 OK, hi Marin, how are you doing? Hello Chris, very good today, thank you. All right, excellent, it's a beautiful day actually, it's really nice here in South London, where are you calling from? I'm in Oxford in the UK today as well, so not too far and sunny here as well. OK, lovely. All right, the purpose of this is just to actually, you've written this excellent little review of a book by Daniel Scott called Learning Technology, a handbook for FE teachers and assessors. You've given me a really good review, so I just wanted to ask you some questions about it. I know you've got the book there as well so you can maybe even show us the book, excellent. OK, so before I get into, there's only four questions I want to ask you, but the first question is just about yourself really. What's your job title and what do you actually do in your job in 15 seconds? So, I'm ALT CEO and as such, I run the Association for Learning Technology day to day. I report to the Board of Trustees and my work is mostly around leadership, governance and strategy. And one of the key things that made me interested in this particular book is that for the past five years I've worked very strongly in FE and particularly on FE policy. OK, great. OK, good. All right, so let's get into the actual book. So firstly, can you tell me what the book is all about really? So this is a really practical handbook for learning technology in FE. I think it's written in a really accessible manner so that it will be very suitable for all teachers, trainers, individuals who work in FE who know not very much or quite a bit about learning technology. And it's got very practical chapters giving you lots of useful hints and tips. And one of the best features of the books, I think, is that it also asks you to reflect on your practice. So it includes prompts for reflection as well as showing you what works and what might not work. OK, all right. I know at the start of your review, I haven't read the book myself, but at the start of your review you talk about some challenges that the book actually addresses. And one of them is how hard it is to keep up to date with changes, especially in FE. It's not just changes of technology but changes of policy, changes of funding. It's constantly changing. After reading the book, would you have any sort of takeaway tips to help with coping with that constant change? Well, I think I hope I do. And Daniel Scott, the author, certainly does. And from the very beginning, from the introduction, he and the contributors really tackle it head-on and they really focus on the pedagogy, on the role of teachers, and how to improve things for learners, for all learners, which in FE is a really diverse community. And they acknowledge from the very beginning that there is a challenge and that you're not going to get to a stage where there's nothing new to learn, no new technologies to tackle. The book includes a list of resources and organizations, including ALT, I should add, that you can make use of, network, you can join to keep up to date. But I think most importantly is the acknowledgement that we are all on a continuous learning journey, that CPD is really important. And I felt that that was a really constructive way of framing this challenge of keeping up to date. Okay, lovely. All right, so I can see you really like that aspect of the book. What else did you really like about the book as well? And if possible, some second part of my question, can you maybe give you just a couple of examples, a little taster's from the book, or even if you've got some, you've got the book there, you could maybe... I do. Give us, I don't know, I haven't seen the book, are there any diagrams in there? There are lots of diagrams, there's lots of tables, there's also, hopefully you can see that a little bit, little graphics that explain different processes. And one of the things I like about the book is that it doesn't shy away from difficult or more challenging considerations. So it doesn't assume one size fits all or one technology solves all the problems. But it has tables, for example, comparing different tools and different approaches. So when something might work. And it looks really at the whole teaching and learning process, including assessment. It has one chapter, which is on evaluating learning technology and how it's used as well. So it doesn't stop at the instructional part of things, but really looks at how you can evaluate whether what you're doing makes a positive difference. And how to maybe find out if it doesn't. So I think that's really helpful in the book. Also, just to add to that, a lot of research or publications for learning technology aren't written in a language. That's the language of the FE system. So this book really is. And one of the things it does unpack is terminology. So it explains from the beginning what terms that it uses mean and how they apply to the sector. So it reads very much like a book written by someone who understands the FE system back to front. And I think Daniel Scott is someone who's got a really strong track record in FE and who's worked a lot in different colleges and has a lot of experience and that really comes through. So it reads really like someone sitting next to you and showing you how to do things and giving you some more confidence. I think that came across really strongly. That might be a real strength for the book, but this leads me on to my last question. It's focusing on FE. Is it still going to be relevant for other sectors? Myself, I started off in FE, but I work in HE now. A lot of learning technology is not just used in FE or HE, but in schools or in the commercial sector as well. Is it still relevant for those audiences? I think in my view, yes it is. A lot of suggestions and strategies that Daniel discusses are, I think, relevant regardless of sector, but also some of the reflective prompts that I mentioned. So for example, reflecting on your own skills development, maybe where you have gaps, how to identify your own strengths, how to develop your own critical digital literacies. All of those aspects, I think, are very relevant to all practitioners. That's true. The book is written for FE specifically, and I think it's a long overdue book in that respect, but it is definitely a really good read for anyone with a professional interest in learning technology. Okay, brilliant. That's my last question. It was a very short interview, but thank you for taking time out. Okay, is there anything else you want to add at all? No, thanks for letting me help review this book, and I hope that you'll enjoy reading it, and others will enjoy reading it. And yeah, I hope we'll see lots more video book reviews on the old C blog. Thanks, Chris.