Weeknote 34/2019
This week has been about getting back to work after our fantastic family holiday in New England. I’m used to the post-holiday blues, so mentally prepared for them this time around, taking things slowly on Monday and easing back into it.
Thankfully, it’s Bank Holiday weekend, so I can take a five-day holiday without having to take any leave. The joys of working a flexible four-day week!
There have been three main areas of activity for me this week:
1. MoodleNet
I returned a bit concerned that we weren’t going to make our (self-imposed, but widely-publicised) November deadline. That was because Mayel, MoodleNet’s Technical Architect will soon be taking a month’s paternity leave, and refactoring the backend code has taken longer than we thought. However, I’ve been pleased with Karen’s progress on federation and Ivan’s work on the new user interface. I think we’ll get there!
I focused on writing a lightweight spec document and updating Moodle Tracker issues this week, as well as the inevitable catch-up meetings and management duties. I’ve also published a blog post about MoodleNet’s draft user agreement and covenant for instance administrators.
2. Memorial TIDE episode
Earlier this week, I spoke with Eylan Ezekiel as we’re organising an episode of TIDE to celebrate Dai’s life. We’ve already started taking audio contributions, so please do consider adding yours.
Back in June, Dai and I recorded episode #119 of TIDE, but I never edited and released it, for a number of reasons. One of them was that it was interrupted by a couple of fire alarms at Dai’s school. Another was that I wittered on about anxiety to the interest of probably nobody.
Anyway, I’ve been listening back to what we recorded and I’m thinking of knocking it into shape to release as an episode. Dai says some pretty insightful things in it.
3. Thought Shrapnel
You know, I really do enjoy the work I do on Thought Shrapnel, and the new routine of posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (with an email digest on Sundays) seems to be both sustainable and appreciated by subscribers!
Next week will be a short working week for me. I’ll be planning more for MoodleNet federation testing, and integration with Moodle LMS.
