2022 The Age of Ultra and the start for digital badges and short courses

This post is to help me reflect on some work that has recently passed and to help me make sense of my role including what worked and what didn’t. The arrival of Ultra I was fortunate to be involved in the Learn Ultra Project to roll out Learns updated UI called (drum roll) Ultra. Now […]

Digital Badges, not just a pretty picture

Digital badges are back! They never went away I hear you say and yes? Of course not but we did enter an odd phase were badges were being issued for anything or everything (I like to refer to this era as the ‘Oprah Winfrey’ era). So we all got badges and the value of a […]

Learn Ultra: the continuously evolving product

The whispers are true, change is happening and after 10 years of looking “clunky”, Learn will start to change from June 28th. Ultra has been on the tips of our tongues for years, we have watched as others boldly go where no VLE has gone before whilst observing the upgrade aftermath in community forums and […]

My Hybrid Reflections (not yours!)

19 months ago the thought of me staying at home for 23hrs for months would have terrified me, however we got out routine sorted which helped a lot, this included Joe Wicks 0900, BoJo presser at 1700 (do this but don’t do this), becoming at P2 teacher 1330-1600 (elbow pads in the post), family walk […]

Michael & Myles Learning Tech Podcast: the story so far

3 years ago, I was working on a project with colleagues from all over the institution. It was focused on the delivery on micro-accreditation courses on a MOOC platform and my role was to figure out and support the technology we could use to deliver teaching at scale. Sounds fun! And it was however one […]

Home Working is where the stand up desk doesn’t fit?

The new normal, hybrid, fusion, flexible or whatever you want to call the change in working conditions we are starting a new phase where employees have worked at home for 15 months and employers have worked at home for 15 months too. Nothing has broke and we still are productive however are we all happy? […]

Comply to Compliance

A few years ago the sounds of piloting new software was pretty exciting and still is however one thing has changed in my job is ensuring we are compliant with numerous layers of regulations, standards and policies. The list is long and can be complicated depending on the service your looking to pilot however it […]

Is teaching lost in centrally supported technology

Something I am sure all LTs and IS peeps will have noticed this year is that due to the pandemic adoption of centrally supported IS tools have grown. In some cases, tool growth has been larger than ever expected (causing a slight cost headache) and some tools less so but we have seen staff and […]

Plate Spinning: a reflection on the past 13 months

It’s been a hard year and to be honest and personal it’s been a mixed year of anxiety and pride. I think my early pandemic optimism (or naivety) has been eroded over time via 5pm briefings, attention grabbing headline, confusion, politicisation of everything and anything. On sunday 8th March 2020 I sat in a packed […]

Online Proctoring: what came first, the chicken or the egg?

Myself and Karen Howie have been working on a paper regarding online proctoring and whether the technical solutions currently in the market are fit for purpose. When I say fit I mean do they meet the huge amount of variation in exam practise used at the institution, can they cater for varying numbers of students, […]

Author: mblaney