C O N T E X T 1 7 3 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 53 Director’s cut Lessons in learning after a pandemic The potential and use of digital platforms as aids in communication and attendant learning grew rapidly during the pandemic. Indeed, the entire process of learning changed. Below are some new thoughts on current approaches, including why and how the IHBC might approach online learning for conservation practitioners in the future. These ideas have been developed from a paper to the ICOMOSUK Bulletin, informed further by the delivery our Aberdeen school. These evolving thoughts show the kind of radical shift in delivery we have been undertaking in this 25th anniversary year – #IHBC25 – and that we are looking at in the theme of this Context of diversity and its corollary, inclusion. At the Aberdeen school the successful blending of in-person and virtual learning across four days, while a stretch for our small team of staff, volunteers and consultants, was the outcome of a long history of the IHBC’s engagement with and learning from digital tools and platforms. As such, it is worthwhile outlining the full context of our plans for current readers and future reference. Of course, we can all easily sense the reduction in personal learning and contact inevitable in an event experienced ‘virtually’ as opposed to ‘in person’. From that sense of camaraderie for heritage professionals, so often working in isolation, to the opportunity to see conservation work on the ground and explore issues directly with the experts on hand, the digital experience offers no substitute. However, costs, from pounds to carbon, are hugely reduced in the digital world. So the IHBC has been working hard to mitigate the downsides of digital, notably by maximising the potential of cost-effective technology alongside some imaginative thinking to support learning options across our discipline. This will help our members (and networks) decide their own priorities for any investment of their increasingly precious time and funds. The most dramatic aspect of our post-pandemic learning experience was the extent to which digital platforms such as Zoom opened up access to learning for almost everyone. Digital platforms could offer both users and providers access to infinitely wider practice perspectives and knowledge from across the world, at radically reduced costs. Since the turn of the millennium especially, the IHBC has been doing its best to respond to those opportunities. Interestingly, it was the very nature of the IHBC that helped us build our capacity in the digital world. Our thin spread of expert members meant we have never had or needed an IHBC national office in the real world: it has been a virtual entity with a real-world administrative interface in Tisbury. Equally email has always been the default communication tool for us, as long as it existed, while our huge (if still unwieldy) website represents how we have grown in tandem with the digital age. Our push from 2015 (linked to the IHBC+ governance modernisation programme) to have more frequent board meetings than the historic in-personal quarterly meetings allowed led us directly to develop digital meetings by trustees, if not always with their total support, of course. Change was essential, however, Aberdeen, the location of the 2022 IHBC annual school, pictured in around 1900
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