Ed/Tech must-reads 101224

Well the Third Space Slowposium and Symposium have come and gone and I’ll never bother you with them again. (For a little while anyway). It was genuinely a treat to meet so many people at ASCILITE who read this newsletter and get something from it. Thank you.

Guidelines for Producing Accessible 3D Prints (2024) | From Round Table on Information Access for people with print disabilities

I haven’t played extensively with 3D printing so I hadn’t given the accessibility side of this much thought but happily there are a bunch of people out there who have. The idea of 3D printing models of room layouts in houses stood out in a quick scan of this, suggesting that hallways should be wide enough for fingers to traverse and walls shouldn’t be very high. Many of the principles echo accessibility principles that I’m more familiar with, like removing unnecessary and distracting content. Even if you have no intention of 3D printing, it is a rich and thoughtful resource. (Thanks to Sheryl Maher for sharing)

The role of digital technology in facilitating epistemic fluency in professional education from Professional Development in Education

This paper from Norwegian researchers Korseberg and Stalheim explores the ways that educational technologies were introduced to occupational therapy and nautical studies (separate courses) and emphasises the importance of tools being fit for purpose for the specific learning and teaching needs.

Programmatic Assessment for Learning from UNSW Sydney Teaching

In the same way that the COVID19 pandemic raised understanding of the affordances of online learning (yes, there were also some bad parts), the rise of GenAI seems to have a silver lining in the sense of urgency it is creating when it comes to (finally) working on programmatic course design and assessment. Where the individual subjects in a degree once existed as tiny fiefdoms, there is now an appreciation that taking a whole-of-course perspective to a student’s education offers some significant benefits. This resource page from UNSW (which I suspect that someone at the Third Space Symposium shared - sorry) provides a great overview and some sound strategies for moving teaching in this direction.

Emily Nordmann’s successful PFHEA application from BlueSky

I have been a fan of the work of Emily Nordmann (Uni of Glasgow) for a while, starting with her work on video lecture capture. Seeing her bleet/skeet/bloop/tweet (?) that she has been awarded a Principle Fellowship of the HEA was no surprise and well deserved. She has shared her application for the world to see on a link in this post/bleet/whatever.

And I think that might do for this year. I’ll be back with more must-reads in the New Year and I wish you and yours all the joy of the season.