Future Teacher 3.0: Reflecting on impact

Image by Chräcker Heller from Pixabay

This year sees a new venture added to my retirement activities. An unexpected invitation came from the UK Future Teacher 3.0 team and this was too good an opportunity to turn down. The small UK team are an absolute powerhouse, a great example of how much can be achieved with the right blend of experience, and expertise and a shared commitment to inclusive practice in teaching. Lilian, Alistair and Ron have orchestrated monthly webinars for teachers in HE and FE since 2017 firstly as part of an Erasmus Plus funded project but now unfunded and undaunted! I have had the privilege of contributing to several sessions over the years and I really value the network and the resources they create as OERs. 

Using an open source tool called Xerte they are able to create reusable learning objects which include interactive content and are media rich and accessible. 

I have used the Tool Savvy resource from the 2018 webinar series several times as part of my work on tool choice for UNICollaboration and it is so good to be able to focus minds on key questions when choosing authoring tools. Xerte also means that our trainees can learn about tools whilst using one of the best examples available. 

So this is a network that lives the values of its originators, in the same way as we in #virtualexchange like to "walk the talk". So you can see why I was so excited to be asked to join the team this year. 

Of course, one of the bugbears of doing anything at the "bleeding edge" is that new tools and approaches are constantly being developed but the FT3 UK team have even turned this to an advantage! The second iteration of webinars was Reactivated -bringing new ideas to enhance the earlier recordings and this current series is Reflected, where the focus is on building upon what we have learned through reflection "because future teachers never stop learning". 

In my final years at Warwick I led a course for final year students who were considering teaching as a career. Central to my course design was both virtual exchange and reflection. We used an open source tool Mahara as a private reflection space and students were able to keep private journal posts every week which could, if they so wished, be used as part of their assessed eportfolio. This process of regular reflection incorporated into the course design helped to establish the importance of reflection to those working in time constrained and often demanding roles in teaching. Taking time to take account of how you are feeling and to, over time, develop a picture of the direction you wish to take - these things are so important in life. Sharing some of these thoughts with others can also help to strengthen your professional network and can even lead to unexpected outcomes such as new connections. 

I'm not great at sticking to routines but I do use my blogs to think things through and it has been helpful over the years. Reflecting through writing on a diary or a blog can really bring my thoughts into focus and help me find a way forward. I look forward to reading reflections from others who have been part of the Future Teacher network.

 

Connecting communities and conferences: We have the technology!

Last week I made my way up the M1 to join the #socmedHE conference. Strictly speaking it was the #socmedHE18 conference but as it happened in 2019 I kept to the generic hashtag mostly. I was off to present - or rather to facilitate experience of - Virtual Exchange. The rationale for this was to connect participants at the Nottingham Trent based conference with those attending the Future teacher 3.0 conference in York. Both exciting HE conferences on the same day but about 90 miles apart. Both sharing experiences and expertise in online or digital teaching. My aim was to use what I have learned through designing and running virtual exchange over the past 8 years and share my enthusiasm for the work of the @ft3uk team. I have regularly attended their lunchtime webinars which are always comprehensive, interactive and useful for professional development. 

The design for this session was founded in experiential learning. I designed 3 tasks to take the participants through these stages:

1. Information sharing
2. Comparison and Analysis
3. Co-creation

Timing being short the tasks included a little ice breaking but, unlike the cohorts I usually work with, the participants in these 2 conferences are more homogenous - all working in UK education, mainly Higher Education practitioners. The embedded gdoc in this post shows the tasks in more detail. My slides were a remix from those used by UNICollaboration to present virtual exchange. The co-creation was aggregated using the two conference hashtags through a Tagboard and a wakelet post. (again this was a modified version of co-creation due to the time constraints, our virtual exchangees have to intentionally co-create artefacts but they typically have weeks to negotiate this). 

My session was a face to face session at Nottingham Trent #socmedHE18 transmitted through my Blackboard Collaborate Ultra room to York. The Erasmus Plus Virtual Exchange initiative supports practitioners through training to design and engage successfully in virtual exchange and offers opportunities for students to have meaningful international experiences which may compliment or even take the place of physical mobility in cases where it is not possible for whatever reason. 

Recognition of training or participation is provided in the form of open badges. A framework for the creation and issue of open badges for virtual exchange is shared here. The badges are issued through our account with Open Badge Factory which is based in Finland and those who earn them can collect and display them through setting up a profile on Open Badge Passport. Here's mine. 

This taster session - the resources for which remain open - hopefully gave in insight into the excitement and potential for working with those who are at a distance. Having experienced for myself how virtual exchange and connected practice can enrich your understanding of the contexts and challenges faced by others, help develop technical and learning design skills, bring new and exciting opportunities to both students and teachers, I feel that it was a valuable experience and certainly a first for me to present in 2 conferences at the same time!