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  1. Educational Technology Review project
Learning Enhancement and Development

Educational Technology Review project

Given the pandemic situation, City has seen a rapid increase in the take up of educational technologies to support teaching, learning and assessment. To help inform requirements for any changes and improvements, Learning Enhancement and Development (LEaD) is currently reviewing the educational technologies provision at City to understand the level of staff use and satisfaction and to identify any gaps in provision.

Background

City offers a range of educational technology tools to support learning and teaching. It is important for us to know whether they are fit for purpose. Whilst we are able to draw on our experiences with staff and students and evidence from system usage, service requests and feedback/complaints, we feel it would be useful to gather more regular feedback from staff about the tools they are using. A regular survey will enable us to report back to IT and LEC about satisfaction with tools and help in developing a review roadmap. In addition, given the pandemic situation, with many staff using these tools for the first time, so it is timely to gather feedback on their use of the tools and how satisfied they are that the tools meet their needs. This year, we focus on the review of the virtual classroom tools as part of the educational technology tool review.

Since the COVID19 pandemic began in March 2020, most City staff and students have relied on two virtual classroom tools, MS Teams and Zoom.  A review of these tools was carried out from June-September 2020 which concluded that City would need both MS Teams and Zoom to cover all key functionality requirements.  As a result, Zoom was renewed for a following year. There was no need to renew MS Teams as it is part of the Office365 package that IT have committed to indefinitely.  As these tools are regularly adding and improving features, it deemed essential that a further review should be conducted before the next renewal of Zoom (April 2022) to see if both tools were still required to meet City’s requirements. The report from the Review should be able to steer City in the right direction regarding Zoom.

Aims and Objectives

This study will review the educational technology tools that are supported by the Digital Education team in LEaD. It seeks to establish:

  1. The level of academic staff use and satisfaction for City’s current educational technologies tools including MS Teams site, Moodle, MediaSpace, Poll Everywhere, MS Teams and Zoom during the 2020-21 academic year with a particular focus on the two virtual classroom tools (MS Teams and Zoom).
  2. How MS Teams and Zoom compare when evaluating them against City’s functionality requirements for virtual learning tools. Based on this comparison, the Review will recommend whether one or both tools are needed in the future.
  3. What type of pedagogic and technical support is required for a Zoom service, if a recommendation is made to retain Zoom moving forward.