My eight years within the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences has given me a rich learning experience and I have developed significantly on a professional level during this time. Throughout this portfolio I hope that I have provided you with some of the highlights from my story so far and which are hopefully just the tip of the iceberg of my #edtech career.
Professional Accreditation
Following CMALT accreditation I plan to apply to the Higher Education Academy for Fellowship status, building upon this portfolio and using the ALT mapping document.
Continuing Professional Development
During the last decade my professional development has centred around informal learning and attending conferences. However, after completing the E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC (The University of Edinburgh) in 2013 I felt that I wanted to go further with the experience. I have now enrolled on the MSc in Digital Education which is run by the same team members in the University of Edinburgh. To date I have completed the initial double module and therefore the remainder of the course will be my main CPD focus for the next two years.
The choice of this particular programme was made on the basis of the quality of experience that I had with the staff during the MOOC and also as the programme has a focus on the socio-cultural aspect of technology enhanced learning rather than a practical technical focus. I hope that through this I will be able to conduct research with regards to how technology can enhance the learning experience (rather than on whether x technology is better than either y technology or no technology). Specifically, my interest is in how to maintain the level of human interaction within the online environment, my mantra being ‘presence over technology’.
Ultimately, I would like to be able to take this further to PhD level, but I think being able to do this with a full time job will remain a barrier.
Team Interaction
Within Northern Ireland we have recently gained ALT approval for a NI Special Interest Group which will increase the connection between ourselves, ALT and ILTA. In the future I would be very interested in becoming involved with the community at a national level.
Clare Thomson 