DCG Spotlight on digital capabilities: Digital skills, a priority or lip service?

Lucy has worked in education for the last 20 years, initially in further education before moving into higher education. Lucy has worked the last 14 years at the University of Hertfordshire, initially working as an Instructional Designer/E-Learning Consultant to her current role as Digital Capabilities Training Manager.

Having had the privilege of teaching thousands of children, young people and educators in a variety of settings, Samantha has developed professional development programmes to enhance learning through open enquiry, real projects and filmmaking. Having joined Herts in 2017, Samantha now leads on development of staff and student digital capabilities.

Jeni Brown is Head of the Digital Skills Lab (DSL) at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she leads an outstanding team of professional and student staff dedicated to the DSL mission of creating digitally confident social scientists. Jeni's (work) passion is supporting the creation of innovative and challenging programmes to develop digital fluency, job-specific skills, and technical confidence in learners at all levels.

Jo is Head of Digital Skills Development for King’s College London. An experienced HE professional, for the past decade, Jo has specialised in IT Training, working with a wide range of technologies including education and business systems. With a recent move from the IT Directorate and into Organisation Development, Jo is breaking new ground, bringing technology and digital skills into the heart of all skills development activities at King’s.

Laura Hollinshead SFHEA is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Derby. She has helped academics to develop their learning and teaching practice for the last 14 years, specialising in digital pedagogies. She has led strategic projects examining the digital experience of students and academic staff at Derby and leads modules on the Academic Practice Apprenticeship, supporting staff to achieve fellowship of Advance HE.

As the Head of Business Change at Warwick University Dave has the lead on change management to strategic projects and for continuous improvement. Prior to this Dave has delivered change and transformation services direct to a leading Arts organisation and within Midlands Probation.

Lauren Regan is a Digital Literacies Coordinator within the Learning Enhancement and Development (LEaD) Team. She has experience of teaching IT and digital skills to young people and adults and has built up a good understanding of the important part that good digital skills can play in learning and teaching.

Julie Voce is Head of Digital Education at City St George’s, University of London. Julie oversees support for City’s educational technologies and projects related to learning spaces, learning analytics, learning design, digital accessibility and digital literacies. Julie is a member of UCISA’s Digital Education Group and led the 2022 TEL survey team.

Carolyne M. Lunga is a Journalism PhD researcher at City, University of London (UK) and works as a Student Digital Assistant (DSA) in the Learning Enhancement and Development (LEaD) department. Since 2020, she has helped students access various resources on City’ website including Moodle, Linked In Learning and Microsoft 365. 

Sumayyah Islam is an Undergraduate Computer Science student at City and works as a Student Digital Assistant where she provides digital assistance for students at City. She has just completed a year in the industry as a Website Developer and hopes to study Education Technology (MSc) postgraduation.

Kenza Khan is a current third year LLB student and has been accepted onto the Bar course at City. Alongside this, she works as a Student Digital Assistant and Student Communications Assistant at City.

Dawn has worked in higher education for over 40 years, experienced in customer support, staff management, teaching both students and staff, content design and project delivery.

Since 2009, Lee has worked in a range of roles that support the digital and information literacy of students and staff of Northumbria University. He enjoys sharing these experiences with like-minded colleagues.

Francesca Brown-Cornwall is an academic within the Institute of Education at Staffordshire University, Early Years Consultant for the Staffordshire University Multi-Academy Trust with plenty of industry experience across many phases of education, where 0-8s remains her specialism.

Matt is a Learning Technologist at Staffordshire University, working with academic colleagues to develop their digital pedagogy toolkits and capabilities. Matt is an Advance HE Fellow and Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Expert, interested in the use of Microsoft tools for teaching and learning, coaching, co-creation, communities of practice and developing multimedia content.