Thing 15: Digital Study
As more of your study is supported by digital tools and takes place online, knowing how to make the most of the University’s digital study tools can make a big difference to your learning experience.
Making the most of recorded lectures
The University’s lecture recording service is called Media Hopper Replay. It’s available in most of our largest and many of our smaller teaching spaces, over 300 in total. Media Hopper Replay provides video recordings of lectures that you can watch again; anytime and anywhere. You can review material and catch up on points you may have missed to deepen learning and understanding, support exam preparation, or prepare for lessons. Lecture recording is a supplemental resource and extends the rich collection of online materials already provided by library resources and virtual learning environments (VLE) courses. Lecture recording is an enhancement resource and not a replacement for attendance at lectures and not every lecture will be recorded.
Recorded lectures provide several study benefits including:
- Readily accessible learning material, available safely and securely via Learn or Moodle, the University’s VLEs.
- Less reliance on written lecture notes.
- An additional learning resource for students for whom English is not a first language or who have specific learning needs.
- Backup support for when attendance at lectures is not possible (please note: lecture recording is NOT a replacement for attendance at lectures where interaction with the lecturer and other students enriches the learning experience).
- Access to state-of-the-art digital technology to support learning and teaching.
But how can you make the most of these recordings?
A recorded learning session allows you to revisit parts of the recording to enhance your notes. Take time to think about what you want from a recording and what your questions are, particularly if you have already attended the class or viewed it previously. This allows you to identify which parts of the lecture you want to review or concentrate on.
Read this lecture recording guide for students
Information Services student guidance on using Media Hopper Replay
Resource Lists
Resource Lists are online reading lists that provide students with easy access to their course readings. Resource Lists show the location (which library and where in the library you will find it) and availability of print books used on a course. They also include links to e-books and digitised chapters supplied by the library. Resource lists often contain links to journal articles, websites, podcasts or videos. You can also export a Resource List as a bibliography which is incredibly handy when putting together references for your assignments.
Resource Lists for Students – Media Hopper video 4mins
Resource Lists help and support for students
LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning is an online skills development service offering an extensive library of high-quality video courses in business, creative, and technical skills. The University of Edinburgh has a campus-wide subscription, offering staff and students unlimited access to the service via the web and mobile apps.
Digital Badges
Open digital badges enable you to securely share a wider range of verifiable learning and professional achievements across different (platforms), including social media, employability websites, CVs and portfolios.
A digital badge includes information about:
- The earner.
- The organisation issuing the badge.
- The criteria for earning the badge.
- Relevant dates, such as the issue date or an expiry date.
The University’s BadgEd service recognises verified extra-curricular skills and achievements and provides a secure way to award and share badges.
Learn more about BadgEd (Open Digital Badges)
How to complete Thing 15
Step 1
Select two of the Digital Study tools discussed above and explore the information links about them.
Step 2
Reflect in a blog post how using these tools could benefit your study and skills development.
Further Resources
Successful Academic Communications
Through interactive lectures and self-study tasks in this self-paced course, you will learn how to investigate your lecturers’ expectations and develop the critical reading and writing skills needed to have your voice heard.
Planning, structuring, and organising are key to communicating successfully in academic writing. It is equally important to be able to understand and use academic language appropriately for different audiences and purposes. This course is designed to help you develop these skills.
This course is just one of a wide selection of useful short transition courses available near to the start of the academic year to all new students to take from mid-August You will be able to access these via Learn, the University’s VLE (Using Learn as a Student)
Thing 16: Digital Curation
Content curation is the process of gathering information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest, usually with the intention of adding value through the process of selecting and organising the items in a collection or exhibition. Digital curation can include collecting articles, images, media, or webpages on a topic and selecting those that are of specific value or interest.
The act of curation utilises three specific skills:
- Understand: where we use an example to illustrate a concept or idea and classify items by gathering them into groups according to their characteristics. E.g. a pinboard on the concept of an aesthetic such as goth or cottage core with pins illustrating what the aesthetic looks like.
- Analyse: where we distinguish relevant from irrelevant information and organise it in a way that makes sense
- Evaluate: where we judge the quality of an item based on a set of criteria
As always, make sure to give credit where credit is due. Tag and link to the original creator and never pass off curated content as something you made yourself.
Also, add your own notes or tags to the content in your curated collection. Why is a particular item relevant to your collection or to someone you may be sharing it with?
Miro
Miro is an online collaborative whiteboard that if useful for sharing visual content (i.e. images and videos), and discussions. You can scribble on it, rub out your scribbles and rewrite, just like on a real whiteboard.
The University of Edinburgh has an institution licence for Miro, this means you can sign up to use it with your University Login.
How to start a collaboration with MIRO
The following digital curation tools aren’t supported by the University support services, but you may come across and find them useful in your studies.
Padlet
Padlet is an online post-it wall. It allows people to post their comments, questions, and resources in one place that is easily accessible to everyone. Signing up for a free account allows you to create three Padlets. You can choose one of several board layouts including wall, canvas, stream, grid, map, or timeline. Customisation options include changing features like the background or allowing collaboration to add content, to comment, or like each other’s posts. The moderator can also choose to show the names of the people posting or to turn it off to allow for anonymous comments and participation. A Padlet can be public or limited to those with the link.
Example Padlets
American Poetry – Audio Resources
Book Review – How to Read Literature like a Professor
Click here for information on getting started with Padlet
Wakelet
Each user account on Wakelet has its own unique workspace where you can create and organize visual collections of content; add links, articles, YouTube videos, GIFs, documents, images and more. When creating a collection there are five layouts to choose from, and you can also invite others to collaborate with you on your collection.
Example Wakelets
Diversify the Curriculum with OER – Wakelet
Click here for information about Wakelet workspaces
Pinterest is a social curation platform, where users can save and discover information, images, gifs and more into different ‘pinboards’ that collate the collected pins. Pinterest describes itself as a ‘virtual discovery engine’ aimed at helping users find ideas, like recipes, style, or crafts.
In addition to adding your own content as pins, users can search for pins created by other users and add these to their own collections. Pinterest account holders are presented with a homepage that displays suggested pins that they may find interesting based on their previous pins as well as posts from accounts and boards that users follow.
Example Pinterest Accounts and Pinboards
Natural History Museum Pinterest
Victoria & Albert Museum Pinterest
Click here for information on getting started with Pinterest
How to complete Thing 16
Step 1
Choose one of the Digital Curation tools above and have a go at curating a collection on a topic of your choice. Keep in mind the three specific skills for curation listed above, give credit where credit is due, and add your own notes or tags to the content in your curated collection. Why is a particular item relevant to your collection or to someone you may be sharing it with?
Step 2
Share your curated collection on your blog post and reflect on what you liked, or didn’t like, about the curation tool. Why did you choose to use that tool over the others?
Further Resources
ThingLink
ThingLink is a website and app-based program available to University of Edinburgh staff for annotating digital items to make your content more engaging and interactive. It works by allowing you to add icons or ‘tags’ to your digital item which can pull in rich media. Tags can be added to images, videos, or 360-degree VR shots which will then allow you to embed texts, record an audio note, or paste a link in from an external source. Your completed ThingLink projects can be easily shared as a link that will open in a browser. No account is needed to open a shared link.
Staff commonly use ThingLink to visualise complex concepts and produce interactive resources that promote deeper learning experiences for learners.
