Weeknote 22/2018

This week I’ve been:

• Sending out Issue #305 of my Thought Shrapnel newsletter. This one was called ‘Sprinting into the distance’. Thanks to the 35 patrons who back me via Patreon plus those who are supporters via Gumroad!
• Camping with Scouts as a parent helper at Pirate Marra. I really enjoyed it, and managed to get some sleep too!
• Going for a walk up Simonside with my family. It was misty when we started out, but cleared by the time we got to the top.
• Planning our family summer holiday. We’ll be flying to Spain and back from Germany, and interrailing for two weeks inbetween! I want to show my children how wonderful Europe is before Brexit kicks in.
• Leading another thinkathon for We Are Open co-op with the Israeli Center for Educational Technology. We’re helping them with a digital literacy MOOC, and I’m looking forward to the next steps!
• Spending some time by myself while my wife and children flew to Devon for a couple of days to visit the in-laws.
• Buying and using Xiaomi body composition scales. I’m already using (and loving) my Xiaomi Amazfit Bip smartwatch, and these scales use the same Mi Fit app. Note that I’m blocking trackers these days on my Android phone using Blokada. The scales told me that my BMI is slightly too high and that I’ve got too much visceral fat. On the plus side, my muscle mass is ‘good’ and my bone mass is ‘normal’.
• Working on the MoodleNet project:
  • Working only two days to decompress after last week’s MoodleNet design sprint, and to observe the UK Bank Holiday on Monday.
  • Co-ordinating with Mayel de Borniol, our new MoodleNet Technical Architect. We’re going to be working in two-week sprints, starting Wednesday 6th June. Mayel will be working three days for Moodle over the next six months, I work four days.
  • Setting up Trello boards to work with Mayel.
  • Catching up with a couple of consultants who have been helping us figure out the search and metadata aspects of MoodleNet.
  • Following-up with the randomly-picked winners (thanks Claudia!) of the Amazon and Zazzle vouchers we provided as an incentive to fill in the pre-design sprint MoodleNet survey.
  • Giving feedback to Outlandish, who facilitated last week’s design sprint.
  • Tidying up the wiki page for the design sprint and uploading all of the photos from the week.
  • Reading and adding to the information around the May 2018 product roadmaps forum.
  • Booking flights for the Barcelona Moot in June and the Mountain Moot in July.
• Curating interesting things I came across on the Thought Shrapnel blog. This week I collected some quotations and commented on the following:
  • Why NASA is better than Facebook at writing software
  • The best teams teams are cognitively diverse and psychologically safe
  • “It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul; for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgements.” (Marcus Aurelius)
  • On ‘academic innovation’
  • “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” (Voltaire)
  • Protocols for the free web

  • “To ramble across the countryside is to disembarrass oneself of the social and mental constraints with which one is encumbered by civilization.” (Matthew Beaumont, Nightwalking, p.231)

  • Paywalls and Patreon
  • “Games make us happy because they are hard work that we choose for ourselves, and it turns out that almost nothing makes us happier than good, hard work.” (Jane McGonigal)
  • Microcast #023 (Patreon supporters only!)

Next week, and for the next three weeks before the Barcelona MoodleMoot, I’m working from home. So I’m looking forward to getting into a good, healthy routine and shedding some of that body fat!