The Educational Technology Services (ETS) team introduced new support mechanisms for UNSW staff in 2019, with the aim of improving the educational experience through technology.
LET’S Meet, an orientation event that covers the use of centrally supported suite of Ed-Tech tools, was launched in the lead up to O-Week of Term 3. LET’s stands for ‘Learning Educational Technology Services’.
The ETS team, in partnership with academics and divisional staff, showcased how Ed-Tech tools have been and can be used to improve the educational experience. The event ran twice and saw over 60 people attend from across the University. The orientation sessions have helped prepare staff in the use of Moodle, Lecture Recordings+, theBox, AR/VR, Turnitin, H5P and the use of the physical Active Learning spaces.
The team have also introduced Drop-In Sessions (one-hour-long, bi-weekly), where UNSW staff can directly consult and receive help and support from ETS staff on specific problems. Not only have these drop-in sessions received positive feedback from the participants, they are also helping ETS staff identify faculty needs that will help continuously improve tools and services.
“I like that ETS staff could be physically available for staff to have direct inquiry. I know external TELT support is also a way to resolve the issue, but drop-in sessions provide staff with issue-solving and digital literacy education”, said one of the attendees as part of feedback.
“I received excellent service from knowledgeable staff members. They were very accommodating and able to help with my issue”, said another.
To find out more about the Drop-In sessions, head to the ETS page on the Teaching Gateway
The final achievement of the year is the launch of the chatbot A.I.D.E (Artificial Intelligence for Digital Education) which will be able to help staff round the clock.
It has been incorporated onto the Educational Technology section of the Teaching Gateway.
Currently accessed from https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/aide, the bot will be launched on all Educational Technology pages in 2020.