If I say so myself, I am a bloody good multimedia generalist, particularly when it comes to making things. I think I've got a solid handle on the key aspects of being a Learning Designer (with more or less appetite in some areas) and add a lot of creative and technical skills and experience over the top of that. That's sort of the opposite of a specialist area though, so I had to give this a really good hard think, and eventually landed on 'Multimedia in practice'. That's because I feel it goes further than just creating and using different types of media - but also using mixed methods of communication, facilitation and interaction, and using them to enhance my practice. I have a rather eclectic skillset, and am always looking for ways to bring them in to my work.

What is it?

A big part of it is multimodality. I've seen multimodality defined a few ways, but the one I think sits best is the 'application of multiple literacies within one medium'. In the context of my own learning design practice, I think of it as the following:

• Encouraging teams to use modes of communication and student interaction that align with the skills they're trying to develop within their teaching, by making them aware of the options available to them, and the developments in the existing technologies.

• Modelling this in my own practice by:

  • Creating a podcast for personal development, and using it to build connections with colleagues and progress scholarship work

  • Using multiple technologies and media approaches in the facilitation of design and discussion

  • Splitting online training in to a mix of synchronous and asynchronous activities

  • Creating screencasts for demonstration and presentational content

  • Creating small animations to make shareable introductions to key aspects of Learning Design practice

  • Visualising ideas, maps and concepts with infographics

  • Creating end-to-end instructional design of media and interactive rich learning content within the VLE

  • Using playful approaches and creating playful virtual spaces

  • Mixing podcasting in to my professional development and scholarship work

  • Using generative AI to edit and summarise content

  • Training up LLM (large language model) AI to interrogate our knowledge base.

• Putting the multimodal toolkit in the hands of others by:

  • Putting together blended learning training sessions and resources to help others get started with screencasting

  • Helping peers try their hands at podcasting (see next page for more detail)

  • Setting up a knowledge and practice sharing group for the team Canva users.

How is this distinct from common practice?

An advantage of working with an organisation as large as The Open University is that economy of scale makes it practical to have very specialist specialists - who can efficiently plough through lots of the same family of work. The downside to this is that often, if you need a small thing done, you need to go via that specialist - and if you need a host of small things done you find yourself juggling half a dozen people and a small piece of work has turned in to a...project (shudders).

Being able to do a little bit of everything has been my niche since joining the Open University. It allowed me to engage in nonstandard work as a Media Assistant, bash solutions to Corporate work together as a Media Coordinator, handle the odds and sods of comms and UX testing in the OpenCreate project, and as a Learning Designer it's allowed me to create shareable resources for use in mine and others practice, and visualise and express design in different ways.

When the University flipped to remote work (overnight) as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I found my multimodal multimedia toolkit allowed me to adapt my practice quickly to fit the new circumstances. I was one of the first team members to utilise a blended learning/flipped classroom approach in delivery of my workshop sessions - offloading presentational components in to reusable, asynchronous resources. As an approach it's been really well received, and I've spent the subsequent years building up the supply of resources I and my colleagues can use to lay the groundwork for these meetings.

Basically, if someone need a multimedia thing doing in the Learning Design team, there's a good chance they'll get in touch with me, as that's the little specialist niche I've carved out.

As for impact, it's a funny one - I think it's made me a little bit better at just about every aspect of my job, and has let me create resources that are used throughout the team. That they look and sound good I think contributes to a sense of legitimacy in the messages we're trying to get across.

Why one media over another?

Joys of having a multimedia toybox to tap into, you've got options! Here the approaches I've selected for a few of the pieces I've done, and why.

Learning Design Evaluation area introductions: When I was in the evaluation group, we had a challenge in that we often found ourselves needing to introduce the different services we offered, specifically our data support, analytics for action training, student panel and real time student feedback. On the basis that we just needed something short, punchy and consistent I opted for a high speed animation and voiceover combo, that gives all the headlines and flavours of the service in less than five minutes (time poor audience).

ALT-C Video poster (evidenced below): Myself and my colleague Mark Williams had already written up data stories to bring to the conference, and wanted to get our video poster standing out from the crowd. We're also keen doodlers (I doodle, Mark is a full blown artist), and wanted to use blow off a bit of creative steam by making something unique. The result was my first full foray into Adobe Animate, which took our illustrations around the story we'd crafted and turned it in to a virtual follow along doodle pad. If you listen closely you'll notice that I've drawn in my podcast editing experience to really make the audio pop as well, with a nice ducked music bed. All in all, it aimed to be a bit different - and it worked! It got a great reception.

Tools screencasts: In order to offload presentational content from collaborative workshop sessions, discussing the options and affordances of a variety of VLE tools and tech, I created a series of rough and ready Tools Walkthroughs / Primers. These are, by necessity of the spread of what they're covering, about half an hour each. While they may on the surface look like a screencaptured presentation and live demo of the tools, they're also time coded to make them easier to navigate (to support Learning Designers who just want to draw on specific bits for their own module team discussions), and I usually send them with advice to use the video speed functions as needed. I've had great feedback from these, and usually arrive at the following session to a team who've had a good look through them and plenty of questions and ideas. It's another one where my podcasting experience has come in handy, as I've used the 'dead air' trimming functions to reduce silent and static parts of the video, bring the overall time in and keep the pace up.

I'm a big old nerdy nerd with creative diarrhoea, so have spent a lot of time learning how to use creative multimedia tools. Working in education has given me the opportunity to use those skills and tools in a professional context - and expand on them with a wider multimodal educational toolkit. What I've learnt about Learning Design, and broader design by proxy has given me new creative spaces to explore both professionally and personally.

I work to keep my skills in these areas up to date not just to keep myself minty fresh and employable, but also because I'm always hungry for the next nifty thing which will allow me to do something quicker, or in a new way. Canva has been the gift that keeps giving in that respect across the last year - supplanting Photoshop and Adobe Animate in my affections to let me quickly chuck together engaging animations.

Regarding playful approaches, these weren't a conscious effort initially - just me struggling to find a way to wear my practice in a way that felt comfortable. The Playful Learning Conference in July 2022 transformed my understanding of what I'd been trying to do - somehow bring more of my eclectic self in to my work in a way that felt authentic (I recorded an interview with keynote speaker Dr Elliot Spaeth, which captures the key elements of what playful learning is beautifully, and really gave form to it for me). 

Understanding this, and dropping the unnecessary professional 'mask' I'd forced myself to wear has really worked for me. It's improved my wellbeing at work, improved the work itself (less self defeating check-think, and more natural flow), and improved how folk react to it. People can smell when a person isn't being genuine, and will almost always react more positively to a person who's presenting their honest views and self. You might have noticed that this portfolio shoots for an honest, conversational and light hearted tone - this is an intentional reflection of that ethos, and something I've tried to do in all of my recent work.

I don't think I can overstate what a transformative few days that conference was for me, and how much it's positively impacted both my approach to work - but also my personal philosophy.

I've been fortunate to work with some fabulously talented and empathic folk, who've helped me expand my toolkit and options, and in particular shore up some of my weaker areas. In turn, I've tried to pay it forward by sharing what I've learned with my colleagues, through training sessions and asynchronous tutorials.

I nearly chose podcasting as my specialism for this section, and didn't. I'd like to take a moment to explain why...

Podcasting unexpectedly became a big part of my personal and professional life. Initially a hobby, it evolved into a tool to enhance my pedagogic understanding, combat imposter syndrome, and connect with my colleague. What was meant to be a solo endeavor, 'pedagogy for pot plants', transformed after meeting Dr. Mark Childs, becoming a place to explore pedagogy and express my genuine nerdiness. This in turn led to conversations with colleagues in other universities, and the broader educational realm. The mad thing is that other people were listening to it too, and getting a lot from it.

Subsequently, I've consulted with other teams at the OU and external peers in starting own their podcasting journeys for professional growth. I've given a playful pedagogic platform to some frightfully clever folk across the industry, and I've even organized podcasting activities at conferences.

Podcasting was a real lifeline to me at a time where I was suffering from dreadful imposter syndrome and thought I had made a terrible mistake in my choice of career. As well as giving me a creative way to blow off steam, it became a tool I could use to teach myself the supporting research of my profession. I could discuss it in a playful, safe environment with peers and start to build up confidence in both the understanding and articulation of it. Almost everything useful I've learned about pedagogy started off here.

The impact on my own development has been huge, and I've been gratified to discover that it's also had a positive impact on the learning of others. Over the years, I've had people get in touch saying that they'd listened to the show, and that we managed to demystify a subject for them (our one on Ontology and Epistemology was a real winner). The show is a regular feature of Mary Jacob's Weekly Ed-tech roundup, and has by all accounts started showing up in references of assignments submitted by PGCE students.

Yes, but why isn't it a specialism here? I thought that was the title of this section...

While it's probably one of the most formative activities I've undertaken in a professional, and personal capacity - podcasting is the mechanism and not the method, and the method is part of my wider approach to playful multimedia, multimodal practice. Sure, the Pedagodzilla podcast has a small but engaged international audience - and sure, it's leading to a book that I think will end up being essential reading for any aspiring pedagogue, but with regards to my actual role and practice it's just a facet of a wider multimedia toolkit that I use to enhance and specialise within my practice.

Basically, I think podcasting is a facet of a wider specialist multimedia/multimodal skillset that I bring to the team. I just talk about it disproportionality because it's my favourite.

Also, I was only allowed to pick one specialism for this portfolio. Boo hiss.