This week I’ve been:
- Taking today (Friday) off as part of my new four-day work week experiment. I read more of The Open Organization and started planning a submission to the #OER16 conference with Laura Hilliger.
- Sending out Issue #190 of my newsletter, Doug Belshaw’s Thought Shrapnel. It featured links about; toolsets, mindsets, and skillsets; blockchain technology; and being ‘agile’ in a non-agile environment.. This month’s newsletters are in association with City & Guilds TechBac.
- Releasing Episode 26 (‘Pre-Mortem Blockchain’) of the Today In Digital Education podcast, my weekly podcast Dai Barnes.In this episode we discussed performing a ‘pre-mortem’ on projects, hack days, what disruptors really want, the difference between toolsets, skillsets, and mindsets, blockchain technologies, the ‘human cloud’, basic digital skills, and… squatty potties.
- Teaching this week’s session of Computing Club at my kids’ school. This week we started messing about with HTML with the new version of Mozilla Thimble.
- Enjoying my wife accompanying me to London as part of her birthday celebrations. She shopped while I worked! We stayed at Citadines St Marks near Islington and went for dinner at Hakkasan then breakfast at Caravan.
- Leading the second part of a pre-mortem on an Open Badges-related project. It worked really well and I’d definitely recommend using this approach if you’re about to kick off something new in your organisation.
- Meeting up with my former Mozilla colleague Jade Forester. We caught up at Lantana in Shoreditch about lots of things, including badges.
- Collaborating with Bryan Mathers on all the possible things we could do with MOO’s new NFC-enabled business cards. We came up with quite a list! More on this next week when the first pack arrive…
- Setting up a Medium publication called The Slackerati. It’s a place that people on my (not-so) super-secret Slack channel can use to syndicate posts they write elsewhere.
- Agreeing to run a workshop at the edLab at MMU on the same day as I’m giving a seminar talk at the university. More details once I’ve fleshed them out with Mick Chesterman.
- Ordering and setting up my new Nvidia Shield TV (along with all of the accessories you can get for it). I’ve managed to sideload some Android APKs onto it to run games that aren’t supposed to run on it!
- Discussing with Moira Savage my involvement at the University of Worcester‘s teaching and learning conference next month.
- Connecting with Kev Jones from South Downs College who’s kicking of a badging program which I’ll hopefully be able to help him out with a bit.
- Attending a DynamoNet event in Newcastle where I got to network with some people in the North East IT industry and listen to a really interesting presentation from GP Bullhound about their research on ‘European unicorns’ (i.e. tech businesses worth in excess of $1 billion).
- Writing:
Next week I had planned to take Monday as my ‘Doug day’ but it looks like I’m going to have to help look after my kids due to a teacher training day at their school. I’ll be down on Tuesday/Wednesday where I’m hoping to meet up for a beer with Åke Nygren.
Next week is my last at work in October. We’re jetting off to Gozo on holiday for a week during half-term!
This week I’ve been:
- Working a four-day week again. I took Monday off so that my ‘Doug days’ were either side of the weekend. I did end up doing some work, though…
- Sending out Issue #189 of my newsletter, Doug Belshaw’s Thought Shrapnel. It featured links about a no-tech school, Tesla’s bioweapon defense mode, and 6-hour workdays. This month’s newsletters are in association with City & Guilds TechBac.
- Releasing Episode 25 (‘No-Tech Peeple’) of the Today In Digital Education podcast, my weekly podcast Dai Barnes.In this episode we discuss shorter workweeks, a ‘no-tech’ school, a new rating service for humans, Edward Snowden, Evernote and bookmarking apps, and more!
- Teaching this week’s session of Computing Club at my kids’ school. This week we explored the limitations of Markdown and exported to HTML the basic web pages created with the help of this super-simple cheatsheet.
- Helping Sarah Horrocks of London CLC with some upcoming stuff. I’m developing my consigliere skills. 😉
- Talking to some of the organisers of BETT about Bryan Mathers and I being involved in speaking in the new FE & Skills zone.
- Impressed with the Sony background defocus app, simulating DSLR-style shallow depth of field on my smartphone (see header image).
- Beginning to sort out my pension arrangements now I’m a consultant. Boring, but necessary.
- Working in London for two days, during which I met up with Andrea Carr at Hachette’s HQ, John Bevan at the Barbican Kitchen about some Open Badges-related stuff, and attended an edtech tweetup at The Chandos where I saw lots of great people – including Dawn Hallybone, Tony Parkin, and Oliver Quinlan.
- Leading a pre-mortem on a badge-related project for City & Guilds.
- Setting up Trello, Basecamp, etc. so that the above project proceeds smoothly!
- Participating in this week’s Badge Alliance community call and working group call about badge taxonomies.
- Meeting with Malcolm Murray and others at Durham University about some potential badges work.
- Agreeing to keynote the University of Worcester‘s staff development conference. I’ll be talking about digital literacies.
- Writing:
Next week I’m down in London Tuesday/Wednesday, and working from home on Monday and Thursday. Friday is my ‘Doug day’. I’m looking forward to working with Bryan Mathers on some Think Out Loud Club / #OB101 stuff, as well as meeting up with former Mozilla colleague Jade Forester for lunch. I’ll also be heading to a DynamoNet event in Newcastle, trying to embed myself a bit more in North East networks!
This week I’ve been:
- Working a four-day week. It’s an experiment that I go into a bit more detail in this short post. I’ve been calling my day for non-income-generating activities my ‘Doug day’.
- Sending out Issue #188 of my newsletter, Doug Belshaw’s Thought Shrapnel. A final thanks to Makers Academy who kindly supported September’s issues.
- Celebrating my Dad’s birthday early as he’s flew back this week for another few months working with Aspire Academy in Doha, Qatar.
- Releasing Episode 24 (‘Subversive Smartphones’) of the Today In Digital Education podcast that I record regularly with Dai Barnes. This week we discuss open organisations and badges, edtech and edupunk, government innovation and spying, as well as social network illusions.
- Teaching another session of Computing Club at my kids’ school. This week we did a bit more with Markdown: I produced a super-simple cheatsheet to help with their deliberate practice.
- Taking some photos in and around Morpeth, where I live. There’s a lot of development work going on at the moment meaning that some old buildings are being torn down.
- Meeting up with Dave White for a coffee, which was great. We last spoke face-to-face a year ago in quite different circumstances.
- Submitting an ISTE 2016 proposal for an Open Badges workshop with Noah Geisel, Bryan Mathers, and Ian O’Byrne.
- Participating in this week’s Open Badges community call.
- Writing and sending Issue #7 of my monthly Dynamic Skillset newsletter.
- Delighted that an image from my recent DMLcentral post was used in a keynote at DevLearn.
- Setting up a new Trello board, Basecamp area, and other workflow stuff for a new City & Guilds project. I’m looking forward to guiding people through a short ‘pre-mortem‘ next week.
- Pleased at the progress with our loft conversion. The stairs and some of the walls are in place! We’ve decamped to my parents’ house for a few days.
- Writing The TIDE is high…
Next week Monday is my ‘Doug day’ but, because I’m still working four days for City & Guilds, I’ll spend some of it in a meeting with Accenture and some of it being a critical friend to a client. I’ll be in London on Tuesday and Wednesday, and working from home (or my parents’house!) on Thursday/Friday.
While in London, I’m looking forward to meeting up with former Mozilla colleagues Kat Braybrooke, John Bevan, and Paula Le Dieu. I’ll also be working with Bryan Mathers and catching up with Andrea Carr. When I get back home, and if I can pin him down, I’m also hoping to meet with Jonathan Worth, who has recently started working at Newcastle University!
