penarthkate.bsky.social
Academic Lead for Assessment & Feedback @ Cardiff Uni; SFHEA; Roman military historian; Mountain Rescuer; long-suffering Cardiff Rugby supporter; Durotrigan.
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Tech nostalgia? Writing my PhD on an Amstrad PCW with 256k of RAM! No hard drive, just floppy discs which I backed up every sunday. There was that sunday when I backed up the wrong disc and lost a week of writing 😭
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A6 we never Turned-it-on, thank goodness. I just didn't like the concept, or the marketing. #LTHEchat
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A6. Turnitin! Because reliance on it has meant we could kick down the road being really critical of our assessment design.
And because of AI 'detectors'?
#LTHEchat
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I've had student projects 'rebuilding' individual monuments in Minecraft and I believe there's a Mincecraft Ancient Rome, you're right, it is fun!
#LTHEchat
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A5. How many wishes can the Edtech genie grant?
Can I also have tools that automatically come in Welsh as well as English or have easy translation facility for the buttons, instructions etc.
Os gwelwch yn dda?
#LTHEchat
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A5. A cheap and easy way of creating 3d ancient worlds and bringing artefacts that my students can only see online to glorious 3d life.
#LTHEchat
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Q4. We're there. Zoom is going in a couple of weeks, the rationale being that Teams is an alternative.
Evidence - how much is it used (esp. across disciplines), how usable is it, do we have an alternative, does it enhance the educational experience, how much does it cost?
#LTHEchat
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A3. Does it actually do something useful? Will they have capacity to learn it (some colleagues would still rather use handouts made from bits of paper stuck on with Pritt ;-) )
Is it free / supported by the uni
#LTHEChat
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A2. Recommendations from others, especially our friendly neighbourhood Dig Ed team. Sometimes I trip over stuff on t'internet and have a play with it but I have a low threshold for digital complexity!
#LTHEchat
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A1 I guess the only thing I can think of is a Virtual Rome that was developed ?early this century, it was super and I used it in a module I taught on the city of Rome. It had a little detective game along with it which encouraged you to explore.
Sadly killed off amidst a copyright row.
#LTHEchat
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I presume you know that this ST episode revolves around the discovery of a device by an interplanetary archaeological expedition? ;-)
Unfortunately no alien hypocausts in it though.
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This might make an excellent jigsaw 🤣
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Presumably leaving little room for one's illegible scrawl?
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Hope you enjoy... possibly better for non Roman historians ;-)
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Roman soldiers marching along that section of #Romanroad Easter 2017
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Doing this kind of exercise does highlight really well what a massive logistical challenge campaiging was though!
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I did some putative reconstructions of the units that may have camped in some marching camps for my thesis (a very long time ago!) - Rey Cross, Durno and Y Pigwn - you can cram units in quite tightly or give everyone (and all the kit, supplies etc. a bit more space).
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This is lovely, Bob! Probably there'd be auxiliary units along with the legions to provide a balanced force (infantry, ranged troops, cavalry etc.) Units often were under-strength, but equally may have been brought up to full strength for a campaign.
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Well done, Toby!
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Great crack tonight, thanks very much Pam, Richard & Madeleine!
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youtu.be/V7ImvRAsdqs?...
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Probably, but I've somehow managed to survive over three decades teaching in HE and retained some degree of idealism!
#LTHEchat
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A6. Students should feel completely free to ask if something isn't clear and we have to listen and respond. Our aim should be to reach a point where students shouldn't have to ask for anything to be explained.
#LTHEchat
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A5. To navigate the Hidden Curriculum - give students a map and compass and support them in using said tools (says the Mountain Leader).
Better still, avoid hiding stuff in the first place.
#LTHEchat
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ooh, like that idea; I'm just writing up something for our Education Development Toolkit on assignment briefs.
Do you expect / advocate / pray for institutional consistency?
#LTHEchat
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A4. Glossaries of technical terms, names etc.
Trying to remember to avoid the interminable university and disciplinary acronyms.
Assignment guides articulating clearly what we're looking for, including allowing for different approaches.
#LTHEchat
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A3. Maybe some students expect it - like the excitement and mystique of starting a new school for example. But starting uni is much harder and there may not be as much support to navigate the Hiddenness, so it could be a real discouragement, source of frustration and disengagement.
#LTHEchat
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Everyone should have a mad chemistry teacher. Mine was brilliant at experiments with lots of noise and smoke, it was a big factor in me actually getting a science O level!
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A2. Try to look at it from a different perspective - as if it's the first time I've come across it.
Work with students as partners.
I've loaded up a couple of student personas into Gen AI and 'consult' with them on various things, esp. accessibility, clarity etc.
#LTHEchat
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A1 Stuff that's so second nature to us institutionalised academic staff that we don't recognise that it may not be completely obvious to everyone else, especially students as we tend to forget theat we're some way removed from undergraduate days now.
#LTHEchat
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The absolute stars have been giving a wonderful public performance for much of the day and bringing some much needed joy and humanity to campus 🎵❤️
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A6: nearly every assessment type will benefit some groups and disadvantage others. A diverse range of assessments is one option. We're exploring 'choice' as an assessment type where students can select from an (albeit fairly limited) range, hopefully to play to their strengths.
#LTHEchat
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A5: With PG there's a danger of just assuming all PG students will be familiar with assessment practices simply because they've already done a degree so we don't provide the same levels of scaffolding we do with UG courses. I'd worry they'd be embarrassed to ask because of our assumptions.
#LTHEchat
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A4: actively working with a diverse range of colleagues (academic, non-academic and students) to understand different experiences and needs as we design the module, the teaching and assessment methods, identify resources and which examples we're going to focus on.
#LTHEchat
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Really sorry, Pauline, it's only internal data at present. I hope eventually there'll be an opportunity to discuss it more openly.
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A3: interesting question, and.. I'm not sure we have. We get NSS data with various categories including race, but I'm not sure if in my School we've done any really serious interrogation of the data or talked with our non-white students about their experience of our teaching practices.
#LTHEchat
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A2: we've done a big data project on this and seen how students of colour are disadvantaged differently by different assessment types.
Unfamiliar assessment types; perhaps no family or friends within easy reach or with the experience to provide support.
#LTHEchat
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A2 this has happened on some programmes elsewhere in my uni with lots of Asian students; they can excluded by white (often domestic) students.
#LTHEchat
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A1: all the staff on my programme are white, fine for our majority of white students, less so for our students of colour
#LTHEchat