Learn Ultra Early Adopters – Insights from ECA’s Jessamy Kelly
Lecturer in Glass, Jessamy Kelly, moved her taught postgraduate course The Business of Craft and Design to Learn Ultra in Semester two, AY 22/23, as part of the Early Adopter programme.
Here, she shares some of the new and improved features of the VLE, and how they have improved course delivery.
Pronunciation and pronouns
“One of things I have found useful is the option students now have to record the pronunciation of their name, as well as add their pronouns to the Learn profile.
“As part of the upgrade that took place last summer, Learn users are able to record the pronunciation of their names within their profile settings. Now that I am teaching in Learn Ultra, that information is available to me when I am in the course. So for example, when we are using discussions or blogs, and I see a name, I can click on it to find out the correct pronunciation as well as that person’s pronouns. It has been very helpful and has given me more confidence in pronouncing names.
Insight into engagement
“Another thing I have found very useful is the information that I can now access to see how many students have engaged with content. This was useful early on in the semester when we had a last minute room change and changes to groupings. I was able to put this information out as an announcement and could see that 50 out of 52 students saw it. Previously, I would have just had to wait and see who made their way to the new room.
“I have also started exploring how I can use the insight I now get about the students’ activity as they engage with teaching materials. From what I understand, there is a lot more scope to get information on how many people have looked at a resource, and how long the spent on this. I have kept this very simple to begin with but it is something I’ll want to look at in more details for next semester as it gives me useful information on how people are engaging with my materials. For example, if I can see that people are watching and re-watching videos several times, I might need to go back and revisit it to make sure the video is clear and easy to understand.
“This new insight also allows me to see how far students have gotten through certain sequences of materials. So if I have concerns about a student may be around week three or four and I haven’t seen them, I can see how they’re interacting with resources on Learn Ultra, and reach out to them should they be struggling.
Embedded videos
The embedded videos in Learn Ultra are great as well.
My postgraduate students, many of whom are multilingual, have told me they really appreciate the captions on videos. I think it’ll be helpful for them to be able to watch videos with the notes alongside too.
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