Digital technologist and award-nominated author Dr Michael Flavin writes about his MAODE experience and the developments it has led to in both of his parallel careers.
Dr Michael Flavin writes:
I studied the MA Online and Distance Education, 2007-10. On enrolment, I was an Associate Lecturer at the OU, having done a degree, MA and PhD in English. I was also teaching at a school. Studying for the MAODE undoubtedly made it clear that I was committed to and engaged with the digital environment, and led to me getting a full-time university post in my first year on the MA, at King’s College London, where I still teach.
The MAODE re-ignited my love of learning and, on completion, I went straight on to do a second PhD, this time in technology enhanced learning, leading to two books, Disruptive Technology Enhanced Learning (2017) and Re-imagining Technology Enhanced Learning (2020), both published by Palgrave Macmillan, together with a range of other academic articles (see Google Scholar).
Getting back into the study groove on the MAODE also led to me doing a third MA post-second-PhD, this time the OU’s MA in Creative Writing, by the end of which I had a full first draft of a novel. I kept working at it and my début, One Small Step, was published by Vulpine Press in September 2022. The novel is set in the community I grew up in, the Irish diaspora in Birmingham at the time of the IRA’s mainland bombing campaign. I’ve written about One Small Step for the Irish Post and writing.ie, and have been interviewed about it on the Irish Left Archive podcast.
You can read One Small Step in the gaps between assignments on the Masters in Online Teaching. For me, postgraduate study at the OU was a springboard, one from which I’m still rising.
Editor’s note: Michael’s short story ‘Berthing,’ has been shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship prize: https://alpinefellowship.com/writing-prize
Interested in finding out more about The Open University’s Masters in online teaching?
In 2023 we launched the OU’s new Masters in Online Teaching, an innovative postgraduate programme exploring the ways that new media, digital pedagogies and cutting-edge educational technologies can be used effectively and equitably, across multiple sectors, to engage diverse learners and meet their needs. The programme offers flexible study pathways featuring a choice of topics, study intensity and study timing, and the option to include credit from a select postgraduate microcredentials.