DEBUT - HEA Pathfinder

(My creative side now returns to posting blogs from nearer the beginning of the conf when i had no wifi)

Sue Westerman, Canterbury Christchurch
The project set out to take a personalised approach to staff development.
Their existing fragmented models were not sustainable as impact on individuals was fuzzy/lost.
DEBUT changed to develop digital literacy rather than specific skills and focus on confidence rather than competence. This connects to the paper Liz, Kay and myself did.
Staff were asked to rank themselves at the beginning and end and asked to pick 6 tools to explore (including podcasting, Flickr, wiki, etc). They were inspired by Alan Martin (?) and his definition for digital literacy - not very encompassing: about tech and confidence (awareness, confident, evaluated use of tools they use, reflection, adaptability). She says being Adaptable is most important as tech moves on. They noted a rapid increase in self-assessed literacy amongst participants especially those who were relatively illiterate at the beginning. (Why do 95% of surveys tell you what you want to hear? Quants. Huh!)
Many staff reported integrating new skills/confidence into practice. They liked being the people who chose the tools. This approach is now well-established with academics. They liked f2f and the opportunity to share practice. Preferred group sessions, with small pieces of 'homework' followed by group reporting.
Issues: Mixed ability groups, how to encourage independence, time available, easy access to appropriate technologies. It worked - but labour-intensive.
At start a mass intro of tools followed by mentoring (mentoring was not so useful). Now:
Annual staff development programme
Embedding with current work
Extension work for the more confident
Keeping cohort 1 connected
They had plenty of applications from academics to join the pilot. PowerPoint was most popular, followed by Refworks. (My heart sank!).
Wikipedia wasn't of interest. (I drowned!).
susan.westerman@canterbury.ac.uk, www.canterbury.ac.uk/lteu