reflection and feedback preparation.

While the principle still stands, there is nowadays a choice of implementations ranging from investing in separate individual personal response systems (PRS) to having personal response apps on the student's phones, or simply encouraging students to use SMS voting to send their responses.

While SMS texting is more readily available, it opens the discussion about the value and acceptance of formal and informal learning in formal settings – having a whole amphitheatre of students using their mobiles in class is a definite no-go for some lecturers. Are they truly justified? On the other hand, a PRS comes with additional constraints, among which financial ones. Yet are these restrictions significantly diminished once a cost-benefit analysis replaces an accounting one?

This practical demonstration will show a range of advantages and limitations – both pedagogical and technical – of all of these technologies and will enable participants to make informed and appropriate choices for their individual teaching contexts. We will demonstrate two SMS systems (Martin Hawksey's integration of the Learning Apps textwall into PowerPoint (4); and Poll Everywhere) and a PRS one (eInstruction) both using dedicated handheld voting devices and mobile devices. We will highlight the level of engagement of students which all these technologies allow – particularly focussing on the range of activities and questions supported by each tool – and we will report on the informal feedback received from students after using such technologies throughout a semester. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to experiment with all the technologies, compare and contrast them, and share their experience.