Inspired by topical discussions on the diversity, complexity and uniqueness of Learning Technologist roles, Daniel Scott<\/a> (Nottingham Trent University) and I recently invited the ALTC community to share their stories of becoming a \u2018Learning Technologist\u2019 in all its guises and across a range of educational contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In-conjunction with ALT, a short questionnaire was created to capture the community\u2019s stories. Working with Chris Melia<\/a> (University of Central Lancashire), we have now pulled together these stories and are presenting them as a series of ALT blog posts entitled: \u201cWhat makes a Learning Technologist?\u201d. Submissions were made anonymously and credited where necessary \u2013 we are only publishing those who have given us permission to do so. Even if participants did not what to have their story published via the blog, we encouraged them to consider completing the form so we could capture the breadth of journeys to becoming a Learning Technologist. We hope this will prove a valuable source of information for the ALT community, that aims to articulate the often-debated, ambiguous and multi-faceted role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Association for Learning Technology (ALT) defines Learning Technology as the broad range of communication, information and related technologies that can be used to support learning, teaching and assessment. Our community is made up of people who are actively involved in understanding, managing, researching, supporting or enabling learning with the use of Learning Technology. We believe that you don\u2019t necessarily need to be called \u2018Learning Technologist\u2019 to be one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the third installment (out of four) in the \u201cWhat makes a Learning Technologist?\u201d blog series. In the first post<\/a> Daniel Scott explored the plethora of job titles we often see associated with being a Learning Technologist and in the second post <\/a>Karoline Nanfeldt looked at the career paths taken by Learning Technologists (LTs). As with all these blog posts we often use direct quotations from the submissions and where participants have asked not to be named these are indicated as anonymous quotes. In this third post we examine the \u201cduties\u201d that LTs take on in the course of their work and if there is one thing you can be sure of it\u2019s that the role of a learning technologist is as varied as the environments we work in and technologies we work with. However from my analysis of the data, gathered from the 33 Learning Technologists who kindly submitted the information, emerged very clear categorisation of duties. The categories were coded with Atlas.ti from the text submissions provided by the original survey with the codes linked to the original submitted text. After an initial coding, some codes were merged to get to the current 16, for example some respondents commented on their leadership role in an area and some in their role as managers, but ultimately these two were combined into one group to indicate a duty which involves the oversight of others (either formally within a clearly defined team in one department or informally across a more dispersed environment). Run the TEL team within our Learning & Teaching Enhancement department<\/em> <\/p>\n Duncan MacIver<\/em> <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Leadership role developing blended learning across a school<\/em> <\/p>\n Anonymous<\/em> <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In some cases codes were split, for example \u2018systems training\u2019 originally included the development of supporting materials, but it was clear that some participants saw these as separate duties and so they were split. mainly involves delivering workshops, producing support material and working with individuals<\/em> <\/p>\nAnonymous<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The chart below provides a visual representation of the codes and how often they appeared as codes in the submissions (as a percentage of the total number of code appearances).<\/p>\n\n\n As might be expected, \u201clearning system\u201d support was clearly one of the most prevalent duties undertaken by the LTs as part of the role and almost all of the submissions indirectly referred to learning technologies at some point, but this category is specifically where a Learning Technologist has indicated that this \u201ctechnical support\u201d forms part of their duties. Provide ‘helpdesk’ support for staff and students using Canvas, Pebblepad and Panopt<\/em>o<\/p>\nEmily Armstrong<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n troubleshoot for any staff member experiencing technical difficulties with university systems<\/em> <\/p>\nLucy-Ann Pickering<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The ways in which support was accessed varied and included a range of mechanism such as by email, phone, face to face and virtual helpdesks (including formal IT support ticketing systems), but in all cases they were providing some technical support. Closely behind \u2018systems support\u2019 was \u2018systems training\u2019. This duty was categorised based on where participants had clearly indicated that they ran or developed training for \u2018learning systems\u2019. This does not include any submissions where the participant made reference to running workshops relating to pedagogic use of systems and technologies as these were categorised separately, but it may be that some submissions relating to \u2018training\u2019 do in fact include pedagogic discussion but the submitted data didn\u2019t specify this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it is very clear that pedagogical support is a considerable part of the role of the Learning Technologist. From my own experience this is often a unique aspect of the role, able to bridge the gap between technology and pedagogic practice, making it so much more than a system support or training role and this is supported by some of the data. Advising on (sic) issues related to digital pedagogy<\/em><\/p>\nAnonymous<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n distance learning pedagogy, processes and production<\/em><\/p>\n Madeline Paterson <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In some cases there was specific reference to teaching on PGCAP\/PGCERT courses, and as such these were coded separately but were also coded to pedagogy. I now also run a PGCert module for all our new academics with a strong focus on the link between technologies and pedagogic innovations <\/em><\/p>\nAnonymous<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It is also worth noting here that I also separated out the development of \u2018guides & resources\u2019 as a separate code because the data indicated that some LTs were developing resources and guides to support technical systems and\/or pedagogic development, but may not always be involved in support or delivery per se. Guidance for colleagues in their use, guidance for colleagues in the creation of e-learning content<\/em> <\/p>\nAnonymous<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n One code that I hadn\u2019t anticipated that would appear quite so often was the \u201cconsultancy\u201d duty. Initially this was coded only where a participant specifically referred to themselves in that role, but it became clear that the learning technologist acts as a consultant in a formal and informal capacity both within and beyond their own institution. TEL consultant for private ed tech company<\/em><\/p>\nMatt East<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n advising on the pedagogically-underpinned use of technology to enhance the student experience<\/em> <\/p>\nChris Melia<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n acting as a consultant on and supporting the creation of online degrees<\/em> <\/p>\nVicky Brown<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n consult with schools, departments and teams <\/em><\/p>\nDaniel Scott<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Another surprise for me was the prevalence of the \u201ccontent development\u201d aspect of the role. In all of my own experiences of writing job specs, recruiting and working with learning technologists I have often avoided including the \u201ccontent developer\u201d role within the duties. This is for a couple of reasons, firstly because it would not be feasible to provide enough learning technologists for the potential content development needs of a large institution and secondly I have always thought it best longer term that as an academic I should be responsible for sourcing and developing my own \u2018content\u2019 and having the skills to do so increases my own capacity to provide enriched learning experiences. However, I am conscious that there are many academic colleagues who just do not have the skills necessary to develop some of the content they may be seeking to as part of their teaching and so having the expertise of a \u201ccontent developer\u201d can be of tremendous value to individuals, departments and institutions and so \u2018content developer\u2019 includes both the role which makes resources but also the role which helps academic colleagues to create those resources. supporting academic colleagues in the development of high quality online learning materials<\/em> <\/p>\nChris Melia<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n eLearning development using Articulate software, screen-casting using Camtasia<\/em> <\/p>\nAnonymous<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n development of online learning and teaching materials<\/em> <\/p>\nAnonymous<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Content development was separated from learning design as a duty due to the fact that learning design often refers to: a range of activities associated with better describing, understanding, supporting and guiding pedagogic design practices and processes<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nopen.ac.uk<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n If I had combined the \u2018content developer\u2019 and \u2018learning design\u2019 codes it would actually equate to a significant part of a Learning Technologist role, but going through the coding process I think it is right that they are separate, as it is clear that some LTs undertake the creation of granular content (content development) and some have a more holistic \u201clearning design\u201d role which more broadly oversees the development of a whole module\/unit as part of a larger learning experience, however I recognise that the lines are blurred here. learning design \/ course design <\/em><\/p>\nRoss Ward<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Analysis, ID, Storyboarding, Development, Design<\/em> <\/p>\nCraig Campbell<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n online course design work<\/em> <\/p>\nAnonymous<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It was never really my intention to present each code in detail and so before this post becomes a victim of TL;DR<\/a>, I just want to explore a couple more code areas which really stood out for me. The first of these is \u2018Systems Procurement\u2019 – I was genuinely surprised how few respondents indicated their involvement in the purchase of \u2018learning systems\u2019. This seems to be a huge oversight on the part of institutions not to fully engage with their LT community during the procurement process. It may be of course that because procurement processes do not take place very often participants just neglected to include this in their duties (I am hoping this is the case). And finally, I wanted to end this post focussing on the category which highlights the \u201cdevelopment\u201d of learning technologists. Within the data there were no specific examples where anyone indicated that undertaking formal qualifications or training were part of their duties e.g. CMALT (bearing in mind that I was specifically looking at data submitted in the roles section of the survey). I wonder if this is because it\u2019s not always necessarily considered a \u201cduty\u201d? From my own experience I know a number of colleagues who have completed postgraduate studies in digital education \/ TEL \/ Multi-media whilst being in learning technologist roles and so it is highly probable that other LTs have also undertaken formal development like this. However, what is more apparent is that respondents engaged in lots of informal development through \u2018Networking\u2019 and \u2018Keeping Up to Date\u201d (although with the latter it was not always clear how this was being achieved). For example one anonymous participant clearly indicated their role in \u201cAppraising authoring tools, horizon scanning in relevant areas\u201d <\/strong>and a few put in terms such as \u201cstaying\/keeping up to date\u201d. \u2018Networking\u2019 as a duty was merged to a single code and refers to both internal organisational formal groups \u201crepresenting the team on relevant groups and committees in the University\u201d <\/strong>and informal \u201cFostering communities of practice to share innovative approaches\u201d <\/strong>as well as networking more widely beyond the institution such as \u201cspeaking at events\u201d <\/strong>and \u201ccollaborating and liaising with colleagues at (named external organisation)\u201d.<\/strong> Reading through the submissions to undertake the coding was a really insightful process, firstly because initially there appeared to be a wider range of codes (I started out with about 25 codes) but as I was able to merge codes the story of the duties undertaken by LTs began to emerge. It would be a very interesting exercise to compare participants original job descriptions with the results of this survey data to see the extent to which these codes overlapped or were in anyway different – perhaps a little project for the future? Although this is a limited dataset, it is nonetheless a really useful insight into the duties carried out by those in Learning Technologist roles. If you didn’t get a chance to complete the survey then please feel free to add your own experiences and thoughts in the comments section of this blog post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Closing thought:<\/strong> You may like to consider to what extent do your \u201cduties\u201d as a Learning Technologist fit into the sixteen coded categories identified in this blog post? Are there any duties you carry out as an LT that aren\u2019t represented by the sixteen codes – please tell us in the comments. Emily Armstrong; Sonya McChristie; Duncan MacIver; Tom Buckley; Matt East; Craig Campbell; Madeline Paterson; Teresa MacKinnon; Richard Oelmann; Sarah; Leanne Fitton; Ross Ward; Ros Walker; Vicky Brown; Rae Bowdler; Simon Wood; Daniel Scott; Andy Tattersall; Rachel Hartshorne; Chris Melia; Lucy-Ann Pickering <\/p>\n\n\n\n The final blog post of this series (4 of 4) will explore some of the associated challenges and ‘best bits’ of the \u2018Learning Technologist\u2019 role. It is expected to be published in March 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n Setting the scene<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Contributors consented to display name<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Upcoming blog post<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Simon Thomson is Director of the Centre for Innovation in Education at the University of Liverpool and an Editor for the ALT Journal – Research in Learning Technology, @digisim<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n