Student Ambassadors for Digital Literacy (SADL) is a programme currently open to undergraduate students in the Departments of Statistics, Social Policy, International Relations and Law. It is run by Learning Technology and Innovation (LTI) and the Library and it is now in its second year.

This year the team recruited 40 student ambassadors to attend a series of workshops to develop their digital literacy. The workshops concentrated on finding and evaluating information, research practices, sharing and managing information and managing your digital footprint. They were designed to be interactive and an opportunity for the staff to learn from students and for students to share their experiences with each other and their peers. Students received Amazon vouchers for participating in SADL but also a statement on PDAM in recognition of their skills and experience.

In October 2014 the SADL team appointed four Senior Ambassadors who completed the programme last year. The Seniors Seow Wei Chin, Djelila Delior, Simran Masand and Eugene McGeown helped to plan and run the workshops in conjunction with LTI and Library staff and to supervise a group project which was presented at the end of the programme.

SADL has attracted considerable interest from other universities, some of whom have also set up similar ‘ambassador’ schemes, where students help their peers, or staff in the use of new technologies for learning. On 17th and 18th March 2015 Dr Jane Secker from LTI attended a Jisc conference called the Change Agents Network event. She was joined by Seow Wei Chin and Eugene McGeown who participated in a student panel, discussing their experiences as part of SADL. They had a chance to meet students involved in similar projects at UCL, Portsmouth, London Metropolitan University, Winchester and Greenwich. Seow Wei and Eugene’s presentation was extremely well received.

Seow Wei told us:

“The Jisc Change Agent’s Network event was truly an eye-opener for me. With an exponential increase in digital tools and dependence on technology in our daily activities, we can no longer deny that the future of education and learning will revolve (or is already revolving) around technology. I am glad that I was given the opportunity to speak to and be inspired by so many change agents around the UK. I hope that we will be able to extract the knowledge gained from this event and instil it into learning at LSE.”

Eugene was similarly enthusiastic about his experiences as part of SADL and attending the conference:

“The Change Agents Network event was an invaluable experience. While speaking to the staff from a range of universities, I was amazed and inspired by their enthusiasm for empowering students…. I think we all now have some great ideas for SADL, and I’m excited to see what we can do in the future with our network of support from universities across the country.”

Find out more about SADL from our blog. We will be recruiting a new cohort of student ambassadors in October 2015.