Journal Paper on TELFest

Lunchtime Networking at TELFest 2017

I recently carried out some research into TELFest, our week long festival, here at the University of Sheffield. As part of the research I explored the role of TELFest in supporting the adoption of TEL across our institution and ways in which the event could be improved. I introduced TELFest to our institution in 2014 and as the popularity of the event had begun to grown, I was keen to better understand: (1) The perceived impact of TELFest? (with an emphasis on changes to practice), (2) The ongoing barriers that are preventing changes to practice?, and (3) How the long-term impact of TELFest could be improved and sustained?

Over the years myself we have been dedicated to improving TELFest and the findings from our previous attendees, synthesised with academic research has directly influenced the last two events. One of the things that we have tried to do is to support and further strengthen the community of practice that has grown through TELFest. For example, we have an accompanying online community and earlier this year we set up a 'reunion'. To prevent our community from becoming too insular we have invited colleagues from industry and other institutions.

To find out more, you can access the full paper, which has been published in the Research in Learning Technology Journal:
LATIF, Farzana. TELFest: an approach to encouraging the adoption of educational technologies. Research in Learning Technology, [S.l.], v. 25, July 2017. ISSN 2156-7077. Available at: https://journal.alt.ac.uk/index.php/rlt/article/view/1869. Date accessed: 19 july 2017.