The most important question about Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) for me is... How to inspire and engage other educators within Higher Education to think along the same lines as their Learning Technologist counterparts?
Having completed a PGCE myself in the area of ICT and professional development skills, my ethos is to enlighten, inspire and aid others in acquiring transferable skills required by today’s employer.
From past experiences I have observed three main types of educators when considering TEL in Higher Education:
A practical and realistic approach I feel would be to embed digital literacy skills training as part of our educators (CPD), or alternatively as an element of staff development and/or appraisals. Similarly, providing such training for under-graduates, post-graduates and PhD students would be a huge benefit to their own learning and development, not to mention employability prospects.
In my previous role as Learning Resource Designer at Durham University Business School, one of my many observations of post-graduate online learning was that ‘what the educators put in – they get back out’. When educators failed to provide a variety of activities (accounting for different learning models and indeed learning styles), or failed to regularly engage, encourage and prompt, there was an apparent lack of activity and engagement from the learners (and rightly so).
At our team development away day I suggested that we create a new module site on Blackboard aptly named ‘the student experience’. My vision was for our educators (tutors and module leaders) to experience what it is our leaner’s experienced whilst studying online. As one of my favourite books (To Kill a Mocking Bird) quotes “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view […] until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." The ‘student experience’ module site was agreed by the learning and teaching committee and is subsequently now up and running. It has been integrated into staff inductions for new teaching fellows and for existing members of staff, it now an element of their annual staff review objectives. Unfortunately, as I changed roles shortly after instigating this project, I was unable to monitor, gather feedback and evaluate the 'student experience' module site as I would have liked.
Having completed a PGCE myself in the area of ICT and professional development skills, my ethos is to enlighten, inspire and aid others in acquiring transferable skills required by today’s employer.
From past experiences I have observed three main types of educators when considering TEL in Higher Education:
- Those who are experts in their field, however, do not necessarily possess adequate digital literacy skills for the provision of TEL; and furthermore do not acknowledge the need to possess such skills. The general opinion I found was that “I have done it like this for many years and it works, so why change it?” Being ‘digital or technologically accommodating’ for these particular educators will stretch as far as uploading black and white PowerPoint slides onto the VLE, riddled with bullet points. Not my idea of engaging, aesthetically pleasing, nor thought provoking content! Penetrating this type of attitude is no easy mission. Nevertheless, I endeavour to promote digital literacy skills and their importance not only to learners but to educators alike.
- On the flip side I have found many educators who are technology enthusiasts, possess digital literacy and are excited at the thought of integrating new tools into their teaching, however, frequently I found that the enthusiasm for the technology supersedes that of the rational for using it e.g. quite often the tools that are chosen do not bare relevance on the learning objectives and therefore are not fit for pedagogical purpose.
- One must also acknowledge the ‘A’ game educators, a rare breed, who as part of their dedication to life-long-learning keeps abreast of pedagogical changes implementing improvements and new technologies as part of their own continued professional development (CPD) and love for learning and teaching.
A practical and realistic approach I feel would be to embed digital literacy skills training as part of our educators (CPD), or alternatively as an element of staff development and/or appraisals. Similarly, providing such training for under-graduates, post-graduates and PhD students would be a huge benefit to their own learning and development, not to mention employability prospects.
In my previous role as Learning Resource Designer at Durham University Business School, one of my many observations of post-graduate online learning was that ‘what the educators put in – they get back out’. When educators failed to provide a variety of activities (accounting for different learning models and indeed learning styles), or failed to regularly engage, encourage and prompt, there was an apparent lack of activity and engagement from the learners (and rightly so).
At our team development away day I suggested that we create a new module site on Blackboard aptly named ‘the student experience’. My vision was for our educators (tutors and module leaders) to experience what it is our leaner’s experienced whilst studying online. As one of my favourite books (To Kill a Mocking Bird) quotes “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view […] until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." The ‘student experience’ module site was agreed by the learning and teaching committee and is subsequently now up and running. It has been integrated into staff inductions for new teaching fellows and for existing members of staff, it now an element of their annual staff review objectives. Unfortunately, as I changed roles shortly after instigating this project, I was unable to monitor, gather feedback and evaluate the 'student experience' module site as I would have liked.