Tonight I started watching sessions from Day 1 of the ALT 2021 conference. “The future of teaching and learning in the Arts and Humanities: The student view” was presented by Neil Hughes. Hughes talked about how different faculty have responded to teaching online, with some wanting to return to in-person teaching while others are thriving teaching online. Hughes surveyed students in the arts and humanities using. Hughes analyzed the transcripts of meetings from a variety of subjects. Thirty seven meetings were transcribed and analyzed. Hyflex was discussed and who will continue using it next year event though the feedback has been mixed. Hughes talked about how students perceive value for money in both in-person and hybrid environments. Dave White, the moderator and session chair did mention that the perceptions of students and administrators about online courses has been intriguing.
A wildcard session I watched next was “What digital conferences do our students need to develop” which was sponsored by Vevox. The presenter was Rob Lowney who spoke about a project sponsored by Irish libraries to “enhance the digital attributes of digital education.” They developed a series of short professional development sessions. They wanted to survey recent graduates to better understand the digital skills that are needed. Most graduates felt comfortable with the basic digital competencies stated. This finding made me think about the significance of doing a survey for 200-level students next semester.
