Category Archives: Service announcements

Useful start of term Digital Education links for staff

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  1. Using Microsoft Teams for teaching  
  2. Hybrid teaching and live streaming 
  3. Re/Play – including adding videos to Blackboard and captioning 
  4. Build and maintain relationships online – 10 ideas (Word) 
  5. Synchronous online sessions – including tips for effective and engaging breakout groups 
  6. Organise Blackboard sites clearly – course design tips and guidance 
  7. Make your Blackboard course available to students 
  8. Tools and software – Mentimeter Pro and H5P newly available 
  9. Online assessment – planning and running tests, online submissions and other types of online assessment 
  10. Training and support – what’s available from the Digital Education Office, including upcoming training webinars and drop-ins 

For queries, email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk. 

Re/Play – upgrade completed successfully

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The upgrade of Re/Play completed successfully overnight.

Initial testing indicates that the service is performing well. Most materials are now available but some more recently added content will be moved across during Saturday 18th September. During Saturday the search function will also be patchy as the moved materials need to be re-indexed to make them searchable. Both the moving of new materials and search function should be complete by Monday 20th.

Please avoid uploading new materials to the Re/Play service on Saturday 18th September to allow the upgrade and maintenance work to complete fully.

Re/Play downtime – Saturday 18th September, 12am-4am

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On 18 September, Mediasite will be moving our Re/Play service to a new data centre to provide an increase in service reliability and to support our live streaming provision; this work will take place between 12am and 4am. During this period, Re/Play will not be available for use. Although the service will be available after this time, for the duration of Saturday 18th September the service should be viewed as at risk, and just used as read-only. We cannot guarantee that any changes made during Saturday will be saved or that any recordings made will be uploaded to the service.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

H5P is now available to staff – create quizzes and learning materials

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H5P is now available to all staff through Blackboard. H5P uses attractive templates to create quizzes, interactive learning resources and presentations. H5P content can be embedded into Blackboard or added as a standalone link to pass marks into the Grade Centre.

H5P provides examples and tutorials for its various templates, you can read more in our guide to creating and embedding H5P resources.

Take a look at our H5P page for an overview of the tool. If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

New staff development webinar: How to effectively use Mentimeter Pro in your teaching

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Mentimeter has been a popular tool for interaction over the past 18 months and the University now has a Mentimeter Pro licence available for staff. Mentimeter is an online polling software that can be used to present live or asynchronous polls, quizzes and word clouds. It can be used for in person or hybrid sessions, as well as for online teaching either synchronously or asynchronously. The DEO will be running training on how to use Mentimeter Pro effectively in your teaching over the next few months.

Our first webinar, run by Naomi Beckett and Sophie Shippen, will be on the 22nd September from 10:30am – 11:30am on MS Teams. All the details, and information on signing up can be found on the DEO Events page.
More information about Mentimeter, and guidance on setting up your own account can be found on the DEO website.

If you have any further questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Re/Play automated streaming of live teaching

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We are pleased to confirm that from 16 September the ability to request automated streaming of live teaching will be available via Re/Play.

Automated streaming needs to be requested and is only available in rooms equipped with Re/Play recorders. Automated streaming will usually be enabled for a teaching block or year and will begin at the timetabled start time of each session.

Unit Directors or Heads of School (or their delegate) should request streaming for a unit. Requests should be submitted to the IT Service desk and contain the unit code, unit name, teaching block, and name of requestor. Alternatively, Heads of School (or their delegate) can request streaming for multiple units by submitting a spreadsheet with the above information to the IT Service desk. Where schools make requests on behalf of Unit Directors, they should ensure that teaching staff know that their teaching will be streamed.

The request should be made at least 48 hours prior to the session, in order for the link to the stream to be available to students in Blackboard.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Re/Play – getting ready for the start of term

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Over the next couple of weeks, the Digital Education Office are finalising preparations for the Re/Play service for the coming academic year.

  • During the week commencing 13 September, the Digital Education Office will be updating all Blackboard courses to ensure the correct tools are available to teaching staff, and links for students in the left-hand menu for automated room recordings are added.
  • On 18 September, Mediasite will be moving our service to a new data centre to provide an increase in service reliability and to support our live streaming provision; this work will take place between 12am and 4am. We do not envisage their being any outage during this period, but it should be considered an ‘at risk’ time.
  • From 19 September, staff will see two small changes to the My Re/Play Tab in Blackboard: the search bar in the top right of the frame will now be larger, and the “Add Presentation” button will move to the left-hand side. See the new layout (video)
  • Also from the 19 September, the student view of recordings from teaching spaces will change to be a more user-friendly interface with a ’tiled’ view.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Opportunity for staff to try out hybrid teaching rooms

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From 13th – 17th September IT Services are offering staff the chance to try out new equipment available for hybrid teaching, as follows:

  • Chemistry Lecture Theatre 2 – three drop in sessions at 11:00 to 12:00 on Tuesday 14 , Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 September. IT Services staff will be on hand to explain how to use the new equipment.
  • The following lecture theatres will also be available from 9:00 until 17:00 from Monday 13 September until Friday 17 September. Please note, IT staff will not be present in these rooms to assist.
    • Chemistry – LT2 (apart from 11:00-12:00 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday)
    • Physics – Frank
    • BioMed – C42
    • 43WR – G.01
    • Ada Lovelace – SM1

If you have any queries please contact the IT Service desk.