Tonight’s ALT 2021 workshop we watch was entitled “Being a learning technologist: designing an open primer course” presented by Stuart Nicol, Tracey Madden, and Marcello Crolla. They spoke about the “rapid increase in new Learning Technologists” during the pandemic and the need to “create a supported short course on what it is to be a learning technologist.” At the University of Edinburgh they developed a series of courses about digital education, teaching online, and what learning technologists do. They built a two-week online course with Crolla and launched it as an open course. They mentioned being in the process of creating a course about digital media for online courses that I would certainly be interested in taking! Nicol stated several goals for the workshop including reflecting on the profession after a difficult year, defining the curriculum for a primer course, and opening up possible opportunities for collaboration. On a slide, Nicol described that learning technology isn’t a simple thing: there are a variety of job titles, educational sectors employing learning technologists, and academic backgrounds represented. Nicol also explained the things learning technologists are able to do: learning design, media management, virtual learning… assessment design. Crolla presented the history of the How to Create an Online Course they created and shared on FutureLearn. The open course includes the areas of personas, diversity & inclusion, active learning, and how to keep learners engaged. Crolla spoke that they included the key to good course design by providing fundamentals on planning, knowing your audience, practical elements, and assessments. Madden mentioned that some resources exist already to teach and support learning technologists. One is the Open Course in Technology Enhanced Learning (ocTEL) that was organized by ALT and ran in 2013 and 2014. CMALT uses ALT’s framework. During the workshop, they broke into groups that were facilitated by the speakers to discuss what elements are important for a primer on being a learning technologist. While I am still not clear on what differentiates a learning technologist from an instructional designer, I enjoyed learning that there are open resources that can benefit the professional development of learning technologists AND teaching faculty. I am curious about this and will look into the resources they create.
