Scheduled Training Sessions
If you wish to arrange a training session for a group of staff in your School please get in touch with your School eLearning contact. This might be in areas such as ‘Beyond the basics’, ‘Using collaborative tools’, or ‘Embedding video into Blackboard’, for example, or you may have a specific requirement for which we need to develop a new session.
School and Faculty training
The eLearning Team run these regular scheduled sessions:
Adobe Express
The latest version of Adobe Express for desktop web brings the power and precision of Adobe’s leading photo, design, video, Adobe Firefly generative AI and document tools into a new, AI-first, all-in-one editor that’s intuitive and collaborative to use.
This course will help you with designing and producing webpage resources, videos and graphics and introduce you to Quick Actions to create standout content quickly and easily.
Alternative Text Workshop
This workshop discusses what Alternative Text is, when to use it and why it’s vital for us to add it to our learning materials to ensure our digital spaces are inclusive to everyone.
We will also go through how to add Alternative Text to images in commonly used tools such as Blackboard, Microsoft Word and Powerpoint.
Blackboard and Turnitin
BB Tests and Tii deployment for School PS Teams
These sessions are bespoke and aim to enable School Teams to set up and oversee effective creation of Blackboard (MCQ) Tests and Turnitin submissions. The focus of the session is on the use of BB test in a summative (rather than formative) context i.e. as Online Examinations and the deployment of Tii including the use of declarations for online examinations.
More information and booking via the training catalogue.
Assessments with integrity: Blackboard Tests and Pools
In an off-campus environment the challenges of delivering assessment with integrity are greater than in an on-campus (controlled) environment.
This group session will take you through the process of creating robust summative tests for delivery in an off-campus setting with a focus on minimising a form of academic malpractice: collusion in Blackboard tests.
Box of Broadcasts (BoB)
BoB is a shared on-demand TV and Radio recording service for education and enables all staff and students at the University to view and record programmes, create clips and playlists, search transcripts, and share any broadcast programmes from over 75 free-to-air TV and Radio channels. The recorded programmes are then kept indefinitely and can be searched and shared by all BoB users within the UK.
Canvas
Canvas training sessions are now available for the new Central Learning Environment which will fully replace Blackboard in September 2025.
Canvas 1: Navigation and Basic Functionality
This session is designed for academic and Professional Services staff who want to learn the basic tools to create content and activities in Canvas.
More information and booking via the training catalogue.
Canvas 2: Assessment & Feedback (Academic staff only)
This session is designed for academic staff who want to learn the basic tools for assessment and feedback in Canvas. Further training materials will be available later. Note: this refers to formative and summative assessment.
PS Staff: Please note that separate sessions will be scheduled soon.
Get Started with ChatGPT and Copilot
ChatGPT is an AI tool that can perform a range of tasks prompted by user input or dialogue.
Microsoft Copilot is built on ChatGPT but works more closely with Microsoft applications including Word, PowerPoint, Teams, and SharePoint.
In this session you will briefly compare the features of paid and unpaid versions of ChatGPT and Copilot. You will then log into unpaid versions of both ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot (web version) to compare their functionality and fit for your practice.
Click here for more information and registration for online sessions
Click here for more information and registration for on-campus sessions
Hybrid Meeting Training for Humanities Staff
These sessions are bespoke and aim to enable School Teams to set up and use hybrid meeting equipment in CTS rooms, and the mobile meeting Owl. Training is now being made available to Humanities staff, covering how to successfully host a hybrid meeting on campus, how to avoid issues like feedback or echoes and how to take advantage of equipment acquired for dual delivery teaching, which can now be used for hybrid meetings. The focus of the session is on familiarising staff with how to use the equipment. A demonstration is provided and we encourage staff to get involved and try using the equipment themselves.
Mentimeter
Using Mentimeter for Interactive Presentations.
Upgrade your presentation skills with Mentimeter!
This is an interactive training course suitable for beginners on how to use the web-based presentation and live-polling software.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a digital hub that brings communication, collaboration and formative assessment together in one place. It is a cloud-based software that is part of the Microsoft 365 suite.
MS Teams as a supportive learning environment – Beginner
This introductory session is aimed at teaching staff who are considering exploring new methods to further enhance students’ communication, collaboration, engagement, and social learning in the Microsoft Teams environment.
More information and booking via the training catalogue.
MS Teams for collaboration using OneNote Class Notebook – Advanced
This session is intended for teaching staff who are interested in exploring new methods to facilitate students’ formative collaborative activities (such as group project work) as well as experimenting with additional opportunities for formative individual learning activities (such as individual digital journals, homework, or exercises) with Teams OneNote Class NoteBook. The pedagogic aspects of collaborative learning will also be covered in this session.
PointSolutions
Looking to enhance your teaching and learning by creating more engaging lectures and seminars? Want to enable students to pose questions online during a presentation? PointSolutions is the answer!
PointSolutions Web for Beginners
With a focus on the browser version of PointSolutions. This beginner’s session will teach you everything you need to know to utilise the web version of PointSolutions.
More information and booking via the training catalogue.
PointSolutions Desktop for Beginners
With a focus on the desktop software’s PowerPoint integration, this beginner’s session will teach you everything you need to know to get up and running with the software.
VoiceThread
VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slideshow that can include text, images, documents, audio and video, and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in several ways.
VoiceThreads can be created by staff or students, and be graded or ungraded.
As VoiceThread is a cloud application there is no software to install. You just need an up-to-date version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
Introduction to VoiceThread
This introductory session is all you need to get started.
More information and booking via the training catalogue.
VoiceThread for groups
Using VoiceThread Groups is a good way to organise students into smaller teams to collaborate on course presentations, share VoiceThread for a specific project, or organise a course by week or assignment.