“… Learning Technology is not generally in the headlines when it comes to politics. At least not explicitly. However, there are many reasons why learners, providers and employers would benefit from Learning Technology having a place in the early thinking of Sajid Javid, Nicky Morgan and Nick Boles. Here’s why…” Read my full FE News article here . Published 15 May 2015.
Maren Deepwell Posts
This week I want to use an example from Anthropology think about space, method and discovery in learning. For that, I’m going back to draw on a subject about which I actually know more about than most people: cemeteries. It’s #rhizo15 thinking using the spatial and conceptual metaphor of Victorian cemeteries in Britain. So, the prompt this week was getting me to think about the role of a teacher/facilitator or similar (appropriately this seems to…
Contributing something #rhizo15 is part of my ongoing effort to become an open practitioner. This week’s topic, learning is a non-counting noun, made me reflect on how my own ideas of how we can count, measure or track aspects of learning developed. Unlike most people who spent a lot of time in Higher Education my experience of studying and later infrequently teaching at university didn’t involve many written exams or a set curriculum. First Fine Art…
Earlier this week I spent two days in Cardiff at the #oer15 conference on Mainstreaming Open Education. I was able to ask one of the keynote speakers, Sheila MacNeill, a question and I asked about what she would like to see happen next to help further openness. Her response was ‘getting senior decision makers engaged’ – and that got me thinking. What would I like to see happen, what would I want, not in my…
…”In a recent post by Stephen Downes, MOOC pioneer and a proponent of connectivist learning (see for example hiskeynote speech at the 2013 ALT Annual Conference), I came across a discussion of different skills and values, professional literacies, that have been shaped by digital technology and the internet. These include not only the now more commonly known digital literacy (see Jisc’s guide for example), or web literacy (Mozilla’s recent work comes to mind here), but…
…”We face a lot of uncertainty at present. At times when funding cuts, reform, a General Election and other factors put additional pressure on all providers, the first instinct is often to focus inwards. Intelligent use of Learning Technology has become a greater factor in many ways over the past year or two, with recommendations such as those proposed in the Government’s response to the FELTAG report highlighting the changing needs of employers and learners…
In my role as chief executive of the Association for Learning Technology, I write regular reports on the work we do with and for our members. You can read all of the recent reports in ALT’s online newsletter. In my most recent report I mentioned ALT’s new Annual Survey, findings from which have been published at the end of February 2015. The report and the related data are now openly accessible via ALT’s Open Access…