NEWS

Dr Raymond Dalgleish, with Laurie Lambert a member of the HeSCA Board of Directors, receiving the awards

GENIE Video Wins Gold

Training videos win international accolade

A training video, produced to help teach biological sciences students, has picked up two prestigious awards at an international convention.

The film on how to use a micropipette was recognised at the annual meeting of the Health & Science Communications Association (HeSCA), in Toronto.

The video, a joint production between the Department of Genetics’ GENIE Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) and Audio Visual Services, was the winner of a Gold Award and also the Holly Harrington-Lux Creative Design Award for best video.

The video, which was the brainchild of Dr Raymond Dalgleish, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Genetics, provides training in the use of micropipettes which are crucial in the handling of the small volumes of liquid that are commonly used in experimental procedures.

Dr Dalgleish said: “I found that I was teaching the same laboratory techniques year after year in practical classes. I was convinced that training videos were the solution to this, but the cost and the effort required were a barrier to their production until the establishment of the GENIE CETL.”

The video was produced and directed by Jon Shears and was filmed by Carl Vivian, from the University’s Audio Visual Services. On the GENIE side, Dr Dalgleish was joined by Drs Nicola Suter-Giorgini and Cas Kramer who co-scripted the video and also appeared in it.

Dr Dalgleish added: “The video has been used in several undergraduate practicals and has been warmly received by students and by staff in other departments whose practicals also involve the use of micropipettes. To allow students to review the video in their own time, it has been cut into “easily digestible” chunks and made available on Blackboard.”

For Jon and Carl, this is a follow-up to success at last year's HeSCA festival where they won a Gold Award and Best Of Show Award for a teaching film for medical students. For GENIE, it’s hoped that more awards will follow in the coming years. “Using a Micropipette” is just the first in a series of training videos that will eventually number around five or six. The second video “Making and Running an Agarose Gel” has just been completed and will be entered for next year’s awards.

Dr Annette Cashmore, Director of GENIE, commented: “Winning the HeSCA awards is a vindication of the all of the efforts made by everybody involved in the production of this video. We are really proud to receive these awards.”

The video can be accessed from a link on: http://www.le.ac.uk/genetics/genie/news160607.html .