The silent majority vs the deafening minority

There is an ever-present tension in the provision of technology in Education; who should we aim to please? The innovators and early adopters, who are the vocal minority? Or should we be seeking out the late majority and laggards, the silent majority? Who is the silent majority? By silent majority, I refer to those staff […]

Our Digital Capabilities Journey

I am passionate about staff and students being supported to develop their digital capabilities. So I thought I’d write a follow-up to the presentation Marcus Elliott and I gave at ALT Conference 2016 ‘Creativity takes courage and digital capability‘. I’ll provide some extra detail that we couldn’t include and answer some of the questions that arose. Why did we […]

Losing my ALTc virginity

I have just returned from my first Association of Learning Technologists conference, so I thought I’d write a little blog about the experience. There was a lot of choice and I saw a lot of presentations so forgive some of the vague descriptions. As an aside, I loved ALTc. I genuinely enjoyed it. Although the […]

Jisc Digital Leaders Programme

I have seen a worrying amount of criticism recently for this programme. Not criticism of the speakers, topics or validity of the programme, criticism solely of the price. So, as someone lucky enough to have been a part of this programme I thought I would share my honest feedback on it. (Please forgive any typos […]

What is Institutional Digital Capability?

If you are reading this in search of a definitive answer, I am sorry, you will not find one here. This post is not based on months of arduous, thorough, rigorous research, it is based solely on my own experience and conversations I have had at a Jisc Digital Capability Service Modelling workshop. This post, and its content, […]

Jisc Connect More 2016 – Nottingham

There is so much brilliant practice going on around the UK. It was great to hear from the FE and skills sectors as they are often neglected. This was my first Jisc Connect More event and I hope it won’t be the last. Connect More was opened by John Potter, head of Jisc south and east. John […]

Stop moaning, start doing.

We spend a lot of time moaning about what our staff can’t do. We spend just as much time asking why they aren’t doing something about it. So what can we do? Well how about we stop moaning and start doing something? How about we start supporting our staff instead of bringing them down. I have […]

But what about staff that won’t or don’t want to engage in CPD?

I have received a number of follow up questions to my earlier post “Should we employ staff who don’t have digital skills?“. I will answer them in a little more detail than 140 characters allows. Great post from Kerry, but what about staff that won’t or don’t want to engage in CPD? https://t.co/fP5Xy0r3U3 — Lawrie […]

I am not a specifically identified key individual

“The dinner is limited to a short list of specifically identified key individuals and so I’m sorry but Kerry would be unable to join us”. These are the words I recently received in an email. I don’t object to them. It’s true, I’m not, nor am ever likely to be, a key individual (although key […]

Should we employ staff who don’t have digital skills?

The question posed in the title of this post is a fair one. Why are we employing people who don’t have the digital skills that are needed to cope in today’s ‘digital world’? It’s a question raised with increasing frequency and one that deserves some serious thought. I should start by saying that I fundamentally disagree with […]