CDEL successful in bid for grant

Elizabeth Jones from the CELT's Digitally enhanced Learning team has been successful in securing a Teaching Information Grant for a research project into ePortfolios: 'Creating a professional online identity: educating staff & students to create and maintain their own ePortfolios.'

The focus of this project is a feedback exercise for those students who will have undertaken ePortfolio workshops with CDEL in 2012. The results of the feedback is being used to inform a new model of best practice for teaching ePortfolios at University of Wales, Newport. Improoving students’ awareness of employability and the value of their academic career.

A student project assisstant has already been hired and feedback exercises are expected to begin later this month. We'll be giving further updates as the project progresses.

CDEL invited to contribute to ALDinHE Communication planning meeting

A CDEL representative was invited to the recent ALDinHE (Association for Learning Development in Higher Education) Communication planning meeting. The meeting, which took place in the Oxford YHA, was arranged to review the Associations digital footprint and decide which tools could be improved to allow for better communication between its members.

Representatives from the University of Wales, Newport, as well as other institutions from the UK, were in attendance and a number of tools, including PB Works, Word Press, Dropbox and Google Docs (amongst others) were discussed and, by the end of the meeting, a plan to allow the Association to move forward was drafted to be taken back to the wider planning teams for further discussion and development.

• Please click here to learn more about ALDinHE

CDEL's 23(ish) things

Image cc licensed ( BY NC SA )
Flickr photo by fraumrau

CDEL has been working with the librarians at University of Wales, Newport to provide a training course that would allow the library staff to explore all kinds of online tools and services. The course needed to cater for a wide range of knowledge levels - from the IT whizz to the technophobic - as well as letting staff learn where and when they had time.

In response to these needs CDEL have created their own version of the '23 things' course that has been reworked by libraries and other institutions all over the world.  The original 23 things programme, Learning 2.0 was designed by Helene Blowers, technology director at the public library of Charlotte Mecklenburg County in North Caroline. The aim of the programme was to introduce library staff to emerging technologies through the completion of 23 'things' or tasks.  The content of the programme was delivered through a blog, which allowed learners to work through it at their own pace.

CDEL have adapted the programme to suit the library staff at UWN and created '23(ish) things' on the university's Moodle-based virtual learning environment (VLE). The course was launched with a face to face session to explain the course and give staff a chance to get some help with how to navigate the VLE. Since then the 23ish things have been delivered entirely online with staff disussing their progress and thoughts via a dedicated course forum. They are currently working their way through 27 things to teach them about all kinds of digital tools including facebook, twitter, mobile technology, blogging, RSS, podcasts, apps & more.

It is hoped that upon completion, the project can be extended and made available to all staff at the university who would like to know more about some of those mysterious online thingyamebobs.

CDEL to offer weekly student drop-in sessions to all UWN students

As of Wednesday 9th January 2013, CDEL will be running weekly (term-time only) student drop-in sessions at both the City and Caerleon Campuses. These sessions will run from 2-4pm at the City Campus in room C30 and 1-4 at the Caerleon Campus in room G10/Rathmell Building.

The weekly drop in workshops/surgerys are for all students studying at the University of Wales, Newport who want help, support and advice using technology to work smarter and to support them in their studies.

A full list of how CDEL can help students can be found via the following link.

http://bit.ly/CDEL4Students

CDEL supports new blended-learning Engineering Work-Based Learning Programme in Energy Management

The Engineering Work-Based Learning Programme in Energy Management is designed to give support to those responsible for, or wish to be involved with, energy management and related topic areas.  It will enable them to review, plan and introduce effective measures to improve their organisation’s energy efficiency and usage whilst reducing their Green House Gas emissions through a systematic approach.

The CELT's Digitally Enhanced Learning team (CDEL) have tailored training to meet the identified needs of the newly launched Engineering Work-Based Learning in Energy Management Programme team.  Early research by the team identified key training needs in the effective use of Moodle 2, where bespoke sessions for the team were provided to use the platform as part of their delivery strategy.

Further training needs were also identified in using the cloud-based resource 'Prezi'. As part of the Work-Based Learning delivery model, coupled with the need to engage businesses in fresh new ways, Prezi was deemed an ideal tool for the job. CDEL delivered a comprehensive training session which opened up many new and innovative ways of delivering presentations.

Programme Lecturer Stephen Biggs commented:

“CDELs friendly, knowledgeable and approachable demeanour has made the sessions extremely productive and useful.  I look forward to working with them in the future as the WBL programme develops. This will help the team deliver module content in innovative and effective ways, meeting the contemporary blended learning approach of a 21st Century HE learning and teaching environment.”

If you'd like more information about the Energy Management course, please email:  Eng.WBLProjectTeam@newport.ac.uk

Engineering WBL  Programme Team

L-R - Stephen Biggs, Valerie Embleton, Chris Gledhill

CDEL @ The CELT Conference 2012

On Monday 11th June, CDEL hosted a stand at the 2012 CELT Conference, held at the University of Wales, Newport's Caerleon Campus.

Internal and external delegates were given the opportunity to ask representatives from the team about CDEL's role within the University and also how they work with external clients. A rolling presentation was screened throughout the conference and delegates were invited to take part in a 'What does Learning Technology mean to you?' Youtube video recording session.

The CDEL representatives spoke to many of the conference delegates and offered advice and information wherever possible on a range of e-Learning issues. CDEL hope that those in attendance had a useful and thought-provoking day and we hope to get the opportunity to see, and even work with, many of you again.

CDEL Launches Webinar based training for staff at the University of Wales, Newport.

We are thrilled to announce the success of last week’s first cross campus Webinar training session ran here at the University by the CELT's Digitally Enhanced Learning team (CDEL).  A webinar is a live, web-based event, that incorporates audio and visual elements as well as enabling attendee interaction.  A training session ran in this way can be attended virtually, the trainer sharing their screen with their audience.

The training was delivered from the CDEL office at the Caerloen Campus and watched by trainees at both the Caerleon and City Campuses, participating as individuals from their machines.  At Tredegar, seven trainees gathered in one room and watched on a Smart Board. They watched their trainer on the screen and listend to their comments using a real time screencast system. Attendees interacted with the trainer asking lots of questions and discussing what had been shown.

This particular session was on ‘What’s New in Moodle 2’ but literally anything informative that does not need on hand facilitation can be delivered in this way.   The web based software used in this case was Join.me and Skype, both of which are free to use and available online.

How does join.me work? Take a tour and discover join.me.

Skype Explained visually

The benefits of using Webinars to facilitate teaching and Learning

In this blog post, George Levy outlines some of the main benefits to using webinar technology, please click here to read it.

CDEL will be running regular Webinars, on a variety of technologies, for staff and students within the University & we also plan to showcase some of these at the forthcoming CELT Conference which is taking place at the University of Wales, Newport on June 11th 2012.

• Please click here to learn more & book your place at the conference.

Student ePortfolio projects

The Centre for Digitally Enhanced Learning - ePortfolio projects


The Centre for Digitally Enhanced Learning (CDEL) at Newport University have begun piloting student led ePortfolio workshops for students. This pilot ePortfolio provision has been developed in recognition of the need for all students to fully engage in creating and managing their own ePortfolios and the personal and professional opportunities this encapsulates; students can begin to create a professional image now and promote themselves to prospective employers by creating and managing their own personal brand.


The ePortfolio is a powerful tool that can inspire students. It encapsulates the ‘New Basic Skills’ required of students today; multi-literacy, creativity, communication/IT, lifelong learning, adaption and change, environmental responsibility. Students being able to market themselves to lots of different cultures, businesses and industries is one of the most effective ways they can create a stable professional and financial future for themselves, as they’ll demonstrate a wide range of abilities through a diverse portfolio.

Initially, CDEL ran two large workshop sessions for student mentors and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The workshops are a combination of theory (e.g. personal branding and what to include) and practice. The sessions have had a great impact on the students as they have come away from the day with their ePortfolios already created and live on the web. They have also gained practical skills and confidence in website creation and maintenance as well as starting to think about their future employability. 


As an outcome of this pilot stage of the project, staff from CDEL presented one of their 'hands-on' workshops at the recent ALDinHE conference. Delegates were taught how to create an ePortfolio with Google Sites and all attendees left with a live portfolio. CDEL received excellent feedback from this session and plan to attend the conference again next year. 


Building on the success of the ePortfolio pilots, CDEL are progressing an institutional ePortfolio system for integration within the University's VLE.  This will enable students to export their developments to their own website after they have graduated.

CDEL welcomes new team members

CDEL would like to introduce our two new team members Richard Oelmann and Elizabeth Jones:

Richard Oelmann

I've spent 18 years as a Primary school teacher, including stints as an Advisory Teacher for ICT in Cardiff and a Deputy Head in Monmouthshire - and as IT leader in each school I've worked in.
Over the last 5 years, I have become more involved in e-Learning, particularly Moodle, beginning as a user and training other teachers, then also as an administrator. From this role I began editing themes for schools and contributing back to the Moodle support forums. Extending this, I began creating themes for the Moodle community and commercial clients. At the same time I have been a keen advocate of Open Source Software in business and education through both Linux and Windows environments.
My role in CDEL will involve developing the online teaching and learning environment provided by Moodle as part of the mLE. This will incorporate new developments through Moodle itself, other potential tools such as Mahara, and purpose-built add-ons which respond to the needs of the staff and students within the institution.

Elizabeth Jones

I graduated from Cardiff University in 2007  (BA English Literature & History) before moving to Oxford for a graduate trainee position in Oxford University libraries. It was here that my interest in electronic resources began as I learned about the ever growing number of electronic resources that libraries offer. I also worked on a project to create personalisable lists of library acquisitions for researchers that could be delivered via RSS.

After finishing my traineeship I took up a position in the Caerleon campus library at Newport managing the journals collection. I maintained my interest in online resources, helping to set up the library moodle and assisting with e-journal management.

My work in CDEL will involve training staff and students to make the best of use of moodle and other digital tools to better their learning and teaching experience.

We would like to welcome Richard and Elizabeth to the team and look forward to working with you both.