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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

These will be common knowledge to many, but I find they are new to the majority of new lecturers*. There are of course many others too, more advanced options and not everyone need be a power user, but a few common ones for simple needs are handy.

*See also the debunked digital native idea.

Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

For in class, Win+P awareness means you can check, and choose what's on your lectern/laptop and what's on the main screen.

Maybe useful to have notes or similar on laptop, or things you can move to the 'second' main screen.

Or the same when e.g. demoing something in software or browser.

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

It's common to get the 'I can't see anyone whilst my slides are up' comment.

It's tricky online, one screen maybe, keeping track of the people, tech, actual teaching. Being able to flip between people and slides is handy. (Some systems integrate things to avoid issue, but still useful to know)

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

Want to represent something dynamic/motion, with few animation skills?

- Play with the Morph transition - easy to use, set up*

(*as always with ppt, do avoid over use of animation and spending 15 hrs on that instead of prepping your actual teaching... ;) have it where representing something).

Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

2 common ppt tips (from design and learning principles):

* Put things to do with each other, near each other.
* Visually represent what you're discussing conceptually.

Set of 6 bullet points? Three to do with X and three with Y? Put each three together, add a gap, maybe colour.

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

Presenting in person or online, often people panic if the wrong thing is on the screen. Start with these two (and other tips):

Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

When presenting many people have trouble getting what they want on a screen. Two shortcuts, helpful to know for quick access:

Alt+Tab - switch between open windows e.g. Slides and browser/software. Good when teaching online on one screen.

Win+P - change room screen, mirror or a second display?

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

Powerpoint: selected two shortcuts and some other starter tips often given:

Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

PPT top 2 keyboard shortcuts for teaching:

(B) Blank screen, take the slides away from attention, shift focus. Sometimes the best slide is no slide. Online, also consider stop sharing when not in use.

(#+Enter) jumping to a slide, or the end can be handy and avoid click click click, oops too far.

Keyboard key and explanation times 2:
B - Blanks the screen (toggle). Handy to shift attention
9 - Number + Enter jumps to a slide (try 99 to jump to the end, unless you have way too many slides!)
image of someone presenting slides. powerpoint icon and lightbulb icon with tips written in it.

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

When presenting many people have trouble getting what they want on a screen. Two shortcuts, helpful to know for quick access:

Alt+Tab - switch between open windows e.g. Slides and browser/software. Good when teaching online on one screen.

Win+P - change room screen, mirror or a second display?

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

More advanced than slide number jumps and worth being aware of:

Summary zoom, slide zoom and links within slides can enable more flexibility and non-linear presentation slide sets.

This means options to jump into more detail or choose topics in the moment.

Use zoom for PowerPoint to bring your presentation to life - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

PPT top 2 keyboard shortcuts for teaching:

(B) Blank screen, take the slides away from attention, shift focus. Sometimes the best slide is no slide. Online, also consider stop sharing when not in use.

(#+Enter) jumping to a slide, or the end can be handy and avoid click click click, oops too far.

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 6d

As it's the start of the year, I've been supporting various new lecturers and will be starting obs soon.

There are many knowledge gaps around quite useful keyboard shortcuts that can help with some presenting needs.

There are a lot of shortcuts, a power user thing normally, so I'll post a top few.

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 7d

BSky will have to at some point consider money. Ads as the main approach appears to have caused a lot of issues elsewhere. The other main option is to consider paid accounts with additional power user tools and similar - reasonable payment for useable tools.
Let services compete on service.

Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 7d

In the social media space, one of the absolutely key aspects of Bluesky, aside from decentralisation, is user control over what you see.

In terms of development work I hope they lean into this more. Have inbuilt tools to help you (with no code/knowledge) build your own feeds on rules etc.

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 7d

Martin Lewis has been one of the few who actually explains fees to kids/parents well over the years (along with explaining many other things too).

tbh universities could do a better job here, and have more clarity on a) where money is spent and b) the impact of the real term cuts here.

Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 7d

Multiple organisations have failed on this front. A generation ignored warnings that house prices and rent were going up fast - we were discussing this mid-00s.

The focus on fees (system has virtually no support within HE, so not saying it isn't a problem) ignored students need money *now*.

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 7d

The bigger problem we've had for 20+ years is not fees, it's living costs. This was clear 20 years ago, worse (much worse) now and you have 2/3rds of students working so many hours for pay that it negatively impacts on their study (before you add the covid hangover effects on that age group).

Martin Lewis @martinlewis.moneysavingexpert.com · 7d

“Martin, should I pay my daughter’s tuition fees so she doesn’t need a loan?”

My answer… having already explained that the 1st priority is the ‘parental contribution’ for living costs.

Watch the full The Martin Lewis Money Show Young Person’s Money special on ITV X
www.itv.com/watch/the-ma...

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 8d

Honestly suprised it’s that high…

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 9d

Started today with a wider group for the morning and our module group this afternoon, looking at more structured and systemic development as a researcher.

Recently we've had more staff join as well as PhD students, often with intention to help a transition or simply make things count this year!

Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · Sep 9

Bath Spa PhD students and early career researchers: we’ll have the next cohort of our Researcher Development module this year

Starts with the open RDP workshop “Developing yourself as a researcher”

Get in touch to sign up. Combine with teaching modules for PGCert.

Image of person with lightbulb above head. Text: Researcher Development. For PhD students and ECRs. HEP7004, L7 module, Feed paid. Providing a cohort & structure around your chosen RDP workshops
Contact hep@bathspa.ac.uk

Register on (RDP) 'Developing yourself as a researcher' 29th Sep

Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 9d

These and the original all good and relevant questions. We discuss your ones often, need to as not easy to definitively answer.
What might be interesting to throw in, is if there is no real difference in what can be assessed, do our intentions align with the students' interpretations or intentions?

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 10d

Can you? Or do you?
(Not an answer, maybe someone has an example or good answer. Just first thought, less what’s possible than what’s chosen and intention for use).

Also with these terms I always feel they miss a rather important third option or version: assessment *as* learning.

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 11d

It would be an exception where I’d happily let them use the analytic data instead of saying no.
Crowdsource the fight back against slop sites.

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 11d

If search engines ever again want to be useful as before they need to enable you to downvote results or block sites as AI slop, at least for your personal results.
Also noted many of the advanced search options have stopped working properly as they present slop vaguely linked to one word in search.

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 13d

Oh yes, had this one, hours of material. Media not edited (a lot harder/more work than doing so for written).
Difference between formative/log use and summative/presented to others use perhaps, but still something to think about.

Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 14d

First reading group session of the year today. Seems a good topic for early in the year.

Looking forward to a good discussion.

Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 24d

September, we look at belonging, a frequent topic around transition and engagement. This time we consider ideas around students actions towards belonging and small acts of connection as part of this.

Higher Education Reading Group
Belonging and small acts of connection
Thursday 25th September 1200

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Giles Martin @gilesdrmartin.bsky.social · 14d

I’m working with a programme with something similar now and more and more are choosing video/audio (or back to notebook by hand too).
The assessment can also be multimedia. Has pros and cons at that stage.

So interested in any lessons learnt for advice to them to use effectively!

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