ASCILITE NEWS

Auckland University of Technology is hiring

We are on the hunt for experienced individuals to fill a range of curriculum development roles to support altLAB (AUT’s Learning Transformation Laboratory) with an exciting project, supporting the upgrade of our largest piece of academic IT infrastructure, AUT’s Learning Management System

Learning Technologists (multiple roles)
Learning Designers (multiple roles)
Media Development Support, Video (multiple roles)

In these roles, you will work closely within development teams. You will be a key player in the (re)development of courses including translating academic intentions through design processes, designing sustainable, high quality digital materials and contributing your experience with evidence-based design principles. You will work systematically and ensure the process keeps moving forward and the team’s milestones are being met.

18 month contract roles, commencing March 2021. Applications close 14 February 2021.

NZ border restrictions mean these roles are suited to applicants already in NZ at this time.

Please share in your networks.  Applicants can contact me the Head of altLAB, Ben Kehrwald (Benjamin.kehrwald@aut.ac.nz) if you have questions.

New TELall Blog Post published: “How to Integrate Technology in Higher Education: Clues from a Faculty Technology Mentoring Program”

Hatice Cilsalar Sagnak and Evrim Baran (Yozgat Bozok University, Turkey) have contributed a blog post about their faculty technology mentoring program (FTM) which was implemented at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey for two semesters. The program comprises mentors and mentees where experts who are mentors guide novices who are mentees. Mostly faculty members were mentors of the university students. Contrary to this, roles have changed in faculty technology mentoring programs. Graduate or undergraduate students who are expert on technology usage are mentors of the faculty members.

Transforming Assessment SIG webinar: “Enabling student agency in assessment and feedback”

Date and time: 3 Feb 2020, (6pm – 7pm AEDT). You will find the session start time for your local time zone listed here.

This panel session is jointly presented by the Transforming Assessment (e-Assessment SIG) and the Assessment in Higher Education Network (UK) and the session chair is Fabio Arico (University of East Anglia, UK). There will be two presenters in the session:

Juuso Nieminen (University of Eastern Finland, Finland) who will discuss “Finally studying for myself! Promoting student agency through self-assessment”
Rachel Forsyth (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK) who will discuss “Thinking differently about satisfaction with assessment and feedback”

Further information and registration is available on the TA-SIG website here.

Final Call for EOIs to join ASCILITE’s 2021 Community Mentoring Program (CMP)

Applications (Expressions of Interest) in the 2021 Community Mentoring Program are due today (1 February 2021) so if you’ve been sitting on the fence, here is a video recording from last week’s CMP Information Session (45 min) which may help you to decide.

Reminder: AJET Special Issue – Emerging Technologies in Education for Innovative Pedagogies and Competency Development

This is a reminder that AJET has issued a call for a Special Issue. The purpose of the special issue is to provide an opportunity to share experiences of researching, evaluating and implementing emerging technologies in HEI and to collate the lessons learned from the intersection of emerging technology, innovative pedagogies and competency development. Our vision is geared toward state-of-the-art technologies that drive innovative approaches for teaching and learning.

Recent research about emerging technologies in education aims to understand the relationship between education policies, especially of higher education institutions (HEIs), innovative pedagogies and competency development (Bond et al., 2020; Lai & Bower, 2019). The purpose of such education policies is to implement emerging technologies (for example, virtual/augmented reality, 3D printing, drones, robotics, or artificial intelligence) to achieve two key outcomes. These are to support the improvement of an existing education system as well as to facilitate HEI educators’ development and enhancement of competencies through the adoption of innovative pedagogical techniques (such as mobile, adaptive, or blended learning) (Aljawarneh, 2020).

Full details and the specific focus of the special issue are available on the AJET website here.

OTHER NEWS

Educational Developers – your assistance is needed in a NCSEHE study

This is an invitation to participate in an important study which is being undertaken as part of a wider NCSEHE study.

Australian universities have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic through a range of measures that have disrupted ‘business as usual’. Campus closures have led to online learning and other modes of online service delivery, workplace re-arrangements and shifts in resourcing.

This study intends to address the effects of COVID-necessitated online learning for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Migrant and/or Refugee (CALDMR) students and the responses of universities. We define CALDMR students as domestic and international students enrolled in a program of study in an Australian university. Online learning encompasses any form of remote teaching and learning (a/synchronous) that is not delivered face-to-face.

The research study aims:

To explore how CALDMR students in higher education have experienced the shift to online learning;
To explore university educators’ experiences of teaching online, and their understandings and awareness of the needs of CALDMR students;
To identify the support needs of CALDMR students through engagement with ‘frontline’ university support staff;
To explore the awareness and understandings of educational developers of the links between culture and intercultural pedagogy as universities move courses online;
To examine the policy landscape to see whether universities update their equity policies post-Covid 19; and
To produce a strengths-based, research-informed toolkit that outlines good practice teaching and learning strategies.

As an educational developer, you have been invited to participate in this study and it would be appreciated if you could participate by 17 February 2021. You can take the survey here.

Submission deadline extended to 15 February for FLANZ Practice Papers and Posters

The FLANZ 2021 Conference (Flexible Learning Association of New Zealand), in association with Massey University, has extended the deadline for Practice Papers and Posters to 15 February. There will be no further extensions. Read more >> .

Call is Open for the EDEN 2021 Virtual Annual Conference

EDEN (European Distance & eLearning Network) has announced its call for participation in the conference “Gripped or freed by the pandemic? Lessons for the future of education”. Further information is available here.

Call for Proposals for the OERxDomains Conference

The Call for Proposals for the OERxDomains Conference is now open. The conference will take place online, 21 – 22 April 2021. The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2021. Organised by the Association for Learning Technologyand partnership with Reclaim Hosting’s Domains Conference, this special edition of the much loved event is the 12th annual conference for Open Education research, practice and policy. A special strand will be included and hosted by the Domains Conference, bringing the two communities closer together in 2021. Further information is available here.