Foresters First Week within the Digital Classroom

Certificate in Forestry Induction

On Thursday 13th of September 2018, the first set of students to pilot the Digital Classroom (Certificate in Forestry) were inducted to the Kirkmichael Digital Classroom at SRUC’s Barony Campus.

Within their new teams (Blue Team, Green Team, Yellow Team and Purple Team), in which they were allocated to their Teammate tables, the students were provided with the following:

• Introduction to the new Digital Classroom layout, policies and procedures.
• An introduction to their collaborative Teammate tables, including downloading the Via Kramer App and connecting their devices to their table’s screen.
• An introduction to the Clevertouch screens, including the Clevertouch tilt screen.

This session also included an introduction to the new Tree Identification Moodle Unit, covering:

• Information e-Booklet on the Digital Classroom, including information on what is collaborative learning and technologies available within the room.
• Interactive Tree ID e-Booklets covering LO1 – LO3, with embedded H5P graded activities.
• An introduction to additional interactive activities, such as the Tree ID Glossary with embedded images and videos and practice H5P drag and drop Tree ID activities.
• The e-Booklet guidance for the team’s LO1 Sway presentation and LO2 & LO3 Sway e-Portfolio requirements.
• Available support including LibGuides information created by Library Services (Karen Garnett) surrounding Independent Learning and Collaborative Learning and also an open support discussion forum within the Moodle Unit area.

Let’s Commence with Learning Outcome 1

On Friday 14th of September 2018 within the Kirkmichael Digital Classroom, Andrew Treadway (Forestry lecturer) started to deliver the Tree Identification Learning Outcome 1 using the LO1 e-Booklet within Moodle:

As mentioned above, there are H5P interactive activities embedded within the e-Booklets and student team members would take their turn to come up in engaging with the drag and drop activities using the Clevertouch screens:

The session also included the Forestry lecturer utilising the document camera at the lectern in order to explore the inner of a flower to the engaged students:

The students were also introduced to the bite-sized informational videos within the e-Booklets:

Formative Socrative LO1 Team-Based Quiz

Once Andrew had delivered the LO1 e-Booklet, including covering the interactive activities, within the Digital Classroom, a team-based Socrative quiz was delivered.

Each team was provided with a Tablet device at their Teammate tables, which had the Socrative Student App installed. An assigned student within each team logged their names as their team names once within the Socrative quiz room, i.e. Blue Team, Green Team.

This session witnessed the students truly starting to work as teams with a competitive edge in answering each of the questions. This was a great ice breaker in having the students working together in true team spirit. The students enjoyed the Socrative quiz and Andrew explained further after each question.

Image above: One of the Socrative LO1 questions with the team’s responses.

Student’s Creativity Truly Inspiring

The Certificate in Forestry student teams are now tasked to collaboratively plan, co-create and deliver a Sway presentation covering elements of Learning Outcome 1.

On the 11th of October 2018, each team will take their turn in presenting their Sway presentation. After each team has made their presentation, the three remainder teams will be asked to vote using Socrative on the evidence required for the LO1 presentation. The teams will also provide a score for each element covered, including scoring the style and layout of the team’s Sway presentation.

The students have been asking for more development time within the Digital Classroom for their LO1 Sway presentations, which is great and indicates that these particular students seem more productive within the room.

Andrew Treadaway (standing below)  made a statement after witnessing and guiding the team’s early stages of their Sway presentations: “Being able to allow the students creativity in their educational progress within the Digital Classroom is truly inspiring.”

More posts coming soon surrounding the sessions with the Forestry students on their Tree Identification Unit, including the team’s LO1 Sway presentations…we can’t wait to see what the teams have produced within their collaborative Sway presentations!