Chief Executive’s Report

Tags:

Honorary Life Membership of ALT for Malcolm Read

Members will be pleased to note that at the ALT AGM on 7 September, ALT President Carol Higgison presented Malcolm Read, who is Executive Secretary to JISC, with ALT Honorary Life Membership, in recognition of Malcolm’s outstanding and sustained contribution to the advancement of ALT’s aims for the development of learning technology in a national and international context.

Malcolm Read receiving honorary life membership from Carol Higgison
Malcolm Read receiving honorary life membership from Carol Higgison

 

ALT’s comments on HEFCE July Strategy Statement

The HE White Paper and HEFCE’s “Opportunity, choice and excellence in higher education”  [PDF] were published over the summer. The White Paper is silent on technology in learning (its focus is on the long term shape of the HE system in England). In contrast, the HEFCE Strategy Statement has a couple of helpful references to learning technology, with one of six HEFCE objectives for learning and teaching being: “To support the continuous improvement of teaching, learning and assessment, diverse forms and modes of provision, the effective utilisation of learning technologies and the increased accessibility and use of open educational resources.” Last week, by prior agreement with HEFCE, ALT submitted some comments on the Strategy Statement, which we have published on the ALT Open Access Repository.

The 2011 ALT Conferences

There is a full report from the 2011 ALT Conference in ALT News Online. Here I thank the whole of the Programme Committee for their efforts in making ALT-C 2011 a success, and, in particular:

  • the co-chairs – John Cook (London Metropolitan University) and Sugata Mitra (MIT Media Lab and Newcastle University);
  • those who volunteered for editorial and coordinating roles – James Clay (Gloucestershire College), Thom Cochrane (Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand), Juliet Culver (Open University), Laurence Habib (Oslo and Akerhus University College of Applied Sciences, Norway), Elizabeth Hartnell-Young (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria, Australia), David Hawkridge (University of Leicester and the Open University), Amanda Jefferies (Hertfordshire University), Mark Johnson (Bolton University), Matt Lingard (London School of Economics), Kia Ng (University of Leeds), Stevan Verjans (Open University of the Netherlands), Tina Wilson (The Open University).

ALT Trustees – election results, changes, and a farewell

ALT is governed by a board of 13 unpaid Trustees, nine of whom are elected by the membership as a whole (the other four are coopted), with three vacancies filled each year. We welcome Claire Donlan (from Middlesbrough College) who was elected unopposed as Vice Chair and who will be Chair from September 2012 and President from 2013. Martin Oliver (from the Institute of Education) is now Chair. He will become President in September 2012. Gilly Salmon (from the Universityof Southern Queensland) is now President of ALT. The other newly elected Trustees (who will each serve a three year term) are Matt Lingard (from LSE), and Alastair Clark (from NIACE). I place on record ALT’s thanks to retiring Trustees Linda Creanor (from Glasgow Caledonian University) and Nicola Whitton (from Manchester Metropolitan University): and to Carol Higgison (from the University of Bradford) who was ALT President in 2010/2011.

New appointments to each of our four operational committees

Earlier this year we issued an open call for expressions of interest in membership of ALT’s four operational committees.

Further Education Committee (chaired by David Dyet)

Ellen Lessner has been appointed Vice-Chair, and the following members have joined the committee:

  • Lillian Greenwood, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • Nick Jeans, Sero Ltd.
  • Timothy Osadiya, South East Essex 6th Form College
  • David Iain Scott, Dundee College, Scotland
  • Joan Walker, JISC RSC Scotland
  • Sarah Williams, Yale College, Wrexham, Wales

Membership Services Committee (chaired by Haydn Blackey)

Shirley Evans has been appointed Vice-Chair, and the following members have joined the committee:

  • Tom Franklin, Franklin Consulting
  • Kerr Gardiner, University of Glasgow, Scotland
  • Maura Mbunyuza-de Heer Menlah, University of South Africa
  • Neil Morgan, Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency

Publications Committee (chaired by Dick Moore)

Matt Lingard has been appointed vice-chair, and the following members have joined the committee:

  • Liz Bennett, University of Huddersfield (who will be joining the ALT News Online editorial team)
  • Frank Steiner, University of London Computing Centre (who will be joining the ALT News Online editorial team)
  • Joe Wilson, Scottish Qualifications Authority

Research Committee (chaired by John Cook)

Norbert Pachler has been appointed vice-chair, and the following members have joined the committee:

  • Brenda Bannan, George Mason University, USA
  • Anne-Marie Cunningham, University of Cardiff, Wales
  • Nigel Ecclesfield, LSIS
  • Rachel Harris, Inspire Research Ltd, Scotland
  • John Traxler, University of Wolverhampton.

For further details of the memberships of all our committees go to http://www.alt.ac.uk/about-alt/who-we-are/operational-committees.

Seb Schmoller

30/10/2011

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *