Hello

I am Kerry Abercrombie your Curriculum Development Officer – Digital Learning for Falkirk Council. My role is to support education establishments in the development and implementation of approaches, pedagogies and practices which make effective use of digital technologies to enhance learning and teaching experiences for children and young people.

While I come from a secondary Media and English background I am firmly of the belief that the Early Years is a fundamentally important stage in the journey of all learners. This may well have been drummed into me by my mother – and now also my sister – who are both passionate Early Years practitioners. But more likely it comes from a lifelong love of playing, storytelling and creativity which began in my own early years and has steadfastly stuck with me (despite adulthood’s best efforts to knock the wonder out of us)!

Play, storytelling and creativity are also where my digital learning interests are based. While games apps and researching on the internet are absolutely valid uses of digital tools, when we move to from consuming to creating with digital tools we unlock so much more potential for rich play and learning experiences for children and young people. Digital devices can open up creative experiences that might previously have been limited by budget or access to materials and equipment. Think of an iPad not as a device – but as a camera, a drumkit, a paint set, a library, a magnifying glass, a video recorder, a piano, a microphone, a rainbow of coloured pens and pencils – the list goes on and on.

A large part of my role is planning and delivering professional learning opportunities to help staff build their skills and confidence in using digital tools for learning and teaching. The Digital Learning Team at Falkirk Council and I do this through either DigiLearnFalk (@DigiLearnFalk), Connected Falkirk (@ConnectedFalk) or the Falkirk Apple Regional Training Centre (@FalkirkRTC) where we provide both in person or online sessions as well as a range of asynchronous support content that can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

You might have noticed a change in the types of offers related to digital learning both locally and nationally. As the use of digital technologies becomes more embedded and the understanding of the multifaceted potential of apps and softwares are developing, we are seeing a move away from tool based sessions (where you might learn the basics of one particular tool) towards more thematic or pedagogy based sessions. Connected Falkirk, The Falkirk Apple Regional Training Centre and DigiLearnFalk run sessions not on Keynote, Glow or Teams but rather on things like retrieval practice, feedback, accessibility and play. We also run a range of Connected Falkirk Challenge Tasks for learners on Twitter and provide ideas and resources for educators on the DigiLearnFalk website. We are always willing to make things that will help people so please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any ideas!

I am also thrilled to point you in the direction of the new Education Scotland digital education support site for Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) by DigiLearnScot. Which has a wide variety of useful information and signposting. We are delighted to have Eva Wilkinson from Education Scotland who is the Early Years colleague behind this site as one of our RIC supporters for all things digital for our tiniest of techies!

While I’ve given you lots of things to click and look at here, sometimes when you’re trying to get going on your digital journey you just want someone to talk it all through with. Supporting individual establishments and leadership teams is also part of my remit and I would be delighted to talk with any of you about where you might want to go with digital learning. Please, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via email or Glow. The door is always open!