Hi,

and welcome to the Holyrood’s LT blog. The intention is for me and Chris to post regular updates on our work, on the way learning tech is being used in the campus and around the university. And anything else we’d like to share really… We’ve both been in post for a relatively short time, so we’re constantly discovering new and interesting stuff.

One of the tools I’m the most upbeat about right now is Pebble Pad. A few people have been using it around the campus, in art and design and dance pedagogy for example. It’s a really straightforward platform for creating portfolios and blogs. We’ve been supporting the use of PebblePad in MHSES and COL. Easy to set up and manage, we’ve been seeing some great posts already from MHSES Msc students, integrating text, images and videos. Students can keep their portfolios long after they have left University, making this a really useful tool for them to show off their work as they enter the job market. If you are looking for an easy blogging platform for your students, get in touch and we’ll show you what it can do for your course, and set it up for you.

We’ve also been working on course design, looking at the structure of feeder courses for Mscs in History, Classics and Archaeology. Working with the programme team, we’re thinking about how to maximise engagement, diversify assessments and foster learning communities for online students. If you would like to talk about the online side of your courses, or are looking to develop a new course with a strong online component, come and talk to us about how we can help. Michael Gallagher in Digital Education is working on a 10 week online course about online teaching and we were fortunate enough to sit on the taught pilot. He reaffirms the importance of presence online – for learners and teachers – and the central place assessment and feedback should take in course design and delivery.

Finally, I gave a very short talk at the conference for the European Maturity Model for Blended Learning, explaining where Digital Services can provide guidance and support for the use of technology in learning, to help you be as creative as want to be in running your courses, and keep delivering teaching of the highest standard. If you’re having trouble sleeping, you can watch a 15 minute video of the talk here. The symposium was really well-attended, and was focused on the importance of embedding blended learning in the course design process. Reminded me that technology alone doesn’t make blended learning, and that you don’t always need technology to blend your teaching…