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Acts of resistance
So I had the Trump chat with my daughter last night. It’s a useful way to frame your own reaction, as you have to balance the anger, depression and anxiety with some practicality and hope. She wanted...
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Break my arms around the one I love
I’ve written before about my love of blogging. But post-Trump victory, I’m questioning everything. On the plus side it has seen a flurry of great blogging. With news forced to normalise it, and fake...
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Social media do-over
A bunch of us have been looking at Mastodon Social over the past week as an alternative social media platform. Kate Bowles and Maha Bali amongst others have been having some good discussion about how...
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It’s not just a story
Since the BAD day in the US I have set up three direct debits. I didn’t plan to, they just arose (and to be frank, they’re for small amounts). They are to Hack Education (sorry Audrey, should have...
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Waiting for the ed tech rapture
This piece by Beth Singler argues that much of the language of Artificial Intelligence has religious connotations. Audrey Watters also writes about myths and faith in Silicon Valley and ed tech. These...
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[Reblogging this from a post I was asked to contribute over on the HEA blog, just because I want to reach my blog total for the year] “Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that.” This was a thought that...
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The Indisruptables
I’ve often banged on about the way disruption is an obsession which has gone beyond silicon valley now, and Audrey Watters has written about its status as myth. But I wonder why it persists. This was...
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The bespoke licence
There was a bit of a hoo-ha the other day when the popular photography site Unsplash announced they were no longer using the CC0 licence but instead switching to their own one. Creative Commons’ Ryan...
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An Approach for Ed Tech
I’ve been involved in a few projects recently that have made me consider what my approach actually is to ed tech. One way of thinking about this is to try the thought experiment of imagining you are...
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What if the US had an OU
On Facebook, George Veletsianos asked “What educational innovation do you see as “democratizing” and why?”. Needless to say, I championed open universities. Not just The (UK) Open University, but the...
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Bridges between formal and informal learning
I’m considering doing an occasional series based on ed tech developments at the Open University. I’m interested in ones that roughly align with my take on ed tech, are offering practical, often small...
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The Golden/Dark Age of what?
One of the rewarding things about being in ed tech is that because it’s very fast moving you get to act all wise with very little experience. I mean, I started in this in 1995, I’ve been through...
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Sci-Hub and the Rebecca Riots
Going on one of my extended, and tenuous analogy skits, you are warned. In order to consider recent developments in open access publishing, particularly Sci-Hub, and #ICanHazPDF I’m going to go back...
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A USB port for informal learning
I’ve been part of a team working on an unusual (and dare I use the word, innovative) course at the OU. It’s called ‘Making your learning count‘, and the unusual thing about it is that it doesn’t...
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The Barnaby Principle
There is often discussion about getting more working class (or at least not very middle class) pupils into university, including debates about lower entry level requirements for state school pupils,...
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A mixed data tools diet
I was at ALT-C this week, and enjoyed Sian Bayne‘s keynote on using Yik Yak to explore ideas around anonymity, data privacy and ephemera. Sian made the argument that while abuses certainly happened on...
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Rewilding EdTech
At ALT-C I was having a conversation with Amber Thomas about our mutual friend Ross MacKenzie’s interest in rewilding in Scotland. There are many different approaches to rewilding it turns out, but...
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When this is all over, we still have to clear up
Let’s be optimistic (remember optimism?) and assume that US and UK politics will return to some sense of normality within the next five years, and, you know, actual competent politicians will run the...
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What I learnt from being a student
Yesterday I submitted the thesis for my MA in Art History at the Open University. I completed the MA in History a couple of years ago also, so I’ve had about four years of experience of being a part...
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The privilege of risk
Another of those values that has seeped into everyday life from start up culture is the cherished status of risk. You know the inspirational quotes people like to post on Twitter “the biggest risk is...
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