In 2014, teachers from LSE’s Language Centre started exploring the use of technology to mark and provide feedback on students’ written work. After trying out three tools (Moodle, iPads and annotation apps, Snagit) with her colleague Catherine (see blog post), Lourdes Hernandez-Martin decided to focus on the use of iPads and worked on the project with Mercedes Coca.
This academic year, LTI funded two projects to integrate student-produced videos in courses through their LTI Grant scheme. Outcomes and findings from their evaluation provide some interesting reflections on how they can be used to bring added value to the learning – and teaching!- experience.
As part of the Urban Policy and Planning course, students produce written work alongside a group presentation and a short interpretive film of neighbourhood fieldwork. Film-making started two years ago with students using their own devices. Last year they were helped by an LSE alumnus who is now a filmmaker to better understand the process of storytelling and how to use the equipment. This year, Nancy applied for DSLR kits to improve the quality of the work produced. An evening screening of the 8 short films produced by the project groups was also organised at the LSE, at the end of which a panel of ethnographers and filmmakers judged the films and awarded three prizes: Best Overall Film, Best Cinematography and Judges Choice.
Jennifer wanted to “enliven the end of term debate on multiculturalism” in her Identity, Community and the ‘Problem’ of Minorities course by replacing group presentations with short films narrating the students’ take on the theme. Instructor videos were made and presented during seminars and resources on making short documentaries were made available on the course’s Moodle page. Students then worked in groups for three weeks to produce their short films. The videos were screened during the last session of the course and were followed by a debate.
In the Geography project, the combination of written work and film allowed students to think about spaces both on paper and visually, which according to Nancy is ” a core transferable skill our students need to develop”. She also believes that the video exercise had a “knock on benefit” on students’ summative essays, which she observed were clearer and more thoughtful.
This is what she highlighted in the description of the project for students:
In the European Institute project, the resulting videos were used as a starter for a class debate. Videos were favoured in place of the usual presentations as Jennifer wanted students to approach the end of term presentations “from a fresh perspective that facilitates greater creativity and ownership of ideas“
In both cases video production have been a good way of engaging student with the course and material and resulted in a final product that can be used as a basis for discussion or examples and inspiration for the future cohorts.
“It would also enable student cohorts on EU 458 to ‘speak’ to each other across time through the creation of a permanent film archive on the EU 458 Moodle page” – Jennifer Jackson-Preece
They are also easy to be shared and presented to the wider institution and community. Students from the Urban Planning group attended the JustSpace conference on opportunity areas where they showed their films.
Students also got to develop useful transferable skills in the process: managing a group project, collecting/gathering/presenting information, video production and editing to name a few.
Nancy’s project was seen as a way to “further embed […] practical experiences [walks, fieldtrips] within the programme” while it would “enable students to gain a different/complementary perspective on the concept of narrative” for Jennifer. It was thus important for both to integrate video production as (part of) a final task towards which students worked during the course instead of as a stand alone activity.
As highlighted in the description of the project, video production was gradually introduced in the Geography course. Students received the help from a professional filmmaker and were able to familiarise themselves with the equipment during a trip to Manchester in the first part of the year.
In Jennifer’s project, students received training in video-making face to face during seminars and through resources made available on Moodle.
Students were also made aware of the various ethical, safety and copyright considerations when filming, interviewing and using material other than theirs.
<= Resources on video production made available to EU458 students on Moodle
In terms of assessment, even though the video production exercise was formative for both projects, students received feedback on their work. Geography students received feedback on their overall presentation that included comments on the style and overall message of their video. Students from the European Institute course were given a template of the feedback form to be aware of the assessment criteria when producing their videos. They included design (style and organisation, creativity) and message (content, quality, overall impression).
Next year group videos will count as 50% of the EU458 summative assessment and adjustments will be made to the course to support this.
Have a look at the past Students as Producers projects in our LTIG Grant Winners section or get in touch with us!
Read about LSE Innovator William Callahan‘s successful implementation of student-produced videos in his IR318 Visual International Politics Course.
In January, Dr Kay Inckle was awarded an LTI Grant for her “Game of Research” project. She received funding and help from staff at LTI to design and create a board game to help social science students understand the “essential components for a successful qualitative research project”. Findings from her evaluation of the first stage of this project give us some interesting pointers as to how games can be used to support teaching and learning.
In January, Tobias Pester, postgraduate students in the department of International History at the LSE, was awarded an LTI Grant for his project to “develop, document, and teach a Workshop for Sustainable Authorship for students of the LSE that familiarizes and equips them with the writing environment of Academic Markdown”. The workshop will take place on Tuesday, 7th June and a recording will be made available afterwards. Read about his experience of this handy tool.
In the spring of 2015 I finished my first year of American grad school. Coming from the German university system I knew it was going to be a Protestant re-education camp in terms of work load and ethic. By the end of that spring I had to write three sizeable papers in short succession and ‘time is of the essence’ took on a new meaning. Lucky for me some of my friends had just started using this writing set-up that streamlines all the things that take no brain but lots of time: citations, the bibliography, and worrying about the different format of citations when in footnotes vs. when in the bibliography.
Enter Academic Markdown and Pandoc. So-called markup languages like LaTeX have long been used by authors in the sciences. They’re great to handle formulas, diagrams and other sciences-specific requirements. For humanist writers, however, the upside to learning a markup language had been comparatively small. All we really need are basic formatting options, block quotes, and citations.
That’s where Markdown comes in handy. It’s designed to satisfy those requirements and be easy to pick up at the same time. It only takes five minutes to learn how to mark a header or a footnote as such and the text remains visually intact and perfectly readable in its raw form. And because formatting, citation management, and bibliography are almost entirely automated it affords an utterly distraction-free work flow. I work on crafting my text and crafting my text only. The last line in my manuscript is the header ‘Bibliography’. When I’m done pouring my blood, sweat, and tears onto the screen, I run it through a simple program called Pandoc once and, voilà, I get a ready-made ´pdf´ or ´docx´ with citations and bibliography according to whichever citation style language I specified.
The text in Academic Markdown and after formatting
Using that particular set-up last spring I became a writing machine. And the many hours freed from formatting could go into refining my argument or polishing my prose. I am since doing all my writing this way, from response papers to my dissertation, from personal letters to invoices. American grad school, however, still kicked my ass.
To share the benefits of this work flow I am developing and teaching a class with the generous help of an LSE Learning Technology and Innovation Grant. The workshop will take place on Tuesday, 7th June, 2-5 p.m. in 32L.LG.18 alongside the Teaching and Learning Centre’s Dissertation Week. Spread the word and join us!
Click on the picture for more information and to book
Hit me up on Twitter at @philomonk. I’d love to hear your thoughts! #SmartWriting16
Everyday people rely on Google for answers to their most personal, important and most trivial questions. How do you know if the information is reliable? A good place to start is with an information expert. This post, from LTI’s Copyright and Digital Literacy Advisor Dr Jane Secker to investigate “Do games improve learning?” was originally posted by CILIP as part of their Ask a librarian series. It’s been re-posted here as LTI are currently funding a number of projects to investigate the value of games in learning as part of their IGNITE and LTIG funding streams.
I’ve been reflecting a lot on whether games improve learning, partly in the run up to LILAC 2016, where I’d rashly agreed to take part in the games competition Lagadothan, organized for the first time by the conference committee.
My interest in games and learning goes back several years but really started in earnest when I worked with Chris Morrison from the University of Kent, to help develop a game to teach librarians about copyright and the new exceptions to UK copyright law in 2014. It was a card game, you might have heard of it? You might have played Copyright the Card Game? I use this in the Introduction to Copyright workshop at LSE that I run each term and it’s changed the way I think about teaching people about copyright, for the better!
The game been downloaded over 2500 times, and the general consensus seems to be it’s a fun and engaging way to learn about copyright. But has it led to people retaining more knowledge about copyright and can they transform what they have learnt into practice? These are important questions to consider on the real value of games in learning.
There has been a lot of interest in the last few years in games-based learning in two of my fields of professional interest: learning technology and information literacy. I started off thinking that games were all about livening up your teaching, and finding a way of engaging students in what could otherwise be a rather dry subject. However, following the keynote at this year’s LILAC from Alex Moseley and Nic Whitton, I felt the time had come to do some serious research into whether games improve learning and why that might be.
I’d been intrigued to hear about the idea of a ‘magic circle’ where new rules can apply and failure is acceptable. I’ve also learnt that designing good educational games is really hard work, and takes a lot of time and effort. So are the rewards really worth it? I decided to turn my attention to what Google can find for us on this topic:
Successful projects funded through the IGNITE scheme are now underway. We had over 20 project applications put to the committee and after much deliberation projects were chosen for their innovation, scalability and alignment to the School’s Education Strategy. Here are the winners:
Innovation, by Boegh on Flickr (CC)
Dr Jane Secker, Programme Manager for SADL caught up with Professor Pauline Barrieu, Deputy Head of Department in Statistics at LSE. Statistics students have always made up an important part of the student ambassador cohort and this year seven of the nine Senior Ambassadors, providing support for the programme, were from this department. Jane was interested to know why digital literacy might be so important to Statistics students, what this programme might also be offering the group and the impact it might have had on the department more widely.
Jane: Why do you think Statistics students are so engaged with SADL?
Professor Pauline Barrieu
Pauline: I think there are some clear reasons why the programme appeals to our students, many of whom are actually taking the Actuarial Science programme or the Business Mathematics and Statistics (BMS) programme. Understanding data and information is a fundamental part of statistics. Being about to manipulate data, to work with data is a really important skill, so I think digital literacy is something that our students also recognize as an important part of their curriculum. I also think our undergraduate students are very focused young people. They know what they want to do at 18 and they recognize the importance of issues such as data confidentiality. They know this is going to be very important in their future careers so I think they see the benefit of this programme.
Jane: Do you think your students from the Actuarial Science programme are different from other undergraduates at LSE then?
Pauline: This programme has fewer optional courses, the students are very focused, they have a clear idea of what they would like to do as a career, which I personally find very impressive for people of that age! During our ASC review last year, Paul Kelly mentioned how mature and articulated our students were – they seem to be very focused and know what they want.
Coming back to SADL, I think the flatter structure of the progamme, how they are taught as your peers also appeals to them as it’s different to what they experience in our classes. Some of the experiences they have, for example, acting as a Senior Ambassador and providing peer support to others helps to develop their confidence. It’s also great to give students experience of giving presentations and attending conferences with the SADL staff.
Jane: Do you think SADL has had a wider impact on your department?
Pauline: I know many of our lecturers are very keen to be more innovative in their teaching. Statistics do a lot of general courses open to students across LSE who need to learn about statistical analysis. Almost every social scientist needs to understand some form of stats, so we do a lot of teaching of students from a qualitative background where maths and stats is quite alien or difficult for them. It’s really important to try and engage those students and find creative ways of teaching them. One of our lecturers, Sara Geneletti recently applied for a Learning Technology grant from LTI to look to improve assessment on her course. Our in-coming Deputy Head of Department, Irini Moustaki is also very interested in innovations in teaching and working more closely with LTI to use technology effectively. And of course we have James Abdey in Statistics who has won a number of prizes for his teaching and was highlighted as an Innovator in your recent series. This is not an exhaustive list of people and innovation is something really important to lecturers in my department as a way of engaging students with the subject.
Jane: What more could LTI do to help support your department?
Pauline: I think every department across LSE is doing some fantastic things in terms of their teaching. However we don’t always know about these innovations so I think it’s important that LTI share these experiences across the school. One of the biggest problems that gets in the way of this is how busy we all are with so many emails, meetings, reviews, teaching and research. We need some really short guides to give us ideas of what others are doing. Your Innovators series looks great for doing this, to give us ideas for our own teaching in a short digestible form, ideally I would like a version I can read off line too though.
Jane: Is there anything else you can tell me about SADL, digital literacy or learning technologies?
Pauline: I’m interested in why you just focus on undergraduates? I think masters students also need to develop these skills, although of course they spend less time at LSE, so the peer support aspect would work less well. But I think PhD students in quantitative subjects need more help and support around digital literacy. I know the Library offer a course on how to do a literature review, but it would be great to focus a course for our students who publish their thesis by papers, so have quite a different experience. In addition some of our PhD students are sponsored by a private company so there are differences in issues such as ownership of the data in the thesis. We have a standard agreement with the sponsors, but it’s quite different to other departments.
Jane: That’s a really interesting point, and we do try to offer workshops and support for PhD students in LTI with colleagues in the library. But it sounds like we could do more?
Pauline: I also think it’s really important to teach PhD students about this because many of them work as Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs), so teach our undergraduates. In Statistics we have developed a dedicated training for our GTAs, so we will certainly make sure they know about SADL, so they can encourage students to get involved in the programme. Overall, I’m really pleased with this programme, which I think is of great benefit to our undergraduate students, and I am proud so many of them have got involved in SADL.
Jane: It’s been great talking to you Pauline, good luck next year when you take over as Head of Department and I’d just like to thank your department and your wonderful students, who have been an inspiration to me and the SADL teaching team.
Original post taken from the SADL blog
Games, revision podcasts and electronic feedback are the main themes of the latest projects funded by an LTI Grant. You can find more information about our funding schemes and other projects in our dedicated pages.
Gustav Meibauer and Andreas Aagaard Nohr, Department of International Relations – Development of PowerPoint-Based Simulation Games for Use in Undergraduate Teaching
“This project will design and implement three PowerPoint-based interactive simulations for use in introductory undergraduate classes. Currently available solutions are targeted at course-long activities, at a high cost of time and preparation effort for both teachers and students. Instead, this project explicitly aims at providing a low-cost, easily accessible and class-long interactive experience to students to encourage theoretical linkage with own in-class experience in such issue areas as foreign policy, diplomacy, or great power dynamics. “
Kay Inckle, Department of Sociology – The Game of Research
“The Game of Research is designed for social science students undertaking a final-year qualitative primary research dissertation. In stage one it is a board game similar to Snakes and Ladders but adapted with additional features to make it research-focused and dependent on skill and discernment rather than luck. Through the game students learn the six essential components for a successful qualitative research project: research question, design/proposal, ethical approval, methods/fieldwork, analysis, writing and referencing. The second stage of the game mimics the board game, but takes place in a virtual platform using students’ actual research projects.”
Olga Sobolev, Language Centre – Language Immersion in a Self-Study Mode: Revision e-Course
“A new self-study revision e-course, promoting students’ proficiency in spoken and aural Russian through autonomous learning […] This is very much a student-centred initiative:
Tobias Pester, Department of International History – Sustainable Autorship with Academic Markdown
“I am proposing to develop, document, and teach a Workshop for Sustainable Authorship for students of the LSE that familiarizes and equips them with the writing environment of Academic Markdown. […] One, it provides the automatic generation of references and bibliographies. Two, it relies on the single most sustainable file format since the invention of computers: human-readable plain text. Three, it is platform independent: the most basic text editor available on any operating system will do. Four, it does not rely on proprietary software.”
Read Tobias’ post on his experience with Academic Markdown
Susan Scott, Department of Management – Using Digital Innovation to Curate a Living History of Uber and Uberisation
“This project will explore the usefulness of establishing and curating an open access digital ‘living’ archive to support problem-based learning about contemporary topics in global business management particularly (but not only) reconfiguring business models and service innovation. With help from LTI we will create an open access archive populated with a selection of material to date about the American international transportation network company Uber and the phenomenon known as “Uberization” ”
Edgar Whitley, Department of Management – Using Mahara: Blogging, Peer Review and 
Feedback
“The aim of the project is to assess the suitability of the Mahara platform as a means of student assessment, feedback and peer review for courses within the School.”
Jennifer Jackson-Preece, European Institute – Narrating the Death (and Life?) of Multiculturalism
“EU 458 Identity, Community & the ‘Problem’ of Minorities ends with a student debate on the ‘Death of Multiculturalism’. Instead of group presentations, the initiative would ask students to work in small groups (3-4) over a 2-3 week period to produce a short (5 minute) film narrating their take on this theme. The films would be screened in LT week 11, and a general debate / discussion would follow on from them.”
Tony Spanakos
Francisco Panizza
Last Michaelmas Term, Dr Francisco Panizza from LSE’s Department of Government and Tony Spanakos, associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Law at Montclair State University (US) co-taught a synchronous online course on BRICS open to LSE and MSU students. The project was funded by an LTI Grant. Below are their reflections on the project.
Francisco Panizza: There are many courses running at LSE each term, but this Michaelmas Term I was able to co-teach a course with a difference, alongside Professor Anthony Spanakos from Montclair State University in New Jersey. The course on the politics and policies of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) brought together around 30 students from both universities in a ‘virtual classroom’. The LSE students, second and third year undergraduates from the departments of Government and International Relations, were all volunteers. Whilst they didn’t gain any credits for joining the course, it was a really interesting experience and I think everyone who took part learned a lot.
Tony Spanakos: This was the third time a faculty member from the Political Science and Law department at MSU conducted what we call an eDiplomacy course. These courses use technology to allow to faculty members to lead a virtual classroom composed of students from two schools in different countries. […]
The goal of the eDiplomacy class is not simply to make students aware of other perspectives but to interact and to realize the challenges and opportunities that diplomacy presents. The students selected which of the five countries they wanted to ‘join’ and then each delegation selected officers (head of state/government, finance minister, defence minister, foreign affairs minister). Prior to our last meeting, each country and each office (defence ministers, finance ministers, etc) submitted documents representing their goals, interests, and concerns, and the entire class submitted a single Summit document. In class, they presented the achievements to the ‘Western Powers,’ Dr. Panizza, me, and Professor Jack Baldwin-LeClair, my department chair whose expertise in international law added richness to our discussion (and who was fundamental in getting the course off the ground on the MSU end).
FP: Although we now live in a ‘global village’ and there are many commonalities between the US and British university systems, there were practical differences that needed to be ironed out. For instance, the US academic year runs on semesters and classes at Montclair State University started four weeks earlier than at LSE. As a result, the US students gained and extra holiday during LSE reading week and in exchange our students got a day off on the Friday after Thanksgiving Thursday, a de facto holiday in America.
On the technical side there were also challenges to overcome. The LSE does not currently have a dedicated classroom with the communications equipment we required for the course. This meant carrying the equipment from the Learning Teaching and Innovation (LTI) office in Aldwych to our classroom in Lincoln’s Inn Fields each week to set it up, with the help of two highly professional LTI Learning Technologists. Another lesson we learned was that all technology is only as good as its weakest link. The LTI grant funding enabled the course organiser to buy a high quality camera, but without professional lighting or high tech projectors images of both classrooms weren’t as clear as we would’ve liked and it was sometimes difficult to identify and listen to students sat at the back of the classroom (students seem to gravitate towards the back of any classroom, virtual or not)
TP: Although this was the third time a faculty member in the MSU Department of Political Science and Law taught such a course, it was my first time and there was quite a bit of learning to do. The greatest challenge that, I believe, we faced was getting our technology to enable our classrooms to be truly discussion spaces. Ironically, because we had a room with multiple microphones and speakers and a state of the art videoconferencing system, it was difficult to conduct a proper discussion between the two classrooms. Whenever Dr. Panizza or his students spoke, we needed to mute our microphones, and vice versa. This made back and forth discussion more difficult and forced us to speak for longer periods at a time and to collect a number of questions from each classroom before allowing someone on the other side of the pond to respond.
Another challenge was in establishing effective discussion boards outside of the classroom. Given the difference of time-zones and schedules, getting synchronous discussions was not likely. We thought that the students would be better identifying the app which would be most conducive for group discussions (between members of the same country, students with the same office) but we did not coordinate this enough and only found effective discussions once we required students to use canvas discussion pages that we set up.
TS: The idea is to diversify and deepen the learning experience by allowing students the opportunity to hear and engage with multiple perspectives on a common theme. The course allowed us and our students a chance to discuss politics in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa in a far more diverse context than would have been possible otherwise. The participation of guest scholars from our and other universities, in the US, UK, Brazil, and South Africa further contributed to that experience.
After the summit, my students submitted written reflections on the summit which demonstrated a genuine awareness of the challenges, opportunities, work, and pleasure of diplomatic work.
Our students were very generous in giving feedback and helping us see where we could have improved the course and encouraging us by showing where the course was most effective. On balance, responses from our students, and us, were very positive and we look forward to being able to repeat the experimental course. We know diplomacy is not easy but is very necessary. We also know that it is on-going and we hope that we get a chance to repeat and improve on the 2015 MSU-LSE BRICS seminar.
FP: In spite of the inevitable teething problems, there were many, many, positives. Guest lectures from other universities were able to join the course. One of them was Professor Lucius Botes, from the University of the Free State in South Africa, which meant that our virtual classroom extended across three different continents and three different time zones. Perhaps the peak of the course was the last week, when students ran a ‘BRICS summit’, in which they assumed the representation of the different countries and drafted documents on foreign affairs, the economy, defence and a joint BRICS declaration. If only they ran the real summit, the world would be a better place.
Ultimately, I think we only scratched the surface of a teaching experience full of possibilities. Imagine being able to run a course together with the best specialists in the world, in a virtual classroom with images of HD quality! There is undoubtedly a need to develop new teaching methods and forms of student participation that take full advantage of new communication technologies. There are several new buildings being constructed at the LSE, and hopefully these should include state of the art technology and teaching spaces that will make ‘virtual classrooms’ a permanent fixture in University teaching.
Francisco’s comments were originally posted in his blog post on the Department of Government’s website
To celebrate the success of various teaching and research projects, the Language Centre hosted a Project Day on Friday 18th September. Several LSE Language Co-ordinators presented their experiences of experimenting with innovative technologies in language learning. The Day provided the opportunity to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of online learning systems, the merits of e-marking, and the ways in which video production can aid language learning.
Dr.Peter Skrandies: Reading for Academic Purposes with Annotated Texts
The Day started with Dr Peter Skrandies (Language Co-ordinator: German) offering his views on how the online annotation of texts can assist traditional teaching methods. The benefits of this online learning system were clear to many Project Day attendees. The online annotation of texts by language teachers can compensate for limited contact hours. It also complements the learning objectives of in class activities. The development and use of the Moodle-integrated annotation tool was made possible through an LTI innovation grant and that the software tool was developed by Steve Bond from LTI.
On the other hand, one attendee suggested that this teaching method may only be appropriate for higher ability students. Dr Skrandies’ presentation reminds us that the use of online learning systems is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution.
In the context of UK Higher Education, language teachers often find it difficult to develop students’ grammar skills. Limited class teaching time and the pressure to develop communicative skills are just two of the challenges which language teachers face. In order to overcome these obstacles, Dr Lijing Shi (Assistant Language Co-ordinator: Mandarin) introduced Chinese Online Self-assessment (COS). COS is defined as a dynamic assessment that aims to assess potential for learning. It does not provide a static indication of achievement. COS carries a particular advantage. It enables teachers to quickly pinpoint gaps in students’ learning:
‘From my experience with level 5, COS is the quickest way for me to identify the problems students have in grammar or common mistakes made. I can then focus on specific areas of teaching to sort out these problems.’ Hongyi Xin, Co-ordinating Language Teacher (Mandarin)
Dr. Catherine Xiang: From ‘Current Affairs in Mandarin’ to ‘Students as Producers’, Catherine Xiang
As was the case with Dr Skrandies’ project, COS has certain drawbacks. The potential for technical hitches is problematic. Instead of focusing on language learning, Mandarin teachers may attend to the technical maintenance of COS, or liaise with IT services, when they could otherwise be planning seminar activities.
Towards the end of the Project Day, Dr Catherine Xiang (Language Co-ordinator: Mandarin) presented her project, titled ‘From Current Affairs in Mandarin to Students as Producers’. Dr Xiang emphasised the specific benefits of video production. Past students of Mandarin have produced short videos which allow them to focus on a topic related to the social sciences. However, these shorts film, interviews and documentaries are all conducted in Mandarin. The production of a TV style interview or short film provided students with the opportunity to gain confidence. By listening to their interview responses, students determined how much progress they have made. They could highlight areas for improvement, including pronunciation and grammar. However, Project Day attendees noted that this non-traditional form of learning was time consuming.
The final project was presented by Dr Xiang and Lourdes Hernandez-Martin Language Co-ordinator (Arabic) and Co-ordinator for Spanish Projects. They discussed their experimentation with e-marking. Approximately 60 participants (students and teachers) contributed to a pilot scheme. Programmes such as ‘iAnnotate’ and ‘Snagit’ were used. The benefits of using e-marking software were manifold. Students noted that having video and audio evaluation added clarity.
Assessed pieces of work could even be used for revision purposes:
“Video – it’s much better to hear something directly rather than having to try and work things out from comments or notes written down. Also allows things to be explained much more easily – you can learn from home, rather than having to come in for office hours.”
“The video feedback is very helpful especially for language courses because often ‘word’ feedback is not enough to understand grammatical mistakes. Besides, you can replay it for revision”.
On the other hand, e-marking carries certain complications. The ability to readily edit and review comments may incentivise teachers to add unnecessary advice which, ironically enough, may confuse students.
As the four projects discussed above demonstrate, use of language learning technology is not always a move in the right direction. Nevertheless, teaching staff at the LSE Language Centre continue to experiment with technology which can provide a diversified learning experience. Tailored according to individual teacher needs, technological innovations can significantly improve the teaching of Modern Foreign Languages in higher education.
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For more information on how LTI Grants can help your projects or to see what projects we have helped visit our Grants page on the blog.
LTI have just closed the first Grants call of the year however a second call will be announced in the near future.
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