Kate Borthwick, MA (Hons) MA

Academic Coordinator (e-Learning)

Kate is a linguist who spent ten years teaching English to international students across the globe and in universities around the UK, before training in the effective use of technology in language teaching. She is an experienced developer of online learning materials and an e-tutor and currently coordinates LLAS activity in relation to elearning, initiating and managing projects, devising and delivering training, and organising and running events.

Kate can be contacted by
Email: llas@soton.ac.uk | Tel: 023 8059 4814 | Fax: 023 8059 4815

Biography

I graduated from St Andrews University with a degree in Russian. I went on to qualify as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language, and have worked in Russia, China, Japan and universities across the UK. I completed an MA in TESOL with Media Technology at Newcastle University, the dissertation of which included the design, creation, testing and evaluation of a piece of language-learning software. Since joining the University of Southampton, I have worked as an EAP tutor; e-tutor for distance online courses and in-sessional language support classes; online materials designer for the commercially available ‘Study Skills Toolkit’, and have been involved with various research projects looking at issues around eLearning, in particular, the creation of repositories for digital teaching resources. I retain a keen interest in learning languages, and am particularly interested in how the developing digital world can enhance the language-learning experience.
My current role at LLAS involves planning and delivering training in the use of technology in teaching, including training in use of the online authoring tool, LOC. I also contribute to ongoing development of the tool. I am involved in initiating and preparing funding bids for technology-related projects and recently managed the HumBox and Community Café projects (JISC-funded). I create online learning materials for LLAS and I also run the annual e-learning symposium which is held every January, at Southampton.

Expertise

• Developing and delivering workshops for professional development in the areas of e-learning and language teaching
• Creating online learning materials for independent study
• Designing and managing events in the area of technology-enhanced learning
• Developing resources for professional development in the areas of e-learning and language teaching
• Initiating, bidding for and carrying out educational technology-related projects

Key achievements

Projects
Community Café (JISC) 2010/11
The HumBox Impact project (JISC) 2010/11
HumBox (JISC/HEA funding) Open Education Resources Repository 2009/10
The OneShare project (JISC) 2009/10
Faroes (JISC) 2008
L20: Sharing Language Learning Objects (JISC) 2006/7

Resources
The Community Café workshop pack (with Alison Dickens)
Supporting international students in UK Higher Education: a course for staff (with Dave Burnapp (main author) and Alison Dickens)
The LOC tool for teachers (with Julie Watson, Alison Dickens and Graham Gilchrist)
Contribution to EAP Toolkit and Study Skills Toolkit, sets of online learning material produced by the University of Southampton, and commercially available for licence. www.elanguages.ac.uk

Papers/articles
McSweeney, P., Borthwick, K., Hargood, C., Millard, D. and Howard, Y. (2011) ‘The Mechanisms and Impact of Encouraging Community Engagement in Teaching Repositories’. In: Open Repositories 2011, July 2011, Austen, Texas.
Corradini, E., Borthwick, K. and Dickens, A. (2010) Information and communication technologies in foreign language learning. Southampton, GB, Centre for Languages Linguistics and Area Studies, University of Southampton
Watson, J., Borthwick, K., Arrebola, M. (2010) ‘The teaching community as the driving force in resource-sharing initiatives and repository-building’ in Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2010. ELEARN 2010 Chesapeake, US, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, 1484-1493.
Borthwick, K. (2010) ‘The Community Café Project: sharing tea, cake and online teaching resources’ in ALISS Quarterly, Vol. 6 (1), pp.23-25
Borthwick, K. (2010) ‘Publish and be famed’ in Viewfinder, British Universities Film and Video Council, vol. 80, pp. 8-9.
Borthwick, K., Arrebola, M., Millard, D., Howard, Y. (2009) ‘Learning to share in the Language Box: a community approach to developing an open content repository for teachers and learners’ in EUROCALL 2009, September 2009, Valencia, Spain.
Millard, D., Howard, Y., McSweeney, P., Borthwick, K., Arrebola, M. and Watson, J. (2009) The Language Box: Re-imagining Teaching and Learning Repositories. In: International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, July 14-18, 2009, Riga, Latvia.