NOW Symposium
The first NOW Symposium celebrated NTU's developments in eLearning and in particular, NOW, the new virtual learning environment.
In his keynote speech, Professor Peter Jones described the changing nature of the student population and changing patterns of study, saying: "They are at ease with technologies and digital media, globalised and accessible information sources and have high expectations of personalised learning."
He described how NTU is aiming for the best, cost-effective deployment of digital technologies. Among these technologies is NOW, which will provide NTU's eLearning platform for many years to come. Desire2Learn, who supplied NOW, are continuously improving their products and services to meet the demands of eLearning. Their Chief Executive Officer, John Baker, gave an introduction to ePortfolio, which D2L describe as: 'A powerful, yet intuitive platform for engaging learners and challenging them to achieve their educational goals.'
The ePortfolio tool is being scrutinised by NTU in a number of pilots. Helen Boulton and Jon Tepper are leading pilots in the Schools of Education and Science and Technology respectively. They described their experience so far. Helen said: "Both the School of Education and School of Science and Technology have welcomed the introduction of the ePortfolio tool within the VLE. We are currently piloting the usage of this tool with a group of post-graduate students who have to produce a portfolio of evidence for their school teaching based experience. We are currently carrying out a mid-evaluation of the pilot and will be presenting our findings at the Learning and Teaching Conference on 2nd April."
Pilots are also running in the Schools of Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences. The evaluation of the pilots will finish by Easter at which stage the university will make strategic decisions regarding the deployment of the ePortfolio tool based on the evaluation report.
Download Helen's and Jon's PowerPoint presentation about their individual pilots in Promoting deep and reflective learning through D2L ePortfolio. 
As well as Helen and Jon, several colleagues spoke about various aspects of their experience with NOW. They are listed below:
- Trevor Pull Supporting colleagues in Arts, Humanities and Education
- Elaine Swift: EDU support programme
- Julius Ayodeji: Supporting colleagues in Art and Design
- Lindsay Evett: Accessibility of Learning and Teaching Material
- Stevie Vanhegan: NOW module: Using eLearning in HE
- Ann Liggett and Jane McNeil: Structured peer tutorials in NOW
- Chris Cramphorn: Screencasts and the demise of the lecture via NOW.
In addition to the presentations a handful of posters were also presented at the Symposium, below are some of these that were presented:
Back in 2004, Sue Mcknight said: "We will be successful when we stop talking about eLearning." On their evaluation sheets numerous delegates expressed a desire for a similar event next year, so successful or otherwise the talking isn't over yet.
In addition to the presentations a handful of posters were also presented at the Symposium, below are some of these that were presented:
