I have been remiss in recording where I have been talking and where I will be going over the year (2016), as I keep being asked I thought I’d give a little synopsis of where I have been and where I am yet to go. My conclusion is that I am up to quite a lot, but it’s all good and useful for the work I do at the University of Southampton.
So, here goes
January
I gave a keynote to academics at the Open University in Milton Keynes. I was talking about interesting and innovative solutions to common issues using technology enhanced learning. The talk was entitled ‘Action not words’ just because the idea was that active learning was the key issue. These are my slides, not always useful because I use a lot of images but I have been asked for them anyway.
JISC Stakeholders forum – I was invited to this as part of my role for ALT. This is interesting because I gain a perspective of FE, HE and also other education providers (apprenticeships etc) which is always interesting. JISC are very interested in supporting at varying levels and to determine what their ‘offer’ should be. Interesting times.
Final debate – Inspiring Next Gen of Women – credit to all particularly @Maherster #futuretechgirls #WinTech16 pic.twitter.com/qaea9cZT2j
— steve brown (@SB_EMPIRIC) January 28, 2016
Women in Tech conference
Loved this. I met awesome women and some cool men, all supporting equality of opportunity for careers in tech. I was a panel speaker, talking about how digital literacies, in particularly communicating effectively online, supports women to promote themselves. The panel was great, I was with YouTuber,
One of my fellow panellists for #WinTec16 @tweetlikeatwit https://t.co/v4r5xkLo2I @SuperSamStuff #awesome 🙌
— Fiona Harvey (@fionajharvey) January 30, 2016
Fashion tech specialists, engineers and Mashable. Other speakers included Sky TV, Laterooms.com, Techcity UK and BBC. Worth going if you can make the next one. Look for the #WinTech16
February
At the University of Southampton, our Student Champion Network Group are part of the HEA Strategic Enhancement Programme activity. I attended as a member of that group to meet with other partners and to hear about their activities. In particular it was good to hear about other student partnerships as well as internationalisation projects. I also go to meet Sam Elkington who is the Academic Lead for Assessment and Feedback. We had a chat about incorporating technology enhanced learning into activities and what we are already doing with open badges.
The Story – Stephan Caspar, Media Lead in ILIAD at the University of Southampton invited me to go to this innovative event. It was very diverse and held in Conway Hall which is a great venue. We heard from podcasters and archivists, including Wolfgang Wild and Helen Zaltzman (Podcaster). They even had Werewolf biscuits.
ALT Committee meeting (London) – I love these because everyone is committed, enthusiastic and very positive. We had an interesting talk from a director of the Tinder Foundation (the training people not the dating people!) This activity fits very nicely with work I am involved in at University of Southampton, which is so often the case with ALT.
Big Bang Data exhibition – this was an educational trip for the iChamps to see how data can be visualised and hopefully bring to life some more of the technical implications of how we use data. It was very interesting and was part of their CPD for their roles as champions of digital literacies.
How cute are we? @iChampsS #BigBangData pic.twitter.com/VJtoESk9JC
— Official UoS iChamps (@iChampsS) February 26, 2016
March
I was a speaker for Inside Government Conference ‘Designing and Delivering a Quality Higher Education Curriculum’. In particular my talk focussed on the value of digital literacies skills and how the use of students as partners for this development is important. Everyone loves the open badges at the moment and we use it to gather evidence of activities. I met Professor Peter Lawler from Manchester who talked about their University College Curriculum Innovation model which is really nice. There was a lot of interesting and useful talks, and a lot of interest in our iChamps.
Open Badges in HE – this was the day of the Badges. Organised by a collective of awesome women and hosted by the University of Southampton we held a conference about the use of #OpenBadgesHE
Biennial International Conference on iPads in Higher Education – I am a speaker for this conference in San Francisco from 16-18th March. I am going with Judith Lock and iChamp Charlie Cosstick. We are all presenting papers on the use of iPads with the iChamps and for the projects that they work on.
April
I will be attending my residential for my PhD in Lancaster Uni at the beginning of April. That will be great, I finally get to meet the other students on the programme and I have never been to Lancaster before (it’s a long way!).
I’ve been invited to talk on behalf of ALT as a special keynote Inside Government conference on transforming learning with mobile technology in London. On the same day I am attending the Apple organised mini conference in the pm back at Southampton. This is focussing on the use of iPads for medical education.
The Disruptive Media Lab (I love that name) in Coventry University have asked me to come along and talk at their conference. I think we are planning to present together so we can cover Open Badges. So that’s going to be fun.
June
There are ALT meetings and also I have been invited to be keynote at a technology enhanced learning conference at the University of Portsmouth. The programme looks brilliant and I am really excited to go along and talk there. I haven’t been there for a very long time so it will good to go along there again. I think the last time I was there was for a Second Life event which tells you how long that was.
I have just had a paper accepted for a conference on ePortfolios and experiential learning in Edinburgh in June. That will be awesome. I am hoping that my fellow colleagues from the University of Southampton can come along as well as I have submitted the paper about our project piloting the use of Open Badges and ePortfolios. The conference is still accepting proposals, and looks like it will be a busy three days.
Double Digit Education 