On the 18th August 2008 Ewan MacPhee of Spoken Word Services presented to a gathering of around forty members of the eLearning Professionals and Practitioners’ forum at a rain soaked University of Edinburgh.
The forum is designed for members of educational staff who ‘consider themselves to be either professional eLearning/Learning Technology practitioners, or those who make use of technology within their own teaching practice and would like to engage in a more substantive way with others undertaking similar activities’. It is also designed to cater more generally for those interested in unlocking the potential benefits that eLearning may hold for education.
The event on the 18th was entitled ‘Podcasts, Echoes and Tags - multimedia learning objects and activities at the University of Edinburgh’. Despite the title of the event it was not designed exclusively for those based at the University of Edinburgh. Outside groups - including the Spoken Word - were invited to give the proceedings some Glaswegian flair.
The meeting was organised by Michael Begg who is the eLearning Manager for the Learning Technology Section at the University of Edinburgh. He is also the convenor of the eLearning Professionals and Practitioners Forum. The Spoken Word was originally invited to the event by Erin Jackson, one of our collaborators who is based at the University of Edinburgh.
Ewan’s presentation began with a brief history of Spoken Word Services and then moved on to an explanation of the various stages involved in ordering, processing, digitising and presenting BBC materials to the academic community.
Despite the horrendous weather and the fact it was the Summer holiday season the number of attendees far exceeded expectations. There was a lot of interest and questions from the audience after Ewan had finished presenting. The event seemed to be a great success.
