O x T A L E N T 2009 Winners

[ OxTALENT Homepage ]

1. Use of WebLearn to support a course or programme of study

• Winners: The MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care Team (12 members)
  Project: MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care
  The MSc is a blended programme of inter-professional education on which participants attend face-to-face sessions at the start of each module and then continue to work together at a distance online alongside their clinical practice. There is a team of 12 people involved in developing and delivering this course. Dr Amanda Burls accepted the award on behalf of the team.

2. Academic Podcasting

• Winner: Dr Simon Benjamin
  Project: Caging Shrödinger’s Cat: Quantum Nanotechnology

Best Student Podcast

• Winner: Orla De Burca
  Project: OUCS Student Media Team Podcasts
  Two podcasting prizes were awarded at the 2009 OxTALENT awards. Podcasting at Oxford this year has been an outstanding success with a rapidly growing community of staff and student podcasters. Nearly 50 hours of educational content is created and published each month. The winners were: Dr Simon Benjamin, Materials Department for his series ‘Caging Schrödinger's Cat - Quantum Nanotechnology ‘andOrla De Burca, St Cross College for her podcast ‘Obama's First 100 Days’.

3.Student Projects

• Winner: Christopher Du Boulay Project: Criminal Cases 2009
  Runners - up: Srikanth Siva, Ariel Liu, Naida Dervishalidovic, Katarina Kozynska and Catherine Kokkinaki
  Project: eKate
  The winner, Christopher du Boulay is an undergraduate law student at Mansfield College. His project ‘Criminal Cases 2009’ was developed as a revision tool for himself in preparation for criminal law moderation exam and then grew into a competitive game with his fellow law students as they challenged each other to beat the best score in matching descriptions of the case to the case name. Christopher is currently working on the next version which will include questions on each topic that they study for final exams.
  The e-Kate project aimed to develop an online library research skill-training module modelled on the sessions usually conducted by the Head of the Education Library, Kate Williams. The team created ‘bite-sized’ simulations using Camtasia and Captivate to recreate the content of Kate’s sessions. The reusable content allows students to practice skills in their own time using portable digital devices, such as laptops and MP3 players. The prototype has been so successful that Education Library staff have proposed to take this project further to supporting the wider university and library community in their provision of training resources for students.

4. Use of Technology in Learning Spaces

• Winner: Dr M. Antoni J. Ucerler
  Project: Google Earth for Teaching Global History: A Virtual Interactive Experience
  Dr M. Antoni J. Ucerler, the Oriental Institute in East Asian Studies, uses Google Earth with an electronic whiteboard to teach global history. His lectures are focused on the theme of European expansion in Southeast and East Asia(1498-1650). The challenges in this teaching are the vast number of geographical places unfamiliar to students as well as their difficulty in grasping accurately the relationship of historical events to the geographical terrain. Why a battle was won or lost, why a ship sank, or why a port was considered safe or unsafe often depended on a number of key geographical features of the location. These challenges prompted him to use the flyover and overlay tools in Google Earth to illustrate: (1) the historical routes of navigation from Europe to East Asia; (2) the visual context of geographical locations and how the terrain aided or hindered travel to and from them.
  Making use of a smart board in the classroom with Google Earth provided an interactive visual experience, which combined both the satellite imagery and historical maps and images of relevant artefacts.

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