"". .. from your perspective what are the institutional enablers and blockers when it comes to growing the digital capability of an organisation?" asked James Clay in a recent post on this blog. I rather flippantly posted a comment to James's post saying "Culture is a big issue, but I think over reliance (or expectations) that technology alone will somehow wave some magical digital fairy dust and everyone and ergo the institution will be "digital" and digitally literate." This post is my attempt to elaborate that comment."

"The use of technology to maximise the student learning experience is a vibrant area of interest across all tiers of global education. Technology enhanced learning (TEL) is often used as a synonym for e-learning but can also be used to refer to technology enhanced classrooms and learning with technology, rather than just through technology."

"This benchmarking tool is the latest in a series of resources Jisc has produced to help you improve the student experience at your institution. It was produced in collaboration with the National Union of Students (NUS) and The Student Engagement Partnership (TSEP) as part of the Jisc Digital Student Project (digitalstudent.jiscinvolve.org/wp/) and the Jisc Change agents' network (jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/change-agents-network)"

"Thirty years ago I attended Prescott College, a small liberal arts college deeply rooted in experiential learning. All of the courses involved writing, and the "journal" was not only a part of the demonstration of competence, but it was used like a physical space for our thinking. It provided us with visible and tangible space to think on. I know "think on" sounds funny, but that is what writing can be. A visible process of thinking."

"At the ALT C conference I went to a few sessions where VLE discussion came up, most notably Lawrie Phipps and Donna Lanclos's session "Are learning technologies fit for purpose?". They asked us to reflect on the main question in groups and nearly all of the discussions came back to complaints about the VLE. Lawrie picked on me to give the first response and I mentioned that the problem was not so much the technology but the "institutional sediment" that builds up around it. "

"In 2012, Duke University began using MOOCs to promote innovation in teaching and learning within the campus community, with the goal of importing successful new pedagogical ideas into Duke classrooms. Since that time, 30 instructors from 28 departments have developed 31 MOOCs on Coursera, attracting 2.8 million enrollments and issuing more than 72,000 certificates. Various examples show how these instructors changed their teaching approach in both MOOCs and traditional courses, including by improving classroom materials and activities, crafting better measures of student learning, and experimenting with new pedagogies to increase engagement and learning."

"This infokit explores gamification and its application to the field of education, learning and teaching. It is written for instructors such as lecturers and teachers, and is also of interest to learning system developers, education technology organisations, metadata specialists, librarians, and anyone concerned with effective learning either within, or outwith, curriculum requirements"

"Politicians who want to improve the quality of teaching through increased competition may ironically simply end up with ever greater systems of centralised control. Following Hayek (the philosopher father of free market economics), I would say this is not the way to make the best of our teachers."

Plagiarism is a folk devil into which is poured many of the challenges, problems and difficulties confronting higher education . This article investigates how software- Turnitin in particular - is 'solving' a particular ' crisis' in universities . However I investigate how alternative strategies for the development of information literacy offer concrete, productive and imaginative trajectories for university staff and students.

"In Higher Education Focus Groups and Nominal Group Technique are two well-established methods for obtaining student feedback about their learning experience. These methods are regularly used for the enhancement and quality assurance. Based on small-scale research of educational developers' practice in curriculum development, this study presents the use of a combined approach that potentially offers more benefits than the use of Focus Groups alone. It proposes a combined method, 'Nominal Focus Group', which includes the benefits of in-depth discussion of a Focus Group and the prioritising of results of Nominal Group Technique. These benefits include questions for further exploration, initial data analysis and increased ownership of the process by students. In practice, the method gave rise to rich data and actionable outcomes that were used to make informed curriculum enhancements for the programme teams."

"On 24 April 2015 forty educators from 19 institutions discussed key issues in MOOC design and implementation at a one-day workshop hosted and funded by the University of Reading, a leading member of the FutureLearn MOOC consortium. The workshop offered the opportunity to evaluate practical lessons from the design and delivery of MOOCs, particularly those encouraging skills development. The focus was on problem-based discussion of approaches to teaching and learning, and the extent to which MOOC learning outcomes can be defined, measured, or achieved."

"After 13 years delivering and sharing content to support teaching practitioners across higher education, further education and skills, Jisc will be retiring its Jorum service in September 2016. "

"A growing number of studies have been carried out to understand learning and teaching activities in online learning environments (OLEs) and to design effective OLEs for meaningful learning in higher education. Although there were a small number of studies to provide research trends in educational technology in regards to research topics, methods, and researchers, more research is necessary to help educators to understand new trends and issues of OLEs in higher education. This study intends to provide an overview of practical and theoretical issues pertaining to OLEs by analyzing literature recently published in peer-reviewed journals. The present study qualitatively analyzed research questions and purposes to identify themes of OLEs in higher education. The OLE research topics were grouped into three major themes: (1) participants, (2) micro-level environments, and (3) macro-level environments. The findings are followed by discussion of an ecological approach as a new theoretical framework to guide future OLE research and practice."

"Lecturers with formal teaching qualifications are valued by students far more highly than those who are active researchers, says a major survey that is likely to reopen the debate over the need for compulsory teacher training."

"Routine and inertia too often rule the way that departments and institutions devise their curricula; the same goes for the ways individual faculty members teach and assess student learning."

"Leaders in assistive technology Conversor have announced that their SEN-friendly Notetalker solutions are now available for purchase and downloading. Notetalker App, combined with a Universal microphone and cable kit for any smartphone or tablet, uses a simple user interface which allows students to record classes, with the added ability to tag important information with a bookmark or a text description. Photographs can be added to the recording as a visual reminder."

"In partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, EDUCAUSE explored the gaps between current learning management tools and a digital learning environment that could meet the changing needs of higher education . Consultations with more than 70 community thought leaders brought into relief the contours of a next generation digital learning environment (NGDLE). Its principal functional domains are interoperability; personalization; analytics ,advising, and learning assessment; collaboration; and accessibility and universal design. Since no single application can deliver in all those domains, we recommend a " Lego" approach to realizing the NGDLE, where NGDLE- conforming components are built that allow individuals and institutions the opportunity to construct learning environments tailored to their requirements and goals"