This week myself and Helen Hodges did a session on ‘Working Smarter’ with a group of staff at Newport Business School, as part of their ‘Creative Thinking’ series of lunchtime workshops. The range of subjects taught in the School is diverse, including Computing and Engineering as well as the usual business subjects, so we had an interesting mix of participants, with one or two from other departments as well.

We used the opportunity to pilot some ideas and materials on the theme of ‘Working smarter in a technology rich environment’, which we thought might have value for our customers and also for ourselves on the RSC Wales team. It was a good opportunity for me to revisit some freely available tools such as Intute and the JISC infoNet Time Management guide, as well as an excuse to delve into some newer resources such as bubbl.us (mindmapping tool) and MindTools.

The group were very engaged and contributed many ideas. We could have spent several days discussing the different themes which ranged across:

• email (!)
• searching the web
• collaboration tools
• web 2.0

Additional topics which emerged in discussion included: working smarter on assessment (eg by using Web PA or Turnitin) and managing student emails.

Throughout the discussion we collected everyone’s tips using the Freemind mindmapping tool, which we selected from the Access Apps collection of portable inclusive technologies assembled by JISC Techdis and the two Scottish Regional Support Centres.

We plan to build on this event to develop a resource on the RSC Wales Moodle site. In the mean time if anyone would like to see the slides they are here and I’ve added a selection of useful links to the RSC Wales delicious.

Some of the most important things I have learned from developing this topic are:

• what works for one person does not always work for another
• the skills to work smarter in a technology-rich environment are not necessarily technology skills; they include self-organisation skills (I found John Caunt’s book Organise Yourself an excellent source of tips)
• whilst a lot of our work habits may be determined by our organisation, there is a fair bit we can do as individuals BUT
• we also need to be able to influence and negotiate with our colleagues, learners and other potential collaborators, in order to get their support and buy-in

Thank you to everyone who kindly suggested their personal ‘working smarter’ tips to me. If you have a working smarter tip to share, please reply to this blog entry!

A big thank you to all who attended, and contributed to, the conference E for Enhancement 2009, which was organised by JISC RSC Wales, HEFCW, the Higher Education Academy and Cardiff University. Materials from the event will be made available shortly via the HEFCW website. I was too busy on the day to make many notes, but here are some quick personal reflections on the event:

• Every institution sent a number of delegates so it was truly a conference representative of the HE sector in Wales
• Amongst the 160+ participants, there was a rich mix of staff from different roles, with many academics as well as senior managers, learning technologists, librarians, IT staff.
• We also had representatives from a useful range of support organisations and groups active in e-learning in Wales.
• The emphasis was very much on ‘real world’ activities – individual staff stories of how technologies have helped their teaching.
• The word ‘E-learning’ was hardly heard – instead the emphasis was on improving the learner experience. Yet as Veronica Adamson reminded us, in order to benefit learners we have to invest in the staff.
• One speaker (Dafydd Trystan) emphasised that we need to involve the students in the introduction of technologies, so that they recognise it as a positive
• I attended a group of lively sessions focussing on collaboration through Welsh medium, and there the emphasis was very much on the power of technologies such as videoconferencing to bring people together.
• Stephen Heppell, our keynote speaker, threw down a few challenges to the HE sector in Wales
  • For today’s 11-13 year-olds, email is irrelevant and Youtube is the search engine of choice. How are we preparing to receive these learners as our HE students in 5-10 years?
  • How do we structure online activity to make it meaningful? Quiet time is a key part of learning effectively.
  • Stephen referred to HE institutions as ‘gentle places of shared endeavour” – an inspiring phrase for me. How do we create that kind of learning community, both physically and online? Second Life is not an easy answer.
  • It would have been great to have more opportunity to debate with Stephen, on issues such as: how do we structure online learning activity in Higher Education, to address the need for deep thinking and reflection. We need to find a way to pursue these debates post-conference.
• Two publications were highlighted in the plenary sessions:
  • An overview of the Benchmarking and Pathfinder Programme 2005-2008
  • Technology Change for Inclusion and its accompanying briefing paper. Simon Ball of JISC Techdis launched this at the conference.
• My main impression of the day was of a mass of purposeful conversations within a bright and uplifting physical space. My main question now is how do we follow it up so that we continue and deepen these conversations.
• As one participant, Haydn Blackey, observed, we need to look at how to conduct research into the student experience. he highlighted the work of ELESIG and a symposium on feedback and assessment which is taking place in June 2009 at Glamorgan.
• One regret is that I had no time to tweet - apologies to those intent on ‘following’ me on Twitter! However several people did make the effort (hash tag #enhance09) and this added a further dimension to the event.
• Colleagues at Cardiff University made some podcasts during the day and I look forward to hearing those when they are made available – watch this space!