Establishing a digital development group

As part of my Digital Curriculum Support and Developer role in the Institute of Health and Allied Professions (IHAP), in the School of Social Sciences at Nottingham Trent University.  A part of my remit is leading on facilitating, developing, capturing and disseminating colleague effective practices in online, blended and ePortfolio-based learning, and promoting available digital technologies.  A common aspect found in learning technologist roles.

As like most of my blog posts in sharing my approaches and processes, this blog post focuses on the creation of a institute-specific digital development group - a kind of special interest group.  Not just what it is and what it offers but how I created it, the strategic approach and influencing membership, which are not often shared.  In chronological order the following is what I did/happened, inspired by my own approach as detailed in the 'Introducing digital leadership' section in Chapter 6 of my forthcoming book 'Digital Learning, Teaching and Assessment for HE and FE practitioners'.

1. Identified the need and established and documented my vision and top level information and plans for the group.  Again this is integral and a core part of my role to nurture and capture technology enhanced learning and teaching practices and developments, support and facilitate digital innovation, building champions in context, consulting, showcasing, inspiring/generating ideas, sharing digital/online practice and plus many more...
2. Named the group, uninspiringly called 'IHAP Digital Development Group' but offers what it says.
3. Outlined a brief (top level information) group proposal and strategy through a Microsoft PowerPoint slide deck.
4. Discussed the need and my vision with my Head of Department whom I work closely with and obtained her approval.
5. Defined and refined the top level information into a shorter 'tantalising' slide deck, ready to communicate to staff, see video below.
• The group is informal and flexible by nature; we are all too busy for further formalities, e.g. mandatory synchronous attendance, minutes etc.  The group is focused on being collaborative and productive with tangible outputs.  A hands-on approach with creating and developing through digital technology.
• Synchronous meeting attendance is optional, but members encouraged to participate and communicate asynchronously if not attending.
• Show and tell style doesn’t work for everyone and this group is not about that (I learn best by doing and evaluating), and I feel that collaborating and joining up of projects brings about much better outcomes.
• The group also acts as my committee that can identify other needs and steer my own focus/priorities.
6. Communicated the groups presence in our department meeting as part of my digital development agenda item.
7. Shared the above slide deck to all of IHAP via email after the department meeting - a better response rate as they tend to use email more than Teams for department communications.
• To my surprise I received more responses than I thought I would.  I was hoping for at least 3-5 to start off small and expand outwards as the group progressed.  I received 11 expressions of interest and the department at present (constantly growing) consists 40+ people.  Which includes academics, technicians and business support staff.  All of which were academic responses which is the primary target for the group, but as stated in the slide deck the group is open to all that support learning.
• Besides the blanket email, I tactfully approached some people personally that I think would like and gain and contribute to the group, such as existing digital champions, early adopters of institute-specific digital technologies and those with low-level digital literacies and skills.
• Everyone’s got different confidence and competent levels of ICT skills.  I envisage the group to be accessible to all, no matter the level of your ICT confidence and competence.  The group should naturally develop these aspects through active participation.
• I sent a follow up email (any more for any more) to prompt further membership, and stating some names that had joined, including some Principal Lecturers, in the hope to motivate others - which it did.
8. Created a Teams space to host meetings, outputs and resources.  Not as a community – our main IHAP Team space provides that.
9. Scheduled the first meeting, 1 March 2022, that included the following agenda items in a healthcare visual slide deck.  My overall focus of this meeting is to further establish and refine the group, and have a solid ground and group goals for first 3-6 months.
• Introduce rationale for the group (5 mins)
• Confirm group structure and frequency (10 mins)
• Activity: identify our focus areas and priorities (20 mins)
• I used Microsoft Whiteboard for the activity which proved to be good digital practice modelling.
• The Whiteboard was full of responses to refine and group together.  The yellow post-its are the final outcomes.
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• Discuss Team space use, structure and principles of communicating (10 mins)
• Any other business
10. Brief summary of meeting outcomes and action log (extract below) posted into the meeting.  Which also supports asynchronous participation and communication.
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When closing the first meeting, I received feedback from a Principal Lecturer.  She initially thought that she was going to turn up to a 'techie' type group.  However, she was surprised by this and she felt at ease with doing small things like the Whiteboard activity - simple and small is ok!  She wanted to thank me for how I made her feel and not be something she couldn't participate in.

The second meeting has been scheduled.  I'll blog more as the group progresses.

EDIT January 2023:

The group has been effective in providing a digital development space and to allow inspiring conversation, practise time and take action towards set goals.  The group has met three times since its conception in March 2022 and has 12 members – back then out of 30+ academic staff.  We meet bi-monthly but are encouraged to participate asynchronously if they cannot make the meeting; instilling a flexible format for the group.  One of the first activities I planned was to draw up a list of priorities that inform our direction for the first 6 months.  I did this through a collaborative online whiteboard design (above).  I facilitated this as a collaborative group and agreed as a group, the outcomes are on the yellow post-its.  Doing it this way enables ownership and members to work with others on similar or overlapping interests.  To close the meetings and ensure actions are assigned to designated members, I created the action log below for the group.  Noting details and timescales to manage members and keep everyone on track.  I also created the visual agendas that follows.  One of the topics I inputted was on the VR immersive wall, which another member of staff wanted to trial in their subject area of nursing.  We have met to scope and flesh out the purposeful exploration project, which was to video record a mental health related assessment inside a home, where two people are having a conversation with various distractions happening.  The video will be played in the VR room with props.  Students will watch and listen and are expected to take notes whilst all the distractions are occurring.  Which can mimic a busy ward handover or a busy dwelling.  With a view exploring advanced live stream capabilities later on to further configure the kit so that it’s even more usable for other lecturers.

Whilst attendance has been active, I am aware that this is very much a doing group, which is what it aimed to be.  But I am conscious that I sold that I would introduce/try digital learning and teaching tools etc, so I plan to invite comment on the group and progress thus far.  I aim to grow membership as new members of staff join the institute of express interest in technology enhanced learning and teaching.  To continue providing a collaborative and forward-thinking space in this specific topic and context.

As I describe in my blog post ‘Newsletters as a vehicle for progressing digital practice’, I will also be continuing to capture, make visible, and disseminate best digital practice and nurture my collaborations through such vehicle.

The last meeting was scheduled on 19th October 2022, though there was no attendance, most likely due to timing, workloads, leave and long-term leave.  However, as part of the agenda I wanted to review the group format.  In the effort of maintaining our collective input, therefore I wanted to float the ideas below to gauge members thoughts on the group’s future.  I asked them to respond to the poll below with their choice or suggest other option(s) in the comments.

• Continue the group and format as it is, along with priorities we set, but with more showcasing of digital tools and practice
• Convert group into a once-a-term CPD-style event (morning or afternoon)
• Devolve group into a less frequent once-a-term meeting to discuss priorities/development/issues to help steer IHAP digital curriculum developments
• Don’t continue with this group or alternate options

The response so far has been towards option 2; once-a-term CPD-style event.  This highlights my ability to adapt and maintain membership engagement, to influence and facilitate digital developments.

EDIT March 2023:

Lobbied idea to merge into the IHAP department meeting as a bi-termly ‘digital showcase’.  To maintain engagement better to keep in the same meeting than separate.

Planning and facilitating digital innovation - Snippets of practice

Invited by Jennie Walker, Principal Lecturer, on 2 February 2022 and 18 May 2022 I delivered guest teaching to two cohorts of healthcare students studying towards their BSc Leading and Innovating.  The topic I talked about was 'Planning and facilitating digital innovation - Snippets of practice'.  Which was focused on my pragmatic situated examples of initiating, planning and facilitating digital innovation in an educational context.  Whilst highlighting helpful processes and frameworks to support students develop their own digital innovation interventions in their contexts.

The aims of my session were:

1. Introduce basic definitions to set foundations and support digital innovation
2. Describe the application and approaches of my own situated digital innovation examples
3. Invitation to share your own digital innovation pitch ideas to help refine, gain clarity, evaluate and develop your own approaches

The session was focused on my pragmatic situated examples of initiating, planning and facilitating digital innovation in an educational context; a large-scale example about my influence of the university-wide H5P integration, and a smaller-scale developmental group - which will be my next blog post.  Whilst highlighting helpful processes and frameworks to support students develop their own digital innovation interventions in their contexts.  The session seemed to be enjoyed by students and generated much sharing during the group discussion activity.  Below is the presentation I used to support the session.

This invitation led onto possibilities about developing the innovation module to incorporate digital leadership.  A colleague and I are in discussion of what material can be included for this, as well as me returning to talk about such topic.

EDIT:

On 18 May 2022 I delivered the same guest teach with additional mentioning of current digital innovation facilitating: IHAP Digital Development Group; Virtual Reality wall and Virtual placements.  And alignment to Lean Thinking and Six Sigma methodologies.  As these are introduced earlier in the module and are used in the NHS.

The Education and Training Foundation have a good online Continuing Professional Development module 'EdTech: Identifying and addressing opportunities for innovation and innovative practice'.  It provides a good framework to facilitate digital innovation.  Based on this resource, I have summarised an adaptable process below:

1. Establish a digital development group or task and finish style group with selected colleagues.
• "Innovation is best planned and developed as a supported team activity" - ETF.
2. Discuss and identify current challenges, problems or focus areas in digital practice (e.g. literacy and skills), online teaching (e.g. engagement in online synchronous sessions), digital curriculum process (e.g. assessment workflow) or agree a goal or two to be achieved imminently.
• Draw on staff and student feedback and experience where necessary.
3. Identify and review potential digital innovation opportunities arising from these challenges, problems or focus areas.
4. Confirm the innovation category e.g. product, process or business model.  And the technology innovation type e.g. architectural innovation, radical innovation, incremental innovation, disruptive innovation.  As this will help the group to better establish their approach towards it.
5. Discuss the feasibility and prioritisation of the identified digital innovation opportunities.
6. Evaluate the identified digital innovation opportunities against ETF's Innovation Matrix:
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7. Discuss and agree where these opportunities are situated in the matrix to determine the focus of attention.
8. Discuss the identified approach(es), new or current, ways of working or technology, against a model introduced in my presentation above, e.g. SAMR model.  This will help you as a group to understand current digital technology use and the way you propose to use it moving forwards (what you want digital technology to support, improve, enhance etc - the purpose).
• "...innovation is about doing things in a new way – not always just using new technology" - ETF.
9. Use the selected model to deep-dive on the issues and identify what can't be changed (e.g. timetabling) and what can be changed through digital technology.
10. Discuss potential solutions and possibilities, and clarify as a group the way digital technology should be used/adapted to address the initial challenge/problem.
• Conceptualising ideas and evaluating alternatives may form part of this.
11. Develop a implementation plan of how the agreed innovation will be carried out, including timescales, resource, communication etc.
12. Consider senior and/or wider stakeholder involvement if the solutions require approval and/or are resource intensive and require organisational/cultural change.  Support from other teams and departments may need to be considered too if managing change.

A little reflection after seeing the Tweets below:

Neil Mosley - "It's fascinating how the last couple of years have led many educators into thinking that a particular approach when teaching remotely/online is innovative, when in reality it is fairly idiomatic but previously unfamiliar to them.

Neil Mosley -  "I think this is obviously a pro in terms of practice, great that people had exposure to a different way of teaching that caused them to reflect and rethink. Although it's quite jarring when long-standing online teaching practices are framed as innovative in dissemination..."

John Brindle - "I suppose, if it’s a new method to the individual, it’s innovative for them, can’t really criticise that. I’ve worked on AI and Chatbots with some colleagues and discussion boards with others. Innovation is as much about perspective as it is about introducing the cutting edge."

Neil Mosley - "Yes that's true John and I'm not a massive fan of the term innovation....but the point here is really dissemination of something as new, that isn't...."

John Brindle - "I suppose it’s an issue with educational research in general, it’s mostly same theories, different contexts. Some of what I’ve seen as “innovation” in HE is stuff I learned training as a teacher 18 years ago, it’s just in FE you’re not pressured to publish 🤣"

Whilst I feel the original Tweet is a subtle attack/prompt to provoke responses on this 'common argument'.  I agree with John, that through my experience of innovation in digital education, it is situational to the person, their practice and context.  Not every educator, subjects and courses are aware/seen existing said digital innovation, been through such digital innovative discussions or benefitted of working with a learning technologist.  Plus let's be realistic, not everyone will prioritise, have the time or skill to research academically/know where to find existing digital innovation, if their innovative idea has been done before.  And that's not really the goal of innovation to check whether it's been done before and if it's deemed 'genuine innovation' - I feel that leans more into invention.  Some people are desperate to claim that they have seen it before and dampen others efforts.  Just let innovation naturally occur within context and then look to share, publish and disseminate in a non-competitive manner.

EDIT:  January 2025 'Perspectives on pedagogical innovation' by Kamilya Suleymenova and Emma Thirkell.

Creating and improving asynchronous learning opportunities

On 13 December 2021, I delivered a short in-person briefing-type session to my paramedic colleagues on how they can go about creating or improving asynchronous learning.  The purpose of the session was to start a conversation of asynchronous learning with the aim of encouraging further developments within this area of the department. 

The session included underpinning what and why, initial ideas, brief demos, discussion and signposting to resources.  It also provided me the opportunity to get acquainted with some colleagues I had not yet met in-person yet.  Enthusiasm was quite low given the time of year but resulted in developmental conversations, further ideas - including the potential application of other digital technologies, such as Vevox, and uptake of what I am there to offer and support with.  Not all slides were discussed in depth as the slide deck acted as a handout for colleagues to review in the New Year.  However, this will most likely be a priority topic for the Institute of Health and Allied Professions-specific digital development group I am forming.

Below is the presentation I created to structure and support the session  – which also acts as a starting point resource for ideas/or discussion.  I talk more about asynchronous learning and working in 'H5P endeavours - a progress update' and 'Blending introversion with asynchronous working'.