Another day, another MOOC - this time it's OCTEL

Hi - my name's Jim Pettiward. I first developed my interest in learning technology as an English Teacher (of the TEFL variety) working for the British Council. One of their projects around the turn of the millennium was called 'Global Village', an ambitious plan to link classrooms of language learners across the globe in real time. It never really took off, but it's staggering to think how new and forward-thinking that idea sounded back then. I held several posts involving varying degrees of teaching and TEL development until I moved into the Higher Education sector around 5 years ago.

The real change in how I viewed the role of technology in learning probably came when I first started blogging. The ease with which I could create content and activities to share with students using a free blogging platform really spurred my interest in Web 2.0 technologies and their incredible potential.

I've been what's called a 'Blended Learning Facilitator' at London Metropolitan University for the past couple of years, which means trying to encourage and develop the ability of lecturers and other teaching staff to use technology more effectively to support the teaching and learning process. We've recently changed to Blackboard 9.1, so I've been doing a lot of support and resource development work for that. I'm also working on various projects to do with digital literacy and digital identity.

The big questions for me are:

• How can teaching staff be encouraged to want to engage with technology in their teaching, rather than see it as some kind of irrelevant burden imposed on them from above?
• How can we address the gaping chasm in the digital literacies of many teaching staff in the limited time available and effectively link their development to a CPD framework?

Looking forward to starting this course, although I'm already halfway through another MOOC (OU Open Education) so might well struggle to devote too much time to it...