ALT

Last month, we had the pleasure of hosting an inspiring OER25 in London.

The topic is: What’s the top priority for you right now? This is an informal opportunity to share what you're currently working on, get feedback, seek collaborators, discuss any challenging issues, or report on anything you wish. Minimal preparation is required, as we aren't expecting any slides (unless you want to). Just think about what you want to talk about beforehand and any questions you want to ask others. We'll go around the room, and if multiple people are attending from the same institution, we'll address it on an institutional basis. The time allocated for sharing will be flexible, depending on the number of attendees and where the discussion is going. Any contributions who we aren't able to get to in the October session will be carried over to the following session in January. We'll conclude the sharing 4:50 (at the latest). Following that, we'll dedicate 5-10 minutes to setting the agenda for our January meeting. This agenda might focus on delving deeper into topics that arose during the October session, or it could introduce entirely new subjects for discussion.

Have you ever wondered how data science students approach learning analytics? In this session, we’ll explore the unique perspectives of postgraduate students who analysed the Open University Learning Analytics Dataset (OULAD) as part of a four-week innovation project.

What makes this work especially interesting is the combination of methods used to capture the students perspectives. Alongside human-led content analysis, we used AI tools like Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and Large Language Models (LLMs). This blend provided a richer, more nuanced understanding of how data science students interpret and engage with learning analytics.

Join us as we share what we learned from these students—about their analytical approaches, the themes they explored, and what all of this means for designing better learning analytics in higher education. It’s a conversation about how students see the role of data in their own learning journey and how their insights can shape the future of education.

CPD Webinar Host: 

Raghda Marai Zahran, Newcastle University 

By Digital Assessments SIG

On the 20th of May we held our last webinar of this academic year. Thank you to our presenters for sharing your work. If you missed it and would like to watch any of our presenters you can access their individual recordings on youtube:

• Denny Roberts and Lisa Scott: Transforming digital Examinations. A Collaborative Approach at Heriot-Watt University
• Sumayyah Islam and Laurence Horstman: Enhancing MCQ Exam Experience at LSE
• Dr Lee Parkin: Using Automation to manage administration surrounding third year research projects
• Zhiqiong Chen and Yihua Huang: Transitioning Language Exams to Online Delivery in Higher Education 

Transforming Digital Examinations: A Collaborative Approach at Heriot-Watt University

This presentation The transition to digital examinations at Heriot-Watt University, particularly during the return to campus, and the significant challenges it presented. Denny and Lisa shared that to tackle these challenges the Virtual Exam Centre (VEC) was founded, an international interdisciplinary group comprising over 43 members from diverse departments, this dynamic team leveraged agile methodologies, iterative process development, reflective practices, and technologies to create a cohesive and efficient support system for digital examinations.
Their approach centres on fostering collaboration and communication among team members, ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned, informed and removing single points of failure. By adopting agile practices, the team has been able to respond swiftly to emerging issues and continuously improve processes. Iterative development has allowed for the refinement of strategies based on feedback and real-world experiences while reflective practices ensured that lessons learned from each examination cycle were applied to future iterations.
They shared how technology played a pivotal role in bringing together the geographically dispersed team and managing digital examinations. The team used various digital assessment platforms, such as Canvas Quizzes, Mobius, STACK, Gradescope, and Respondus LockDown Browser, to streamline the examination process, enhance academic integrity, and improve accessibility. Additionally, digital collaboration platforms helped to facilitate seamless communication and coordination among team members across global campuses, ensuring a unified approach.
This presentation detailed the journey of implementing digital examinations at Heriot-Watt University highlighting the challenges faced, the innovative strategies employed and the successes achieved. It will provide insights into the formation and operation of VEC, showcasing how interdisciplinary collaboration, agile methodologies and technology can drive positive change in educational support systems.

Piloting Digital MCQ Examinations at LSE

Sumayyah Islam and Laurence Horstman presented on the ‘e-Exams’ MCQ pilot which represents a step forward in the digital transformation of assessment at LSE. Their presentation shares insights from the pilot, which runs from July 2024 to May 2025, and discusses benefits and challenges of implementing MCQs within LSE’s ‘Digiexam’ exams platform. Despite successes using Digiexam as a ‘digital answer booklet’ to deliver essay-based exams, the potential for digitising MCQ exams using automatic marking was previously underexplored at LSE. The pilot sought to build on existing MCQ features, allowing students to view questions and answer alternatives directly on-screen.

Automated Mark Agreements for 3rd Year Research Projects

This webinar focused on how automation software such as Power Automate can be integrated with multiple processes to reduce administration burden, speed up the marking process, and how these processes can potentially be shared across other modules and faculties to ease marking and feedback surrounding digital assessments.

Transitioning Language Exams to Online Delivery in Higher Education

This presentation reviews the end-to-end transition of traditional paper-based language assessments to fully digital formats within a higher education language course. It focuses on administrative planning, implementation, and lessons learned, with an emphasis on improving efficiency, accessibility, and the student experience – while maintaining academic integrity. This presentation offers practical insights and forward-thinking strategies for institutions aiming to transition language or discipline-based assessments to online platforms. It highlights the importance of cross-team collaboration, phased implementation, and stable support structures to ensure a successful and sustainable digital transformation.

by Matthew Ruddle

In the 24/25 academic year I made the decision to write weekly teaching reflections, which I published publicly on LinkedIn. Here I explain my reasoning behind this, and the impact it had.

Why reflect?

Teaching is challenging – ask any teacher, and they will tell you! This past year was particularly challenging, because I was assigned to work exclusively with our alternative provision faculty.

This meant that I was teaching GCSE English Language to groups of pre16 and post16 students, most of whom had high learning needs, were recovering from trauma, experienced high anxiety, displayed challenging behaviours, and had been failed by mainstream schools in a myriad of different ways. To help them to re-engage in education (and specifically GCSE English) I had to re-think my approach to teaching, which meant ripping up the resits rule book and starting again.

I already knew from previous experience that working with high-needs learners in alternative provision is often stressful, so I needed to find a way to help me cope with this.

I also knew that if I didn’t take the time at the end of each week to sit and think (to really think) about the successes and the struggles, then I would end up drowning in a pool of negativity. No. More than just a pool. A hungry, swirling whirlpool threatened to pull me under every Friday. Writing a teaching reflection was the lifejacket that kept me afloat.

Why reflect publicly?

Reflecting is something that most teachers do all the time: we are constantly thinking about our students’ progress, evaluating the impact of a lesson or a learning activity, and pondering how to improve things next time. I knew that if I reflected privately (perhaps in a notebook or journal) then I would be less likely to continue with it, so I made the decision to post these weekly reflections on LinkedIn, where anyone could read them, to make me more accountable.

What do I mean by “beyond the looking glass”?

Now, we all know that social media is fraught with difficulty. In many ways, social media is a place where we often present a distorted version of ourselves: where we look better, we sound more productive, we live more exciting and more perfect lives. Social media is a like a warped mirror: it reflects back to us a version of someone who doesn’t really exist, but we still share this strange image with the online world, where we strive to be “the fairest of them all”.

Although the word “reflection” reminds most people of looking into a mirror, the act of reflection is more about gazing deeply inside of yourself. It is not about crafting a more attractive version of who you want the world to see; it is about trying to discover truths.

Why share teaching reflections?

Rather than thinking of a reflection as a mirror image, I think that the act of reflecting is more like the opening of a window; through sharing my teaching reflections each week, I was not only offering a glimpse inside my classroom, but I was also looking outside, beyond my four walls, at the larger landscape.

Posting my reflections on LinkedIn created the possibility of connecting with other FE professionals across the UK. I was not seeking praise or “likes” or any sort of hollow flattery: I was trying to share my true experiences of teaching in FE, warts and all, and I didn’t really know what the reactions would be (or even if anyone would want to read them).

I made the effort to write truthfully about the struggles as well as the successes in my classroom. I wanted to give an accurate impression of what it is like teaching on the frontline, every week, and looking back at those reflections now, I am proud of my openness and honesty. More than a few people have told me that my reflections were “raw”. This reassures me that my writing has been frank and realistic, which was my goal all along.

Afterall, what’s the point of writing a teaching reflection if it isn’t true? It may not always present the “ideal” version of who we are, but it does present an honest snapshot of how things were that week, and opens a window into our pedagogy.

How did this impact me?

I cannot express enough how much writing these reflections helped my mental health. There were times when I was so tired, stressed, and was second-guessing my teaching, that the simple act of thinking and writing about my experiences lightened my load. I was subsequently reassured when other teachers told me that my experiences resonated with them. Knowing that I was not alone in my experiences helped me to feel connected to the wider FE community, far beyond the confines of my own desk, classroom, or college.

What’s my hot take?

Yes, sharing your honest teaching reflections online can be scary (it definitely made me feel vulnerable) but sharing our experiences in this way establishes the context for so many possibilities: for conversations, for connections, and for deeper contemplation about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we can make it better. Reflections really do open a window to the wider world.

Call to action:

Connect with Matthew Ruddle via LinkedIn

If you want to learn more about LinkedIn and how you can leverage the platform to make connections, do sign up to our AmplifyFE webinar on Friday 14 Nov 2025 from 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM AmplifyFE Community Space Workshop: How to master LinkedIn to achieve your goals

There’s just one week left to submit entries for the ALT Awards 2025, with the extended deadline set for Midnight, Monday 28 July. These prestigious awards recognise the innovators, changemakers, and trailblazers advancing the future of learning technology, and this is your last chance to get involved.

We're excited to share that we have several trustee roles available in 2025. As set out in our constitution, some of these roles will be filled by appointment and some will be decided by elections.  All successful candidates will take up their positions at the Annual General Meeting in October 2025. If you're passionate about shaping our future, this is your chance to get involved and make a difference.
 

This online conference picks up where OER25 left off, offering a chance to revisit key themes and continue the conversations that shaped this year’s event. Taking place on 16 September, the programme brings together practitioners, researchers and policy-makers from across sectors to explore what’s next for open education.

Themes from OER25, including equity and social justice, open practice during times of change, and the politics of openness in the age of AI, remain at the heart of this event. Whether you joined us at OER25 or are new to the community, this is an opportunity to reflect, share your work and connect with others working in open education.

The conference will be held entirely online, with a mix of live sessions, discussions and opportunities to engage with presenters and participants throughout the day. All sessions will be recorded and made available to registered attendees.

Tickets are available now. We look forward to welcoming you.

 

We know it’s a busy time of year, so we’re giving you a bit more breathing room. The deadline for the ALTC25 call for proposals has been extended by a week. You now have until Sunday, 20 July to get your submissions in for consideration for the event.

The Call for Proposals for this year's ALT Annual Conference is closing soon on Sunday, 13 July 2025.

Traditional teaching methods in Aircraft Maintenance Technology (AMT) often struggle to maintain student engagement, motivation, and knowledge retention. While gamification has been recognised as a potential solution, its application in AMT education remains underexplored, particularly in bridging theoretical knowledge with practical skill acquisition. This study investigates the effectiveness of Kahoot-based gamification in enhancing student engagement, motivation, knowledge retention, and practical skills development. A mixed-methods approach was employed, integrating quantitative surveys, pre- and post-assessments, and qualitative interviews with students and instructors. The study assessed 120 participants, revealing statistically significant improvements: engagement increased by 43.8%, motivation by 55.2%, knowledge retention by 41.2%, and practical skills by 51.6%. Qualitative findings supported these results, with students reporting higher participation, improved concept recall, and greater enthusiasm. Instructors observed enhanced confidence in applying theoretical knowledge. Despite these benefits, challenges such as internet connectivity issues, time constraints, and question format limitations were identified. The study recommends a blended learning approach integrating gamification with hands-on training, scenario-based exercises, and emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. Beyond AMT, these findings highlight gamification’s potential in technical and vocational education, emphasising the need for future research on adaptive gamification models and AI-driven learning platforms.

For this study, 350 university students in Germany were surveyed to understand how they perceive ChatGPT’s educational advantages and challenges. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, it found out that students tend to see ChatGPT as helpful for academic performance (53.14%), writing (47.14%), and exam preparation (50.00%). Nonetheless, a large majority of people expressed doubt regarding its ability to understand queries (61.72%), reliability (52.29%), privacy (52.57%), bias (47.43%), security (55.14%) and displaced jobs (56.29%). These concerns were reinforced by open ended responses, which showed that attitudes towards AI can be based on factors such as a person’s digital literacy and their experience with AI. In the study, the researchers propose a need to incorporate AI education into curricula in order to teach students to critically assess AI- generated content and to identify biases. Moreover, it suggests setting ethical standards that AI systems need to meet such as accuracy, security, and transparency. Perspectives between cultures vary, and require the teacher to conduct more global research, and approach teaching context specifically. The overarching goal is to promote the thoughtful, ethical, and context-aware integration of AI into educational practices worldwide.

Entries for the 2025 ALT Awards are closing soon.

Thomas Pocklington Trust’s (TPT) latest ‘Give Me Access to College; report reveals that blind and partially sighted students continue to face significant barriers in accessing specialist vision impairment (VI) support in post 16 education. Despite efforts to reform education for students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Further Education (FE) continues to be overlooked, and unacceptable gaps remain limiting opportunities for young people with a VI.

This report revisits our earlier findings, ‘Give Me Access to College’ and highlights the urgent need for targeted reforms. We call on the Government to ensure that blind and partially sighted young people are included in the SEND improvement agenda, with consistent support, training, and access to a full range of post 16 pathways.

We request your support and encourage you to take action by sending a letter to your MP, you can help encourage positive change for blind and partially sighted young people. It’s quick, simple and it can lead to real change.

Read our full report here, and send the letter to your MP

You can also read our LinkedIn blog  written by Krupali Parshotam, sharing her experiences of college as a blind and partially sighted person.

If you would like to learn more about our work, then sign up for our Education Newsletter. Or if you would like a more in-depth conversation, contact us at educationpolicy@pocklington.org.uk

Webinar leader: Karishma Punwani

Many maths learners find it difficult to connect with abstract course content, and as a result, not only do they struggle to learn the material, but they can also become demotivated, anxious, and disengaged. Fortunately, learning technologies for maths make lessons much more "touchable", visual, and relevant, offering an effective means of engaging and motivating students, deepening their understanding of fundamental concepts, and reinforcing learning through practice.

In this session, we’ll explore some of the ways interactive maths technology can be used effectively in the classroom, from illuminating visualisations to interactive, learner-led activities that naturally foster investigation, collaboration, and discussion. Demonstrations will be done using Maple Learn, the online maths tool from Maplesoft, with examples taken from the A-Level and GCSE content collections, which conform to the AQA and Pearson exam specifications. These collections make it easy for educators to deliver engaging, interactive maths experiences to their learners through the use of customisable content created to meet the specific needs of their class.

Details to be announced shortly 

Following the conclusion of OER25 in London this week, we are pleased to invite submissions for our upcoming online conference, “Speaking Truth to Power: Open Edu

The Research in Learning Technology (RLT) journal is delighted to welcome its newly appointed Editor-in-Chief, Professor Peter Bryant, and Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Erika Corradini. These appointments mark an exciting new chapter for the journal as it continues to advance research and scholarship in digital learning.

 

 

The Fundamentals of Copyright in Learning Technology Workshop is just around the corner. Join us on Tuesday, 15 July 2025, from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM for a dynamic and practical session tailored for education professionals working with digital tools and content.

Join Jane Secker and Chris Morrison, who will be discussing copyright and audiovisual works with their collaborator and friend, Bart Meletti, who is working on his PhD at CREATe at the University of Glasgow. Together the three of them produced the Code of Fair Practice for Film Educators issued in 2023. We will catch up on where we are with audiovisual works and what the needs of the sector are as many of us rely increasingly on streaming platforms.