Earlier this year E-Learning Environments (ELE) won a mini-project grant from the Changing the Learning Landscape Programme on the theme of ‘Power in Your Pocket’. ELE has been working with UCLU, Student Support & Wellbeing, and the Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching for 2013/14 Induction Week, to set up activities exploiting the mobile devices – tablets and smartphones – which increasing numbers of students carry on campus. For this project we were looking for a visual identity which would both communicate across a crowded room, and also provide participating students with a striking signal that they were joining in and approachable. Inducktion Duck successfully interviewed for this dual role of poster child and muse, and has since been working with us to design two activities which encourage students to approach their technologies creatively, producing and sharing media and making new connections.

Small duck, big pond

One activity is the Campus Tour. This uses UCL’s wireless internet access to hyperlink the campus, and can be taken at any time between 20^th September and 2^nd October, individually or in groups. There are 18 destinations on the tour, with a conspicuous poster in each. The posters have a unique QR code (bar code) which students scan to load a mobile-friendly web page which draws attention to existing resources about that destination, shares some choice ‘good to know’ information, and points out some interesting or helpful places nearby.  As well as providing orientation to a sometimes bewildering campus, our tour’s main focus is students’ comfort, convenience and support – so we include refreshment, internet access, water fountains, UCLU services, study resources and spaces, printing, available computers, recreation, walking and cycling, showers, emotional support – and more. The Tour is designed to help students connect, both technically and conceptually, with the campus and will be available.

Scanning Inducktion QR codes at each destination

The second activity is the Photo Challenges. Open to all, the Photo Challenges particularly have in mind international taught post-graduate students – they are often with us for just a year and as well as having a huge amount to familiarise themselves with, they have the least time to connect with other students and with what UCL has to offer. We know that social contact can sustain well-being, motivation and commitment to studies, so we have designed daily Photo Challenges to bring students together over their duck (of the bathroom or origami variety). These will be surprising, amusing, and sociable. The challenges will tweeted by @inducktion between 20^th and 29^th September, participating students will share them with us, and we will then aggregate the pictures in a central online place (using Storify and If This Then That).

Vanity searches on the UCL Library catalogue

Together we hope these activities will help students feeling at home with each other, familiar with UCL, and aware of the potential of the technologies in their pockets. For students who cannot access these technologies we will provide an alternative format.

We are poised to begin our Inducktion promotion campaign and hope that departments will help us to promote it to their new students:

• You can find out more about the tour at http://bit.ly/inDUCKtion (until 2nd Oct)
• On Twitter we are @inducktion – you can tweet your Photo Challenge pictures to us there or you can email them to [email protected]
• You can see the photo challenges on Storify (until 29th Sep)
• And in person we are Mira Vogel and Janina Dewitz – you can find us on the UCL Directory.