This week I am starting a two day a week secondment to LSE’s International Programmes, the department that is responsible for degrees and diplomas studied by 45,000 students based around the world and accredited by the University of London. I know something about their work as for five years or so I was a Fellow at UoL’s Centre for Distance Education. I will be working in the International Programmes office on Monday and Friday for the next 6 months.

I’m going to be working to develop a teaching course including a digital literacy programme aimed at teachers. The teachers are based at affiliate institutions around the world as many students studying for a University of London qualification also receive institution from an affiliated institution. The idea is to offer this group a teaching certificate and although it won’t be a full blown PG Cert, it will cover many similar elements to a teaching course in higher education. The challenge is that much of the course will be taught online as the teachers are based around the world, although I do get to visit Singapore in January to deliver workshops to the teachers. The plan is that the course will have digital literacies embedded in to it, to equip teachers for 21st Century teaching. It will also explore the challenges of teaching in the digital age and assumptions about the concept of students as ‘digital natives’. I will be looking for existing courses and OERs for ideas as I know there are plenty of existing courses on this theme. Models like 23 Things also seem to offer ideas about the approach we could use to delivering the content. In addition to teaching about digital literacies we want to use a variety of appropriate technologies with the teachers to encourage them to share ideas and be reflective about their teaching.

My first step will be carrying out a search to find out about similar existing courses and to find a suitable teaching model. I also need to devise a curriculum and find out more about the teachers, their current practices and use of technologies. It’s very exciting starting a new project and today feels like the first step on a new adventure! I will be working in LTI on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on my regular job, but there are of course many parallels, particularly as we are launching the second year of the Student Ambassadors for Digital Literacy project, with 4 undergraduate departments this year! I am also sure that many of the LTI workshops can be adapted for the teachers working with International Programmes.