12032

12032

General Session - Conference Presentation Only (20 minutes, no formal paper), Refereed Paper with Presentation (20 minutes)

Maria Dr. Rodriguez-Yborra, University of Bolton, Bolton, United Kingdom, Mar2@bolton.ac.uk
 * Developing Digital Awareness : Are We Forgetting our Staff? **

The use of learning technology has become a central aspect of the student learning environment and experience. The past eight years there has been an increased pressure from the University of Bolton (UoB) to enhance the academic staff digital knowledge and expertise to support the teaching and learning process, and facilitate administrative roles. As technology becomes pivotal in the pedagogical and strategic changes facing Higher Education and specially in UoB, greater efforts have been made to ensure students support, and academic staff have to quickly 'adapt' to those technological enhancements, with no choice or enough support, bringing frustration and rejection to new pedagogically rich media. To make it a bit more complex, since the UoB last restructure which brought together three very differentiated subject areas (Art & Design, Cultural and Creative Studies and Education), which formed the School of Art, Media and Education (AME), and the most recent restructure that swap education by digital media and games departments ( (Faculty or Arts and Media Technologies - AMT), academic staff in AME and AMT have to work in collaboration with a wider range of other professionals, different level of technological skills (using technology to support the teaching and learning process) and driven by a changing and varied learning and teaching agendas. Sometimes these experiences have been ‘unhappy’ and very challenging, but most of the time have been enriching for most.

This presentation intends to inform the challenges faced during the planning, development, implementations, and reviews of an e-Strategy in AME and AMT to facilitate digital support, collaboration, understanding and personal development to enhance the teaching and learning agendas in all three subject areas, and to update about the lessons learned and good practices attempting to close the gap in the ‘academic digital divide’ within the faculties.

Intermediate Technology, e-Pedagogics, academics, staff development, technology enhanced teaching and learning