Spotlight on Digital

Shining a light on the power and potential of digital technology

The use of digital technologies is already a large part of most jobs, particularly within universities, and this is set to grow even more in the future. While there is a huge variety of different tools, technologies and methods, there are ways of thinking about technology and some basic techniques that can be applied in most roles, and beyond the workplace.

Throughout July, LEAD ran workshops on some of these principles and techniques, including topics such as why digital technology is an important part of the Applied University, how you currently use (or don’t use) technology in your existing practice, your rights and responsibilities online, how and why to make your content more accessible to people with disabilities, and how to preserve your wellbeing in the flood of online information.

Everyone’s experience and relationship with technology is different, and everyone’s role is different, so over the course of the month we’ll be sharing a range of different online resources and running weekly workshops for all staff at SHU. Whether you are a total technophobe, curious but cautious, a digital expert, or something in between, we hope that there will be thing to interest and inspire you and that you’ll be able to increase your understanding of some of the ways that technology can help you, as well as share ways that it already has.

Further information:

• visit the LEAD blog for daily articles and resources
• .. or better still, subscribe to receive updates in your inbox (using the subscribe button at the bottom of this page)
• follow SHU Academic Development (@SHU_AcDev) on Twitter and the #SpotlightOnDigital hashtag for discussion and updates

Spotlight on Digital Workshops:

Exploring your own Digital Practice

This workshop was an opportunity to investigate your current digital activity, share your practice with colleagues and find out how you could harness technology to assist you in your work.

Give it a Go: Experiencing Digital Collaboration

This workshop gave you a chance to try out a few of the different online collaboration tools that SHU provides for staff and students, such as Google Drive, Office365, and Blackboard Collaborate, and think about how they might be used in your work to reduce administrative activities and boost communication.

Give it a Go: Finding and Using Digital Resources

Whether you are preparing a lecture for your students, putting together a presentation or report for a committee or preparing promotional materials, it is important to use strong and appropriate images and media to help you get your point across. However, it is also important to make sure that you don’t fall foul of copyright law while doing so. This workshop provided you with a better understanding of the value of using engaging visuals, introducing you to sources of legally reusable media and help you to identify what you can and can’t do with specific images and other media from the internet.

Give it a Go: Creating Engaging Video Presentations

The internet can be a huge distraction, with countless different sites and people vying for everyone’s interest and attention. This workshop showed you how Adobe Spark can be used to easily create online video presentations that are attractive and demand attention and give you the opportunity to try out the tool to create your own videos.