Mentimeter (or just ‘Menti’) has been a big hit at UCL, with thousands of staff and students having used it so far for voting and polling in face-to-face and remote classes. But the one thing that everyone has wished for is the ability for a teaching team to collaborate on writing presentations.

The good news is that Mentimeter have listened to our wishes, and incorporated this into the platform. To share a presentation with UCL colleagues

1. Open the presentation you want to share with colleagues
2. Click on the ‘Share‘ button in the top right corner of the screen
3. Click on the ‘Editors‘ tab
4. Enter the UCL email addresses of the people you wish to collaborate with and select them from the drop-down menu
5. Click on the ‘Invite‘ button

Collaborators will receive an email invitation and now be able to see the shared presentation in their home view. Those who you invite will now see your presentation in their list, and you can collaboratively add and edit questions to the same presentation. Mentimeter have also provided a full step-by-step guide to take you through the process.

We’re pleased to announce that we now have a site licence for Mentimeter at UCL, meaning that any teacher or student can use it free of charge. Our Mentimeter knowledge base articles on MyServices provide guidance to get you started.

Mentimeter is an online polling, questioning and voting tool that you can use in your teaching, whether it is online or face-to-face, synchronous or asynchronous. Mentimeter offers a wide variety of question types that you can use with your students to promote active learning:

Icons for different question types in Mentimeter, including multiple choice, free text response, ranking and image-based questions

It will eventually replace the TurningPoint ‘clickers’ that were installed in some lecture theatres and were available to loan. Educationally, the two services are very similar, but Mentimeter can be used anywhere – including for synchronous and asynchronous online teaching – without the need for physical handsets. It also allows more flexible question types such as word cloud and text responses, unlike the more limited TurningPoint numeric keypads. And you can even include LaTeX formatting in your Mentimeter slides.

To sign up for Mentimeter go to https://www.mentimeter.com/join/ucl. You will be redirected to log in using Single Sign On, with your standard UCL username and password. And then you’ll be straight in to Mentimeter and able to start making your first presentation.

If you already have a Mentimeter account (free or paid) using your UCL email address, this should convert to our site licence and you will no longer be charged for it. Any presentations or results that you already have attached to that account will be preserved.

If you have an existing Mentimeter account (free or paid) using a personal non-UCL email address, then you can either just create one with your UCL email address, or we can transfer your old presentations and results over on request.

Mentimeter have some great resources on putting your slides together. It’s all done online with no need for a fiddly PowerPoint toolbar. Instead, you just click the ‘Present’ button in Mentimeter and your questions appear full screen.

If you are teaching a live session online, then you run the presentation at ‘presenter pace’ which is the default method. You can share the window in Microsoft Teams or Zoom. Students can vote or contribute from a web browser on their laptop or phone, and you see the results in real time as your students enter them.

You can also run a presentation in ‘audience pace’ mode where students complete questions at their own pace, and possibly at different times. It’s an effective tool for asynchronous activities, so for example you might ask students to complete an activity at the start of the week and review their contributions at the end of the week. You still get to see their contributions in real time as they are made.

Dr Silvia Colaiacomo from the UCL Arena Centre has written a case study on the use of Mentimeter for student engagement during asynchronous teaching.

To give you some examples of what you can do with Mentimeter, here are some different question types showing how the results are presented after an audience response.

A graph showing the results of a multiple choice question and the correct answer in Mentimeter

Sliders allow participants to show levels of support for various statements in Mentimeter

Free text responses shown as a word cloud in Mentimeter

Electronic Voting Systems allow staff to make classroom teaching sessions more interactive and engaging. The currently supported system for this at UCL is TurningPoint – with software directly installed on managed teaching computers across central campus and handsets/receivers available for loan from central services. More information about potential benefits, and how the system works, can be found here: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/isd/services/learning-teaching/elearning-staff/core-tools/electronic-voting-systems/#do and here: https://www.turningtechnologies.com/library/

Over the summer, managed teaching room computers were upgraded to Windows 10 and Office 2016. To ensure compatibility, the TurningPoint software on these teaching machines has also been upgraded to a new version (v.8). While the new version of TurningPoint is very similar to previous versions, there are some changes, and a new licensed receiver will need to be used.

What does this mean for staff? 

• Presentations created in the OLD version (TPv5) will run in the new version (TPv8) however, there is no backwards compatibility so once they have been run/used in TPv8 you will not be able to edit or run them in the old version.
• The old receivers/dongles will NOT work with the new version of TurningPoint. The Digital Education team have issued central services with a set of new licensed receivers. These will be issued when a loan is taken out for the handsets. Note that the new receivers will accept a maximum of 500 responses.
• Teaching Rooms with built in handsets (Harrie Massey LT, Christopher Ingold Auditorium, Cruciform LT1) have the new receivers installed on the managed PC. If you choose to use your laptop and have updated the version of TP on it, ensure you loan the appropriate dongle from the Central loans desk. If using Cruciform LT1, you can plug in the labelled cable emerging from the teaching podium into your laptop.

Action required

• If you use a laptop to run TP, please install the latest version from the software database. You can download TurningPoint version 8 from the ISD Software database: http://swdb.ucl.ac.uk/package/view/id/410 (UCL staff login required), or directly from the TurningPoint website: https://www.turningtechnologies.com/downloads (form to fill out).
• If you are using equipment loaned by Departmental teams, check to ensure that you have been provided with a new receiver, if you intend to use the managed PC in the Teaching space. (Note: old receivers will continue to work with the old version of the software but you may experience some issues if moving between different campuses and teaching setups.
• We recommend that you ‘test’ your  presentation before running a ‘live’ session using the latest version of TP and contact Digital Education Services – digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk  if you experience any problems.

For more information regarding TurningPoint and to access training guides, click here

Questions or experiencing issues with the new software? Please email digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk.

Learning Technologies in Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP)

In Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP) learning technology support is provided by the department’s Learning Techologist (Alan Seatwo).  Part of this work involves assisting colleagues to explore the use of emerging teaching themes prior to the start of the MPA Programme. These sessions focus on implementing the UCL E-learning baseline, exploring classroom learning technology and using video for students’ presentation assessment and as a self reflection tool. Prevalent learning technologies in the department include the UCL Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), rapid eLearning development tools, video editing & production, cloud storage, webinars, screencasts, online surveys and classroom learning technologies, such as electronic voting handsets. In this post Alan explains how his department used learning technologies in 2015.

The department was already equipped with a collection of good quality video recorders and in August the department further invested in new hardware and software for video recording & editing, such as a range of camera/ mobile phone mounts, a tripod, wireless microphone and a copy of Adobe Creative Suite. In addition, streaming video and webinar platforms were explored during the organisation and delivery of a seminar by Professor Daniel Kammen and a written report was presented to the department for possible use in the future.

Doctoral student virtual presentation

There have been no reports of teaching staff and students experiencing major issues using Moodle. Although there have been some maintenance down time from UCL networks, overall access to Moodle is excellent. Colleagues are supportive of the idea of using classroom-learning technology. Specifically, Word-Cloud was used in How to Change the World 2015; Kahoot! and Socrative were used in Policy Making and Policy Analysis; Communication and Project Management Skills; and the Vodafone – UCL Public Policy Intensive Programme. Feedback about the use of such software from colleagues and students was very positive.

UCLeXtend is a separate Moodle platform for external use. The Vodafone – UCL Public Policy Intensive Programme was granted the use of the platform to deliver the online learning elements. This enabled the department to experiment with organising and delivering online learning programmes to non-UCL users that might be useful for future use.

Vodafone UCL Public Policy Intensive Programme UCL eXtend course

Students’ presentations were recorded, stored and made available for course assessment and self-reflection. The experience of exploring video streaming in Professor Kammen’s event enabled the process of screencasting, video recording and webinars to be refined. The average turn around time to deliver edited student presentation videos is around 24 hours after recording takes place.

Two Virtual Open Day sessions were conducted in Blackboard Collaborate (webinar software). A series of online interviews using BB Collaborate, Skype and Google Hangouts were also held with potential students.

Other learning technologies being used in the department include:

• Opinio to support research activities in STEaPP Grant Research Funding Proposal Form, City Health Diplomacy and Science Diplomacy;
• Articulate Storyline 2 to create two online self assessments in the undergraduate programme: ENGS102P: Design and Professional Skills 2015/16.

There have been no major issues reported by staff using Moodle to organise and disseminate learning content and facilitating discussion via the forums. The level of usage from students is also good. Data from Moodle shows that students responded to staff instructions to access learning content and submit their assignments electronically. One of the areas that can be further enhanced is the use of learning analytics, which can assist staff to identify usage trends of their designed activities and content.

Looking ahead: We are in the planning stage for How to Change the World 2016 and have two areas of focus at the moment: Online Attendance Recording and Reporting; and a Peer Reviewed Video Assignment. We are also making good progress on designing and developing an open-source learning object as part of a project funded by a grant from the UCL Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT).

When you have a problem or question E-Learning Environments (ELE) are always more than happy to hear from you, and will do all we can to help you as quickly as we can. However, this process can be slowed down if we don’t have all the information we need to investigate your problem, or answer your question. So here are some top tips for what to include in an email/ ticket to ELE, so you can help us to help you.

1. Course name (and link)

UCL is a large university with hundreds of courses, and even more modules. Therefore it is very difficult for us to investigate a problem without knowing the name of a course/ module, so that we can look at the problem and try to replicate it. A lot of problem solving is reverse engineered, so we will try to replicate the problem for ourselves and then figure out what is wrong, by using our familiarity with the components of the technology. It is also helpful to include a link to the course/ module in question, as sometimes these are not obvious when searching in Moodle/ Lecturecast. Asking for the course name is always our first step, and so by including this in your original email then you will save time and help us resolve the problem faster.

2. Activity/ resource name (and link)

As well as there being a lot of courses at UCL, individual courses may have more than one of a particular activity, such as a Turnitin assignment or forum. It will take ELE extra time if we have to search through all of them to find the problem, and it also means that sometimes we are not always sure if we have found the problem. By including the name and location of the activity in the original email ELE can go straight to it, and get to work determining the problem.

3. Screenshots

When we look at a course, it might not always be possible for ELE to replicate a problem. This might be because the issue is related to a particular browser you are using, or due to permissions on your account. As these parameters might not apply to ELE we may not be able to see the problem, which makes it much harder for us to help with the answer. If you can take a screenshot (using the PrtScn key) and then paste that into a document and send it as an attachment, it will help us see the problem and any error messages you are receiving. It can even mean that we can answer the question or give a solution straight away upon seeing the screenshot.

4. Error messages

Screenshots of error messages are good, but if you can’t take one then including what an error message says will help ELE to diagnose and resolve the problem. It also helps us if we have to deal with any third party suppliers (such as Turnitin).

4. Specifics

A summary of the problem is best as ELE might not have a lot of time to read a long email, and it may be possible to determine and resolve an issue with only a few key details, listed above. However it can also help to be specific. If you are reporting a problem then list what steps you are taking that are causing the problem, which buttons are you clicking and in what order? Details are also helpful if you are asking a question about a new activity you’d like to start, but you’re not sure which tool to use. If you include specific details about what you want to do then ELE can suggest the tool that fits your needs best.

By following these tips you will have an easier and quicker experience with ELE, and we will be able to get through more problems or questions in less time.

Please feel free to send your queries to ELE via our email address, ele@ucl.ac.uk

As a four-part series I am openly publishing my case studies previously submitted for my Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. I submitted my application in February 2014. If you’re interested in this professional recognition programme, please visit their webpages and look through the Professional Standards Framework (PSF). UCL runs an institutional model for fellowships called ARENA, your institution may run one too – speak to people!

Case Study 4 – Researching learner interaction and engagement with in-class response systems

In 2012 I conducted research, in parallel with my job at UCL, focusing on increasing student interaction and staff engagement of an in-class question and response system colloquially known as ‘clickers’. Evidence suggests clickers provide interaction opportunities to stimulate and engage learners[1] and have a benign or positive effect in student performance[2]. Clickers are popular across many disciplines, in particular the physical sciences, but there is a particularly low interest in medical sciences.

I wanted to directly address this shortcoming so I enlisted two academics in the UCL Medical School. I assimilated the current method of teaching, and the materials used (K1). From here we adapted a learning activity to align with the new tool being applied (A1). I underpinned the use of the technology with existing literature and the evidence of realigning the ‘sage on the stage’ to the ‘guide on the side’ [3](K2), which evidence suggests is an effective method for learning and teaching (K3, V3). I provided pre-lecture technical support to reduce technical barriers and was on-hand in the lecture to support as/when needed (A2). Questions were designed into the lectures and the clickers provide immediate feedback (A3). Staff react to clicker data with an approach called ‘contingent teaching’[4] where they dynamically respond to the answers/feedback provided (A3).

I designed evaluation questions for each lecture based on Bloom’s Taxonomy[5] for learners-based evaluation of the teaching approach and learning outcomes (A4). Questions were derived from categorising Bloom into three sub-categories; remember or understand, apply or analyse the topic and evaluate or create new knowledge (K5). When questioned, 74% of students agreed or strongly agreed that the clickers and the related teaching approach encouraged interaction and helped to achieve metacognitive learning (K5). I integrated these data with post-lecture interviews for the lecturers. Using this analysis, we designed next steps for future use and identified gaps and areas for improvement (A5).

I conducted evidence-based research and followed best practice around clickers to ensure inclusion was academically merited (V3). Measuring (and increasing) engagement within the traditional lecture was aiming to promote participation for learners (V2). It was understood that clickers do not directly enhance learning but can lead to higher-order learning. I used my understanding of the wider field of evidence to define their most appropriate use within the lectures (V1, V3).

By implementing a technology which was new to staff and guiding them with appropriate techniques known to increase interaction and engagement, I provided an evidence-informed approach which could be used to transform didactic content delivery into something more engaging. My research adds to a disproportionately small body of knowledge for clickers in medical education and the study overall was positive. Staff involved still use the clickers, the impact I measured plus the evidence collected, can be further used to promote clickers within UCL, the Medical School and beyond. It earned me a Distinction in my MSc Learning Technologies and furthered my ambition to make a lasting, positive difference to higher education.

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