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caemmett posted an update in the group Enthusing staff to engage with TEL 10 years, 6 months ago
I’ve just joined the group, really have to get down to talking to my team about the ideas on here. I might have missed something in the flood here, but can I ask… has anyway tried a helpline ‘ask a learning technologist’ e.g. by phone, chat? If so, how did it work out?
Hi CA (not sure what your first name is).
In my institution we have school linked learning technologists so we’re on call all the time. In theory it gives continuity and means we tend to know the people we talk to and the wider context in which they work.There is also a central email help line & associated phone number for more technical stuff eg can I have access to? why is such & such not working? if the central team are asked more complex questions they usually refer them back to us (though that may change in future as result of a restructure currently in progress).
My preference is for a mix of local & centralized support but it’s difficult to get the balance and it doesn’t necessarily result in a high level of engagement. We tend to be in reactive mode a lot of the time – the trick is getting in there at the beginning with advice on how to deploy TEL effectively across a programme, module etc.
Rose
Hi Rose
I just realised I hadn’t change my name in my profile, good spot!
So I can see from your comments the desirable aim is to have local as well as central. Having been in a session with a group of teaching staff yesterday, I think I’d agree on the local. They were talking about what they do when faced with a TEL related problem/decision & it was basically, “I ask my elearning/IT related person in the School”. For us, the problem with us is that not every School has that type of person, and where they do have them, they’re not always a resource for the whole School (e.g. they’ve been employed just for a specific distance learning programme). So, I guess one thing we need to address, how do we fill in the gaps for those who don’t have on site support of that type?
We have the same scenario you describe, where some areas have a local learning technologist, others don’t. Although I’m part of a central team, we have one person assigned to each faculty. Although any of us will help any lecturer who contacts us (by email or phone or via the Service Desk portal), we tend to run sessions for our own faculty and so gradually get to know staff in that faculty, who are then more likely to contact us next time.
Thanks Janet, that’s interesting. We don’t yet have that type of ‘College’ / faculty key contact, but it’s something we’re working towards as we have new people now started. As a new team that might take this approach, I wondered what your thoughts were on getting out the message that we’re now here & available to help. What are the different ways you might publicise that & what’s effective? Your own website, presence at teaching events, word of mouth, newsletters etc?
Goodness, how to communicate and market ourselves is still a work in progress. Currently, it’s more than a little ad hoc, I would say. Let’s see, there are some deliberate things. We usually have a stand at lunchtime at the annual Learning and Teaching Conference. Each faculty has a Blended Learning Co-ordinator – someone who has hours assigned to them (although how many varies, I believe) for mapping out the faculty’s development needs, supporting colleagues etc – and at least one of these co-ordinators produces a faculty newsletter, where staff sessions and our support contact details are listed. Events are listed on a website and promoted about once or twice a semester on the “Message of the Day” digital pinboard. This year, I was invited to speak at the PG Cert (Learning and Teaching in Higher Education) introductory session.
Despite all this, I think word of mouth is possibly the most powerful, as well as people returning to us after attending a session.
Hi Catherine, hi Janet.
At Greenwich, we have a core team of learning technologists that might be described as a central resource – part of the Greenwich Connect initiative for connected learning innovation. We are available for any staff to contact us, either with their ideas for projects they’d like to develop, for pedagogical advice, etc. We don’t deal with day-to-day technical support (e.g. “how do I set up an assignment in Moodle?”) because we have a separate Web Services team who deal with that sort of thing.
Furthermore, many (not all) departments in the university have at least one person performing a ‘learning technologist’ role, although the definition of that role varies across the institution. They might be described as TEL ‘champions’ who are recognised as the local go-to people.
Greenwich Connect is quite a new initiative, so we are still very much in the communication/publicity stage of letting people know we are here, and how we might be able to support them. We do this through our website http://blogs.gre.ac.uk/greenwichconnect (which is soon to be revamped) and through events such as cross-university workshops with Heads of Department, and inviting staff to participate in working groups around specific themes (e.g. VLEs, Distance Learning, OERs, etc) for taking our TEL strategy forward.
There are cultural challenges of course, and even political issues that can hinder communication and progress. I’d be interested to learn more about learning technologists’ communication strategies in other institutions.
Thanks Janet and Mark.
This is really interesting and useful stuff. It looks like you both have websites that are centred around your area, and you make links with distributed ‘local’ people. But also I’m seeing that just trying to get invited to various cross-university events, workshops etc is a good way to get things out there. I suppose it takes time to build a reputation. It’s just thinking of the ways that most quickly build reputation and recognition. Things like Heads of Department sessions are probably building reputation more from the top down, whereas making contact with LTs in departments is a bottom up.
I can also see sometimes internal politics affect how quickly effective you can be in getting to the people who want help, advice, support. So that’s something we’re going to have to think about carefully. Lots to do!
Hi all,
We also have a central team and learning technologists in each of the faculties – I’m split between both but that’s not the norm! As others have mentioned, raising our profile is a constant challenge. We have a website/ blog and send out a monthly newsletter. We also have a stand at the annual Teaching & Learning Conference and sometimes present there too. We have just started running a few sessions for the PGCAP (PostGrad Certificate of Academic Practice) TEL module and hope to get more involved with this next year. We also try to attend any faculty awaydays and present there too if we can. We’re currently moving from SharePoint to Moodle as our VLE so this is giving us more opportunities to connect with staff.
We used to be based in the same team as Educational Developers which was a really effective partnership as we really complemented each other and became well known due to connections with both the academic and research communities. (Educational Developers have always had a high profile at my institution) If learning technologists, educational and learning developers, etc… joined up more I think everyone would benefit.
What I miss now is not being able to attend faculty teaching & learning committee meetings as these provided a useful forum for discussion. I’m too ‘lowly’ to attend these days – internal politics in action! ;o)
Exciting times – good luck!