LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

The XML project: developing digital literacy in modern languages

This project is funded by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) looking at ways to develop digital literacy within different discipline areas. The project will see students creating Xerte learning objects as assessed materials for their course in Spanish language and content. It will also offer bursaries to all students in Modern Languages, to create materials in preparation for their Year Abroad. Students will learn about the tool, Xerte, and about copyright and metadata implications for the creation of OERs. They will then act as ambassadors and tutors to other staff and students wishing to engage with open practice and Xerte throughout the University of Southampton, via the existing successful Digital Champions (http://www.diglit.soton.ac.uk/champions/) scheme, which sees students acting as roving mentors/tutors for the use of technology in the institution.

iTunes and You

In the iTunes and You project, we propose to take existing disparate material, which has been published as open content for research and teaching by humanities staff at the University of Southampton, and work with the university marketing department to repackage it as learning modules in the form of iTunesU course packages. This will be an innovative way to showcase how research and teaching resources can be combined in bite-sized ways which maximises their use for by a global audience of learners.

The OpenLIVES Project

LLAS has been funded by the JISC to lead the OpenLIVES project (Learning Insights from the Voices of Emigres from Spain). This project will digitise resources documenting the migration experiences of Spanish emigrés. Once released as open content, the raw data will be developed as open educational resources for a range of teaching and learning contexts in humanities and social sciences on topics such as migration, life history, employability skills, research skills, language learning. The project will use a tested process model for sharing expertise and teaching ideas to create reusable and innovative teaching resources. A key element of this project will be to involve students at all stages of resource development: using the original data, evaluating the teaching resources and creating/peer-reviewing their own learning resources.