Technologies for teaching

Find additional support and guidance for enhancing your in-person and blended teaching and adopting the Bath Blend on the Teaching Hub.

Academics and professional service staff have access to a number of technologies that can enhance learning and support innovations in teaching.

Support for these technologies is provided by a number of departments. If you have a question about a specific technology, please read the appropriate section below to find out who to contact.

The TEL team (Technology Enhanced Learning team) within the Centre for Learning & Teaching provides support for the effective use of technology to enhance learning, teaching and assessment. We can assist you in identifying the right TEL tools for you, advise on effective use and best practice, and help you to explore their potential further. We also support the institutional development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), so please get in contact if this is something you would like to explore further.

Moodle, Zoom, Mahara, and Xerte

These technologies are managed and supported by the TEL team. We provide full support to staff and offer a comprehensive staff development and troubleshooting service.

Click on the links below to find online guides, resources and advice about best practice.

Moodle is the University's virtual learning environment for students and staff. Moodle can be used to share lecture notes and recordings, access forums and messaging, submit coursework, take quizzes and online assessments, and find online courses and training.
Zoom is a highly collaborative webinar tool, and can be used for delivering seminars and lectures remotely.
Mahara is an e-portfolio system. Staff and students can collect documents, images, blogs and other digital content to demonstrate and share their learning, skills and development.
Xerte is an authoring software. Staff can create digital resources for educational purposes, without the need for programming skills.

If you would like any further advice about using these technologies, or wish to explore their potential further, please contact the TEL team at tel@bath.ac.uk.

Panopto

Panopto is used to record lectures and other activities on campus.

If you need technical support, please contact the IT/AV helpdesk in DDaT.

You can find online guides and resources, including how to capture lectures and how to make recordings available in the Teaching Hub.

If you would like training or further expert pedagogical guidance about making the best use of Panopto in your teaching, please contact the TEL team at tel@bath.ac.uk.

Mentimeter (polling software)

Mentimeter is an anonymous and formative feedback mechanism.

Mentimeter is browser-based and students can use their own devices (smartphones, tablet devices or laptops) to vote or respond to questions posed in the presentation. As well as being used as a simple voting system, lecturers can collect and analyse feedback, and share reports quickly and easily via Moodle.

The Teaching Hub contains further guidance on using Mentimeter and, if you would like expert pedagogical guidance on how you can use polling software to engage students, and how to use the software inside of Powerpoint, contact the TEL team.

Visit the Mentimeter website for a more detailed description of the software and access to their extensive resources and guidance material.

Ouriginal (similarity detection)

Ouriginal (formerly Urkund) is a web-based similarity detection service. It is integrated into Moodle for Moodle assignments.

Ouriginal reviews Moodle assignments and generates reports which can be used to identify similarities between student work and existing sources across the internet, journals and other publications. Reports can also be used in formative assessment to help students learn how to develop their writing and avoid plagiarism.

Ouriginal is owned by the Library.

If you would like advice on how you can use Ouriginal with your Moodle assignments, contact the TEL team at tel@bath.ac.uk. For direct access to Ouriginal, please contact the Library.

Inspera

Inspera is a cloud-based, digital assessment platform that the institution uses to plan, design, deliver and mark our end of semester assessments.

You can find online guides and resources, including how to set up your assessments on the Teaching Hub.

If you would like training on using the Inspera platform, please contact the Inspera Support Team on inspera-support@bath.ac.uk or to discuss designing assessments for online and open book delivery, please contact the TEL team at tel@bath.ac.uk.

If your queries are to do with assessment procedures and practices, please contact the Exams Office in the Academic Registry.

Other TEL tools

We have developed expertise in a number of externally hosted tools which have the potential to enrich the student learning experience. These include:

providing audio feedback
exploring Augmented Reality
use of e-books
OERs (Open Educational Resources)
using social media within learning & teaching
use of tablets and mobile devices
blogging
using Office 365 tools in a teaching context

This list is not exhaustive, so please get in touch if you have a query about any other technology or teaching approaches using technology.

The TEL team is available to advise on how you might embed these into teaching practices to facilitate meaningful interactions, group work, self-assessment and personalised learning. Please contact us at tel@bath.ac.uk.

Please note: where we do not have ownership or agreements with technologies that are hosted externally, users need to ensure that their use of these technologies complies with IT Security, data protection and GDPR, copyright, University policies and other legal requirements.

Tools, help and advice to support technology enhanced learning

Find out about the technologies we provide, training and technical support, and resources and advice available to help you enhance learning and teaching.