I attended Day 1 of Jisc Digifest yesterday, 10 March 2020. Here’s a brief summary of what I experienced to share with colleagues:
- The staple futuristic intro video of how education is transforming through technology. Holograms were in use, or what I think were just projectors – very cool though.
- Obviously, there was a mention of Coronavirus – more so, emphasis on keeping the online and remote working momentum going as this has sparked lots of activity and development in this area.
- Key note on Gen Z:
- Turned out to be a provocative topic and resulted in lots of audience participation and online engagement, which I thought was great and found revealing.
- Whilst I agree this in the sphere of generalisations, the presenter identified that Gen Z are: Realistic; Driven; FOMO; Phigital; Hyper Custom; DIY; economists. So do our organisational approaches and edtech enable and support these traits?
- I feel that it’s essentially human evolution and must be handled with care. Working together, not segregating one and another.
- Digital Skills in the workplace:
- Students need to get better acquainted with company technologies their terminology and their application in the workplace. Just like any organisation with their ‘digital ecosystem’. How can we enable environments for such experiences?
- Understand the ethics of the technologies – where human bit ends and where AI/automation starts etc.
- Degree apprenticeships:
- A discussion on the pedagogical, technical and administration challenges of delivering them.
- Types of digital tools used to support and deliver online learning – most of which were subscription based, not free types. Including use of eBooks for better interaction and accessibility. Articulate Rise used for delivering the 20% off the job training and use of H5P.
- Academic skills support:
- A discussion on what sounded like our SCALE-UP
- PebblePad:
- Example use in healthcare – thorough use of a Workbook. Good to see that NTU have similar designs that are effective. Emphasis on Asset creation and collection through PebblePocket.
- Caught up with many colleagues from NTU and my wider networks.
- Including Phil Whitehead and Chris Melia:
Tweets I made:
- "On my way to #Digifest20, ready to learn! If you see me say hi. Happy to chat about #edtech, what I do at #NTU and #LTbookFE: http://tinyurl.com/LTbookFE"
- "Gen Z are: Realistic; Driven; FOMO; Phigital; Hyper Custom; DIY; economists. Do our organisational approaches and #edtech enable and support these traits?"
- "Brilliant key note on Gen Z - very provocative creating many thoughts and questions from the audience and online. Essentially, this is human evolution and must be handled with care. Working together, not segregating one and another."
- Sarah Honeychurch - "Brilliant? Really? I think you must have been at a different #Digifest20 keynote!"
- "As above, because of the thoughts and views it provoked from the audience, good and bad. Very responsive!"
- Sarah Honeychurch - "I did wonder whether @jisc had got him as a wind up."
- Alejandro Armellini - "I would describe the opening keynote in many ways. "Brilliant" is not one of them."
- Sarah Honeychurch - "Ok boomer 😂😂😂"
- "😂 See, provocative and that's why I think it was brilliant - love it when a topic creates a huge response and gets everyone to say their bit."
