Dr Bex Lewis is a ‘DigiExplorer’, an experimenter in the digital spaces, with a background as a cultural communications historian whose PhD explored wartime propaganda. In recent years she has provided the definitive history of “Keep Calm and Carry On”, quoted in a range of publications, including the New York Times, Independent and Daily Mail. Bex has over 15 years of experience in the digital environment, having built her first website for her PhD in 1997, and is an early adopter of social media tools. She is the Director of ‘Digital Fingerprint’, a social media consultancy that works particularly within the HE and Christian sectors, where she has a strong Community of Practice, including providing digital literacy workshops for the Church of England. Bex is in demand as a speaker at events, both academic conferences, and public Christian events in the UK and Europe.
Particular Interests
Bex has a particular interest in giving users the confidence to use social media for themselves, to see the possibilities, and to set them on the path with a mix of theoretical and practical advice. She got involved in digital spaces whilst working on the IT helpdesk to support her PhD, moved on to support interdisciplinary research at the University of Manchester before choosing to travel around the world in 2007 – taking in South-East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South America… where she had her first experience of writing a travelblog. On her return, Bex became a Tour Leader for Oak Hall Expeditions, enjoying creating a good community vibe amongst her guests. In January 2009, she returned to the University of Winchester for a number of short-term projects, mostly web-based, but also including Associate Lectureships in History, Media Studies and Design for Digital Media.
Higher Education: The University of Winchester
Bex has worked as a lecturer in Higher Education for 14 years, and is employed half-time by the University of Winchester as Technology Enhanced Learning Fellow, where she has responsibility for embedding digital literacies among academic colleagues at the University of Winchester, including projects involving virtual classrooms and lecture capture. She is currently co-leading on a JISC project as part of the Digital Literacies programme with the ODHE, which builds upon the recent JISC funded BODGIT project that Dr Lewis co-led. She is also the Learning with Technology Specialist who will be responsible for the implementation of programme-wide technology enhancements for assessment and feedback as part of the £190,000 funded JISC project, FASTECH. She is a member of the JISC Learning & Teaching Experts Committee. She has attended a range of JISC workshops, and is a regular super-delegate for its online conferences.
Higher Education: Learning and Teaching
Dr Lewis completed her Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching (PGCLTHE) and became a Fellow of the Higher Education Teaching Academy in 2011. She now leads the PGCLTHE module on Blended Learning, and has undertaken online skills-focused, usability and accessibility (pp50-57) projects. She leads on experimenting with digital formats, most recently for an innovative Level 3 Media Studies module specifically built around Web 2.0 tools. She is on Learning and Teaching, Learning Network (Moodle) and Distance Learning Committees. Her training as a life coach and mentor has equipped her with a set of skills and theoretical tools about change that she brings to promoting digital literacies. Her theory of change stems from an action research model:
that for change to be effective it… must be a participative and collaborative process that involves all those concerned.
Cheung-Judge, M. & Holbeche, L. Organization Development: A Practitioner’s Guide for OD and HR, London: KoganPage, 2011, p35
Christian Communication: The University of Durham
As ‘Blended Learning Project Manager’ Dr Lewis launched ‘The Big Bible Project’ for CODEC at the University of Durham in the summer of 2010, building content for The Big Read 2011 and 2012, and already with networks in place to enable The Big Read 2013 to build upon this experience. She is passionate about helping Christians be a positive presence in the digital world, a space in which we seem to be under-represented, and has created the concept of the #digidisciple: ‘what does it mean to live a life of faith in the digital age’. She is a member of the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies, The MediaNet, DigiLocal Team, Premier’s New Media Centre for Excellence, the social media working group for the Evangelical Alliance, and submits regular reviews to The Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture.
This site can be a bit of a case of the ‘cobbler’s shoes’ – I keep getting so much work, my own site gets left behind. This site was originally created as a portfolio site for my consultancy, originally named MyDesigna.
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