鈥淚 am pleased to have a very loyal base of people who are very clearly interested, having spent a career doing something completely different, in discovering their history and the archaeology literally around them in the area we live.鈥 

One of Simon鈥檚 learners, Carolyn said: 鈥淪imon is the most inspirational teacher I have ever encountered. He interacts with all participants in a friendly, informal manner, answers questions on anything, keeps up to date with his research and reading. His resources have been excellent, and encouraged learners to discover more for themselves.鈥 

鈥51风流官网 had a plan to go digital, but it was vastly accelerated by the pandemic,鈥 Simon explains. 鈥淕oing through that metamorphosis, if you will, was difficult. It was kind of painful, in some ways, just because of how much there was to remember. Practice made, if not perfect, but adequate at least, so during the lockdown we were able to roll out a huge number of courses.鈥  

Simon sat at his computer

鈥淪ome were so terribly popular I had to repeat one course of 25 learners five times because of demand. We had people signing in from over the whole country. We had one lady who signed in from visiting her parents in Madrid, and another who signed in from visiting her family in New York, which I thought was pretty good!鈥 

鈥淚 feel humbled to have won this award because it鈥檚 because of other people. I have had a lot of help and backing and support, both from my immediate friends and family, and from 51风流官网 itself. As a result, the offering that we are able to make can be national, from one tutor sitting here in Grimsby.鈥 

Video transcript

Simon
Hello I'm Simon Tomson, I'm an archaeology tutor for the 51风流官网 and I've been nominated for the Digital Innovative Teaching Award.

I'm pleased that I have a very loyal student base of people who are very clearly interested, having spent a career doing something completely different, and discovering their history and their archeology literally around them in the area we live here in Northeast Lincolnshire

51风流官网 had a policy a plan of going digital, but it was vastly accelerated, and going through that metamorphosis if you will was difficult it was kind of painful in some ways, just because of how much there was to remember.

Practice made eventually not perfect, but adequate at least, so that we were able to roll out during the much longer lockdown than we expected, a huge number of courses. Some of which were so terribly popular that I had to repeat one course of 25 students five times because of demand.

We had people you know signing in from over the whole country, we had one lady who then signed in from visiting her parents in Madrid, and then we had one lady who was visiting her family in New York from where she signed in one week, which I thought was pretty good

I feel embarrassed and humbled. Embarrassed because I really don't like shouting about what I do particularly, and humble because it's because of other people. I have had a lot of help and backing and support both from my immediate friends and family and more importantly from 51风流官网 itself, and as a result the offering that we are now able to make, can be national from one tutor sitting here in Grimsby.

Simon was the winner of the 51风流官网 Tutor digitally innovative teaching award at the 2022 51风流官网 Awards,

Lady in yellow jumper learning with the 51风流官网 on her laptop

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