I have been involved in digital education for nearly ten years, and have worked in a variety of settings — from the charity sector to the NHS, and since 2020, in higher education.
My first exposure to creating online learning came in 2013. At the time, I was working as a face-to-face trainer in the charity sector, and I was asked to assist with the conversion of face-to-face learning materials into online courses. The aim of the programme was to reduce the amount of face-to-face training that volunteers were required to attend by providing elements of pre-training which could be completed prior to induction or specialist training.
I found this experience to be fun, challenging, and involving. It appealed to me for many reasons. The e-learning I had personally experienced up to this point was poor – nothing more than click next slide show-style presentations with little interactivity and no pedagogical merit. I relished the opportunity to create something that was truly worthy of being called ‘learning’. The final product I created was an in-depth safeguarding children and vulnerable adults course produced in Articulate Storyline (v1). I used storytelling and vignettes from real life cases to bring home the relevance and importance of the teaching, along with considered questioning and reflective activities. I created custom characters and other graphics to enhance the course, and used workarounds to overcome limitations of the software – which did not include diverse or relevant characters, and did not natively allow for different assessment tracks according to staff role or context.
This project prompted me to consider digital education as a full-time career, and I subsequently moved to a role as a senior learning technologist within the NHS. I worked for the Christie NHS foundation trust for over five years. During this time, alongside professional colleagues, I developed online learning materials for the new national PET/CT training programme for radiologists, radiographers and other allied health professionals. The materials I was able to create were interactive, professional and educationally sound. I line managed a small team of learning technologists, and eventually became interim manager of the TEL team for six months after our previous manager moved on.
Whilst working at the Christie, I completed my MA in Digital Technologies, Communication and Education part time over three years at the University of Manchester; this further cemented my pedagogical knowledge and exposed me to different methods of teaching and theories of knowledge, and the higher education context.
As part of my role, I was involved in partnership work with the University, creating online resources for their specialist nursing Master’s modules. This exposure to higher education through work and study, an area I had been interested in for some time, prompted me to seek a role in a university.
The Covid-19 pandemic, while a terrible thing in almost all respects, expanded opportunities for digital learning professionals and opened up the job market due to a greater willingness of institutions to consider remote working. With this in mind, I applied for roles in Universities from Manchester to Glasgow, eventually accepting a role as a Digital Learning Developer with the Durham Centre for Academic Development at Durham University, where I now work.
Digital learning development at Durham has up to now been on a small scale, given that there are just two developers in post working across the university. This is about to expand, with a programme to introduce 18 new developers to directly support faculties. I have played a part in laying the groundwork for this expansion, assisting with job description design, policy development, and ways of working related to digital learning development. I successfully applied for the grade 8 role as a Senior Digital Learning Developer within DCAD, and I will start this new role in June 2022.
My own personal development has been enhanced in this role, both in the accumulation of new skills, and in the dissemination of good practice and pedagogy. I am a member of our DCAD podcast team, Perplexagogy, and have achieved AFHEA status based on my work at Durham. I am also working on a PhD proposal focusing on immersive virtual reality in higher education.
I see CMALT as a way of validating my practice, and recognising my professional achievements and impacts. I am at the point where I feel I have done ‘enough’ in a sufficiently wide range of areas to be considered for this accreditation.
Qualifications
2006 – BA Communication & Mass Media, Glasgow Caledonian University
2020 – MA (with Distinction) Digital Technologies, Communication & Education, University of Manchester
2021 – AFHEA (Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Relevant career history
May 2012 – August 2015 – Locality Trainer (West Midlands and Wales) – Victim Support
September 2015 – October 2020 – Senior Learning Technologist – The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
August 2019 – February 2020 – Interim Technology Enhanced Learning Manager – The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
October 2020 – May 2022 – Digital Learning Developer – Durham University
From June 2022 – Senior Digital Learning Developer – Durham University