Conclusions and Recommendations

This module has been particularly useful for me in a wide-ranging ways. To start with, I had never developed a blog and in this module I broke free from this ‘taboo’. Furthermore, during completing my assignment i.e. developing the blog, even more learning has taken place, which I am pretty happy about, let alone the content of the blog itself.

I have learnt not only basics of blogging but also that how much potential this ‘art’ of e-communication has to quickly reach your active peers and have their feedback on your professional thoughts. This can also inform your lecturing, research, publications and even research proposal applications with most up to date information i.e. in ‘real-time’. Information which reaches via books and even peer review publications could still be about at least a year old by the time a paper has been reviewed, corrections made, accepted and then eventually published after a long waiting que time. Similarly, me following blogs of peers can help the same way with an even wider outreach.

In this module not only my existing knowledge and practice was refreshed and enhanced but also new skills and software were learnt, which once practiced a little, can make substantial difference in my current teaching practices. This experience has helped to realize that like the world is talking about concepts of smart cities, smart phones, and smart buildings; now is the time to embark on with ‘smart teaching’ and subsequently ‘smart learning’; which is possible only via the smart and mobile technologies.

Finally, I strongly feel that the pace with which smart and mobile technologies have taken over the teaching and learning world, there is a considerable lack of research studies on how the old – but still valid – concepts (such as Bloom’s Taxonomy; Kolb’s Cycle; and Honey and Mumford’s four learning styles) can be innovated to fit in with the smart and mobile technologies more effectively and efficiently for our ‘smart-era’ students. I have a few ideas to put a self-funded PhD research proposals together, if the Education Department is interested. I believe if we advertise 3 to 4 such self-funded PhD proposals, we are highly likely to have at least one success. The follow-on publications can also enhance chances of securing some external research funds; and escalate the REF.