Learning Technology interview with Dr George Evangelinos
What is your role?
Dr George Evangelinos is a Senior Learning Technologist and a Teaching Fellow. George has detailed, research-informed, evidence-based and up-to-date technological-pedagogical knowledge and expertise evidenced by a modest, but internationally recognised, publication record. George has kindly offered to give the benefit of his reflections on his career and experiences to date.
What path did you take to get where you are today?
My career has been diverse and multidisciplinary. I began as a classically trained musician, then transitioned to studying and working as a sound engineer. Later, I ventured into engineering consultancy and signal processing research. Subsequently, I joined a UK university as an IT support technician and was promoted to media technician within the IT department. Eventually, I was recruited as a blended, flexible, and distributed learning technician within the central learning and teaching development unit of the institution. As one of the first learning technologists at the institution, I was eventually promoted to senior learning technologist, which is my current role.
What does an average day, week, year look like for you?
This is an interesting aspect of the learning technologist role within my institution and that is that there is no typical day, let alone week or year. This is partly because learning technologists in our institution are decentralised and work for the Faculties rather than a central service, in contrast to many other UK HEIs, where LTs work for a central service and support the faculties centrally. As a result, although there is a common set of expectations, the nature of the work, and importantly the priorities, are often diversified according to the local strategic and temporal priorities for each faculty.
However, in general the main responsibilities include learning systems management and user support (but not IT-system maintenance), staff training, curriculum development, learning and instructional design, system technical reviews and appraisals, content development, project management and expert input in relevant bids, external partnerships liaison if applicable, compile reports for senior management and provision of leadership and expert knowledge regarding technology-enhanced learning systems. Personally, over the years I have also been involved in teaching and academic scholarly work such as publishing research, reviewing for external journals, external learning and teaching enhancement projects, and staff development but these are not typically a formal requirement of the post holder.
What are the best parts of your role?
Meeting interesting people, being impactful, opportunities for professional development, opportunities for utilising cutting edge technologies, being part of a team, being valued and recognised for our contributions and being able to inform senior management decisions.
What are the more challenging parts of your role?
Relentless change, no downtime for extended periods, competing priorities, often the role is being perceived purely as technical support and/or an extension of IT services, workload can become overwhelming at certain times, investigating and chasing information on complex multi-stakeholder systems and processes, conflicting or unclear processes, being able to work creatively with ambiguity and still manage to provide an excellent customer experience.
What advice would you give someone who is looking to have a similar career?
Evidence of technical competencies is a must alongside a significant capacity to be able to learn on your own. An inherent drive to keep abreast with relevant technological developments is also important. Communication skills including empathy and the ability to explain complex issues in simple terms are very important as well as an understanding of the academic ethos and appreciation of the disciplinary culture(s) are enablers of success. Perhaps the most useful socio-emotional skills are patience, empathy and the ability to manage the expectations of naïve users in difficult scenarios.
What do you wish you knew earlier?
Relevant professional accreditation (CMALT, AdvanceHE, Instructional design certification) goes a long way to get hired or get promoted especially for the entry-level jobs and when missing significant working experience and/or an impressive portfolio that you can showcase.
What do you think your role will look like 10, 20 years from now?
Given that UK HE institutions have been, and are likely to continue to be, under considerable pressure from demographic trends that affect recruitment but also Government policies in respect to funding. It is difficult to forecast what may happen to the sector as a whole. However, technology transformation is likely to remain a strategic priority for more institutions but with a focus on measurable Returns on Investments (RoI) rather than the more abstract quality enhancement priorities that were more prevalent up to now. Therefore, learning technologists may need to refocus on identifying, instigating and managing technology transformation within their institutions. Forecasting what may be the situation in 10 or 20 years is currently unrealistic given that change is happening nationally and internationally simultaneously in all fronts whether social, political, economic or technological.
How do you feel AI will impact your role?
This is another excellent question that currently does not have a legitimate answer as the rate of development in AI systems is currently astonishing. However, there are a few signs that AI will:
a) transform learning, teaching and assessment from the teacher’s and student’s perspective,
b) Learning Technologist roles will be impacted but initially it is likely that the impact will be positive as LTs should have a role in relevant AI deployments,
c) some functions will be automated so LTs with mostly administrative responsibilities may need to retrain as some of their work will be automated,
d) AI is already impacting some of LTs work.
At this point in time it is mostly used as a tool to enhance productivity (the gains in productivity can be significant) e) it seems that in the short term (i.e. within 5 years) the LTs roles will change in response (and in support of) to the changes that AI will bring to the academic aspects of learning, teaching and assessment.
If you had to name a book that everyone should read, what would it be and why?
I suggest two books that had a significant impact on my understanding and have changed my thought processes to some degree:
This book allowed me to gain a comprehensive understanding of pedagogies and learning design principles applicable to technology-enhanced learning. Unravelling and explaining the full spectrum of pedagogies, it importantly explores how these can be implemented into practice. This book is a must read for any aspiring learning developers. It will give you the fundamental knowledge you need to conceptualise learning, teaching and assessment into practice.
Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson
This book will help you understand the emerging economics of free access systems and how these can disrupt the markets. It will also allow you to appreciate the implications of disruptive technologies. Written a long time ago, the arguments remain pertinent and useful.
Please note: All the above apply to LT jobs in Higher Education, They are likely not to apply in the same way or to the same extent for corporate learning and teaching LTs and Instructional Designers as the nature of the work is somewhat different.
Please contact us at Higher-Ed for more information.