Introducing the Educational Technology Team

Educational Technology: In recent years, the range and scale of educational technologies available to City staff and students has changed radically.  For example, Moodle offers a platform to provide course materials, activities and links to a host of tools, lecture capture can record live presentations, CampusPress is our blogging tool, Turnitin supports online assessment, staff and students are creating multimedia content and Adobe Connect enables video conferencing.  Technology is also a key part of the physical classroom contributing to collaborative and interactive learning experiences through the pod, flexible furniture, classroom clickers or bringing your own devices such as tablets or smart phones.  Educational technology addresses not just online learning practices but a blend of learning. Consequently, how we support educational technology has evolved too.

Educational Technology Team: This year educational technology staff around the university have been organised into one central Educational Technology team enabling all schools to access a connected resource of skills and experience.  The Educational Technology Team focuses on supporting curriculum design, innovation and educational technology professional development within the three themes of

• Blended Learning
• Multimedia
• Learning Spaces.
  

Connections: The team retains a school based presence to ensure that building relationships and school knowledge continues to be at the heart of our work.  The team is a part of the wider Learning Enhancement and Development (LEaD) department giving us the opportunity to provide joined up student and staff services to ensure the best possible education experience is realised.

Projects & Activities: We work on a range of projects focused on curriculum design at a programme level, across a school or across the institution.  This summer educational technology projects to be undertaken in the forthcoming academic year are being agreed based on school priorities and ADE input via Learning Advisory Board.

We also offer professional development, guidance and knowledge sharing around educational technology.  Our work encompasses piloting, scoping, user needs analysis, evaluation, review,  horizon scanning, supporting innovation and setup of new technologies driving and contributing to educational technology development.

Service Now: Staff and students are encouraged to use Service Now at  www.city.ac.uk/itservicedesk as a first point of call for educational technology queries.  Also use Service Now to request professional development, borrow equipment or book lecture capture recordings.   This way your query can be allocated to our team rather than being dependent on individuals who may not be available at that time.  Alternatively using Service Now your query can be quickly directed to the appropriate department or escalated where necessary.  Service Now enables us to log queries, which gives us data to monitor and adapt our processes and the service we offer.

Online guidance: Staff and students can also access online guidance and information at  www.city.ac.uk/edtechhelp/staff and www.city.ac.uk/edtechhelp/student

Curriculum design & Relationship Leads: At the core of what we do is work with academics and other services to support the use of educational technology in curriculum design.  To explore how you could use educational technology to further develop your module or programme, contact your Relationship Lead.

Each school has been assigned one or two Educational Technologists and one Relationship Lead Senior Educational Technologist with responsibility for two schools.  These staff will have in-depth knowledge of your school educational needs, ambitions and challenges.  They will not work directly for the school but act as an access point into the wider educational technology team, giving you access to the range of projects and support occurring across the department.  The role of the Relationship Lead Senior Educational Technologist will include acting as your liaison and consultant, co-ordinating professional development, attending committees and building school relationships. The Educational Technologists will support queries using Service Now, run workshops and training sessions, and support school projects.

To see photos of the team and find out more about the themes view this Educational Technology Team Themes & Projects post.