Doc ID :	LTR07Academic case study
Status :	Complete
Last update :	11-Feb-04
Created :	January 04
Author :	Dr Karen Marshalsay
Availability :	Public

 

CASE STUDY OF HOTBED USAGE WITHIN ACADEMIC CLASSES

Dr Karen Marshalsay

 

 

Aims

To record spoken Scots stories by students and staff with various Scottish accents; to provide textual transcriptions for these and other recordings of Scots speech; to use the material in the Scots Language classes.

 

RECORDINGS

Various scripts had been prepared[1]in Scots of traditional Scottish stories such as Aipplie and Orangie; Nearly Burkit, a travellers’ tale about the burkers (bodysnatchers); the Black Bull of Norrowa; and several fairy and supernatural tales. Several students came forward in response to a notice and a couple of staff were also approached. The Scots language tutor went over the tales with the chosen reciters to check for any problems with understanding and pronunciation. The stories were then recorded in the Academy studio over a period of two days. Most of the stories were recorded in one take and as they were unaccompanied solo voice there were few problems. A CD was produced and the items transferred from that onto HOTBED.

 

TRANSCRIPTIONS

HOTBED were given transcriptions of the stories, as given to the reciters. These were transferred into Word documents and entered into the database. A link was added in the ‘Additional Information’ box, which stated ‘View the text transcription’ which would open up the window with the text. The user can then listen to the recording, still have access to the manipulation tools and also see the text on screen.

 

CLASS USAGE

The stories were used by students in both the Scots Language and also the Folklore classes. For the Folklore class the laptop and data projector were taken to the Lecture Theatre so that all the students could see the text.  The Scots classes tended to refer students to the stories to be listened to in their own time. Items were also used in classes as material for glossing and as as examples.

 

CONCLUSIONS

This was a relatively straightforward project which produced expected results. It is a very useful learning tool for both the Scots Language and the Folklore classes, made more so by the text transcriptions.  A member of the Drama Department was also very interested in it and felt that it would be of use to her students when studying accents. This would be another valid possibility for a similar HOTBED system to be populated with accent oriented recorded material for use by the acting students.

 

One of the suggestions and points of discussion arising out of this project was the possibility of including more textual material on HOTBED. The use of tutors’ notes, glossaries and dictionary entries, grammar handouts and other classroom material was discussed. In the end this was not added to the system. The main reason is that tutors are all part time hourly paid staff, and it would require quite a bit of preparation time to pull all of this material together and get it ready to be added to the system.  Additional information would enhance HOTBED tremendously and also act as an enticement to student usage. It would be advantageous to plan this into any further developments.

 

 

 

BACKGROUND

This is the main academic class and forms the first year of the ‘Traditions and Context’ series, the other two classes being Historical Studies in 2^nd year and Contemporary Studies in 3^rd year. The class meets twice a week for a total of 3 hours. The first class of each week is a lecture on a given topic such as pibroch, fiddle composers, harps, bothy ballads and in the second class the students have to do a short presentation on either a recording or article related to the lecture topic. Assessment is by written work during the year and a 3 hour exam.

 

 

HOTBED USAGE

As this is a first year class all students were asked to go along to one of the 2 hour training sessions organised in the first week of term. The following week all students had to do their presentation on an item from HOTBED. The laptop and speakers  were used, and no-one encountered any problems with the system.

 

This was not the case unfortunately when it was attempted to use the system during lectures. These take place in room 2.46 and it should have been possible to use the computer in that room. However on the first two occasions when the tutor wanted to play HOTBED items as examples in lectures the system would not work as the terminal would not connect to the website. This led to a reluctance from the tutor to risk using it again during a lecture situation. It is embarrassing and awkward in front of a class of students to discuss something and then not have the technology working to play the example and the tutor felt that it would be safer and quicker to stick to using CDs in future and refer the students to the HOTBED system as part of their own study.

 

In a later presentation class in which the laptop was used as the class takes place in 2.47 which does not house a computer, there was a lot of frustration as many students had listened to a particular track (this was all about fiddle music) on HOTBED in the IT suite only to discover that it was not available on the laptop.[2] This meant that they could not do their presentation on that occasion which led to timetabling difficulties to fit them all in at a later date. If tutors are using the laptop in classes which take place in a room without a computer then the there is a necessity to make sure that the information is the same on both systems or the goodwill and trust of the students and staff will disappear.

 

 

 

Many of the Classical Music students within the Academy are required to take a class in Scottish Music in first year and some choose to explore the area further in their third year.

 

This year [2003-04] a HOTBED training/demonstration session took place in the induction week which was open to all staff and students no matter which department they are with. Several of the classical students came along out of interest.

 

The first class of the Scottish Musical Studies course was also a demonstration of the system. All students in this class were given user names and passwords. The tutor is careful to continually cite HOTBED items in the handouts given out on each topic. However as this is a one hour a week lecture to a class of about 30 with no other contact with those students it is difficult to guage the amount of take up. Assessment is by two class tests but it would not really be suitable to use HOTBED in the assessment, which mainly focuses on knowledge of the genre and is not a performance situation. The class takes place in the lecture theatre and as it runs to a tight and full schedule there is not enough time to set up the laptop, speakers and data projector for every lecture in order to play items during classes, and of course there is also the worry about non-performance of the system in that situation.

 

Two third year students chose the Scottish Music Elective this year, a pedal harpist and a saxophone player. Once more the students were introduced to HOTBED in one of their first classes and provided with user names and passwords. There was some delay in this as the system was not working properly, which meant that the Learning and Teaching Officer no longer had access to creating new user accounts and the Technical Officer was not available. However this was bypassed by giving the students details of existing user accounts. The students were then asked to spend time looking at the material and do a short presentation of two contrasting items from the system. One student did not turn up for the class but the other student performed well and was obviously easily able to use the system.

 

OVERALL CONCLUSIONS

There are practical problems with using HOTBED in the academic classes. Not every classroom has a computer which then necessitates the use of the laptop, but there is not always time to set this up in advance so to use it would eat into the actual class time. Also the computers which are in classrooms are not always able to connect to the website. Thirdly when the laptop is used it must contain the same information and be able to play the same items as the main website.

 

HOTBED is much more successful as a resource to direct students toward for their own study. In this way it could become an invaluable part of the Scottish Music course.  It is now common practice for tutors to include HOTBED items on the ‘Listening Lists’ that are given out to the first year class for example. In this way all 12 students can have equal and readily available access to the set pieces rather than have all 12 trying to check the same record or CD out of the library at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LTR07Academic case study		11-Feb-04
Complete	Public	Dr Karen Marshalsay