‘Digital Skills for Emerging Leaders’ is a new micro-credential course from the Digital Learning Institute that I am working on together with the amazing Lynne Taylerson. It’s a super project to be involved in, and it’s extra special for me as I get a change to collaborate with Lynne outside of our other favourite project: AmplifyFE. Usually we work on this kind of project at a distance, using the kind of digital skills we talk…
Category: FE
I am really looking forward to speaking an next week’s World of Learning Summit. In preparation for the session and to offer an insight into what my session will be about, I contributed an article to the Learning Magazine: you can read the article freely online. My session at the summit is on Wednesday, and focused on offering an interactive discussion forum for leaders. We’ll explore hybrid working recruitment and retention, new trends in hybrid…
Today is a big day! Together with colleagues from all across the UK, I am heading to London. It’s the Week of VocTech, and the annual showcase of everything that’s happening across the sector. I feel fortunate to be continuing my work as Strategic Lead for the partnership between ALT and the Ufi VocTech Trust even though I stepped down as ALT’s CEO earlier this year. There’re a couple of reasons why: from a personal…
I’ve put together three ideas to try out whether you are having a busy summer or taking a break. So if you are looking for some inspiration and ideas to recharge for the next academic year, have a go: Tips for a week of complete rest It’s taken me a long time to be able to step away from all types of work all together, and for me, having a complete week off is a…
I was delighted to contribute to the VocTeach FE Symposium – Aggregating High Quality Online Educational Resources for FE organised by the Open University alongside experts including Bob Harrison, Vikki Liogier, Caroline Wright and John Domingue. VocTeach FE Symposium kickstarted a broad community around this issue related to supporting the aggregation of high quality learning resources for online FE education. Specifically, we will bring together FE educational experts and practitioners, EdTech experts, awarding organisations and…
Last week I was invited to contributed to a symposium organised by Policy Connect for the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL), an independent FE think tank. The symposium was chaired by Lord Chris Holmes, Chair of the EdTech Leadership Group and APPG for Assistive Technology; and fellow panellists included Paul McKean, Head of Further Education and Skills, Jisc, Deborah Millar, Group Director of Digital Learning Technology, Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education and…
This week I am contributing to a conference called FELTAG 2017: Embracing Digital Technology in Further Education and I am pleased to have been invited to give a short keynote as part of the programme. My talk (slides) will focus on workforce development to maximise Learning Technology impact in three ways: first, I set out what questions we need to ask about skills and capabilities, second, I explore how and open online course can support workforce development and…
This talk is for the FELTAG 2016 conference taking place on 28 September 2016 in London. Having given plenty of talks about FELTAG in the past few years, I have been pondering what I really want to say to my audience in twenty minutes. Part of being the opening keynote is that you get to speak first and help set the tone for the day, but looking at the agenda of what’s to follow, it…
One project I am currently involved in is a course on FutureLearn called Blended Learning Essentials. In this short blog post I want to think about how this course, or others like it, can be used as tools for change. A bit about the course This is an open course about using blended learning for vocational education and it runs for a total of 8 weeks in two parts. The first part covers the ‘essentials’…
As part of finishing my #CMALT portfolio I have been working on completing a section on communication. The example I am using is leading a small team in delivering an online conference, in this case ALT’s first wholly online winter conference in December last year. Some of the things I have been reflecting on re communication are: delivering live events when you are not all in the same place and using online communication methods to…