Maren Deepwell

Category: FE

  • New term, new demand for upskilling staff across the board

    “There are a lot of competing priorities, not least of all the new area reviews of post-16 education and training that Bobbie McClelland, Deputy Director at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), spoke about at the recent ALT Annual Conference – you can watch the briefing here.

    For many colleagues the start of the new term and a whole new cohort of students will likely have stretched the capacity to its limit, and new systems, tools and procedures put an added pressure on giving learners the best possible experience from day one.”…

    Read the full article in FE News here. Published 15 October 2015.

     

  • Shaping the future of learning together #altc

    JPEG back flyer_0 “August is usually the month where everyone is on holiday. For us, it’s the busiest time of year. So if you are keen to browse and think ahead of what this year’s Annual Conference of the Association for Learning Technology has in store, here is a personal preview. This year’s programme features an FE and skills track on Wednesday which I am really looking forward to (and if you cannot participate in person, you can follow much of it online)…”

    Read my full FE News article here . Published 5 August 2015. Or visit the conference web site.

  • Learning Technology? Ideas for the new Government

    “… 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.

  • Professional literacies, leadership and learning technology

    …”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 also critical literacy and data literacy. Different technologies and connectivity shape the way we learn and work – a shift that we all experience on a daily basis.”…

    You can read my full article in FE News here. Published 17 April 2015.

  • Competition and collaboration

    …”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 alike. Senior staff, teachers and trainers are doing much already to implement innovation, to develop the necessary skills and capacity to scale up their use of technology for learning, teaching and assessment.”…

    You can read my full article in FE News here. Published 24 March 2015.

  • Reports as chief executive of ALT

    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.

    Annual SurveyIn 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 Repository. You can download both here. The findings provide interesting insights into the priorities of ALT members for the year ahead, including a marked rise in learning analytics and related use of data. I am really interested to see how these trends will change in the next twelve months.