The events focused on four themes and I was interested in three areas particularly: education (digital) strategy, enhancing learning experience, and VR\/AR\/AI use cases. Here, I’ll share the ones that excited me the most. The event updates and the programme details are on the Jisc<\/a> website and under the\u00a0 Twitter hashtag\u00a0#digifest18<\/a>.<\/p>\n Education (digital) strategy The opening keynote from Shakira Martin<\/a> (National Union of Students) stated the importance of supporting inclusion and diversity in any education strategy. This reminded me of two useful MOOCs I have studied recently –\u00a0Digital Accessibility: Enabling Participation in the Information Society<\/a> and\u00a0Inclusive Learning and Teaching Environments<\/a>. I would highly recommend the courses to those of you that are interested.<\/p>\n Mikkel Lauritzen<\/a> (Aula) summarised five trends in education strategy<\/a>:<\/p>\n He mentioned that there are two types of university strategies. The first sees the institution education strategy commit to \u2018digital\u2019. In my opinion,\u00a0Lancaster University<\/a> and the UCL<\/a> fall into this category. The second sees the institution develop digital champions to drive change and impact. Cardiff University could be seen as one of these institutions.<\/p>\n It was good to learn about the Digital strategy of Wales<\/a> and the\u00a0Digital Vision and Strategy for Wales in FE<\/a>. I was encouraged by the statements: \u201cPeople who perform their role every day are experts in their processes. \u2026If a person or group identifies a goal or improvement, they will own it\u201d. This made me consider what general approaches have HE institutions adopted in their strategy development?<\/p>\n Enhancing learning experience<\/strong><\/p>\n Tamsyn\u00a0Smith<\/a>\u00a0and <\/em>Anna\u00a0Ruff (University of Southampton) presented around how they have developed the VLE awards scheme<\/a> over six years. It\u2019s an excellent case study, which showed how to engage students with the course evaluation process, through a friendly competition where students nominate and rank top 3 modules from their schools. It helped further understand students\u2019 needs and learning experience, informing and improving course design. They have shared practice tips<\/a> from their experience. I think this example matches the second type of digital strategy.<\/p>\n Matt East<\/a> (Anglia Ruskin University) presented<\/a> how they have used Talis Elevate as a resource analytics tool to investigate students\u2019 engagement. It seems Talis Elevate<\/a> is a very powerful tool, monitoring which pages within documents that students view and for how long. We should definitely compare it with our supported tools. The research findings (slide page 23) made me consider how can we further understand our students? How well can our tools (e.g., Blackboard, Eesysoft) help to prove\/disprove these statements: \u201cstudents don\u2019t read the module guide\u201d; \u201cstudents leave work to the last minute\u201d; \u201cstudents only interact if there\u2019s an assessment involved\u201d. Matt mentioned Dr Dan Gordon\u2019s research around evaluating students\u2019 learning. I found his presentation called \u201cEvaluation of student engagement with feedback: feeding forward from feedback<\/a>\u201d, which is worth watching.<\/p>\n I quite like the Northumbria Student Support Model (Slides page 44<\/a>) presented by Nick Woolley<\/a> (Northumbria University), which showed us the university\u2019s approach to delivering seamless student journeys. He mentioned the Education, consumer rights and maintaining trust: what students want from their university<\/a> report, which is an important reference for us to learn what valuable learning experience means from the students\u2019 viewpoint. The Going for Gold: Lessons from the TEF provider submissions<\/a> (Diana Beech, 2017. HEPI) report is another which is worth-reading, where Nick quoted \u201cGold-status universities seem to go above and beyond standard VLE and video conventions to employ digital technology in innovative ways.\u201d<\/p>\n VR\/AR\/AI use cases<\/strong><\/p>\n AI is smart but does not understand itself. We need to be learner-centred when using AI in education. The talks<\/a> from Professor Rose Luckin (UCL Knowledge Lab) and Nick Woolley (Northumbria University) stimulated discussions and thinking of AI in education. The Intelligence Unleashed An argument for AI in Education<\/a> (UCL publication) summarised what AI can offer learning right now:<\/p>\n At the ALT Conference 2017, I was inspired by the examples<\/a> of mobile VR technology (SeekBeak<\/a>) adoption in education. I was inspired again by Professor Shafi Ahmed\u2019s presentation<\/a>. It showed that VR\/AR technologies have started impacting on everyone. Particularly in education, it requires greater efforts on the transformation of education approaches to learning.<\/p>\n![\"image](\"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/learning-technology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/286\/2018\/03\/digifest-1-188x300.jpg\")
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Using the innovative LOLA technology<\/a>, the opening film took us into a symphony with students\u00a0from\u00a0the Royal College of Music Orchestra physically playing in the hall along with streaming a rock band in Edinburgh Napier which was projected in the screen. It immediately showed how technologies can enhance our experience.<\/p>\n\n