Lee Davies

Well, I did just this at the recent teaching and learning conference when a question was posed from the floor: “how can we incorporate things such as Facebook and YouTube into our teaching, when learners spend time chatting to friends?”

I wonder if the same was said when those early innovative teachers first started to use pencil and paper, rather than slate: “how can we possibly use this new fangled paper, when students can fold it up and pass messages to each other?” (more…)

Congratulations to the brilliant team at Pebble Learning for picking up the 2010 IMS Global Learning Impact Award … not just any award, Pebble only went and made Platinum.  Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch or, indeed, a better personal learning space.

Want to see Pebble’s winning submission … it’s here.

Want to find out more about the IMS awards … look here.

An interview for Policy Review TV on how the coalition government’s plans for addressing the economy could impact on teaching and learning in further education.

An interview for Policy Review TV in advance of the 2010 Teaching and Learning Conference.

With Sue Crowley and Sue Colquhoun discussing how professional bodies  need to engage with their members and how technology can enable this to happen.

Podcast here

With Dr Jean Kelly and Michelle Jennings, discussing how personal learning spaces can transform a professional body’s approach to continuing professional development.

Podcast here

So this was the year when the whacky world of social media finally matured and made an impact on something that really mattered.  If, like me, you have a number of late teen children, voting for the first time and if, like me, they allow you into that online world they inhabit, the world of Facebook, tweeting and You Tube, you can’t help but be impressed by tens of thousands of young people talking politics.

It’s a scary place to be, one of many hundreds of ‘friends’ of each of my children, but I guess I should be thankful that they allow me into that space where they live their lives in the glare of the social media spotlight.  Yes, I have those cringe-making moments when I shudder to see last night’s status update, but I also involve myself in conversations about the impact technology has had on warfare.  It really is quite extraordinary to watch and join several A Level history students debate the place of the tank in transforming the first world war. (more…)

For me, the very essence of professionalism is self-awareness.  It is the recognition that only through critical self-evaluation and reflection on my practice can I hope to develop as a professional in a way which is personally fulfilling and which impacts positively on those I serve, the beneficiaries of my practice.  In my case, as someone deeply passionate about further education and adult learning, it is my practice as a teacher and continually developing my approach to teaching and learning for the benefit of my learners.

Yes we have standards, yes we have codes of practice or conduct, yes we have qualifications – but these morph over time and, all too often, are subject to external pressures outside of the profession.  The one constant is my professional identity: as a teacher I must be credible and command my subject, I must excel at teaching and enabling learning to take place and I must be at one with the environment I work in and all the external factors that impact on my practice.

I am best placed to reflect on my practice, share what I do well, improve what I do less well, be innovative in my personal and professional learning, contribute to the collective knowledge base underpinning my profession and evaluate the impact my learning makes on my practice (what I do) and its beneficiaries (the people I do unto).  It has ever been thus for the professions and this is one of the reasons why professional bodies exist, the hunger from professionals to develop and share practice. (more…)

Last week I gave a presentation to the Memnet conference about the way membership and professional bodies need to embrace the opportunities presented by social networking sites and web 2.0 technologies if they are to retain one of the key benefits of membership: professional networking.

Between drafting the presentation and delivering it (a couple of weeks) I took my eye off the ball, or should I say balls.  Actually, keeping abreast of the position of the social media balls is alike watching an exhibition snooker match between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Alex Higgins: blink and you will miss a few.

What has happened?  What seismic event the size of a large Icelandic ash cloud has rocked the world of online networking?  Ning have only gone and declared that they will move to a subscription only model for providing its communities.  Not for individual users, but for those who use the Ning environment to create communities, its ‘Network Creators’.  That’s you and me, if we use or were planning to use Ning within our membership social media strategy.

And that’s just not fair, is it?  I mean, the whole point of social media is that it is free to the user, isn’t it? (more…)

Memnet Conference – 28th  April 2010

This is an abridged summary of a presentation I gave to the annual Memnet conference at the Liberal Club in London on the 28th April 2010.  Abridged in that I tend to make things up as I go along, so this is my best recollection of what I said.  The focus of the presentation was the potential for membership and professional bodies to harness social media and web 2.0 technologies to add value to the membership experience.  The underlying message was the opportunity offered by social media and, if not embraced, the counter threat it presents in terms of the reasons why people join membership bodies.

Download the presentation from SlideShare

Hello

My name is Lee Davies.  I’m not going to introduce myself any further than that, for reasons which will become apparent as we go along, but I will introduce my colleague James Geldart.  James and I have worked together on a number of technology-based projects within the world of ‘membership’ and he is here today to interrupt me when I get things wrong and answer all the techie questions you are bound to have, questions that will fall well outside of my expertise. (more…)