In December 2011, Loughborough College applied for and won an LSIS bid under the theme Improving teaching and learning through Technology. This blog aims to give an overview of the project including the intended outcomes and a short evaluation.
Project need
There is a need for teaching staff to make greater use of technology in teaching and learning in order to improve access to courses, improve the motivation of learners and deliver courses more efficiently. Prior to the project teaching staff relied on the skills of the learning technologists in the organisation to help develop blended learning resources. It was hoped that this project will enable the curriculum staff to become more self sufficient and confident in the use of online technologies to develop innovative teaching and learning resources. It was to build on the current work of SLCs and E-Guides to develop staff to use the potential of technology in order to deliver flexible, cost effective provision to learners.
The aim of the project was to create and implement an innovative model where teaching staff are developed to become technology champions and become an expert in a particular area of learning technology, as opposed to the traditional ‘top down’ model from a central support area. We hoped to improve skill level rather than relying on a small number of eLearning experts to support this. A second aim was to improve efficiency and empower the tutors to take control of their development.
Project outline
A ‘bottom up’ staff development model was devised by the learning technology staff at Loughborough College. Over a 10-12 week period, curriculum staff members who expressed an interest in the project were paired up with ‘experts’ in the field to be trained intensively in the technology of their choice.
An outline of how the staff development model was put into place, with the full resources available to view here.
The final technologies explored were;
- Adobe Connect
- Quia and Hotpotatoes
- Quizzes for formative assessment – Qwizdom and Peerwise
- Communication through Moodle
- Spreadsheet software
- Google Docs
- Mahara
- Podcasting
- Screencasting
During this period there were many contact sessions include two group meetings, three one hour sessions with the expert and a one hour session with an accessibility expert. Additional involvement in the project was to be spent investigating the technology and its potential uses to improve teaching and learning. To support this process, staff members were required to keep a blog, as an on-going reflection of their learning. The supporting ‘experts’ had access to this blog and engaged in on-going commentary to support and extend the learning.
Project evaluation
Overall the model worked really well with both ‘experts’ and curriculum staff feeling as those progress had been made and knowledge had been shared. Ideally we would have had a longer time period to extend the staff development, to include the addition of a buddy system to transfer the knowledge gained to a wider audience but this is something to be considered in the future. A more detailed evaluation can be found in this document.