I'm Tom Hinks, a Senior Learning Designer (SLD) in the Digital Education Studio, which is part of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry. Each SLD is assigned to work with specific Schools and for me, that is IHSE (Institute for Health Sciences Education) and the Wolfson Institute. I primarily collaborate with academics to co-design online courses. At the moment, I'm working on the MA in Medical Education with IHSE and the MSc in Global Public Health with the Wolfson. Additionally, I help out with various digital projects that come up.
I started with an undegraduate degree in Music and a teaching qualification. After that, I spent a couple of years in secondary schools doing supply teaching. Eventually I moved into a role at a university that specialises in creative arts education, working in their academic development and quality assurance department. That's where my journey in digital learning really started.
At the time, very few people at the university really knew how to use Moodle, so I decided to dive in. I set up a local Moodle server and taught myself how to use it. I've always been interested in technology and education, even building an iPhone app to help teach music theory for my degree dissertation (though it never went public, for a variety of reasons).
While I was at my previous university, I got the opportunity to study a MSc in Digital Education from the University of Edinburgh, and I was gradually building up experience working with our digital education provision. So, after a while, I transitioned into a digital learning role and eventually became a Senior Learning Designer here at Queen Mary.
My previous university was a lot smaller than Queen Mary, which meant I wore a lot of different hats in my role - technologist, designer, tech support, etc. It was a great experience, but I was looking for a role that allowed me to focus more on learning design specifically, and that is what led me to Queen Mary. Here I have the chance to collaborate with different academic teams and focus on the aspects of digital education that really interest me.
I'm really enjoying the projects I'm working on now. One of the best parts of being a learning designer is that you kind of get to study the Master's programmes as you design them. The MA in Medical Education has been fascinating because my own background is in education. Learning how pedagogy applies to medical education has been eye-opening. I'm also finding the MSc in Global Public Health really interesting. There's so much complexity once you dive into the details of public health issues, and I love that I get to learn while I work.
I enjoy music, board games, and coffee. I also dabble in photography, although I'm not particularly good at it. Interestingly, I combine my love of coffee and photography - I can actually develop black-and-white film using coffee. My Teams profile picture is a photo I developed using this method.
Favourite cuisine? Indian.
Favourite gadget / piece of tech you own?My Ember mug - it's a £100 mug with a built-in battery that keeps my coffee warm. I can make a cup in the morning, get busy with work, and still have warm coffee hours later. It sounds excessive but once you have one, it's hard to live without it.
Books or movies? I prefer movies but I listen to a lot of audio books.
Favourite holiday destination? I'd love to visit Japan. I've been to the Philippines quite a few times because my partner is Filipino, but Japan has always been on my travel list.
Any hidden talents? I can wiggle my ears. It's not something I get to show off often, especially when I'm wearing headphones!
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