Simon Thomson (@digisim) is a “flipped academic” (Bruton 2012). He is Head of Digital Pedagogy at Leeds Beckett University, an academic post in the Centre for Learning & Teaching.
He has led on a number of funded Learning & Teaching projects including a JISC/HEA funded Open Education project and a Leadership Foundation supported 1to1 tablet device implementation, examining the effects such deployment has on learning & teaching and learners and teachers. He has presented and published his work at a number of national and international conferences, predominantly in the areas of learning technology and open education. He is currently working on a HEFCE funded project exploring the connectivity of institutional learning spaces with informal social online spaces.
Simon was awarded an HEA National Teaching Fellow (2014) and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, SEDA accredited in Embedding Learning Technologies and an Apple Distinguished Educator.

The UCISA survey (2014) suggested that ‘time’ was the biggest barrier to engaging with digital tools and services in learning and teaching by academic staff. However, my observations are that if people place value on the activity, they will make time for it. Therefore I am more interested in motivation of my academic colleagues in using digital tools for learning & teaching to the point that they see value in it. This #LTHEchat is an opportunity to explore what we mean by motivation & how it manifests itself within an edtech environment.

The storify is available here.