Peter Welch

Since becoming an EFL and EAP teacher, and especially during the past 6 years working at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), I have developed a strong interest and understanding of the uses of technology in education.

After my appointment as a full-time CELE tutor / Self Access Centre Coordinator in June 2011 at UNNC, I had the opportunity to be a part of the implementation of Moodle as the VLE to replace WebCT across the university’s three campuses. To this end I established and was the convenor of the UNNC Moodle Users Group, and was appointed as the UNNC representative on the cross-campus VLE Implementation Board. I also conducted Moodle training for CELE teaching staff and other departments across the campus as requested and am presently the CELE Moodle administrator, and staff trainer. Along with the implementation of Moodle, I have been actively supporting the introduction of other technology onto the UNNC campus. This ranges from hardware, such as Promethean whiteboards, to the use of online badges with Class Badges and e-portfolios with Mahara.

As the Coordinator of the Self Access Centre at UNNC, I have been tasked with providing a vast range of easily accessible and interactive resources on Moodle for 6,500+ students, and communicating with and motivating those students to become autonomous learners. This is an on-going process, but the progress made in three and half years has been excellent, and the response from students has been overwhelmingly positive. Although I work with and supervise a small team, all creative work on the SAC Moodle site has fallen within my remit, and this has allowed my interest and technical ability in this field to flourish. Developing this site has meant I have been and continue to be directly responsible for design and planning, content authoring, implementation and integration of content and interactive resources, and maintenance of the site.

I have recently developed an online IELTS exam study guide and tutoring course and an online remedial General English language course. I planned, designed, and produced the content for the course, and creating interactive tasks, quizzes and feedback loops using Xerte Online Toolkits, the University of Nottingham’s suite of tools for the authoring and deployment of interactive learning materials.