Delighted to have delivered another webinar for the Society of Education and Training Foundation's (SET) webinar series, broadcast on Thursday 24 October 2019 at 4pm.
"In this webinar Daniel Scott, Digital Learning Specialist, will show you how to move from passive to active use of digital tools. You will also hear more about the Enhance digital teaching platform, which offers free to use modules to help develop your teaching practice using technology.
Daniel will also talk you through three steps to developing your learning technology practices and explain more about his book ‘Learning Technology: A Handbook for FE Teachers and Assessors’, emphasising the importance of stepping outside of your comfort zone for digital teaching.
He will also share key practical activities to enhance your practice, mapped to the Education and Training Foundation’s Enhance modules, and show you can increase in your own confidence and competence to use learning technology with your learners.
Daniel Scott was winner of the Learning Technologist of the Year Award 2016 by the Association for Learning Technology and is the author of Learning Technology: A Handbook for FE Teachers and Assessors (#LTbookFE).
He is a Digital Practice Adviser at Nottingham Trent University, where he leads professional development opportunities for staff to engage and embed digital technology into their existing practices."
To summarise, I talked about:
- Overview
- Engage: Introduce and discuss why the book was written, why it is helpful and is a much needed for the sector, whilst raising the importance of stepping outside of your comfort zone for digital teaching
- Enhance: Talking through some key activities and sections in the book along with how it is mapped to the Education and Training Foundation's (ETF) Digital Teaching Professional Framework (DTPF) and subsequent Enhance modules
- Empower: Ways you can share your practices and to inspire others
- It’s not as easy as 3 steps, I’ll grant you that, most of us like alliterations
- Engage
- Why did I write it?
- Read more about the rationale for the book
- When I started my career as a learning technologist and in my teacher training, I wish I had a book like this to help me understand the purposes of digital technology in learning and teaching. Its a complex topic, let's not kid ourselves. Its not just a case of loading something up and running an activity through, it needs clear pedagogy running through it
- Observed learning technology use with no pedagogical purpose. I.e. polling for sake of interaction, a VLE used as a repository etc. Staff genuinely wanted to use but sometimes lacked not knowing the value they’re adding. That's where my role came in
- There is no book like this in the market
- However, there are many books out there that discuss and debate the role of digital technology in education and write for the already digital capable. For some, learning technology is hard to engage in due to little digital skills or perhaps interest
- Who is the book for?
- In the title, but all relatable to Higher Education staff too
- New to starting out and wanting to make most of digital technology
- Companion to teacher education texts and studying towards a teaching qualification
- If your familiar with Ann Gravells work, this book is in the style of hers - simplified and accessible
- So if you're practical and need accessible and simplified information. Then it's for you. If you want to know what game-changing technologies are out there, then there are other publications for that
- Why you might need it?
- Recognising you need a learning technology book is not always clear, especially when you use lots of digital technology, learners seem to like using it etc. Its not about how much you use, but the purpose it has, how it is designed to support learning and the impact it has on the learner and your role
- It’s good to try/show off something new, but as I always say, what is most interesting is how it is used, the pedagogy that underpins it, that being clearly visible to both teacher and learner and having demonstrable impact on the learning experience. What is the learning activity you are intending to do? As that is what determines your choice of digital technology
- The argument of pedagogy before digital technology – but appreciate that sometimes you need to see what the digital technology can do first, the possibilities, which this book encourages
- Time will always be an issue and you can say that there’s no time to pick up a book on the topic as well as play with digital technology. However, Initial Teacher Training material is in text form and now we have LTbookFE
- Dip in and out, skip to certain sections. The activities, models, principles, etc. They are there to be explored and applied. Use alongside other teacher education books
- Quotes
- I feel it's usually around these two quotes. Which affect the quality of the learning and teaching experience. Reinforces the need to engage
- These quotes don’t represent the extent of the book and by no means are they the only two issues. But these are two prominent to kick-start motivation
- EDIT: second quote looks to have been adapted from Steve Wheeler's quote (2013: n.p) "technology won’t replace teachers, but teachers who use technology will probably replace teachers who don’t"
- Enhance
- Book content at a glance
- 'Flick through' video
- Mapped to ETF DTPF
- As the Enhance modules are hugely popular with supporting teaching staff apply digital technology into their practices. I aligned my book to the DTPF framework, which links to subsequent Enhance modules – the book acts as a companion
- Talked through some key areas that feature in the book
- The crosses don’t imply that there is no content on that aspect of the DTPF framework, but indicates the emphasis of it where identified
- A clearer view of how my 'Learning technology handbook' maps to the ETF's DTPF
- Empower
- You should start to feel more confident and competent in your chosen tools as a result of experimenting, more so in a safe environment
- Talked through some suggestions mentioned in the book to help you extend your confidence and inspire others
- Reviews
- Resources
- Questions
I recommend viewing my previous webinar Moving from passive to purposefully interactive to learn more about creating interactive eLearning materials and Mapping Learning Technology handbook to Level 4 Award in Teaching Online that demonstrates the theories, models and activities in the book.
Presentation:
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