Greetings from Fiona – new LTA for the Falmer campus
Hello there, this is Fiona MacNeill the new Learning Technologies Adviser for the Falmer campus. I am using this post to introduce myself, my work background and a few tidbits about me.
During my induction period I am based both at Moulsecoomb in Watts (entrance to Dr Stan Stanier’s office) and at the Falmer campus in the library office 217. In the future I plan to hold regular office hours at my Falmer location, so watch out for updates on that front. In the meantime if you like to use twitter, I will maintain a #whereisfiona tag on my feed and my twitter name is: @fmacneill
I’ve included a little preview of my feed at the bottom of this page.
About Me
Although originally from near Edinburgh, for the past seven years I have been living and working in Minnesota in the United States. The state itself is about the size of England, although far less densely populated, and is known for many delights such as the world’s largest ball of twine/string (built by a single person), a famous Claes Oldenburg sculpture, “Spoonbridge and Cherry“, and for being the setting of two Cohen Brother’s movies; A Serious Man and Fargo (although the city of Fargo is actually in the state of North Dakota). Minnesota is also known as “the land of 10,000 lakes” however there are more than 10,000 in actuality and whenever I missed the sea, my husband and I would journey up to Duluth on Lake Superior, which is broad enough to look like a sea!
View Minnesota – for Brighton in a larger map
I have spent the last three and half years working as an Academic Technologist at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota; a small private residential liberal arts college (higher ed, 18-22 year olds). This job was not dissimilar from being a LTA and involved a great deal of collaboration with faculty and staff, training and workshop provision and technology advocacy. I also worked with media rich subjects and primarily supported the broad software and hardware needs of the arts, physical education, educational studies and archaeology. It may have been a small campus, but it was full of energy and it was a real joy to work there.
My Technology Skills and Interests
As I mentioned I am really into the use of media to enrich teaching, so inline with that I will mention a few of my specialisms: screencasts, video and audio editing, image preparation/manipulation, mobile applications for learning and teaching, podcasting, blogging and social media.
As far as my personal interests are concerned a lot of those center around technology as well. I originally trained in Fine Art (BA(hons) sculpture/multimedia specialism) at University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury and ever since I have maintained an active digital/performance art practice, showing across the United States. I’m married to a photographer called Tucker and have a dog called Agamemnon. I also enjoy martial arts kickboxing.
I look forward to working with all of you and getting to know you over the next few months. Please do stop by either of my offices to introduce yourself (many of you have done so already – thank you).
I have been working in the Educational Technology field within Higher Education for eleven years. A big part of my job is finding new and innovative ways of integrating technology into current teaching and learning methodology. This can include assisting academic staff with Virtual Learning Environments/Learning Management Systems (Blackboard), implementing specific software packages, maximising current technologies and championing new ones. I find this profession both riveting and rewarding. I really enjoy life on the cutting edge, but I also enjoy being able to help staff achieve small and meaningful efficiencies; sometimes that makes all the difference.