{"id":11581,"date":"2023-10-12T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=11581"},"modified":"2025-04-06T13:55:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T12:55:17","slug":"from-teacher-to-technologist-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/2023\/10\/from-teacher-to-technologist-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"From Teacher to Technologist\u00a0Week 5\/6"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The diary of a new Head of Learning Technologies in FE<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Isla Flood <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been back in college now for about a month.  We\u2019re lucky enough to have had our canteen and student spaces spruced up and college is buzzing.  We\u2019ve hit target and classes are full and college feels lively and purposeful.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first couple of weeks back I spent a lot of time shadowing my team across different campuses, yes that\u2019s right I can now issue a book in the library, know what happens in the student IT induction and solve a crime in our brilliant escape room style library induction! (all credit to Nei Phillips our very creative library assistant).  Our focus now is the college vision for digital elevation so last week I did my very first presentation at CMT (Central Management Team meeting?) I\u2019m still a noob in this role and am finding my feet so felt very nervous, so much so that I totally lost the plot with the slides (not very good for the new head of learning technologies) and may have uttered a minor swear but I think I got my message across.  My manager said I was funny, and funny is good right?  My aims are to enable people to use technology for the greater good, \u2018to make the world a better place\u2019, to help people to develop their digital skills, to increase accessibility and equity and to save people time.  Broad and bold,  I then set out the more focused plan which will use Jisc\u2019s Digital Discovery Tool results to start a staff wide self assessment on digital skills that we then support through a varied and engaging suite of development.  So yeah, that was quite big for me.  I am tackling a whole college at the moment and that feels huge.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week also saw the team and I (but mostly the team) very busy with Freshers week.  As a result I\u2019m now writing this with a runny nose and head cold from the inevitable freshers flu!  Freshers was fun.  Our brilliant enrichment team put together a freshers event per campus with lots of stalls from local and internal services and most importantly free food and drink.  Our team ran a BeatSaber VR competition which proved really popular, it was great to meet and engage with lots of students and spend time across sites with the team.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I met up online with Petra Hosey and Conrad Taylor, the elearning manager and technologies manager at City of Wolverhampton college and it was great to share ideas and ask questions.  I basically stalked them both online and harassed them on LinkedIn as I\u2019m really keen to get to know others in similar roles and have an informal forum where we can share good practice and help each other.  Watch out learning tech managers, I\u2019m sending out DMs daily and super keen to connect with others!  Hope I\u2019m not coming on too strong!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The diary of a new Head of Learning Technologies in FE I\u2019ve been back in college now for about a month.  We\u2019re lucky enough to have had our canteen and student spaces spruced up and college is buzzing.  We\u2019ve hit target and classes are full and college feels lively and purposeful.   In the first couple […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1499,9],"tags":[725,1920,2081,840,2079,2080,881,2082],"class_list":["post-11581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amplifyfe","category-a-week-in-the-life-of","tag-altc","tag-amplifyfe-2","tag-discovery-tool","tag-further-education","tag-head-of-learning-technology","tag-isla-flood","tag-jisc","tag-new-role"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1112\/2023\/10\/image1.gif?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11577,"url":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/2023\/10\/from-teacher-to-technologist\/","url_meta":{"origin":11581,"position":0},"title":"From Teacher to Technologist Week 1","author":"ALT","date":"5 October 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The diary of a new Head of Learning Technologies in FE Week 1\u00a0 Well not quite, let\u2019s go a little retrospective as I opted to start my new role before the holidays for a week just to get going. 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Yet it can be exclusive in its application of technology. From campus to campus within the same college group levels of access to technology can vary wildly. 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