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Case Study: Blended Learning in Higher Education

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Mark Wilcock is a Learning Technology Development (LTD) officer at the prestigious Edge Hill University in northwestern England. In January 2014, he and the LTD team at Edge Hill began to experiment with iSpring authoring tools as a way to aid both faculty and students in their online/mobile teaching experience for blended learning in higher education. The results were so encouraging that they launched an early adopters project, including a webinar in July of that same year, which resulted in dozens of faculty and staff using iSpring as part of the project.

Case Study: Blended Learning Best Practices

The early adopters project was completed in early 2015, and three participants were chosen to present video case studies, where they would share their experiences using iSpring. As of last month, all the interviews have been completed, and the results are overwhelmingly positive.

How to use iSpring for Blended Learning in Higher Education

Sertip Zangana from the Faculty of Health & Social Care was one of the early adopters of iSpring at Edge Hill University, and he shared some of his thoughts on how he was able to use iSpring in his blended learning environment.

Q: How do I link audio recordings of my lectures into my slides?

Using iSpring’s Narration Editor, Sertip was able to record his lectures during class, then edit the recordings and link them to his presentation slides to share with the students, so they could review the material whenever they liked, and as many times as they liked.

“What I’ve found with iSpring is that it packages the audio and the PowerPoint slides very efficiently.”

Q: How do I link my courses with the BlackBoard Learning Platform?

Thanks to the iSpring BlackBoard Building Block, Sertip was able to upload all his course materials to the University’s learning platform with the greatest of ease.

“I can link it into our learning platform on BlackBoard very easily.”

Q: How do I generate content for students to view away from a computer?

iSpring’s flawless HyperPoint HTML5 conversion technology prepares PowerPoint content for display on any device. Sertip discovered that his students were viewing course material on many things besides desktop computers.

“The students, from the feedback, have used it not just when they’re at a computer desktop, but also on their mobile phones, actually, and on iPads and so on, when they’re traveling, on a train journey, etc.”

Q: How do I create mock exams for the students to test their knowledge?

Sertip found iSpring QuizMaker quite useful for creating “mock exams” which allow students to check their knowledge before taking the actual exams.

“Some of the best feedback that I’ve received has been for those quizzes that I’ve created. What it has enabled the students to do is to essentially practice a mock exam before the exam from the comfort of their own home as many times as they like, to highlight the areas that they’re doing well in and the areas that they’re weak in.”

Conclusion

Sertip’s experience with iSpring has been extremely successful in bringing blended learning to his students. By taking the course material out of the classroom and putting it right in his students’ hands, he has received outstanding results in overall performance and general feedback from his class. He plans to continue using iSpring, exploring more of the possibilities such as inserting relevant videos on slides to accompany the lecture material, and improving his courses based on feedback received during class.

 

Stay Tuned!

This is but one of three case studies produced by Mark Wilcock and the team at The Learning Edge. Keep an eye on our blog, because we’ll be posting another one next week, featuring yet another satisfied iSpring user sharing her story.

Would you like to participate in an iSpring case study? Do you already have some great iSpring stories to share? Tell us about it in the comments below!