Following a string of celebrations in our department recently, such as two lecturers winning Award for Outstanding Teaching Staff - School of Social Sciences. To which I said to Anne Felton Head of Department, "Great news, it’s great to hear about all these celebrations coming in. The department is developing and maturing in a great direction!" With that in mind, I was hoping that I had won the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Technical Practice 2024. But unfortunately not this time.
Panel - "On behalf of the panel for the Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Award, thank you for your submission to this year’s Awards. We have carefully reviewed all the nominations which have been of an exceptionally high standard.
While the panel felt that your nomination had much to recommend it, on this occasion it is not being put forward for an award. Although your submission is not receiving a formal accolade this year, this does not take away your achievements, nor the effort and impact of your work.
Thank you again for participating in the Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Awards which are an important way for us to recognise the importance and impact of NTU’s work. I hope it has been a positive experience and will not discourage you from your endeavours going forward."
This single award recognises and celebrates endeavours that demonstrate excellence in the delivery of technical practice and the impact of this. Nominations are assessed against three criteria: excellence, engagement and impact. NTU - "Successful applicants will be able to evidence a consistent, yet upward trajectory of excellence in technical practice." I am a dedicated and committed learning technologist bringing about digital transformation in a supportive and encouraging way that creates and promotes an excellence culture. Winning this would have provided more evidence to further justify that I am doing exactly that. It would have endorsed my high quality learning technologist abilities that puts a spotlight on my proactivity, perpetual enthusiasm and energy and impactful outcomes. And this is not just limited to this stream of work, but how I work my role across the department. Whilst I didn't win it this time round, what brings me real joy and satisfaction is connecting and collaborating with my lecturers and clinical skills technicians, in the effort to make a positive difference in the use of educational technologies. Fully embracing what is means to be a learning technologist. Reinforced by my strapline on my profiles; "Making a local difference to UK healthcare HE by leading, enabling and improving our digital learning experiences." I'll be sure to try again next year and/or maybe in another excellence category. I am disappointed on the outcome, but I am proud of myself for attempting this though. I know how much proactive hard work I put in and the positive impact I am making, and that's enough for me knowing I do this. I'm not just talking about things, I am doing them and making progress. Next time I need to ensure that I am more clearer and specific of the evidence of my individual contribution and leadership in this work.
I made the self-nomination November 2023 for my overall work in adopting, integrating and supporting the technical and pedagogical practice of our Virtual Reality walls in our department. Including establishing the TILT® Virtual Reality and Immersive Learning practice and scholarship group and hosting visits to internal and external colleagues showcasing our VR suites. None of this was in place previously, and therefore needed such interest, care, passion and diligence from someone like me to lead on. A reason I made a self-nomination is that I wanted my work and IHAP to be more widely recognised internally and externally to the university; the efforts being made in our healthcare HE context. With the hope to further build my working relationships, credibility and trust with my lecturers and clinical skills technicians staff. I am deeply passionate about the department and my role within it. But I like to think it is all for positive outcomes for whom I work with - though I would prefer more of the WE than I, moving forwards. However, I do find that staff contracted as professional services, like myself, often have to make such self-nominated efforts themselves. It would have also been good to add another nice accolade alongside my others. Moreover, this is a great thing for me to do in addition to the appraisal process - another way to celebrate and evidence my work and development. Which I'll naturally do as I personally think this is exceptional, despite it may have informally contributed to my promotion. I went above and beyond my originally intended role.
Nomination materials consisted of a 500 word statement written by the nominee or nominator that describes how the nominations meets the award criterion. Along with a up-to-date CV. It was a challenge to squeeze all this in around 500 words. Luckily I can expand on this in my Principal Fellowship application. Below is what I submitted, ambitiously adding appendices to further support my submission.
Since making my self-nomination, the team project that is mentioned in my submission went onto being shortlisted for the Student Nursing Times Awards 2024, Teaching Innovation of the Year. It was an honour to be involved in help enable this. My role in this was enabling the pedagogical and technical success of it. It is essential that the pedagogy, hardware and digital content is considered at the outset, and in a collaborative way. There's much more to come in this space. Again, we are still a young department and early in our journey and there is much more progress and innovation to be made here. More on my immersive learning and VR work documented below:
- Virtual Reality wall
- Exploring a pedagogical rationale for VR and immersive learning
- Enabling positive Virtual Reality and immersive learning adoption: a journey of integrating VR walls
- TILT Virtual Reality and Immersive Learning practice and scholarship group
- What is Immersive Learning and VR?
- Assessing the current position of the IHAP VR walls
