I’m excited that we have been invited to contribute a topic to the #LTHEchat, the weekly Learning and Teaching in HE chat created by the community for the community – Wednesday 8-9pm. It’s the only tweetchat I regularly participate in, although mostly in “listening mode” and I find it a very useful forum.
Below I have re-posted the description of the topic coming up this week:
#LTHEchat 116: Beyond advocacy for change – developing critical & open approaches in Learning Technology with Maren Deepwell @marendeepwell and Martin Hawksey @mhawksey
The next #LTHEchat on Wednesday 6th June 8-9pm (GMT) will be hosted by Maren Deepwell @marendeepwell and Martin Hawksey @mhawksey on developing critical approaches in Learning Technology.
With the 25th Annual Conference of ALT, the Association for Learning Technology, just around the corner, we have been looking forward as well as back over how things have changed (revisit some of the developments with Prof Martin Weller, President of ALT, in his ongoing blog series “25 years of EdTech”).
We define Learning Technology as the broad range of communication, information and related technologies that can be used to support learning, teaching and assessment. ALT’s membership is made up of people who are actively involved in understanding, managing, researching, supporting or enabling learning with the use of Learning Technology. Using technology for learning, teaching and assessment hasn’t been a ‘new’ thing for a long time. But one thing that remains constant is the pace with which innovation moves forward, learner expectations develop and our constant need to evolve our pedagogical approaches. This creates demands/pressures and staff development needs for academics to develop competencies with digital pedagogies/approaches.
Regardless of where we are, or indeed where our institution is, in spreading or scaling up use of technology, we now have research, case studies and practice to move beyond advocacy, beyond enthusiasm for shiny gadgets or dashboards to developing a more critical, nuanced relationship to Learning Technology and to share our work in order to build a stronger, more diverse and robust discourse.
Maren Deepwell @marendeepwell is chief executive of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and leads its work on professional recognition and development. Martin Hawksey @mhawksey leads on innovation, community engagement and technology for ALT.
ALT represents individual and organisational Members from all sectors and parts of the UK. Our Membership includes practitioners, researchers and policy makers with an interest in Learning Technology. Our community grows more diverse as Learning Technology has become recognised as a fundamental part of learning, teaching and assessment. ALT aims to increase the impact of Learning Technology for the wider community, strengthen recognition and representation for the Membership at a national level and lead professionalisation for individual Learning Technology professionals in a broad range of roles.
As the senior staff team of ALT Maren & Martin work with Trustee and Members on a diverse range of projects including ALT’s conferences, annual survey, national policy development and professional development. Sharing their approach to open leadership is a monthly blog series on running a virtual organisation and both actively disseminate their independent professional via their personal sites https://mashe.hawksey.info/ and http://marendeepwell.com/