#altc25 Glasgow Conference Reflections

Decompressing from some excellent days at the Association for Learning Technology's annual conference in Glasgow. Here are some quick reflections on what I picked up. Programme was great (as co-chair some bias in that) and I probably missed many other useful nuggets. Thought venue and catering etc all excellent. Company as ever was splendid. I even managed to appear on ALTC Radio. 

Great to work with team at ALT and my co chairs to pull things together. I hope everyone had a great time 

Preconference Evening in NQ64

Looked inspired had a previous engagement but what a fun place. Made me think about Reclaim Hosting folks and other edtechs I know who collect, repair and build gaming machines as a hobby.

Day One 

Charles Knight 

Great keynote and call to action. Learning Technologists do , do magic - but they do need the right context. Good institutions succeed by giving staff and students agency and confidence and this is still possible in period of massive change. Good advice too though if magic is not achievable where you are move on to the next gig and light up another room.

Publication of New Jisc Beyond Blended Report and Assets 

An open set of resources and report to improve learning design across the sector. These can be repurposed and made your own. So well done on creative commons licence. Would be great to see QAA, SFC , HMIE were directing centres to resources like this.  Blended is about taking a whole institutional approach including working on co-creation with learners to improve the learning experience. All directors of teaching and learning, faculty heads and quality managers etc should know their way around this. 

Mark Bush - Inspera

Mainly a session around how to trust suppliers. An old chestnut. But sensing a market maturity in lots of discussions with suppliers and exhibitors over the two days of the conference. New entrants need to have a better solution to displace incumbents. As there is less money about, the sector generally tends to be much more risk adverse and not as willing to pilot new things and there is a constant concern about lock in (once you are on board, will tolls , licence fees simply climb with no clear escape route) or perhaps this is just a timely awareness. 

Where in Scotland APUC, in UK UCISA and organisations like ALT come in.  We do all talk to each other about suppliers and possible technical solutions.  

Online assessment systems like Inspera now handling 18.2 million submissions a year and operating in 26 countries globally.

Student Panel 

Was interesting as ever to hear level headed students taking a measured approach to AI adoption and mainly asking for more support around academic writing. And not really having clear answer on what is best way to communicate with them.

Edgehill University  

Attended interesting sessions on blended learning and costings.  The current ABC model struggles with spiral curriculums that exist in medicine and some other disciplines so does need different approach while keeping a laser like focus on not overloading students with content.  Edge Hill University has some useful resources to support collaborative development. 

University of Southampton

The University of Southampton have created a useful tool for helping with very vague faculty requests to create digital learning materials. Looks great it creates resource allocations. costs and realistic delivery timelines. I do hope academics take time to fill in the forms in properly.

University of Leeds 

Good story where learning technology was pulled back from faculties to become more centralised service- became design led strategic partners with much better focus on educational enhancement framework using institutional data to target academic teams that needed support.

Did a quick change and had great fun at dinner, awards ceremony and  Ceilidh - band were great and still home by 11pm. Congratulations to all winners and nominees. 

Day Two 

Launch of AmplifyFE Impact  Report

It was a privilege to get to say a few words and launch the #AmplifyFE impact report. Led in partnership with ALT and the UFI Vocational Trust it now embraces a community of around 3700 practitioners from across the UK.  A few more FE folks in Scotland should tune into this network. 

Gabbi Witthaus 

So grounded and so human. I do wonder that system still can seem so rigid, remote and hostile to learners.  Four dimensions work is really useful way to help teachers and students manage life and learning loads. Gabbi has kindly shared her keynote. 

Edinburgh Napier and Sciaten Partners

Great work around ethical use of AI with academics and students. Great too to see Open Scotland referenced in influences here. Some really useful resources to open up discussions about AI in curriculum and assessment here.  

Would be good to see more Scottish Colleges visible in supporting this work. 

Paul Basich

Great session focussing on efficient ways of delivering blended learning. It is mostly common sense - but staggering to hear that some large institutions are just beginning to think about institutional templates in virtual learning environments etc. In some respects HE has a lot to learn about course design, teaching and learning from Colleges. In feedback highlighted that West Lancashire College has delivered to 10,000 online  learners in last 5 years - part of Newcastle College Group. 

ALT Strategy Session

Sort of what it said on the tin - in a world where everyone is now an 'expert on digital learning'  ALT needs to keep ahead of the pack. 

University of Glasgow - Jenny Crow

A nice bit of work echoing the mornings keynote and some of the themes from the student panel around experiments using whatsapp and other platforms to give learners a solid sense of belonging

Manchester Met - Andrew Larner

Great tool for suggesting new assessment designs using generative AI from Manchester Metropolitan University. Really worth exploring.

Exhibitors etc 

Great to see many established players and a number of new potential suppliers for Education sector - I did get around and say hello. 

Good to have lots of proper dialogues around sectoral challenges that were way beyond the 'sales patter' of old. Among the VLE suppliers still some frustration that institutions are not 'sweating' the assets and doing more with the great platforms that are available. 

Good to meet the team from Brickfield and hear about their tools for monitoring the accessibility of learning content.

Interested in Edina's new walled garden for trying out AI tools.

A shout out to Vevox their polling solution worked very well throughout the conference.

Nice to meet Estendio, Eduface, and Study Stash all harnessing AI to improve teaching and learning.

Endnotes 

It was great to have a number of colleagues along from City of Glasgow College but I do think Colleges generally should be more engaged with ALT and communities of practice. I'll keep pushing through ALT Scotland , CDN and the work with Jisc that is already in place. 

I miss social media Discord was ok but needs everyone on board. Remember you are all agents of change. Find each other on social media @joecar80.bsky.social

I listed seven things for delegates 

1. (Beyond) Blended Learning is the future !

2. Is your own practice open ? (Discover Open Scotland )

3. I hope you are all blogging and aggregating (ScotEdublogs) 

4. It ain’t a microcredential without a digital badge ( using 1Edtech open standards) and a platform that supports these. 

5. Hope you have figured out how to allow learners and staff to use AI ethically. Local models are the way ahead for many. 

6. In a world where everyone is now an expert on educational technology – ALT continues to be beacon in the darkness.

7. I hope you enjoyed Glasgow and haste ye back.