At the end of May we attended the UCISA Spotlight on Digital Capabilities conference. Primarily focusing on staff digital capabilities, we heard from a number of expert speakers covering a host of topics including leadership, pedagogy and effectiveness, assistive technologies and identity.
Many important arguments were made and experiences shared after a very engaging two days. I’ve very crudely summarised the ‘lessons learnt’ into the following key points:
- Put people first. Pedagogy over technology.
- Break down barriers to learning (reduce cognitive friction, eliminate unnecessary terminology, maximise accessibility) and create a closer working relationship with colleagues and students.
- Take advantage of ‘informal’ learning experiences, make them relevant to the learner.
- Effective frameworks allow staff (and students!) to contextualise their learning.
A Youtube playlist of the conference is embedded below, if you’d like to re-live some or all of the event!