ELESIG webinars allow you to keep in touch with the latest learner experience research either by attending the events live or watching the recordings. Below are our upcoming webinars and those held in 2020/21. For webinars and events prior 2019, please see our Archive page. If you want to request or offer a webinar on a specific topic, please use our Contact form. We are particularly interested to hear from early career researchers and researchers outside of the UK.
Events/webinars 2020 – 2021
ALT ELESIG Webinar Series
We are pleased to announce our webinar series. The details of events can be found below:
ALT ELESIG Editor and Author Meeting Up
30th June, 2021 1-2pm
This event has gathered experienced editors/authors together to share their own editorial and publishing expertise and experiences as well as provide practical advice to writers.
Speakers
- Andy Townsend, University of Nottingham
- Brett Bligh, University of Lancaster
- Tunde Varga-Atkins and Dr Simon Thomson, University of Liverpool
- Michael Flavin, King’s College London
Andrew Townsend is Associate Professor in Educational Leadership at the University of Nottingham. His interests are primarily concerned with participatory models of research and educational change. This stems from an overarching interest in the development of individuals and organisations (including leadership) and a consideration of the part that research, and research partnerships, can play in that process. He is the Coordinating editor of the journal Educational Action Research, sits on the editorial board of three other journals and has edited a number of action research texts. Educational Action Research publishes articles based often on small scale action research studies. This also includes similar kinds of approaches like participants research, practitioner research or examples of learning from reflective practice.
Brett Bligh is co-Director of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning, a research centre of the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University. His research interrogates the nexus of technology mediation, physical environment, and institutional change in higher education. Brett’s work prioritises Activity Theory conceptions of human practice, and interventionist methodologies. Brett is co-editor of Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning (https//stel.pubpub.org), a gold open access journal which aims to provide a lively forum for debate and reflection on a wide range of issues connected with technology enhanced learning in disparate settings. The editors wish to support a range of different written formats and styles; to allow for contrarianism, iconoclasm and angular argument; and to provide a space for ongoing conversation and debate rather than tidy consensus.
Tünde Varga-Atkins, PhD, is a Senior Educational Developer at the Centre for Innovation in Education, University of Liverpool and Senior Fellow (HEA). Her specific areas of research encompass areas in curriculum design and evaluation, assessment and feedback, digital capabilities and organisational learning. Tünde has employed multimodal and creative methods in her research, such as working with drawings and diagrams for data elicitation, poems for data analysis, and combining existing methods, such as the nominal focus group to support curriculum evaluation. Tunde is the current North-West co-lead of ALT ELESIG, a special interest group sharing and building capacity about research and evaluation of learners’ experiences with technology. Tünde is an editor of Research in Learning Technology and associate editor of Developing Academic Practice journals.
Simon Thomson is Director of the Centre for Innovation in Education at the University of Liverpool. He has led on a number of funded Learning & Teaching projects including a HEFCE funded project into next generation Digital Learning Environments, a JISC/HEA funded Open Education project and a Leadership Foundation supported 1to1 tablet device implementation project and more recently a joint project with the British Council supporting Peruvian Universities in making the transition to online learning.In 2014 Simon was awarded an Advance HE National Teaching Fellowship largely based on his work on open education and innovative curriculum development. As a passionate advocate for open education much of his work and resources are freely available on the web with an open license. He tweets using the name @digisim and sporadically blogs here: https://blog.digis.im
Michael Flavin is an academic at King’s College London and the interim editor-in-chief of Research in Learning Technology. He holds a degree, three masters degrees and two doctorates, including a masters in online and distance education and a doctorate in technology enhanced learning in higher education. He is the author of four books, including Disruptive Technology Enhanced Learning (Palgrave Macmillan 2017) and Re-imagining Technology Enhanced Learning (Palgrave Macmillan 2020).
Book your place here – https://www.alt.ac.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=630
ALT ELESIG: The ‘Scale up challenge’: simulation for authentic learning
Wednesday 26th May, 1-2pm
Presenters: Debbie Holley, Professor of Learning Innovation, and Dr Heidi Singleton Department of Nursing Sciences, Bournemouth University
The challenges of embedding digital technologies in learning, teaching and assessment are complex, and rethinking the roles of educators has been at the foreground of recent Educause New Horizon expert panel reports. The most recent Jisc Student digital experience insights survey (2020) report highlighted that only 20% of students have experiences of simulation. The challenges of scale seem insurmountable – however, in this session we suggest some low-tech solutions, and invite participants to come along bringing their mobile phones and a google cardboard headset. We will discuss some of the barriers and solutions to changing practice, drawing upon the findings of the ‘State of XR and Immersive Learning Outlook Report (2020).
You can watch the recording here: https://youtu.be/br1CS1h9FL4
The use of learning design within the virtual learning environment to promote students’ metacognitive skills – 14th April 1-2pm
Drs James Matthews, Crystal Fulton and Emma O’Neill, are University College Dublin (UCD) Fellows in Teaching and Academic Design and came together to work on their Fellowship project, “Designing for learning within the VLE” in January 2019. Coming from diverse backgrounds across UCD, including Sports Psychology, Information & Communication Studies and Veterinary Medicine the fellows bring a broad mix of teaching and learning experience to their project.
Book your place here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-use-of-learning-design-within-the-virtual-learning-environment-tickets-147934390745
The student voice on Active Blended Learning – 11th March 1-2pm
Professor Alejandro (Ale) Armellini – Dean of Digital and Distributed Learning (University of Portsmouth)
Virginia Teixeira Antunes – Independent consultant working in the education sector
Rob Howe – Head of Learning Technology (University of Northampton)
The session focuses on university students’ perceptions of their learning and social experiences in the context of an institution-wide pedagogic shift to Active Blended Learning (ABL). This presentation will address 3 key categories emerging from the research (1) learning experiences, (2) social experiences and (3) support provision.
Book your place here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/what-is-the-learner-experience-of-active-blended-learning-tickets-142388446677
How are students experiencing learning online? What the data from our digital experience insights 2020-1 student surveys is telling us 24th March, 1-2pm
Sarah Knight, Head of data and digital capability, Jisc
Ruth Drysdale, Senior consultant, data and digital capability, Jisc
With the continued pandemic, and the requirement of students in further and higher education to continue to learn remotely, it is essential that we have mechanisms in place for gathering feedback on their experiences. It has never been more important to listen to the student voice and to work as partners with students to ensure their digital experience delivers what they need and shapes the digital future of the students that follow.
The digital experience insights surveys allow organisations to collect valid, representative and actionable data from their students and staff about the digital environment they offer and to understand how digital technologies are used in learning and teaching as well as across the organisation. This year, organisations have the option to run the surveys annually or as pulse surveys and this session will share the findings from the first round of pulse student surveys with the data collected from October to end of December 2020.
Over 27,000 students from further and higher education have shared their views on their online learning experience. The findings offer insights into how students are navigating digital poverty, their digital wellbeing as well as the support for developing their digital skills and what they need in order to become effective online learners.
Book your place here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jisc-exploring-the-the-findings-from-the-first-set-of-pulse-dei-data-tickets-142388916081
ALT Winter Conference – ELESIG Open Meeting (15 December 2020)
We held a free ELESIG open meeting on Tuesday 15th December between 1-1.45pm as part of the ALT winter conference. We were joined by Dr Brett Bligh, from the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University and co-Director of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning. Brett presented an overview of the current challenges and opportunities within learning technology research in the current context. You can access the meeting here – https://altc.alt.ac.uk/online2020/brown-bag-lunch-and-members-groups-and-sig-meetups-and-networking/