Day 30: Showcase your #EdTech journey

The last day of the #JuneEdTechChallenge and a chance for us all to be a bit proud and put ourselves on a pedestal and shout about our achievements.

Many colleagues and friends in these roles are not naturally good at shouting about our own acheivements, so seeing how people will complete this part of the challenge will be interesting. As will seeing what people remember of their own achievements and LT journey, and what others remember of it too. Indeed, what I remember will no doubt be different to what you remember, so please tell me your highlgihts of our time together, dear reader?

For me, there are a few stand-out moments from my +15 years in learning technology, learning design, and a few more senior roles too, which include:

• Multiple awards across very different areas of activity, including the ALT Learning Technologist of the Year 2014 (Highly Commended) and 2020 (Community Award).
• Working with Professor Sir Jonathan Bates on his amazing Literature and Mental Health MOOC, where I joined him and interviewed some inspiring authors and poets, including Sir Ian McKellen, Melvyn Bragg, Mark Haddon, Ben Okri, and Stephen Fry!
• Publishing my own books, with some amazing colleagues:
  • QR Codes in Education (2013)
  • What is a Learning Technologist? (2013)
  • The Really Useful #EdTechBook (2015)
  • Emergency Rations #EdTechRations: What’s so important we can’t leave it at home? (2017)
• Completing my CMALT portfolio and successfully reviewing and renewing it in 2017.
• Completing the PG Cert Education Practice at Bournemouth University and gaining FHEA status (2011).
• Applying for and being accepted as a Member of the Learning and Performance Institute (MLPI, 2021).
• Growing and learning in my role as a learning technologist and learning designer and rising to a position of seniority where I can use my experience and background to help shape and support colleagues in their own journeys.
• Steering my family, friends, and colleagues through the preparation for lockdown in February and March 2020, and through regular contact and support during 2020 and into 2021. No doubt we will continue this way of working well into the 2nd half of 2021, and possibly beyond.
• Working solidly to support friends and colleagues at Coventry University Online for the last three years, in-person and remote working, recruitment, resourcing, strategic and operational thinking and planning, and all-around hard slog to help everyone head in the same direction, at the same pace.

Each day has been different and a challenge for many, many different reasons. One constant, however, has been both my need to grow and learn, and the network on Twitter and LinkedIn that has helped this journey – directly and indirectly. The list of those who have been on this journey with me continues to grow to this very day, and I thank you all!

• This is Day 30 and the end of the  JuneEdTechChallenge. Read all my challenge posts on the JuneEdTechChallenge tag, and on Twitter with the #JuneEdTechChallenge hashtag.

Photo by davide ragusa on Unsplash