National Teaching Fellowship Scheme - Higher Education Academy

National Teaching Fellows 2012
Professor Gráinne Conole
Professor of Learning Innovation and Director of the
Beyond Distance Research Alliance
University of Leicester
Prior to her role at the University of Leicester Gráinne Conole was Professor of e-Learning in
the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University. Her research interests include
the use, integration and evaluation technologies and e-learning and the impact of technologies on
organisational change. Two of her current areas of interest are how learning design can help in
creating more engaging learning activities and Open Educational Resources research. She is an active
user of social media such as Twitter (gconole) and Facebook and updates on her current research
and reflections on e-learning research can be found on her blog.
Gráinne has extensive research, development and project management experience across the
educational and technical domains. Funding sources for her work have included the EU, HEFCE,
the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), JISC and commercial sponsors. She serves on
and chairs a number of national and international advisory boards, steering groups, committees and
international conference programmes. She has published and presented nearly 1,000 conference
proceedings, workshops and articles, including the use and evaluation of learning technologies. She
was co-editor of the RoutledgeFalmer book Contemporary perspectives on e-learning research and
has a forthcoming book entitled Designing for learning in an open world.
She passionately believes in applying research findings into practice and has been an innovator in the
use of technologies to enhance the learner experience since the ’90s. This has included the creation
of interactive resources, creative use of virtual learning environments and the use of social and
participatory media to foster different pedagogical approaches. Gráinne has also worked extensively
with practitioners to help them make more informed design judgments about how to create
pedagogical effective learning interventions that make innovative use of new technologies. The has
included the application of a new learning design methodology, which consists of conceptual design
views and a social networking site for the sharing and discussion of learning and teaching ideas.
Gráinne also has a personal blog where she posts on her loves for sailing, reading, travelling and cooking.
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