The Oculus is open and in full use by our campus community. This is the first time our campus has ever seen a building dedicated completely to teaching.

There are two large state-of-the-art tiered lecture theatres, 12 other top quality flexible teaching spaces, study areas and a café.

Drop-in Sessions

We're hosting two drop-in sessions within the new Oculus building. These sessions are aimed at lecturers wishing to get familiar with the teaching equipment available within the building. Every room is equipped with a touch panel control system, laser projectors, visualisers, radio mics, wireless presentation and lecture capture. We want you to make the most of these facilities and the AV team will be around to answer any questions, as well as let you get hands on with the equipment.

The AV team will be joined by colleagues from ITS Academic Technology and IATL. They will be offering advice on the use of the Extended Classroom tools and utilising the flexible teaching space.

The two sessions will be held as follows:

Week 3 - Wednesday 19th October - Room OC1.06 - 12-3pm
Week 4 - Wednesday 26th October - Room OC0.02 - 12-2pm

Extended Classroom User Group

This term and next the central academic technology team will be combining the user groups of our centrally supported academic technology tools including Moodle, Mahara, Responseware, eStream and Collaborate. Moodle will continue to be the main item on the agenda with short news and updates on the other tools as well as the usual mix of demos and presentations from users. They plan to run the sessions with presentations for the first 90 minutes and the remaining 30 minutes for networking and 1:1 support and advice.

These meetings will take place in the Library Teaching Grid on the following Dates:

• Monday 17^th October 10am to 12 noon
• Monday 5^th December 2pm to 4pm
• Thursday 26^th January 2pm to 4pm
• Wednesday 8^th March 2pm to 4pm

Extended Classroom Support Workshops

They will continue to offer Extended Classroom Drop-in support workshop sessions every Wednesday 2-4pm from 28^th September to December 7^th this term in the Library Teaching Grid Collaboration space.

Sometimes even moving a session to a different environment can improve student engagement. We’d like to invite academics from the Medical School to visit the Teaching Grid for an Open House event on Thursday 15^th September between 12 noon and 2pm. A buffet lunch is provided and you will be able to see the space set up for different teaching methods. Staff will be on hand to answer questions on how we can support you in using the space for your teaching, and inspire and engage your students.