Technologies
The ways in which people use technology in education continue to evolve.
These days, since the advent of ‘Web 2.0′ web applications, people generally use a mixture of free online, discipline-specific and centrally provided tools.
For example, an academic might use:
- free Google Groups and Google Documents for a research group they are part of…
- software for which the College has centrally held licences (eg. SPSS for statistics)…
- software they’ve bought through their department (e.g. Dreamweaver for web pages)…
- Blackboard, the College’s Virtual Learning Environment, to communicate with and give reading lists and materials for the students on their courses…
- discipline-specific modelling software…
- a blog (either using the College blog service or a free option such as Edublogs)…
- Survey software (eg. either the BOS software for which we have a licence, or free online survey software)…
- The normal range of presentation and word processing software on a Mac or a PC…
- Skype for talking to off-shore students or colleagues abroad…
- A subject-specific Wiki which experts all over the world contribute to…
- Screen recording software combined with a tablet PC to record their lectures (which they turn into podcasts and make available via the VLE, or via RSS to students who use iTunes, Google reader)…
- Electronic formative assessments for their students, eg. such as are supplied by some tesxtbook publishers…
- e-journal services such as ATHENS, library services such as Metalib…
… and so on.
So, while many staff won’t do all the above, most use at least three ‘learning technologies’ in some way. The range of what people can do now, and the tools available, means that for us it’s no longer a case of just providing a few technologies and offering offical support for them. More, it’s about helping you to use effectively whatever technologies are most suitable.
We do, nevertheless, offer a range of learning technologies and services which are all free for you to use and access.
For more information about these technologies, please use the menu on the left hand side of this page.