Join us for a digital roadshow on June 29th 10.30-3.30pm, Nunn Hall, Level 4, UCL Institute of Education. All staff and students are welcome.

Listen to key ideas about digital capabilities in relation to educational practice from Diana Laurillard and Nazlin Bhimani. Find out about the range of digital services available from UCL ISD and IT for IOE in short talks and PechaKucha presentations.

Get practical support and share ideas and issues on stalls including; ‘There’s an app for that’, a ‘Mac Brilliance bar’, ‘The digital library‘, Digital Media Services and much more.

Network with colleagues over a brown bag lunch, share ideas and concerns and find out how ISD and  IT for IOE and the UCL IOE Library can help staff and students.

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/isd-digital-roadshow-ioe-tickets-24865392057

Employability is something of the elephant in the room in higher education. We dream of students enthralled at learning new knowledge, making discoveries of their own as they develop their curiosity and strengthening their identities as they work with others.

For many of course, the reality is that they are undertaking their programme of study to get a good ‘job’ at the end. I use quotation marks because the nature of the ‘job’ may be wide and varied: it might be traditional employed work; self-employment; voluntary work; portfolio working; or a combination of these.

Jisc Technology for Employability report

Jisc has been exploring the role that digital technologies, and the digital literacies needed to use them effectively, can play in developing employability. Peter Chatterton and Geoff Rebbeck have recently produced a detailed report on the topic on behalf of Jisc. They argue that technology is often woefully underexploited when it comes to giving students the opportunity to develop their professional skills and that both staff and student skill development will be necessary to close this gap.

An introduction to the report is available or you can download the full report from the Jisc website. A webinar summarising the report will be held on 25 January 2016, with free registration.

Do you have an interest in games, gamification and games-based learning?

If so we would be really interested in hearing from you, we are looking to put together a special interest group at UCL around these areas. The aim of the SIG will be to encourage interaction and discussion on these topics and others, ranging from research on games and play to their implementation within teaching practice (plus hopefully have a bit of fun along the way).

Please join via our Moodle page if you are interested in taking part along and we will arrange an initial meeting of the group soon.

A presentation by Rocío Baños Pinero (Deputy Director, Centre for Translation Studies), Raya Sharbain (Year 2 undergraduate, Management Science and Innovation) and  Mira Vogel (E-Learning Environments) for the UCL Teaching and Learning Conference, 2015. Here’s the abstract, presentation graphics embedded below and in case you can’t see that, a PDF version of those.

See also the UCL Women’s Health Translatathon write-up.

Recently two UCL staff from Management Science and Innovation (MS&I) attended a JISC workshop that covers learning theories and shows how technology can be usefully applied in practice using Scenario based learning methods. Matt Smith is the Learning Technologist for MS&I and came away with useful ideas that he has been able to share with his colleagues to develop technology-rich, scenario-based learning.

Sarah Warnes also attended the workshop and emerged from the workshop feeling enthusiastic about e-learning. She has since been granted an E-Learning Development Grant to develop a scenario based programme for her students in Moodle in collaboration with Matt Smith and a student developer. Sarah explained that every teaching technology “has to be about how it’s adding value to the learning experience” and not just used for technology’s sake. This point became even more evident during the JISC workshop.

The 3 day workshop is called ‘E-learning Essentials’ and upon completion participants receive a BTEC Certificate. “[It] teaches comprehensive techniques, methodologies and tools to enable you to confidently design, develop, assess and evaluate e-learning” (JISC NetSkills 2014).

The next workshop runs from 25th – 27th November 2014 at Euston House, London. Read more and sign up here: http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/products/workshops/event/euston-nov14-elrness-r1/index.html

Find out more about the course…

Sources:

JISC Netskills (2014) E-learning Essentials: BTEC Certificate

Providing you with the skills to create high-quality e-learning solutions [online] Available from: http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/products/workshops/range/elrness.html [Accessed: 18-09-2014].

Last month I attended a 3 day JISC Netskills workshop at Newcastle University entitled ‘e-learning Essentials’. Based on this particularly uninspiring title, I was prepared for the course to cover already well-trodden ground. However, I quickly found it to be the antithesis; within the first hour the unexpectedly inspiring trainer Danny McAtominey was making me think about e-learning in a way I had not considered in some time.

The course focussed heavily on learning theory and rationale with the first day spent entirely away from technology (in fact during the three days I did not learn about a single new tool or piece of software). We looked at educational taxonomies, instructional design cycles and pedagogical frameworks (the kind of diagrams I do not doubt we all have copies of but so rarely dig out and consult) and how these align with and inform course design.

So often it feels as though we are tagging technology onto current practice (technology enhanced learning?) and although this can (and does) positively impact teaching and learning, I can never help thinking that we are only really scratching the surface. Danny really helped to shift the focus away from the technology and a tool driven approach to the learning and course design. He put forward a very strong argument for scenario based, multi-disciplinary courses that put the online delivery on an equal footing with the classroom teaching.

Since attending the course I have been much more considerate and analytical when approaching even the most seemingly simple of requests from teaching staff; really thinking about the motivation behind using technology and how it may allow all types of learners to access higher levels of engagement.

In all, the course has at most changed the way I view e-learning or at least recalled to me a perspective I have held in the past (a little like being shown a photograph of a place you once visited). This being so, by the end of the course, I had revised my opinion and felt ‘e-learning Essentials’ was a wholly accurate description. I would therefore highly recommend it to even the most experienced practitioner, as much for the time it provides to reflect on e-learning in general, as for the content covered.

Please note, there are currently no workshops scheduled but I have been informed by JISC that there will be deliveries taking place at Euston and Newcastle later in the year and next year. More information can be found at e-Learning Essentials.