Thursday, 28 November 2019

Frustration, conception, solution - A narrative for change in progressing and transforming digital capabilities

Today I attended and presented (video at bottom) at the first DigiLearn Sector Connect event, themed on 'Developing the digital capability of our staff'.  EDIT: I was invited to write a guest blog post 'DigiLearn Sector Connect – Key takeaways from DLS Co-ordinator, Daniel Scott'.  I discuss what was good about the event and what I gained from attending.  Below are things I Tweeted during the event, but lots more shared at #DigiLearnSector.

Early rise. Arrived @UCLan Burnley campus for an inspirational day of sharing & productivity at the first #DigiLearnSector Connect event. Added challenge delivering my debut #PechaKucha on my role-specific #digitalcapabilites work.

#DigiLearnSector asks, what are the benefits of it to me & my organisation... Networking with like-minded individuals, sharing practices & projects, contributing to others development, sharing all of this with my team.

"You have to get your culture right first." - @hope_steven.

We may all do this, seen or unseen. Be a #magpie! Stealing can be positive. Allow people to take ideas back to their nests to contextualise and share with others. We don't have to reinvent the wheel, says @hope_steven.

Key message I am hearing from @hope_steven's work is that they are forward-thinking on #edtech success and transformation. Creating foundations and environments, not making it fit like square pegs in round holes.

What doesn't work is just as important as what does work. But we have to tell people this. May that be in safe spaces or not, it should be ok to say it. Says @k9williams.



Keeping #digitalcapabilities simple by @PhilEdTech. Lots of great simple approaches, resources and tips to support staff in their digital practices - brilliant effort.

Well done @ChrisLearnTech, @k9williams and all involved, you've done a smashing job today. Thanks for a great day! 😃

Presentation

"Looking forward to sharing some experimental but purposeful thinking on #digitalcapabilities and meeting the wider #DigiLearnSector community. ðŸ˜ƒ"

Being a co-ordinator for the community, I felt it was a good opportunity to present something new I have been working on, that influenced a change of focus in our team.  So I took up the challenge with my debut PechaKucha.  The aim of my presentation was to give a preview of my thinking.  Moreover, when asked 'why' am I doing what I do etc in a recent DigiLearn webinar activity, here was my response:  To make a difference in transforming and progressing digital practices for both staff and student.

Below are my references that helped shape this work and my notes I made on the slides:

References:


Notes:

  • Slide 1
    • Aim of this is to give a preview of some strategic experimental and purposeful thinking.
    • This is a very quick and short narrative on a new approach I have been developing, focused on role-specific digital capabilities.
    • Starting with frustration, conceptualising an idea and arriving at a solution.
  • Slide 2
    • I’m Daniel Scott, broadly defined as a Digital Learning Specialist.
    • I am a Digital Practice Adviser at Nottingham Trent University, based in Human Resources.
    • Focusing on consulting with schools and teams to identify and support their staffs digital capabilities.
  • Slide 3
    • I find that digital capabilities is often ponderous, broad and vague.  It feels nebulous and expansive as it’s such a huge and diverse topic.
    • Digital is everywhere and has become somewhat invisible in people.  Everyone has their own meanings, interpretations and opinions about it.
    • We often provide staff development but can often be to the same people – preaching to the converted.  How do we get to those that aren’t engaged and don’t see the value of digital in their role?
    • We have lots of frameworks and underpinning criteria on topics and aspects.  But sometimes people can't understand the relation to their roles and feel they have to be everything on them.
    • However, I feel we should be focusing on the tasks and activities that the role requires.  Plus, looking at how we can progress and transform digital practices.
  • Slide 4
    • Criteria taken from Level 3 unit from a Level 2 Certificate in IT User Skills qualification.
    • All of them but focus on 2.2.  How often do we review our digital practices and change the approach as needed?  Revisit the role of digital as said on slide before, it’s become invisible.  We need the time and safe spaces to conduct this review.
    • Time and availability of resources are constraints to this.
  • Slide 5
    • My thinking on role-specific in digital capabilities started throughout my engagement through the University, reimagined (a programme where the university determined it’s 2025 strategic objectives) which led me to my side project of purposeful technology.
    • During my end of year appraisal I suggested we should be focussing explicitly on developing digital capabilities.
    • We had a lot of focus and emphasis and just learning and teaching.
    • We cover learning and teaching, professional services, research and leadership and management roles – how can we be specific to these roles?
    • Personal element: I wanted add value to the development of digital capabilities and give my role further credence.
    • It's the value added piece I’m trying to get to and the transformation and progression of digital skills, not doing the same things and not seeing change in practices.
  • Slide 6
    • My aha! moment.
    • I started thinking of some approaches for developing role-specific digital capabilities.
    • There were strong links to upcoming strategic objectives known as University, reimagined.  The next few slides show excerpts of my thinking.
    • I shared a vision with my manager – they really liked the idea and encouraged me to broaden my thinking.
    • Escalated really quickly and went through a few phases of refinement, just like an iterative approach.
  • Slide 7
    • Underpinned with the Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principle that I was introduced to, I started sketch out some thinking.
    • Here I am thinking of what goes into digital capabilities and what comes out as a result.
    • Digital capabilities is an outcome – a continuum that never stops and evolves with your role.
  • Slide 8
    • Confidence will always outweigh competence.
    • Message here is to get users and suppliers to take more responsibility for technical and cultural aspects, we can’t do it all.
    • Ongoing challenge with technical and cultural conflict, but has to be a point of saying it’s what is required of your role.  Taking responsibility rather than having something to blame – but not always the case.  People are at the centre of making change.
  • Slide 9
    • Here I am devising ways of developing a strategy and ways that this can be delivered, using existing resources and material.
    • Thought about developing a philosophy (links to purposeful) that people can relate to and joining up existing resources – not creating anything new, use what we’ve got.
    • Thought about using the blueprints of DigiLearn as a mechanism to engage people as a community that was backed by University, reimagined outcomes.  Making champions and working with IT more closely to evaluate new features and functions to develop purposes.
    • And how we can demonstrate impact of it.
  • Slide 10
    • Me defining my objectives that is underpinned by University, reimagined outcomes and goes some way to supporting their ambitions.
  • Slide 11
    • Here I am summarising a direction from understanding digital practices, having opportunities to practise and evidencing change in practices.
    • Digital capabilities means different things to people, so I suggested that we stop pursuing understanding what it means as a university.
    • We need to accept there are different meanings of digital capabilities, both individual and organisational.  Digital capabilities is about context to role and tasks.
  • Slide 12
    • Individual is about self-support, MIE and building champions.
    • Organisational is mapping role-specific digital capabilities.
    • Experimental is underpinned by the SAMR model transform and progress digital practices.
  • Slide 13
    • Provided options of who we can target.  Do we just focus on individuals, team, department, university – priorities will decide.
  • Slide 14
    • Using MIE as a self-supporting community and as a way to build champions.
    • Currently, discussions taking place.
  • Slide 15
    • Essentially, learning design meets digital capabilities, identifying digital behaviours and performance of roles.
    • It was agreed that we are focusing on this as a new approach for our team.
  • Slide 16
    • This is underpinned by the SAMR model but focused on digital skills – still in development and will be part of the organisational approach.
    • Basically, encouraging people to transform their practices and not to the same thing with different digital technology.
    • Currently fleshing this out in terms of what the process would look like and how to work through it.
  • Slide 17
    • Me thinking broadly about what I need to make this a success – are these all in place and are they articulated well?
    • From Randy Garrison’s E-Learning in the 21st Century (2017).
  • Slide 18
    • Arrived at a workable solution.
    • Basically a programme, starting with a consultation, making a contextual digital capability framework.  Build programme with right people and deliver it.
    • A taster of what’s to come as a new area of focus in the team, which I am leading on.
    • Focused on role-specific digital capabilities, i.e. a senior lecturer role.
  • Slide 19
    • As part of the consultation we will extract required digital skills using job descriptions.
    • And produce a contextual digital capability framework.  Review it and approve with stakeholders.
  • Slide 20
    • Still in development but will share my progress as I go.
    • If you find any of this useful, I am happy to collaborate with you to develop it further or act as a critical friend.

Here's my PechaKucha:

N.B. You won't be able to clearly read all details on my 'thinking decks', but emphasis on this style of presentations for me to visually explain the concepts, with minimal time.  When this piece of work has been developed further and implemented, I will share my progress in more clearer and deeper detail.  However, feel free to contact me if you want a detailed explanation on this.


Russ Brookes - @_Daniel_Scott again will a good session on triggers for change and making it all seem so simple.

Alicia Owen - And now hearing from @_Daniel_Scott who is a Digital Practice Adviser - based within - HR! @testdomain @alison_pugh ( digital skills therefore for everyone - not just a learning and teaching thing!)

Colette Mazzola - Thank you for a great presentation @_Daniel_Scott I love the idea of confidence vs competence ðŸ™‚ ðŸ“š

Recordings:



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Wednesday, 13 November 2019

Using stacking to build digital capabilities

This is very embryonic but I'll be sure to flesh this out in more detail as time goes...

Teachers and assessors are immensely busy and often time poor, which can lead to little time to source, experiment and evaluate digital technologies.  Time is precious in what and who we give this to.  One thing we do give time to is our priorities – which could be our own personal and professional goals/objectives, whether that is linked to appraisals or not.

After reading this article 'Choose One Professional Goal This Year' earlier this year, it inspired some thinking...  One day whilst doing my exercises (crunches and weights) I was thinking about how the way I train my mind to add on new routines onto existing ones.  A light bulb moment ðŸ’¡ -  how could this approach be used to build up digital capabilities?  I.e. adding onto existing digital practices to develop competence, confidence and overall fitness for purpose in the use of digital technologies.  Imagine being your own personal trainer to keep stretching and challenging yourself.

This also relates to my 'cooking practices', by that I mean I assist.  😉  Gary and I will take a recipe, adapt it to our liking/ingredients we have available and cook.  If we like it we use that as a foundation, a template for future cooking.  Adding new things or replacing ingredients for a change in variety.  It's another way of seeing the problematic area of embedding and developing digital capabilities.  Great for those just starting out and those wanting to extend their existing digital practices.

Through constructivism we make connections and build on our existing learning.  The main benefit here is building on your previous techniques whilst adding new ones and stretching beyond your boundaries.   This even has links to growth mindset, change management, coaching and mentoring and reflective and behaviourist theories.  Like exercising, it takes a while to get it right and see results!  Over a period of time we should see people's digital capabilities scale up due to their belief in their own digital practices.  However, it's important not to 'snowball' out of control - as in how it starts of small becomes bigger as snow sticks to it.  Know your strengths and limits and increase your load as you feel comfortable to.

Stacking: a mindset for building confidence and technique

I've not fleshed this out in full, but to start in brief:

  • Identify new digital practice that you want to achieve 
  • Link this to an existing related digital practice/habit you do regularly - starting the stacking bit
  • Stack the new digital practice on top of the existing one, which should pair well together
  • Repeat and refine your new practice as much as you feel necessary to build up your confidence and technique
  • Evaluate your progress and revisit aspects that need to change or improve - add/remove
  • Continue to stack to improve your digital practices and fitness for purpose ðŸ’ª

Stacking is like muscle memory, once you are comfortable with a routine/process you add something onto the end of it.  As a result of this mindset, I don't think it can be seen as an extra bolt-on because its become a habit.  The challenge is setting and realising what and why is it that you want to achieve.  Bit by bit you can stack up your digital capabilities to make the jump from efficiency to effectiveness - hopefully.

What would it look like in practice?

Ok, thinking of myself in this example to apply it and put it into context - regardless of the level of my digital capabilities, age, backgrounds etc.

Riding off the back of my recent blog post 'Using PebblePad to support and evidence productivity'.  I'm quite forgetful/lazy of not tagging my Assets in PebblePad, even when I know the benefits and uses of them - the shame!  As current storage systems now rely on this method, I need to get up to speed.  I already create Assets and upload existing files to PebblePad so I need to get in the habit of tagging.  It sounds simple in doing this every time I create or upload something, but I need to exercise this regularly and embed it as a habit.  So coming back down to the purpose of the activity - I need to organise my Assets into a themed group, so I can use Collection Asset type to do this.  Looking at the affordances of the system, I can use a feature in Collection called 'Add Assets by tags'.  This will automatically pull in any current or future Assets into a Collection with the tags I have selected.  Overtime, in doing this it is embedding this as a habit which will become a transferable skill, a digital practice that can be used in other systems when I use them, i.e. Microsoft OneDrive.
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Tuesday, 12 November 2019

Using PebblePad to support and evidence productivity

Further to my recent PebblePad work, during preparation for my end of year appraisal I have been thinking of ways that I can clearly demonstrate how I have met my objectives and things done above and beyond that.  Because let's be honest, as much as our managers/line managers might know/have an idea of what we have done, they don't see all the activity that led up to that outcome and what other developments came out of it.  Obviously they don't have the time to see every little detail, i.e. communications that were exchanged, meeting outcomes etc.  But there is a way to tell the story of achieving our appraisal objectives and we have been doing in our work time, as well as showing off our problem-solving, initiatives, successes and achievements.

It's highly important in the current workplace to collect, organise and evidence productivity, performance and project work throughout the year, all in support and to showcase during appraisals.  I'm sure we all have experienced those moments when you come out of one of those meetings and remember all the things you should have said and showed etc.  It's also a useful exercise to demonstrate capabilities for progression opportunities and other potential employment.

Adapting to today's workplace and inspired by my colleague Rachel Evans' use of PebblePad to support her appraisal objectives.  I have created my own Portfolio Asset type to purposefully experiment with this academic year, to effectively and efficiently evidence my appraisal objectives.  I aim for it to demonstrate and articulate me and my role along with achieving my objectives, professional development and external activities I engage in.  ePortfolios in general are now about how a person can express themselves and what educators can learn from that, not just a tick box exercise.  Another personal reason for creating a Portfolio Asset is that I like to make it clear what I do and what I have done specifically in projects.  This is a result of a negative period I once experienced years ago, where my work and enthusiasm were claimed by others without giving credit where it was due.  Since then I explicitly make my contributions and efforts visibly clear - it inspired my blog post 'This is proACTivity'.  Plus, it  provides me with a sense of achievement when I look back on my blog posts.

Structure and extract

Drawing on my pointers from 'This is proACTivity', below is the structure I am using with my PebblePad Portfolio Asset, tentatively titled 'My work portfolio - a continuum of professional impact'.  Each heading is an individual Page Asset that has been inserted into the Portfolio.  If anything, it's an example where digital technology has enhanced a process.

  • Introduction/background - a brief introduction to who you are, your role and who manages you.  Could include some external links to your digital identity
  • Appraisal objectives - set during appraisal.  List them and provide a space where you can add updates on what you have done towards them and include dates.  Including areas that you were challenged with and how you overcome them.  Insert hyperlinks to pieces of work
  • Personal objectives - anything you want to develop alongside of your role, e.g. participating in a LinkedIn Learning or FutureLearn course, shadowing, thought/influence pieces etc
  • Other achievements - anything outside of your role that you contribute to, e.g. external committee meetings, speaking/presenting, social activities etc
  • Previous year - after your first year with this, hyperlink or create a new Page Asset for reference, or to hyperlink back to specific related projects from it

My 10 ways to be proactive and to extract work evidence - how to make the most of PebblePad Assets:

  1. Save and collect work evidence related to the appraisal objective: work products; communications (emails/messages); reports; meeting minute contributions, thought/influential pieces.  Try using the PebblePocket app (on or offline) to capture things on the fly - images and videos, which can be later worked into a more substantial Asset
  2. Refine your evidence - only use significant pieces that will tell your story.  What work evidence is most important?  Store everything else in a separate location which it can be retrieved later if needed
  3. Tag your Assets using appropriate naming conventions that make it meaningful.  Perhaps key words from your projects to form themes
  4. Organise your evidence using Collection Assets to bundle up pieces into projects or themes - this will help keep your Asset Store tidy and concise
  5. Set a specified amount of time per week or month to write updates and maintain this Portfolio Asset
  6. Review your Asset Store and update, move or remove Assets that no longer serve a purpose.  Only keep what you need in an Asset Store, not to be treated like a conventional repository
  7. Write about what, how and why you have done it (Page or Blog Asset).  This will help demonstrate purpose and impact of your work and how you are changing your thinking and practices as it develops
  8. Be savvy - assess what you are working on and think of where this material can be used in other projects or add benefits to them
  9. Think - when doing work tasks, identify how the outputs can be applied to CPD or a qualification.  Shape your work activity around professional development goals
  10. Share your Portfolio with your manager/line manager in advance of a progress meeting.  It will allow them time to see what you have been doing and think of questions on the content

A further idea to points 8 and 9 - we all deal with a lot of information in our jobs, most of which we might not use or ever see again.  Equally, you might be asked to produce work which might end up not being used.  Whatever the outcome of what you are producing, as I always have done, keep it as you never know when you might be able to re-purpose or recycle it.  If you have done a vocational course or an apprenticeship, you can achieve many qualification criteria (holistic) by just submitting one piece of evidence, depending on the depth and quality of it.  Take that concept - you have a work product, i.e. a document or multimedia object - how can you use that in other ways?  Not only for employability purposes, but where in your role can that be used again or re-purposed for different audiences, or even towards a qualification?
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Monday, 11 November 2019

What HE can learn from me and FE

Picking up on something I said in a previous post "there's a lot that higher education (HE) can learn from FE and many lecturers tell me they want more practical advice... I may do a blog post on that in the future."  So here's some thoughts on that.
 
My 2 year work anniversary at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) has just passed.  I feel I have transitioned well into university life, still climbing the mountain though but feeling more confident about what I am scaling!  I still remind myself every day that I work at a university and a prestigious one of that.  Having the opportunity to work with an abundance of colleagues in academic, professional services, leadership and management, research roles, brings never-ending opportunities for me to challenge and assert my experience and wisdom.

It's great to see many universities, especially NTU recruiting ex-FE workers plus those from the private sector.  I know others that came from both sectors and have successfully integrated into a university.  Therefore I am not a HE purist (e.g. internal graduate to employee), having come from and remain involved in multiple sectors.  Coming from FE though, I feel that it adds great pragmatic value to the organisation and encourages different ways of working that might otherwise not be seen or done at a university.  I talk more about this in my blog post 'Pragmatism, criticality and d**ks'.

I'm not new to working in HE.  I've worked on many HE projects whilst in Further Education (FE) and in the private sector in an online education role.  Also, working at a university at some point in my career has been a long-term ambition.  Since been in HE, I have had to learn the university life cycle and all that goes with that - not too dissimilar to FE.  Alongside this, the team I am situated in has undergone many changes, which at times has left me feeling a tad lost and needing a sense of belonging, but I/we've got there.  As part of this progression I have been challenged immensely on fitting in and settling into the university, i.e. understanding new ways of working and motivations of people/teams.  I'm sure the ol' Barnsley/Yorkshire thing contributes to that, with a dash of academic snobbery - which led me to expressing this recently...  Just a thought... 🤔 If you define yourself as an academic, therefore you're an educator right? It's really not cool for educators to demean others knowledge and abilities, but to empower and cultivate them, whether that be a learner or colleague.  I've an issue with those people that mask themselves as an educator, just because they work in education does not mean they are one.  Through my experience, I've met many that label themselves as this but don't actually have the compassion, values, skills and will to share wisdom to educate others.  But do know how to take, demean, disempower and dictate.  They may well challenge perspectives and the status quo, but that is not to be disguised as an educator.  Where is the commitment and dedication to ensuring others are well informed through knowledge sharing and collaboration.  Coming off my soapbox.

Walking the talk

An overall goal when progressing to NTU was to bring and express my pragmatic experience to develop Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) and staff digital capabilities and truly progress their digital learning and practices.  I honed in and focused on the practical needs of the university and how I can help deliver and inspire these further, like my work of introducing H5P and implementing PebblePad.

As I demonstrate throughout this blog, I like to walk the talk not just talk the talk.  I'm an extreme pragmatist and enjoy thinking things thoroughly and meticulously.  Then simplifying it all so that others can understand it, i.e. the often complicated and complex TEL and digital capabilities.  I like to think that this was one of the reasons why I was offered the position.  I strongly feel that HE needs to widely accept, embrace and focus more on practical aspects to assure the progression and transformation of universities.

In HE I am exposed to more debates around purposes, the why etc.  I enjoy many of these discussions as they are helpful to understand, make sense and meaning of our endeavours.  Plus they encourage my professional development - sharpens my thinking and practices and does my peers too.  However, I feel there is a time and place for debates and academic discussion - too much time being spent on this which affects productivity and the purpose of specific meetings.  Which I often have to say during meetings.  Sadly, some aspects of HE are not easily for pragmatism and prefer to talk a good game - but you can say that happens in most organisations, irrespective of the sector.  As universities are obviously and respectfully academic, it often results in discussing too often 'what's wrong with it'.  Rather than being solutions-focused and getting stuff out there, i.e. iterative working.  In not doing so I feel this can often constrict creativity.  We need more practical solutions which can be amplified by involving the right people/roles across the university to rationalise and to put a good case forward.  HE have the support and financial resource to test new initiatives.  That's why I develop my consultancy skills as it is the main responsibility to make sure the solutions happen.  I'm bringing the best of my pragmatism to HE as it needs doers, not just talkers and justifiers.  Politicians do enough of that!  ðŸ˜‚

The HE environment is more professional and higher-stakes, which appeals to many to work in, including myself.  However, I hear more staff asking for simplicity and practical techniques and even language itself - keeping it simple.  Some recent examples: language of a digital literacy self-assessment tool - needed to be more simplistic for academics to relate, understand and use; a blended learning workshop - feedback from staff say they preferred practical techniques rather than theory itself.  So why are we making processes and practices complicated and complex for ourselves?  To encourage more debate and reasoning?  We must respond to this and not make things complicated for the sake of it - I talk more about this in the section 'Recognising a forgotten gift' in the blog post I introduced at the start of this one.

From my experience thus far, some brief overall differences between both sectors:
FE
HE
Funding
Less funding, cope and find ways of making things work.  Red tape on funding, financial and human resource, time etc.

Due to this I feel FE are more hands-on and creative, as there's less financial resource.  E.g. there's no money to support it, go ahead with it and see what you can do.  More innovation as a result, using what they've got and make it work better.		Better funded but sometimes
not used in the right place(s) at the right time(s), too much of it with little or no agreed rationale and scope/parameters, or using to justify a resource/something.  Less red tape on funding, financial and human resource, time etc.

HE somewhat over-resourced, more funding and support.  Though less management about it, e.g. I see many departments and individuals going ahead and doing something, without much long-term rationale and thinking. For them to use for promotion and eventually leave, then it gets 'parked'.  As there is no one to pick it up.  More wastage and no outcome as a result.  HE are slower at evaluating, don't often come back to see what was the impact.  Where FE impact is more instant as they are implementing these things imminently.
Approach
 Practical, solutions-focused and more creative as a result of funding.  'We've no funding for this resource, but if you would like to develop it...'

Stricter consequences.

More open, supportive and collaborative in working as a team and encouraging to develop one and another.

Supportive and hand holding.
Process, debate-focused and often less creative/innovative as a result, make complicated when people want it simple.  'What’s more important, the final outcome or the process of getting there?'

Less likely to challenge/pursue consequences.

More serious, autonomous and somewhat a stronger political approaches and responding style - often justifying poor decisions to make it sound better.  Less encouragement of each other, more focus on your role/position/stance and ego.

As my partner Gary said based on my experience.  Working in HE is similar to a student progressing from college to a university.  Moving from hand holding in FE to being self-sufficient in HE.  Staff get treated like this somewhat, i.e. here is this, that, the other - off you pop.
TEL
More open efforts towards change and innovation with a 'yeh let's get on with it' attitude.

Emphasis on co-collaboration in working with tutors both inside and outside of the classroom, not just educate staff.
More rationalising and strategic thinking for change and innovation.  There needs to be a good balance of both the FE and HE side.

More independent, educate and self-service support.

Return to FE?

I often get asked if I would I ever go back to FE.  I'll not say never on returning to FE.  However, I'm comfortable in HE and as said earlier it was a long-term ambition to work in HE.  I'm not leaving HE in the foreseeable future.  If an opportunity presents itself as worthy, I'll consider it, just like other roles.  Some might disapprove and say it sends mixed messages that I keep involved in FE.  However, it's where I started out and developed my career, I've lots of colleagues and friends there and I published a book for the sector based on my experiences.  So to me it would be extremely mean to just cut ties.  I don't think it's wise to quickly to turn your back on FE as if it wasn't significant to your career.  As I said recently: "My full-time work may not be in #FE, but it's where I started out and will always support it where I can. View #LTbookFE as my leaving fuddle contribution."  I stand for education of all kinds, not a 'glory supporter' of whatever's in for moment.  Like a good educator, I'll challenge the conscious/unconscious bias of peoples perceptions and continue to defy them.

I continue to be involved in FE and adult learning by writing and sharing to them.  Like my recent  projects in writing The Education and Training Foundation's Enhance modules and Essential Digital Skills resources.  Plus, my continued work with growing younger learning technologists, which was through Association for Learning Technology (ALT) Associate Certified Membership (ACMALT) pathway.  We're all striving for the same thing at the end of the day, just different contexts/demographics.  I think it's good to keep your hand in both sectors, but with more focus to to the role and time you spend most time in.  That's why I have #HE | #FE on my Twitter profile.  Take DigiLearn Sector Community for example, developed in HE for HE but has opened it's doors up to FE and schools sectors.  Allowing everyone to collaborate and contribute to each others projects and practices.  Resulting in an active, vibrant and diverse online community with progressive and transformative outcomes.  Cross-sector collaboration at it's finest and it's incredible to see people in a variety of roles come together.  Education is education to me, I don't discriminate against other sectors.

I'm in HE for a long while and while I am here I will bring my strengths of simplified, accessible and practical ways of working.  Many can argue and debate the need for this, but what I receive on a day-to-day basis is that staff want to understand and do things more easily, without compromising the nature of academia.  As many do take on the role of teaching for the complexity and challenges it brings.
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