Who to contact for support about using technology in the curriculum?

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Your Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultant is Dr Rob Weale (see Rob’s profile)
Rob can be contacted by email at: rweale@dmu.ac.uk
and by telephone at ext: 7878
Office: EM2.22

Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultants are based out of the Centre for Academic Innovation Teaching Excellence – but are physically located/embedded within their respective faculty.

The overarching role of a Digital Learning and Teaching Consultant is to work with and support academic staff in the situated use of technology for teaching, learning and assessment – this includes:

  • acting as the primary point-of-contact for Digital Learning and Teaching within the faculty;
  • offering advice and consultation on the implementation of technologies for teaching, learning and assessment;
  • offering advice and consultation on curriculum design in relation to technology;
  • as necessary, and with a strategic focus – running training and development sessions for faculty staff in the use of technology in the curriculum;
  • where appropriate, identifying interesting practice and supporting the sharing/dissemination of such practice;
  • offering drop in sessions for faculty staff who are having difficulty/issues with particular technologies;
  • contributing to the strategic direction of the institution with regards the use of technologies for teaching, learning and assessment;
  • devising, advising and supporting the development of projects (and research) which seek to explore the innovative use of technologies for teaching and learning;
  • working with module teams and programme teams on the strategic development and implementation of technology for teaching and learning.

Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultants also:

  • sit on the Faculty IT User Group (FITUG);
  • can be a co-opted member of School Teaching and Learning Groups (STLG) – where/as necessary and appropriate;
  • can attend Programme and Subject Management meetings – by invite, where/as necessary and appropriate.
A note about technical support for HLS students

It is important to note that the role of Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultant is NOT student facing – it is staff facing. Students should not contact the Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultant directly if they are having issues with learning technologies.

If students are having problems with any of the teaching and learning technologies; such as – LearningZone, Turnitin, DMU Replay or Microsoft Teams there are several routes through which they can get support:

  1. They can report the issue to their module tutor. If the module tutor is unable to resolve the issue the tutor should contact their Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultant explaining what the problem is. The Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultant will investigate the problem and will reply to the module tutor, who can then pass on the information to their student(s).
  2. They can use the Just Ask service in the Kimberlin Library:
    1. Call the Just Ask service on 0116 257 7042
    2. Drop by the Just Ask help desk on the 1st floor of the Kimberlin Library
    3. Complete a Just Ask query form

In some cases it may be necessary for the Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultant to contact a student directly.

The Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultant role is not a general IT support role. For example:

  1. If you are having a problem accessing the DMU Wifi – you would contact ITMS for assistance.
  2. If you are having a problem locating a recording that you made in DMU Replay – you would contact your Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultant.

The key difference being that issue 1 does not concern a teaching and learning technology, whereas issue 2 does.

As well as providing support for the use of learning technologies, Faculty Digital Learning and Teaching Consultants also have a pedagogic remit which means they can be consulted about and engage in constructive dialogue about the effective use of technologies for teaching, learning and assessment; including curriculum design. Not only do they know about the operation of DMU teaching and learning technologies, they also have a broad understanding of the pedagogic potentials of technologies in relation to teaching, learning and assessment.