Weeknote 22/2016

This week I’ve been:

• Sending out Issue #217 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!
• Skipping a week of recording the Today In Digital Education (TIDE) podcast. It was half-term for Dai, and was away for Bank Holiday weekend.
• Spending two nights volunteering at Marra Camp with ~40 Cub Scouts, which was great. I took Tuesday off to recover.
• Hanging out via appear.in with Alan Levine, finding out about the project he’s working on with/for Creative Commons.
• In London with City & Guilds on Wednesday and Thursday working on various things.
• Meeting with Alison Merifield from Quirk about Open Badges and (separately) John Fitzpatrick about agile development / scrum.
• Having my first cup of coffee and first pint for a month after giving up caffeine and alcohol for the month of May. I’m giving up (added, refined) sugar for June.
• Catching up with Chris Atherton and Simon Bostock over breakfast, who introduced me to Julie Dirksen. I then had lunch with Jade Forester, who keeps me right on all things health-related when we meet up!
• Running the second of three Open Badges workshops in Cambridge today (Friday) for Cambridge English.
• Writing:
  • Some thoughts and recommendations on the future of the Open Badges backpack and community (2nd June 2016)
  • Abstinence (Part Two) (1st June 2016)

Next week: My wife and children are in Devon until Sunday, so I’ll probably end up working this weekend. I’m working from home with City & Guilds on Monday, and then in London working from their offices on Tuesday and Wednesday. I’ve got a report to write and bits and pieces to sort on Thursday, and then I’m very much looking forward to taking Friday off…

Availability: I’ve got a few days free in June and July. I’m then on holiday in August and will have a lot more availability in September.

Newsletter sponsorship: I’m currently looking for a sponsor for my Thought Shrapnel newsletter for the months of July and September. It goes out to over 1,100 people who have signed up for updates around education, technology, and productivity. Get in touch if you, or someone you know, might like to sponsor it!