Month: March 2014

Weeknote 13/2014

Posted on March 28, 2014April 5, 2014 by Doug Belshaw

This week I’ve been:

Giving up alcohol and coffee in an attempt to stave off migraines. I did have one on Wednesday, but I feel a lot better this week than last.
Creating an Open Badge for Think Big Brussels. My colleagues Michelle and FuzzyFox rocked the event on behalf of Mozilla. It was in collaboration with Telefonica and Technology Will Save Us. Video here.
Proud of the open, public conversation Mozilla has had about the controversy surrounding the Mozilla Corporation’s new CEO. It’s a testament to the culture of Mozilla that we feel we can discuss this without repurcussions on our job security.
Working with the very talented Atul Varma to get a new Webmaker prototype ready for testing. More details here.
Talking with various people about the upcoming Webmaker badges. The first one will be a Super Mentor badge.
Finished off a second version of a Webmaker whitepaper with Karen Smith. We’ll be putting it either the Mozilla wiki or GitHub next week for comment.
Sending some details through to the Oppi Festival about Mozilla’s involvement there next month.
Getting used to Elementary OS on my MacBook Pro. In the end, I’ve mostly gone back to using my cheap Chromebook as it does 99% of what I want to do.
Planning a submission around learning analytics to the Open Knowledge Festival with Adam Lofting.
Moderating this week’s #TeachTheWeb community call.
Recording a podcast around open publishing with Ian O’Byrne and others. More details here.

Next week is my last full week at home before a busier April (Helsinki/San Francisco).

PS I was invited to Buckingham Palace for a thing on Monday but, after some consideration, I’ve decided not to go. Be the change you want to see in the world and all that. I want to be a citizen, not a subject.

CC BY-NC-SA Mark Stevens

Writing and publishing openly online

Posted on March 25, 2014 by Doug Belshaw

Ian O’Byrne, Assistant Professor of Educational Technologies at the University of New Haven and a big help when defining the Web Literacy Map, invited me to participate in the recording of his latest podcast, Digitally Literate.

Other than Ian and me, the participants were:

Gideon Burton – Asst. Professor of English, Brigham Young University
Rick Ferdig – Summit Professor of Learning Technologies; Kent State University
Charlotte Pierce – IPNE.org / peeragogy.org
Kristy Pytash / Assistant Professor, Literacy Education, Kent State University
Verena Roberts – Open and Online Educational Consultant

We discussed the options for writing and publishing online, as well as the barriers involved (and more philosophical issues surrounding it).

It was recorded using Google+ Hangouts on Air, so you should see the embedded YouTube video below:

Don’t see anything? Try clicking here.

Weeknote 12/2014

Posted on March 22, 2014March 22, 2014 by Doug Belshaw

This week I’ve been:

Plagued by migraines. I’m not sure what triggered them, but I spent most of Monday, and then Tuesday afternoon in bed. That had a knock-on effect on my work for the rest of the week.
Writing a post for the Webmaker blog about Open Education Week.
Planning for the Oppi Festival with Melissa Romaine. I’ve booked my travel and hotel in Helsinki and am looking forward to it!
Meeting with Tom Park to discuss the Drexel/Mozilla NSF grant-funded partnership around learning analytics and computational literacy.
Wiping my MacBook Pro and installing Elementary OS instead. I got sick to death of how long it took to do stuff on Mac OS X 10.9 when 99% of the stuff I do can be done on the web.
Buying a wall planner and filling it in with dots and dates. I really should have done this at the start of the year!
Trawling through lots of GIFs to augment some work Chloe Varelidi and Grainne Hamilton are doing around badge pathways.
Moderating this week’s #TeachTheWeb community call.
Starting work on a resource to guide people and organisations who want to align with the Web Literacy Map. The first steps are on this wiki page.
Reviewing ‘best in show’ resources to populate the various competencies of the Web Literacy Map.
Talking with community members; editing etherpads; getting confused over timezones and Daylight Savings changes in various countries; the usual. 😉

Next week I’m at home all week. I’ll be digging into the Webmaker badges work that I had to postpone from this week.

Image CC BY-NC Dan Newson