Personas Colleen

Obtained 9 GCSE’s including several within the A-C range. John studied a BTEC in Motorsport Engineering instead of A levels at college. He achieved three distinctions as the course was based on project work and there were no formal exams, which suited his needs. John is currently in the 2^nd year of a 4 year Motorsport Technology BSc.

Holds an MSc in Cognitive Science from Tsanghui, China University which she achieved five years ago, and has been working for the same university since. Sue is highly knowledgeable in her subject area, specialising in linguistics.

Prior to the Covid-19 lockdown in Beijing Sue had flown out to America with her daughter to spend some time with her husband, who is a lawyer based in New York. She cannot return to the university in the present climate to teach during lockdown, so must teach her students remotely online. She has not taught online before and has not accessed any open educational resources as she is concerned about the political censorship and tight controls over the internet, as she said; "All of us are concerned that our classes will be censored".

Full-time student at Birmingham City University.

Avoids taking on any roles and responsibilities in general due to his medical and specific learning difficulties.

Designs and delivers graduate courses in Cognitive Science as a part-time lecturer working 2 days a week, as she has a young child to look after. There are many students in the class with special needs who require one-to-one support, and this is currently provided by a Teaching Assistant. Continuing this support virtually will be essential for these learners.

John is not a confident user of IT although he uses Dragon dictation software, a digital voice recorder for lectures and Audio Notetaker software to complement his voice recordings. John’s parents bought him a laptop, printer, and a mobile phone for his studies. He has accessed YouTube clips and other visuals from the internet for research purposes and personal interest. He is particularly adept at working with diagrams and graphs.

Sue had previously discussed the possibility of teaching online and had experimented with a variety of platforms for holding classes with her Teaching Assistant while in Beijing. She is comfortable with using a computer, mobile technology, and the Zoom platform for her students. She is also good at using office applications and has some knowledge of general utilities and web 2.0 technologies such as blogging and social networking, but is not sure how to apply these to her teaching. She is also concerned about how she will be able to assess her students online.

Sue has stated she feels inadequately supported whilst working at a distance from her university, as she cannot meet her colleagues in the staffroom to ask for advice or speak to technical support when needed. Messages can be sent via email, but due to Covid-19 there are very few university staff available which means that messages do not get answered on time.

John would like to socialise more with other course members but finds the demands of his course challenging, although he enjoys some aspects of it. Therefore, he has sacrificed social integration in favour of study. He would like to feel more like part of a group but is concerned about privacy issues when using social media as he doesn’t know who will access the information.

She has a passion for teaching learners from all backgrounds and abilities and is keen to find new technologies to help students interact and engage better with the course, as there is a high dropout rate.

Aims to be a motorsports technologist working in the United Kingdom.

To gain a better understanding of educational technology and apply it to her practice.

John’s specific learning disabilities include: anxiety, slow reading and processing, dyslexia, and poor organisation and time keeping skills.

John has found his transition to university challenging and with the impact of Covid-19 this has affected his well-being as he continues to suffer from panic attacks. He is keen to explore opportunities to improve his socialisation and potentially reduce his anxiety.

John lacks confidence in navigating his way round new environments as he fears he will ‘get lost’. He needs clear unambiguous instructions.

Her Zoom seminar attracted more students than she expected and lasted longer than she had anticipated. She commented on how the discussions continued for 3 hours without a break and is concerned that she will not have the energy to deal with the online learning demands as well as look after her family.

Sue also feels the boundaries are becoming blurred between work and home as she doesn’t seem able to ‘switch off’ from the constant student contact. This causes her a lot of concern as a part-time lecturer as time management will be essential.

John’s mother is a teacher who supports him with his studies by proof reading his course work and advocates on his behalf. He would prefer more independence and hopes innovating technologies will enable this.

Speaks fluent Mandarin as well as a number of other languages so can communicate well with most students.

Is a firm believer in anyone who wants to learn can learn!