Month: December 2017

Weeknote 51/2017

Posted on December 23, 2017December 23, 2017 by Doug Belshaw

It feels weird to be writing a 51st weeknote of the year, as usually I’ve gone on ‘Belshaw Black Ops’, forsaking social media and blogging for the last month (or two) of the year. This time around, I haven’t felt that I’ve needed to, which I suppose is a good thing.

Anyway, this week I’ve been:

Recording and releasing Episode 94 (‘Distraction-free Festivities’) of the Today In Digital Education (TIDE) podcast, which I record with Dai Barnes. This week, we discussed what we’ve been up to over the last month, laptop use in lectures, mobile phones in the classroom, ‘distraction-free’ writing machines, coding, Net Neutrality, and the future of coding in schools.
Finishing off a complete draft of the Project MoodleNet whitepaper I’ve been working on. I’m pretty pleased with it, and hopefully I’ll get some useful feedback from Moodle HQ and the wider community. There’s already been plenty of comments on the Google Doc, which is good.
Joining the Moodle ‘Culture Club’ (new name coming soon) which has formed under the guidance of Holly Barnes with the aim to ensure the organisation becomes a Great Place to Work.
3D-printing lots of different things on our new Flashforge Finder. I was going to unveil it to my children at Christmas after experimenting with it, but my son stumbled across it in my office, so we just started using it. We’ve made all sorts!
Messing about with an original Raspberry Pi and my spare monitor, trying to make a distraction-free writing machine.
Meeting (online) with Ilona Kish, Director of the Public Libraries 2020 project. We met when I was over in the Netherlands, and there’s some scope for us doing some work together through the co-op.
Planning a new format for Thought Shrapnel, my weekly newsletter. I asked Bryan Mathers to put together a logo for me, and I think he’s done an excellent job! You can see a sneak peek of the kottke.org-like approach I’m plotting at thoughtshrapnel.com/live.
Another year older. It was my 37th birthday on Friday, although we’re celebrating it on Saturday.
Playing Star Wars Battlefront II on the PlayStation 4, which is pretty epic.
Receiving Christmas gifts through the post from Laura Hilliger, Gavin Henrick, and Eylan Ezekiel. Thanks all!
Writing:
- Draft Project MoodleNet white paper complete! (Project MoodleNet blog, 22nd December 2017)
- White paper update: first draft of ‘Access to openly-licensed resources’ and ‘Crowdfunding’ sections (Project MoodleNet blog, 20th December 2017)
- Creating a ‘distraction-free’ writing machine (using whatever you’ve got available) (Discours.es, 19th December 2017)
- White paper update: further work on ‘Scenarios’, first draft of ‘Messaging’ and ‘News feed’ (Project MoodleNet blog, 18th December 2017)

Next week it’s Christmas! I’m not working until Tuesday 2nd January, when I start my new four day a week role with Moodle. I’m still available for consultancy one day a week, most of which I’ll be doing through We Are Open Co-op.

Featured image of a 3D-printed Christmas decoration taken by me earlier this week!

Weeknote 50/2017

Posted on December 16, 2017December 20, 2017 by Doug Belshaw

This week I’ve been:

Sending out Thought Shrapnel, my weekly newsletter loosely structured around education, technology, and productivity. Issue #285 was the last regular issue of 2017 and I called it The ‘take a deep breath before Christmas’ edition. I’ll still be posting to Thought Shrapnel Live! on Telegram, so join that channel if you want updates! This work is supported by people who value my efforts.
Writing a report for Bibliotheekservice Fryslân after my work in the Netherlands last week.
Continuing to work on the MoodleNet white paper I’m putting together.
Meeting with Adam Procter, Martin Dougiamas, Steve Watt and Rohan Hardie about MoodleNet-related things, and Ella Barak about digital literacies stuff.
Signing a contract with Moodle which means I’ll be working for them four days per week from January 2018. The negotiations have taken a while, as I’m the first direct employee outside Australia! A few more details, and what that means for my consultancy (and our co-op) in this post.
Hanging out with new colleagues Garnet Berry, Mary Cooch, Gavin Henrick, and Karen Holland in Dublin. We did a bit of work, had a great Christmas dinner, a few drinks, and played in VR (not in that order!) Gavin and Garnet’s Irish hospitality was fantastic and the underwater experience on an HTC Vive was mind-blowing.
Writing:
- Come and get involved with the MoodleNet community! (Open Educational Thinkering, 15th December 2017)
- White paper updates: ‘Scenarios’ & ‘Identity and reputation’ (Project MoodleNet blog, 12th December 2017)

Next week, I’m working four days (Monday-Thursday) from home on the MoodleNet white paper. It’s my birthday on Friday, so I’ll be eating mince pies, drinking whisky, and playing FIFA 18 instead of working.

Photo of Clayton Hotel, Ballsbridge (where I stayed in Dublin) taken by me on Thursday night.

Come and get involved with the MoodleNet community!

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Doug Belshaw

TL;DR: I’m leading a new project called MoodleNet that is currently described as “a new open social media platform for educators, focussed on professional development and open content”.

I don’t know about you, but I like getting involved with projects on the ‘ground floor’, so to speak. Figuring things out excites me, as does taking a bunch of possibilities and figuring out a way forward. It’s with this in mind that I’d like to invite you to get involved with a new project I’m leading: MoodleNet.

It’s really early days and, in fact, we’re still figuring out what MoodleNet actually is. Suffice to say that Martin Dougiamas, Founder and CEO of Moodle, sold me on it enough that I’ve agreed to spend four days per week on it from January 2018. One way he’s described it is as, “a new open social media platform for educators, focussed on professional development and open content”. Sounds good to me!

If you’ve been involved in any of the work I’ve helped establish before, such as Open Badges or the Web Literacy Map, then I want you to know that you’re very welcome as part of this new project I’m leading. So are those who are entirely new to this way of working! As you’d expect, we’ll be working entirely in the open, making progress with a combination of community input, business priorities, and decisions taken by Moodle HQ.

Job one is to write a white paper that helps tell the story of what MoodleNet could be. I loved the approach Erin Knight took with the original Open Badges for Lifelong Learning working paper, where she explained how badges could help in various scenarios. I need help in defining those scenarios for MoodleNet .

No matter whether you’ve got ten minutes, ten hours, or ten days to contribute to the MoodleNet project, your time and experience is valued. I’d love it if you could check out the work so far, introduce yourself in the MoodleNet forums, and perhaps help out with white paper. Thank you in advance!

Some people may wonder what taking on this new role as MoodleNet Lead means for my consultancy business, Dynamic Skillset — and for the co-operative I co-founded, We Are Open.

This opportunity to lead an open-source project that could help so many educators and learners was too good to pass up! I’ve really enjoyed full-time consultancy with a range of clients, but it’s time to get my teeth into something longer-term.

Given that I’ll be working four days per week with Moodle, I still have scope for additional consultancy and working through the co-op. Feel free to get in touch as usual! It’s just that now my time will just be even more precious than usual, and I’ll have to lean on my co-op colleagues to a greater degree.