Month: November 2016

#BelshawBlacksOps16 (Pt.2) has begun. See you in 2017!

Posted on November 30, 2016 by Doug Belshaw

As usual, I’m taking December off from social media, personal email, blogging, podcast-recording, and newsletter-writing. You may still see some of my stuff published if I’m doing some work for a client, but that’s it. You can still contact me via my Dynamic Skillset or We Are Open Co-op email addresses, but keep it work-related please.

I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to my digital hiatus this year. What a year 2016 has been! I think we’re all suffering from mild collective PTSD. I’ll be spending December resting more, spending more time with my family, and taking the opportunity to think more deeply about things I’ve put on hold for too long.

If you’ve got some potential work for me in early 2017, please do get in touch before Christmas. I’ve enjoyed helping clients with a whole range of things this year — edtech strategy, digital skills/literacies, Open Badges. I guess, in general, I translate things that could be seen as complicated into things that are easier to understand.

One of the best things to have happened this year is that a few of us founded a co-op called We Are Open. That’s been a ray of sunshine in a year of trouble within the wider world. So my joyful thanks to co-founders Bryan, John, and Laura for keeping me sane.

My biggest thank you, however, is reserved for my wonderful wife, who not only has had to come to terms with the ups-and-downs of me being self-employed over the last 18 months, but has stepped up to do the admin and finances for both my consultancy and the co-op. Thank you, Hannah. You’re awesome.

See you all in 2017! If you tend to celebrate them, I hope you enjoy both Christmas and New Year.

Weeknote 47/2016

Posted on November 25, 2016November 26, 2016 by Doug Belshaw

This week I’ve been:

Sending out Issue #238 of Doug Belshaw’s Thought Shrapnel, my weekly newsletter loosely focused on education, technology, and productivity. It featured, among other things, education being the ‘answer’, super-private web browsing, and B.S. detection. Many thanks to Makers Academy for sponsorship!
Interviewed by one of Ben Williamson‘s PhD students about the introduction of the Computing curriculum in England over the last five years.
Catching up with Wayne Skipper, Nate Otto, and Kim Hammond from Concentric Sky. They demoed the new ‘pathways’ features in Badgr to Bryan Mathers and me, in advance of some work we’ll be doing with them.
Co-operating with my We Are Open colleagues. Laura wrote up our latest ‘co-op day’ with the great title Are we post-capitalism yet? We ended the day collaborating with Educators Co-op on a webinar entitled Why badges? It was the first time any of us have used YouTube Live, but it went pretty well.
Recording and releasing Episode 70 (‘Slacking off’) of Today In Digital Education, my weekly podcast with co-host Dai Barnes. This week was a little different in that we went through, discussed, and attempted to answer questions from the TIDE Slack channel.
Travelling to Jersey and visiting d’Auvergne Primary School on Wednesday afternoon. Amber Freer was kind enough to show me around and how they’re using G-Suite for Education alongside other technologies provided by the States of Jersey Education Department.
Discussing Open Badges with with CoderDojo, the global network of free computer programming clubs for young people. They need to move from BadgeKit (which hasn’t been supported for a good while now) to another Open Source badging platform.
Consulting with Victoria College on Jersey. I continued departmental training on G-Suite for Education, and created a draft digital skills framework. I’ll be back next week, too.
Delayed. I’m having to stay overnight tonight (Friday) in Southampton. My flight from Jersey is delayed for ‘operational reasons’, meaning I’ll miss my connecting flight home.
Writing:
- Port 443 in a storm (Discours.es, 26th November 2016)
- Basic digital skills framework based on G-Suite for Education (v0.1) (Discours.es, 25th November 2016)
- How to create a sustainable web presence (Literaci.es, 23rd November 2016)
- Change (Discours.es, 22nd November 2016)
- Use ‘Custom fields’ to Add Context To Your Entire Trello Board (NewCo Shift, 21st November 2016)
- The fruits of our labours (Discours.es, 21st November 2016)
- On ‘quitting social media’ to further your career (Discours.es, 20th November 2016)
- 3 problems Trump’s victory brought into sharp focus (Discours.es, 20th November 2016)

Next week I’m working from home on Monday morning, and then travelling to London in the afternoon. From there, I’ll be working with Sussex Downs College on Tuesday, then heading to Jersey again on Wednesday to work with Victoria College on Thursday/Friday.

A reminder that #BelshawBlackOps16 Pt.2 begins next week. That means that this is my final weeknote of the year!

Weeknote 46/2016

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Doug Belshaw

This week I’ve been:

Missing my Kindle Paperwhite, which I left on a flight last week. I was so keen to get home, I left it in the pocket of the seat in front of me. That’s really thrown out my daily reading regime, which has had a knock-on effect on the rest of each day this week. It just goes to show the power of routines!
Reading, writing, and thinking about things that aren’t quite ready for public consumption yet.
Meeting with various people, including a representative of the Education department in Jersey, Sarah Horrocks from London CLC, Wayne Skipper of Concentric Sky, my We Are Open colleagues, and Steve Regur from Educators Co-op.
Sleeping more than usual. I’m tired. It’s that time of year. I prefer the weather in the UK during British Summer Time, to be honest. I’m looking forward to my December hiatus.
Pitching a newsletter to potential sponsors. I’m either retiring, or re-imagining my Thought Shrapnel newsletter in 2017 as I want to focus in on key areas rather than provide one ‘general’ newsletter.
Recording and releasing Episode 69 (‘Liar, Liar, Facebook on Fire’) of Today In Digital Education, my weekly podcast with co-host Dai Barnes. This week we discussed Facebook, the US election, and algorithms (main topic) as well as encrypting your life, Elon Musk, co-operative schools, and Finnish education. You can join the community to discuss this episode of TIDE in our Slack channel!
Sending out Issue #237 of Doug Belshaw’s Thought Shrapnel, my weekly newsletter loosely focused on education, technology, and productivity. It featured, among other things, taking election results like a Stoic, and competing with yourself. Many thanks to Makers Academy for sponsorship!
Setting up a Google Hangout for our Why badges? webinar next Tuesday. It’s We Are Open’s first collaboration with Educators Co-op!
Leaving Facebook. I’ve had enough. Again. I’m also looking at moving my personal email to ProtonMail and generally protecting myself in the wake of Trump’s impending control of the NSA.

Writing:
- Fake news: US vs. China (Discours.es, 18th November 2016)
- We’re running a webinar next week on badges, and you’re invited (Open Educational Thinkering, 16th November 2016)
- I left Facebook (again) yesterday (Discours.es, 16th November 2016)
- Submit Your Expense Receipts Via Dropbox Right from Your Lockscreen (NewCo Shift, 15th November 2016)
- Money can’t buy happiness (but you knew that already, right?) (Discours.es, 14th November 2016)
- [INCOMING] #BelshawBlackOps16 (Part 2) (Open Educational Thinkering, 13th November 2016)
- Little things and future fortunes (Discours.es, 13th November 2016)

Next week looks like this: On Monday I’m drafting my monthly posts for DML Central and The Nasstarian, as well as writing posts for the management section of NewCo Shift. Tuesday is ‘co-op day’ for We Are Open, so Laura, John, Bryan, and I will be collaborating all day on projects and plans. We’re also running the webinar mentioned above. Then, on Wednesday, I head to Jersey, visiting a school on the island that afternoon. On Thursday and Friday I’m working on digital strategy stuff with Victoria College.

I’ve got some availability week beginning 12th December for workshops, writing, and coaching. Get in touch if I can help!