I am Learning Technologist at the University College London in the Digital Education Core team. My role is to provide support and training for staff and students in their use of learning technologies and promote and support core digital education services as well as contributing to project and innovation work. I focus on Moodle, Turnitin and Mahara product areas.
My work is split across four main domains: designing and delivering staff development, innovation and development, outreach, service input. What I like the most in my role is being able to help academics using learning technology in a creative way.
Even though I didn’t follow a fixed career path into my role, I can see a number of themes that brought my career together as a Learning Technologist so far.
My background is teaching and after my PGCE in secondary education and an MSc in Computing, I decided to merge my passion for education and computing skills to gain experience of education technology. Since then, my priority has been to use technology to support academics and students, with a focus on pedagogy and the human aspect of learning at the centre, rather than solely technologies and tools.
I have worked since 2006 as a Learning Technologist in UK Universities before becoming a product specialist and e-Learning consultant at Catalyst IT Europe in 2019, then re-joining Higher Education with my current position at UCL in 2021. This career path has given me a breadth of experience, which I apply in my daily work.
I have been a Moodle administrator since 2006 and used Moodle as an educator and a student throughout that time. In 2007 I helped implement, configure and train our staff and students in the use of Turnitin. This also involved taking part in user groups and facilitating policy change about using plagiarism prevention tools at Cranfield University. As a Learning Technologist at the Royal Agricultural University, my role was focused on Learning Design for two new master’s Courses.
Producing a Senior CMALT portfolio will help me consolidate my learning from these past 15 years of experience and reflect on the progress I have made in moving from being a teacher to an established Learning Technologist.
Through reflections especially on ethical aspects, data protection and accessibility, I want to help shifting the technology-centred perception of our profession to a human-centred approach and profession.
Senior CMALT encourages me to reflect on this broader perspective and gives me a renewed focus on the issues that do matter to me: helping academics change education for the better and helping them making digital education more human.