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Month: November 2016

We’re running a webinar next week on badges, and you’re invited

Update: you can now view an edited version of the YouTube Live stream via the We Are Open YouTube channel.


When I was over in Los Angeles earlier this year, I met some great people who seemed to share similar interests to our gang at We Are Open Co-op. Lo and behold, it turns out that Steve Regur and Amy McCammon are co-founders of Educators Co-op. We, of course, started planning how we could work together (in accordance with Principle 6), and continued the conversation at the Mozilla Festival a few weeks ago.

The upshot is that we’re going to get started on our co-operative journey  by running an introductory webinar on Open Badges next Tuesday at 4pm UTC. The link to point people towards is http://weareopen.coop/webinars. I’ll be facilitating the conversation which will begin with the Bluffer’s Guide to Open Badges slide deck we used at MozFest.

We’ve set a low-bar target of 10 participants for this initial collaboration, but are, of course, expecting more will turn up. Future webinars will move from discussing the basics of badges to more advanced topics, including including how to join our co-operatives, scaffolding digital skills, and more!

Click here to sign up for the webinar

PS This is the perfect link to forward to your colleagues with whom you’ve been wanting to have that conversation about badges. Why not come along together?

[INCOMING] #BelshawBlackOps16 (Part 2)

In a little over two weeks it will be December. For those who have followed my work for a year or more, you know what that means: I go ‘dark’. No personal email, blogging, or newsletter from me for the entire month.

I’ll still be working, so remain available via my consultancy, Dynamic Skillset, as well as via my We Are Open co-op email address. You may see the occasional article that clients have paid me to write popping up via various channels, too. The important thing is that I step out of the stream for a while, going more ‘read-only’.


While I’ve got your attention, I’d like to give you a quick heads-up that things will be changing with my weekly newsletter. I’ve enjoyed putting together Thought Shrapnel during the last few years, but Issue #239, going out on 27th November 2016 will be the last in its current format.

Why? Well, I’ve currently got over 1,500 subscribers and have attracted sponsorship over the last 18 months, but list growth has plateaued and I’m itching to do something different. If you’re subscribed my newsletter, don’t worry, I’ll let you know what’s coming next. It might involve several ‘pop-up’ newsletters; I’m not quite sure yet.

Also, given how out-of-touch I’ve felt with such a large part of the world after the results of the EU referendum and US election, I may do something fairly dramatic with my use of social networking. I’m unlikely to quit anything completely, but I can envisage unfollowing everyone I currently follow on Twitter and starting again in that regard. We’ll see.

The great thing about disconnecting for a while — over and above spending more time with family and avoiding showing my grumpy side — is that it provides the time to reflect on my current ‘ways of being’ in digital spaces. I always contemplate not coming back at all after my time away but, when I do return, feel that I tend to use technology more intentionally.

Anyway, I’ll be around for the next couple of weeks. Let me know if you need anything before then!

Image by Rodion Kutsaev

Weeknote 45/2016

This week I’ve been:

Next week, I’ll be mostly at home, writing. Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with!

Email[email protected]

Image CC BY David Blaikie

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