New job, new skills and more exciting technology #23ThingsEdUni

I’m now continuing my career progression into supporting virtual learning environments with my new role as Learning Technology Support Officer with Education Design and Engagement (EDE).

The new position is an ideal opportunity for me to apply my digital and practical skills as well as my technical knowledge in supporting users and technology within teaching and learning environments at the University.

Having only started on Monday I feel I will fit in very well as I’m already seeing similarities to the role from my previous secondment with Digital Learning Applications and Media (DLAM). I’m pleased also to find out that I will still have some interaction with my DLAM colleagues – working with them on certain virtual tools that are in use.

I’m joined, as a newbie to EDE, with four other new colleagues who all come from very different professional backgrounds. I find this quite exciting as it shows how diverse the position is going to be in the ever-changing world of learning technology.

It’s great to go through the induction and training process as a group, where we are able to support each other and work through tasks. As we aren’t in the office, our regular Team catch-ups are a great sanity check and a place to decompress after all the information that is being presented to us. We have also been made to feel very welcome and are gradually being introduced to new services and training.

I have just recently started the “23 Things List” – this is the University’s digital knowledge program that is self-directed with the purpose of exposing me to a range of digital tools to help with my personal and professional development. Similar to Linkedin Learning, I like how you are able to take the training and tasks at your own pace. By joining this program I’m hoping to strengthen my digital skills and even learn some new ones! I’ve just completed ‘Thing 1 – Introduction’ and ‘Thing 2 – Blogging’ (hence the new post).

Having not much of a presence on social media (something I’m working on – see shameless plug: my Linkedin profile) I wasn’t aware of the University’s ‘Social Media Guidelines for Staff and Researchers’. I do however find it useful to reference as there is a lot more to a social media presence than you might think!

“Thing 3” and “Thing 4” will cover Digital Footprint and Security – a couple of great topics to add to my skill set!

(Image from http://www.23things.ed.ac.uk/ by The University of Edinburgh)