Mr Simon Thomson BA, MSc, FAETC, NTF, SFHEA, ADE

Personal Statement

Simon is a "flipped academic" (Bruton 2012). He has previously held academic posts in his subject area of Broadcast Engineering including a senior academic post as Head of Digital Pedagogy at Leeds Beckett University, in their Centre for Learning & Teaching. His work here included the development of a conversational framework for technology use, with a focus on supporting conversations in the use of digital tools for learning & teaching and the integration of digital capabilities as a model for curriculum development. Simon has successfully designed and led courses that have achieved 100% overall satisfaction in the NSS and is passionate about supporting programme and course teams to develop and teach programmes that are of the highest quality learning experience.

He has led on a number of funded Learning & Teaching projects including a HEFCE funded project into next generation Digital Learning Environments, a JISC/HEA funded Open Education project and a Leadership Foundation supported 1to1 tablet device implementation project, examining the effects such deployment has on learning & teaching and learners and teachers. More recently he was institutional project lead on a Peruvian Government funded project with the British Council supporting public Universities in Peru to move online during the pandemic. He has presented and published his work at a number of national and international conferences, predominantly in the areas of learning technology and open education and contributed to the Office for Students “Gravity Assist” report which set out a future roadmap for digital success.

A passionate advocate for open access and open education he chaired the Open Education Resource (OER) conference in 2014 and actively seeks to make available, where possible, his work on an open license.

Simon was awarded an HEA National Teaching Fellow (2014) and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, SEDA accredited in Embedding Learning Technologies and an Apple Distinguished Educator.
Simon’s current research is a phenomenographic study of the lived experiences of academic staff using TPACK as a curriculum development framework.

https://twitter.com/digisim

Areas of Expertise:

• Open Education (Open Education Resources)
• Blended & Hybrid Curriculum
• Learning Environments
• Online Learning
• Constructive Alignment (Curriculum Design)