My name is Nan Zhang and this is my contextual statement for my CMALT portfolio.
I am currently working as a Learning Technologist in the Learning and Teaching Academy at Cardiff University. Part of my role involves being a Digital Education School Partner for the School of Psychology. Being a member of the Digital Education team, I am also involved in a number of working groups and DigEd projects such as the Digital Learning Environment review project, the XERTE xAPI evaluation and the provision of online resources for both staff and students. This allows me to be able to work with different group of people on a variety of topics which has certainly broaden my view and knowledge on learning technology.
My involvement with learning technology goes way back when I was pursuing my Master degree in the University of York from 2003 to 2005. My research topic was around the adaptation of E-learning content to learner NLP input sensory preference. While the outcome of the research is debatable, I learned a lot about research methodology and analysing complex statistical information using both quantitative and qualitative methods along with extensive course evaluation.
After graduation from York in 2005, I joined Cardiff University school of Optometry as an e-learning research assistant where I was tasked to lead the establishment of e-based delivery of PhD teaching in the school of Optometry and the electronic delivery of postgraduate research training across two campuses of the University. Despite ongoing tools and resources research and evaluations, my main task was to set up live lecture and video conferencing facilities across two different campuses using Access Grid technology. I am also responsible for liaising with stakeholders within the University, including the Department of Information Services and the Wales e-Science Centre to share and disseminate experience. I am really grateful for this experience as back in 2005, e-learning was still relatively new and Learning Technologist as a role didn't even exist. Although my involvement was mainly focusing on using different technologies myself instead of teaching others to use technologies, my development skills on both hardwares and softwares have been greatly sharpened.
My next career move after this took me to the Dermatology department, where I had the opportunity to join an excellent distance learning programme lead by the course director, Dr Maria Gonzalez, who was truly a visionary in early online learning. My main responsibility was to transfer the Distance learning Diploma in Practical Dermatology to an early VLE and subsequently helping to run the course. My job involves but not limited to:
During this time, I have really developed my skills by my involvement with a range learning technologies and different modes of learning and teaching activities. Although my focus was still very much handson with using different systems and technologies, I've started to embrace the joy that had brought me by sharing the knowledge with others. Because of the success of the course, as a result, we've won the THE Leadership and Management Award 2009 in one of the world’s leading postgraduate programme.
THE - Leadership and Management Award 2009
In 2011, an opportunity came up in the School of Medicine where a lead learning technologist was required by three Postgraduate programmes to further develop their online provisions. My main responsibility was to help with the development of the distance learning programmes for the Diploma in Diabetes, MSc in Neonatal, MSc in Public Health and for working on School’s Postgraduate Taught e-learning projects. One of the major challenges I was presented immediately was to manage the change of the VLE as part of the process of making sure all the online learning courses are housed on the centrally supported VLE, the Learning Central. This was a complex project that presented difficulties because the nature of their programmes is very different to the programmes housed on the VLE which meant that the structure, design, underlying logic and premises behind our VLE were not as compatible to their demands. The programme teams also wanted a larger degree of customisation and there was a tight deadline to get their programmes onto the VLE. I had to use negotiation skills and my initiative, creativity and problem solving skills to come up with solutions and compromises in achieving a design of programme areas that met their core requirements, would be scalable and allow for future development. Through out the process, not only have I helped to established three distance learning programmes from the ground up, I have also developed a range of skills which were invaluable to my future career.
After 5 years of working closely with the programme teams and running the PGT programmes, along with some other learning technologists within the school we were merged together as part of the restructure process into the School of Medicine Learning Technology Unit. Slightly different from my previous role where I was required to be more hands on, a key part of this new role is to identify the need for and provision of training for staff and students. This involves develop and deliver training/communications of new applications deployments across the school. Through out the process, I have developed my training and teaching skills, I have implemented a blended approach for my training sessions and I have gained a lot of hands on experiences being an educator myself to disseminate best practice with regards to technology enhanced learning across the school.
During the summer of 2020, shortly after lockdown, I volunteered for the Digital Education Programme consultation by participating and contributing to various working group meetings. The outcomes of which have greatly shaped the way the University delivered its online teaching during lockdown. Once the Digital Education Programme concluded, it was suggested that all LT staff migrated into the CESI Digital Education team so that project activities across the colleges can be covered. As a result, I was redeployed into my current role as Learning Technology partner for the Psychology School, which had not had any specific Learning Technology support.
My first priority in the school has been liaising with school's DLT (Director of Learning and Teaching) to provide support and advice to staff and students on the effectiveness of using learning technology in their day to day teaching and learning. I also attend all relevant school meetings wherever possible including DigEd Groups, SSPs, BoS, Programme Dev Groups etc. This new role can be quite challenging and different from what I did previously as it involves a lot of debates, discussions and consensus from different stakeholders. Since my start of the role, I was tasked to conduct an informal content review of Learning Central modules to help to identify issues and tools that aren’t being used that can help to improve learning and teaching or streamline processes. I have also developed an informal survey of school staff to identify knowledge gaps, requests for training and support level with CESI to help with future school objective setting. I am currently focusing on helping the school to find an e-assessment solution for their MCQ question bank issues. My other main focus is to review their coursework/assignment submission process to see if we can come up with a more robust system to improve their current process.
I have been meaning to do CMATL for many years and I am really grateful that a CMALT support community has been established recently at the University. I'd like to thank D.Parry, G. Evens and other colleagues for pushing this forward. I am also glad that I have made the commitment to try and accomplish this this year. I hope CMALT would allow me to pause and reflect on my practice, to celebrate my achievement and to critically evaluate my professional work.
References