Technology Enhanced Learning

This Take5 is brought to you by Nikita Bridgeman from Sheffield Hallam University. After being inspired by a gift-giving phrase she kept hearing on TikTok, Nikita has developed an inclusive approach to guided independent study to meet the needs of our diverse student populations and hopefully inspire a love of learning. Introduction: But what should I do – and why? One of the biggest challenges I think we all face as educators is trying to encourage learners to engage with independent study outside of the classroom; whether this is to cement their understanding of class taught concepts, revise for an […]

This blog post is brought to you by  Jasmine Snowden (University of Southampton) Heidi Singleton and Debbie Holley (Bournemouth University). Jasmine is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Southampton with experience across Children’s and Adolescents Mental Health Settings (CAMHS), including inpatient, community and eating disorders. Heidi is a Senior Lecturer at Bournemouth University and has over twenty years of teaching experience and children’s nursing experience. Debbie’s research interests are in  immersive, virtual and augmented realities to enhance the student experience, inside and outside the formal classroom. From this piece, we hope readers gain some insights into using 360 […]

“The world of simulation and immersive learning technologies is developing rapidly and in parallel to the existing and predicted future requirements of health and care on a global scale”.  [Enhancing education, clinical practice and staff wellbeing. A national vision for the role of simulation and immersive learning technologies in health and care HEE, 2020] This  #Take 5 reflects upon ways in which paramedic students responded to a compassionate pedagogical approach to debriefing groups after a high intensity simulation experience. Their experience through changing the ambience of the debrief transformed their session from one where students reported anxiety, insecurity where lecturing […]

This #Take5 is brought to you from Dr Katharine Jewitt, Researcher and Associate Lecturer at The Open University and ALDinHE’s  wonderful Administrator and Web Developer (AKA Technical Wizard). Artificial Intelligence, and ChatGPT, constitute a phenomenal technological advancement in transforming traditional systems of education, enabling us to radically rethink the way we teach and learn. ChatGPT is driving an education revolution. It’s here to stay but leads to some big questions. This post explains what ChatGPT is and how to use it; what we can do about it, current challenges and potential future applications. Read on to learn more about Chat […]

This #Take5 is brought to you from our very own Lee Fallin. Lee has been exploring and playing with this AI technology for some time now – and we asked him to share his insights with the wider LD community. So – read on – and let us all join the conversation about what these revolutionary techs mean for our students and for us.  If it’s all about the ChatBots: What about Learning Development? This blog post will muse on the ‘rise of AI’ and what this means for Learning Development. I am not an expert, but I have spent much […]

This #Take5 is brought to you from Julia Reeve – and it is a beautifully detailed and thoughtful look at  LEGO® Serious Play®. Julia Reeve is a National Teaching Fellow based in Leicester who works in diverse educational settings including Further, Higher, prison and community education. Her practice focuses on building confidence, connection and creative thinking via imaginative, multisensory learning. If you’ve never attended a LEGO® Serious Play® session yourself – please, please read on.   Setting the scene My name is Julia Reeve, I’m an educational consultant and part-time lecturer in the Faculty of Business & Law at De Montfort University, Leicester. I’m […]

Bringing development opportunities to the masses  This #Take5 post is brought to you from Dr Lee Fallin a regular tweeter and learning developer based at the University of Hull. Lee loves all things digital, and uses this #Take5 post to reflect on his journey from MOOC consumer to MOOC producer. I first learned about Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) at the 2013 ALDinHE Conference hosted at the University of Plymouth. This was *just* as MOOCs were emerging as a popular means of accessing learning online. MOOCs are designed to support unlimited participation and open access by delivering learning through online […]

This month’s #Take5 is brought to you from Daisy Abbott an interdisciplinary researcher and research developer based in the School of Simulation and Visualisation at The Glasgow School of Art. Daisy experiments with game-based learning – and has created a novel approach to teaching research skills. Research: Mapping and Pathfinding My name is Daisy Abbott, I’m a researcher in game-based learning and teacher of postgraduates at the School of Simulation and Visualisation at The Glasgow School of Art. Join me on my quest to navigate the dangerous lands of teaching Research Skills… Keywords: Research skills, academic skills, higher order thinking skills, […]

In this blog article, we will be sharing the results of our research into student engagement with online learning and which virtual educational tools are preferred by staff and students at the University of Exeter. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, we, as well as all the teaching world, had to rapidly assimilate new online technologies and learning materials, in order to carry out online teaching. Yet, some have proved more popular and engaging than others. This is what we wanted to research: what do staff and students have to say about the online learning tools, and how are […]

This #Take5 blog is brought to you from Debbie Holley and David Biggins, two researchers from Bournemouth University who are interested in the digital experiences of students, with a focus on digital wellbeing and support. Mind the gap “Be more mindful about the situation, be more kind”. Advice to academic staff from an undergraduate student. “Be better at supporting students who need help or who are behind” “Be more understanding especially with non-visible disabilities and health issues!” This blog post reports on a piece of work we carried out in May-June 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic where we asked students […]