So we have to do the standard intro about ourselves

Hello, my name is Joseph and I am a Learning Technologist.

For about 6 years I worked at the City of Bristol College running their Blackboard installation – I did pretty much everything from fresh installs of the system, through upgrades, troubleshooting, helpdesk queries, messing about with new kit, organisational projects, developing training sessions, delivering training sessions, one to one work with academics and helping them re-design their teaching to take advantage of technology.  They were a great bunch to work with and the team was much larger when I left than when I joined.

Then I moved to the University of Bristol to the Technology Enhanced Learning unit.  This team focus on the pedagogic end of TEL, on the plus side no more late night server upgrades and bug fixing on the down side if I spot a problem I cant just fix it I need to email our technical team.  I still do a wide range of things but these are much more firmly on the pedagogic side, there is a lot more sitting down with academics and planning out changes/enhancements to their teaching and a lot more reading research and teaching theory.  I tend now to avoid mentioning the technology, discuss what they want to change, what they would like to achieve, then suggest what might be the best fit of the available technologies.  What I would really like to try next is entire curriculum redesign, sit down with a member of staff and completely redesign their unit to best teaching practices supported by technology (but this would be very time intensive and I may struggle to get my boss to allow me the time .  Once again the team at Bristol Uni are a lovely bunch to work with (Im just lucky like that)

So as you can see I am normally “doing” TEL to people rather than having TEL done to me, however I have just completed a MOOC (Elearning and Digital Cultures) and this was a good learning experience for me.  Before starting the Mooc I had felt that the Constructivist theory was the most comprehensive of the learning theories (I still really like it).

However taking part in the #EDCMooc was a really enjoyable experience because of the community that I took part in (I spent a lot of my time in the Google+ group), more than that it was a better learning experience because of the group.  I engaged with the course materials (videos and readings), I read what others had said about them (on the community and in their blogs), I wrote my own blogs and others commented on them, I commented on others blogs posts etc.  People suggested other resources and readings, I discussed things, I asked the community questions and they found the answers (once a bit late but thats life).

If you look at the number of learning opportunities you will see how useful this course was.

1. Engage with materials
2. Read others engagement/thoughts
3. Write about the materials
4. Comment on others thoughts
5. Read others comments on your thoughts
6. Suggest additional materials to others
7. Read additional materials from others
8. Assessment: Design/Make Artifact
9. See artifacts that people shared with community – and comment if you wish
10. Assessment: Mark others Artifacts
11. Assessment: Reflect on your marks

Vs traditional

1. Engage with materials
2. Write about the materials – possibly
3. Assessment: Essay
4. Assessment: Reflect on your marks

The real struggle was reducing my engagement levels (My wife was very understanding but I did end up spending a few nights reading and commenting into the early hours). I am now sold on the Connectivist theory and hope to share this with academics at my work.

I am looking forward to this mooc as well

Thanks for reading – feel free to comment