1c. Operational Issues: Supporting the deployment of learning technologies
Details
Requirement: Supporting the deployment of learning technologies
Statements about your involvement in supporting the deployment of learning technology might relate to providing technical and/or pedagogic support to teachers, advising on (or re-designing to take account of) technical and usability issues, developing strategies or policies, managing change, providing training or other forms of professional development, securing or deploying dedicated funding and so on, all within the context of the educational use of learning technology.
For evidence, you might include the overview section of a strategy document, meeting minutes, summaries of student feedback, testimonials or witness statements from other colleagues, for example.
Description and reflection
I've supported the online environment for the University of Southampton's part-time MA in ELT: Online for the past 6 years. This has involved being the primary technical contact for both the tutors and the students on the course. I also work closely with the teacher-developers who are updating the course to ensure that they are aware of the environment they are developing for, and create more technical resources myself to provide guidance to students.
At the start of this period I only had a relatively basic knowledge of Moodle, but have since developed my knowledge and skills for both development and maintenance of the system. I have enjoyed getting to know the students through the course and being a technical contact who can help with day-to-day problems they might have with studying online from a distance (often many thousands of miles). These problems range from missing or broken links to technical issues with student hardware which can impede their learning experience.
Some of the technical issues I come across are to do with student accounts or access problems. This can often involve troubleshooting between different email providers (particularly if students have their emails forwarded to personal accounts). These are particularly urgent, as with distance students they are not able to physically visit the campus, and the University's technical support services (iSolutions) operate phones at times which do not work well for students in very different timezones. Therefore, email support is often the only available option, and it is crucial that they can receive and read emails regarding the course.
I am also responsible for the day-to-day running of the course on a custom Moodle platform. The course currently has over 40 participants and I provide a first point of contact for any technical issues that they or the online tutors might have.
As well as the Online MA, the environment also hosts a shared space for the University's Modern Languages and Linguistics Distance PhD students. These students come to the University for their inductions, and part of this process includes a training session which I run. This is both to familiarise the students with the Moodle environment and to allow them to set up their own laptops to use VPN-based resources.
Evidence
"The students were also able to communicate directly with an educational technologist [myself] at the University who provided technical support to smooth socialisation into the e-learning community." (Baker and Watson, 2013:6)
Baker, W. and Watson, J. (2013). Mastering the online Master's: developing and delivering an online MA through a dialogic based framework. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, pp.1-14.
"Regarding the staff involved in the module...I have to acknowledge the prompt and helpful support I always received from the eLanguages Projects [Officer]." - Quote from student on the MA in ELT: Online.
"Hi Andrew, I think I finally sorted this out! Apparently it is a send-receive account now, I hope everything is back to normal now! Thank you for all your help!" - Quote from student on the MA in ELT: Online.