Weeknote 18/2016
This week I’ve been:
- Sending out Issue #213 of Doug Belshaw’s Thought Shrapnel, my weekly newsletter loosely focused on education, technology, and productivity. Many thanks to 9Sharp for sponsoring this week’s issue!
- Recording and releasing Episode 49 (‘Controversial Abstinence’) of the Today In Digital Education podcast, my weekly podcast with co-host Dai Barnes and special guests Greg McVerry and Ian O’Byrne. This week we discussed ‘swearing off’ things to change habits, meanings of open, different types of schools, the baggage of edtech, a poem about Silicon Valley, and more! You can discuss TIDE in our Slack channel.
- Taking Monday off instead of Friday as it was an early May Bank Holiday. I wrote about how, despite working four days a week, I still enjoy public holidays.
- Abstaining from coffee and alcohol, as I will be doing for the whole of May in an attempt to ‘reset’ and ascertain whether this has any effect on my migraines.
- Investigating ways to move away from MailChimp for my newsletter to a solution I’m a little more in control of. I’m currently experimenting with EmailOctopus and Sendy. Both require setting up Amazon SES and creating custom HTML templates. For the latter I’ve discovered Stamplia and Zurb Foundation for Emails.
- Spending two days in London and one at home working with City & Guilds. After discussions this week, my time with them will be moving to a project-based approach (rather than two days per week) from September. I see this as a job well done as they’re on track to make big strides with Open Badges in the near future!
- Reading one of the best blog posts of the year so far from Amy Burvall, a Star Wars gif-laden feast for the senses entitled Unlearning and Other Jedi Mind Tricks – Finding the (Creative) Force. A must read/experience.
- Arranging a May meetup for the founding members of weareopen.coop (i.e. Bryan Mathers, Laura Hilliger, John Bevan, and me).
- Writing a report to follow-up the workshop I ran for Cambridge English last week. I reflected on the event with words and photos, and made suggestions for the second (of three) workshops I’m running for them.
- Catching up with Sacha van Straten and Justin Souter about various consultancy-related things.
- Writing:
- Notes and comments on ‘Digital Badges in Education’: Part I: Trends and Issues (5th May 2016)
- 3 reasons you need a critical friend (4th May 2016)
- Europeans aren’t more cultured, they’re just more privacy-aware (3rd May 2016)
- Rejecting the neoliberal idea of maximal productivity (2nd May 2016)
- Abstinence (1st May 2016)
Next week I’m doing some critical friend work from home, some research for London CLC, attending the Thinking Digital Conference, and then working with City & Guilds in London on Thursday and Friday.
Image CC BY-ND Bryan Mathers
