Delivering Faculty-level leadership in learning technology is the continual aim of my role. This area has comprised a significant range of research, communications and activities, many of which are illustrated across this portfolio. Having initially been hired by Digital Education to provide Faculty-level leadership on behalf of a slightly resistant Faculty, I spent a significant amount of my first two years in the role demonstrating the value I could bring, and the difference that strategic leadership at Faculty level could make. As the Faculty came to appreciate this, so the case for bringing me directly into the Faculty and creating the role for me “from the inside” was made. In March 2022, I formally became part of the Faculty, and my new line manager commented:

“Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, we are thrilled to have been able to continue your role as our FLTL – you have been transformational in terms of support for DigiEd across the Faculty and I can’t imagine how we would cope without you now!”

To further justify and contextualise this advanced area, Evidence 1 in this area constitutes a testimony from my Faculty Teaching and Learning colleague, with whom I’ve carried out much of this research. Their perspective on my effectiveness and leadership, as well as their invaluable support, I feel well-illustrates the elements of change and potential for future Faculty development I have introduced.

Evidence 1:

Whilst I’m very grateful to have made myself – or, at least, my role – indispensable I have worked in technology long enough to know that such roles must continually prove themselves and their efficacy. The provision of such examples ensures that considerations around my professional values, such as the below, are a regular part of my work. To elaborate upon the types of work, and practices of these values, that have drawn these commendations of my leadership, and to explore the ways in which I have conducted this, below, I reflect upon how my personal experience and interests influence the ways in which my Faculty-level Leadership in Learning Technology fully embodies each of the ALT Core Principles and Values.

I include a range of evidence reflecting the ways in which I act in this capacity within my Faculty, within my institution, within networks of Digital Education Specialists, and in the wider Higher Education network. For each principle and value, I explore not only how I feel I have embodied it in my work to date, but also how I look to infuse my work with these considerations in future.

ALT Core Principles and Values

1. A commitment to exploring and understanding the interplay between technology and learning:

My first role in IT, many years ago, saw me working in a call centre for an international company with numerous clients across a vast range of industries. I conducted second line support, flipping between supporting platforms for accountancy, for controlling tube trains, for customer service management, for monitoring broadcast streams, for deploying engineers, amongst many other purposes, depending on the calls that came in. To enable me to orientate myself as swiftly as possible on each call, I always focused on the purpose of the platform I was working with, rather than the interface itself. This allowed me to easily understand the issues at hand – an engineer struggling to receive a signal requires their tech to work in a very different way from the broker whose account is missing a permission.

This mindset is one I’ve held tight to as I’ve moved through working in learning technology – when I began as a learning technologist, it enabled me to support the student who couldn’t understand TurnItIn with compassion and calm, and to deduce what the experimental academic might have inadvertently pasted into Moodle. Thinking about how, and why, students, academics and professional services staff use teaching and learning platforms is the root of not only my support of these platforms, but my strategic direction of them, too.

In March 2020, I collaborated with colleagues from Arena and Digital Education on the production of Inspirations for Digital Engagement Activities – explorations of the possibilities of technology for learning, designed to inspire academics looking for fresh ways of teaching, learning and assessing their students. Evidence 2 is a link to this project, and its contents. IDEAs has become an invaluable resource that continues to be promoted both centrally, and outside our institution, and I have participated in several workshops demonstrating the use of this resource. I have recently been promoting this resource again across my Faculty, as, now Emergency Remote Teaching has passed, the less compulsory technology has left some space for the more exploratory and experimental. With our student research illustrating that A&H students are interested in trying different types of digital activity to facilitate their teaching and learning, I hope to further inspire academics with this resource, and to run a Faculty-level workshop later in 2022 Evidence 3 is a recent blog post promoting the use of this resource at Faculty level.

Learning is the consequence, we hope, of the implementation of these platforms, but our relationship with the interplay between technology and learning varies depending on who, and where we are in the teaching and learning process, and the ways in which our discipline or department interacts with these platforms. Contextual understanding of the ways in which learning is supplemented, delivered, created and assessed is in constant flux, and hugely nuanced. Continuously discussing, communicating, and observing the use and development of technology for learning, in combination with the evaluations of learning we receive from the academic, student and professional staff viewpoints ensures that I always have the appropriate context for leadership in digital education.

In the hope of facilitating this understanding not only for myself, but amongst my Faculty, I facilitated a session supporting the implementation of the institutional policy of Continuous Module Dialogue (CMD). This requires academics to ask their students pertinent questions regarding their learning and experience throughout the year [Evidence: Screenshot, and link to session recordings]. The questions academics choose to ask, and the answers students choose to give, using Mentimeter as a method of anonymously responding, will add just such context to my work, as well as to the rest of the Faculty.

The next element of my iterative Faculty research will, as above, use the methodology of Continuous Module Dialogue (CMD) to assess the academic experience of delivering this – the first instance starting now, at the beginning of term, the second, mid-term, and a final session at the end, again, using Mentimeter. I am keen to explore the effectiveness of this method for our own evaluative purposes, exploring the learning curve academics may or may not go through, depending on their responses, and informing our Faculty-level response to the institution regarding the future refinements and requirements for this policy. Evidence 4 contains a summary of this event, including recordings of demonstration and suggestions for good practice.

By outwardly supporting the CMD policy, and encouraging colleagues to not only participate, but to evaluate and reflect upon it themselves, I hope that I illustrate my commitment to the interplay between technology and learning, encouraging them to work with me to resolve any issues arising during this process, to further enhance their course, or to address workflows in teaching, learning and assessment.

Evidence:

2. Link to the IDEAs Resource [I am included in the credits at the end of the page]:

https://reflect.ucl.ac.uk/ideas/ideas/

3. Link to blog post promoting IDEAs to the Faculty:

https://reflect.ucl.ac.uk/abbiwrites/2022/09/21/in-need-of-fresh-ideas/

4. Link to the blog post summarising information and resources, as well as recordings from my facilitated session on Continuous Module Evaluation:

https://reflect.ucl.ac.uk/abbiwrites/2022/09/29/continuous-module-dialogue-session-3-for-ah-module-leads-and-teaching-admin/

2. A commitment to keep up to date with new technologies:

Whilst I reside in the Faculty, I retain close links with the central Digital Education team, including the Digital Futures team, who are responsible for testing new technologies at UCL, and take an active interest in the work they explore. These links have often enabled me to “join the dots” when someone asks about what’s possible, enabling me to put academics in touch with others already working with new technologies in separate areas, and other Faculties. Further, the wider community of learning technology specialists, and the networks I participate in, particularly via Twitter, allow me to put out “call-outs” for experiences from others’ practice across UK Higher Education with relative ease.

As my Faculty contains such a breadth of disciplines, specialist technology is continually developing in all areas. Whilst I do not support non-institutional specialist software myself, I am aware of the licences and platforms required across the Faculty, and endeavour to ensure that there is no unnecessary duplication, and that colleagues who work with similar technology have opportunities to collaborate and share experiences. A recent example included supporting a student group tasked with identifying a platform to assist Art students in capturing art and artists references during their “crit” sessions. This involved advising the students on key considerations when adopting new technologies, the complexities of bringing new technology in at departmental level, managing the workload, using the platform to support raising students’ digital skills, and the importance of accessibility in any platform used. Evidence 5 is an extract from the first contact with me from the academic supervising the project.

I also push myself to explore technologies that may become important to our teaching, and to our students. Whilst I was, personally, initially extremely resistant to NFT technology, for example, I could see it rapidly becoming of interest to art students, and noted that it was not an area particularly well-covered by the current curriculum, with limited understanding amongst colleagues. In January 2022 I pushed myself to start to explore web3, the blockchain, and NFTs, joining communities of international educators in the space, and examining the potential for spaces such as the Metaverse to impact our teaching and learning. As this technology continues to push its way under the edges of digital structures and practices, I believe I am increasingly well-placed to strategically advise and support academics and students alike around ways in which they might engage with, this new frontier of digital technology.

In August 2022, I participated in a Round Table for the Department of Greek & Latin Summer School, discussing the current and future possibilities of the Metaverse for teaching, and outlining the ethical and moral complexities of bringing this technology into the classroom. The session was fascinating, and student feedback was enthusiastic, whilst being appropriately nuanced and cautious. Evidence 6 is a screenshot of the agenda for this, confirming and contextualising my involvement.

On reflection, the pace with which new technology moves is so swift that roles such as mine need to consistently look to the edges of technology and ensure that, even if I am not the greatest expert, I am sufficiently aware of the constraints and benefits to advise and inform on next steps. Both projects evidenced here arose as a result of academics, familiar with my existing support and work, and willingness to explore possibilities for their programmes and students, and these have served as reminders that my approach to the day-to-day institutional platforms also creates the perception of my potential to support and discover the new, and future technologies.

Evidence:

5. First contact securing my involvement in the art crit platform project:

6. Screenshot of the scheduling for the Greek & Latin Summer School, including my participation in a round table on “Metaverse and the future of Homeric Studies”:

3. An empathy with and willingness to learn from colleagues from different backgrounds and specialisms:

Although I have enjoyed participating in learning tech groups such as the M25, as a newer-to-HE person, I sometimes found the existing spaces quite intimidating, difficult to network in, and focused on theory and research that I sometimes didn’t feel I had time to sufficiently invest in to participate. Together with Puiyin Wong, I co-created #EdTechOutlaws, an open group which aims to cast the widest possible net across UK HE digital education specialists, presuming no particular knowledge, or technical/academic background, and ensuring our topics are accessible, and community-driven. The topic of the month is presented and discussed in an informal, self-structuring, non-recorded online group. We looked to make space for the rants, the difficulties, the inequity and the complexities of EdTech, as much as the positives, the excellence, and the lessons learnt. This has felt like a more honest and reflective space, aligned with our day-to-day work, and it has truly helped me to encounter and listen to a wider experience, in terms of backgrounds, practice, and in terms of personal experience, than my own. Evidence 7 is a link to a post celebrating a year of #EdTechOutlaws – searching the hashtag itself on Twitter also illustrates our collective rather nicely.

Being able to openly discuss issues faced by other digital education specialists in other institutions helps me stay critical and aware of my own work. The impact on my Faculty-level work is that it prevents it from becoming too insular and self-referential: in my institution; the specific character of my Faculty might be said to be a little more rebellious, or suspicious of technology than others, and it would be easy to lean too far into that character. Contextualising my work to other colleagues in, say, other art schools, or language departments, ensures that I don’t allow attitudes to become excuses, or an empathy with frustrated colleagues to override requirements around policy in areas such as accessibility.

My Faculty has such a breadth of specialisms, and a variety of academic backgrounds, both traditional and non-traditional, and I endeavour to find spaces, whether through academic Twitter, presentations, Faculty events, or disciplinary conferences and publications to keep up with the types of research and teaching areas around, in order to better be able to facilitate their work. I find that the more I engage with the disciplines in my Faculty, the more enthusiastic and passionate I am about supporting the teaching and learning in that area. This is absolutely something I look to extend and continue, as the opportunity to be aware of, connect with, and listen to work at the cutting edge of such a variety of areas is one of the greatest elements of my role.

Finally, in this section, I would like to mention a particularly positive experience I had in being listened to myself by colleagues, and the impact this has had upon my work. Language-teaching colleagues with whom I have worked closely asked about ways in which they might create and present a toolkit for Recognising and including LGBTQ+ identities in language teaching. I was pleased to support this, and, as a member of this community myself, shared some reflections on my personal experience of this with language teaching. My colleagues asked if I would be willing to be further involved, to support, critique and comment on the toolkit, and I was very happy to do so. Whilst other members of this community, representative groups and stakeholders, and institutional specialists in the LGBTQ+ community were actively engaged with throughout, and thoroughly reviewed this, I made a concerted effort with my colleagues to be available for “complex” conversations, and to support the production of a toolkit that was as useful as possible. To date, this toolkit has been accessed over 2,700 times. Evidence 8 is a link to this toolkit, including directions to evidence of my involvement.

My involvement with this project was one of the first times that I had considered my personal identity as relevant in a professional context, and I deeply appreciated the generosity and care with which my colleagues approached, not only the project they were working on, but our interactions. The value of producing content for teaching and learning which is inclusive by design, and accessible to those who are not from within the backgrounds it aims to support has never been more apparent to me.

I hold this experience closely when considering how my work affects others from backgrounds different from my own, and look to include those from such backgrounds in such productive and generous ways wherever possible. This includes working with student reps, creating spaces for my target learners to respond either anonymously, or personally, to my work, and working with toolkits and frameworks both from my own institution, and the sector, to encompass the best possible practice.

Evidence:

7. Tweets celebrating a year of #EdTechOutlaws (posted by @Puiyin, June 2022):

https://twitter.com/Puiyin/status/1533093959387557892

8. Link to the language teachers’ LGBTQ+ Toolkit [I am featured in the creators’ video, and credited “Additional support and contribution: Abbi Shaw” at the end of the page]:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/publications/2021/jun/recognising-and-including-lgbtq-identities-language-teaching

4. A commitment to communicate and disseminate effective practice:

In terms of representation at local level, I manage the departmental Connected Learning Leads, representatives from each department in the Faculty who support and report on the use of teaching and learning technology on behalf of their department. This group, not necessarily technical, nor even enthusiastic in the use of technology, were invaluable during Emergency Remote Teaching for the purposes of communicating existing practice, and supporting the implementation of platforms such as Zoom, or the appearance of Moodle pages, but as the return to campus took hold, I encouraged the community to move into more practice-sharing, to provide a space for departments with different disciplines to enthuse about things that had been working well, or elements that they wished to take with them back into the classroom, as much as things they wish to leave behind.

The close working relationship I have been able to maintain with the CLLs has been invaluable, and they continue to attend any sessions I put on – such as the recent Module Tutor sessions – and to disseminate and amplify any communications, recommendations or research I’d like shared across departments. A core element of my work in 2022/23 will be to find ways to ensure these connections remain healthy and engaged, and to find ways to further them, whether by extending these networks further into departments, or working with my fellow FLTLs to create new ways of communicating and disseminating good practice across the institution.

Thinking further afield to institutional level, my Faculty-level research projects have enabled me to begin to create summaries of findings, and reflective work considering what I, and my Faculty have learnt from our research. I wrote a reflective piece on the Student Online Experience project my colleague and I created, which formed an asynchronous submission to the UCL Education Conference 2021. Evidence 9 is the link to this submission.

Writing this piece was a really productive exercise for me, and the discussion I was able to have with reference to it during the conference, and since, with colleagues from other Arts & Humanities faculties around the country, has added to my enthusiasm for conducting this type of research. I hope to create a similar piece for the 2023 conference, this time focusing on the benefits of conducting iterative research as a whole, and looking at how these mechanisms have informed and supported my practice (as discussed in Speciality Area 1).

A core part of my role is to represent effective, and in particular, discipline-specific effective practice with technology for teaching and learning into the central university Digital Education team. This has included recommending academics with a particular experience into central events, such as panels around hybrid teaching, and regular participation in our fortnightly Digital Education Faculty Liaison meetings, which include representatives across all faculties, and members of the Digital Education team. These meetings give me an opportunity to present current projects, interesting discoveries, and relevant findings further meetings with relevant central departments.

Presenting the results of my Academic Online Experience research to the Digital Education Faculty Liaison group led to an invitation to present to the central Teaching and Assessment Group. Evidence 10 illustrates my invitation to present, and an extract of the thanks I received for having done so. The latter meeting involved my presenting to Senior Leadership, which in turn led to further presentations at the highest Faculty level, including to Heads of Department. This sequence of opportunities resulted in a significantly improved understanding of my role, and my work, at senior Faculty level. I have since presented regularly regarding my research, and key updates, at the Joint Faculty Teaching Committee, and have earnt the trust and connections to request access as required to disseminate information to Heads of Department.

Finally, presenting at the RAISE conference in September 2022 was a fantastic experience, which has confirmed my interest in participating in such conferences. Evidence 11 is the session listing in the RAISE conference programme. Again, this opportunity to gain feedback on our research and to consider its relevance and room for influence in the wider sector was extremely motivating.

In 2022/23 I hope to present at further such events, and to look to contribute articles to relevant spaces, too. Historically there is little mechanism for sharing digital education practice from a Faculty-level perspective at my institution, and few examples of sharing research and practice from this level outside it, so I am grateful for the opportunity to explore ways of doing this, and also to bring, and discuss, the innovative, compelling work we do to and with the relevant disciplinary, digital and general areas of the higher education community.

Evidence:

9. Reflective asynchronous paper for UCL Education Conference 2022:

What do we take with us? Recommendations and reflections on research into Arts & Humanities students’ online experience. (Shaw, A. & Hansen, J., 2021) UCL Education Conference Papers. Available at: https://reflect.ucl.ac.uk/education-conference-2021/2021/03/06/86/ [Accessed: 3rd September 2022].

10. Arrangement (1) and thanks (2) for presentation to the UCL Teaching and Assessment Group (September 2021):

11. Session outline in the RAISE 2022 conference programme: