This week I’ve been:
Next week I’m not going down to London as I want to attend my children’s sports days. In addition, I’ll be away next weekend for Mountain Training and then in London/Brighton the week after from Monday to Thursday!
Image CC BY-NC-SA Barbro Björnemalm
This week I’ve been:
- Sending out Issue #180 of my Things We Learned This Week newsletter. Thanks to Think Associates for sponsoring June’s missives!
- Trying (and failing) to repair the screen of my Sony Xperia Z Ultra. I’m selling the parts on eBay and using a very old iPhone 4 until I decide what I want next. I’m using my iPad Mini 2 (cellular) most of the time.
- Writing another article for FE Week, this time about social media. Bryan Mathers illustrated it and, apparently, it’s all being turned into a double-page spread for an upcoming issue.
- Releasing Episode 16 of the This Week in Digital Education (TIDE) podcast, which I record with Dai Barnes.
- Spending three days in London, Wednesday-Friday. I stayed at the London City Suites by Montcalm, which has small but perfectly-formed rooms near the swimming pool I go to – and, of course, City & Guilds. It was around 35°C on Wednesday so I hid out in my hotel room after work so as not to melt…
- Starting work on a short Open Badges 101 course/guide. Bryan Mathers and I will share it with the community towards the end of the month for input/feedback.
- Talking with Neil Jones about work he’s involved in that’s potentially badgeable.
- Writing an endorsement for Steve Bunce‘s upcoming Primary Computing book, as well as some LinkedIn recommendations for people I used to work with.
- Exploring Open edX for the above. It worked well, but we’ll be going with P2PUs Course in a Box instead, I think.
- Meeting up with James Richards from Chromatrope about various projects, including badges.
- Getting people started using Trello to chart product development around Open Badges at City & Guilds.
- Learning from Garry Avery, Director of Tarigo product management training. He helped with the development of some of Apple’s products.
- Writing:
Next week I’ll be in London as usual on Tuesday/Wednesday and working from home the rest of the week.
Image CC BY-NC Kacper Gunia
Well, here we are, half-way through 2015! This week I’ve been:
- Sending out Issue #179 of Things We Learned This Week, thanks to the sponsorship of Think Associates! (I’m looking for a sponsor for September…)
- Down in London on Tuesday and Wednesday (as usual). I stayed at citizenM London Bankside, mainly so I could take photos as inspiration for our upcoming loft conversion!
- Leading a ‘brown bag lunch’ at City & Guilds on Open Badges with Bryan Mathers. Good turnout and even better Q&A.
- Going out for dinner/drinks with Chris Kirk, Jason McGonigle, Harry Kinloch, and Bryan Mathers,
- Breaking the screen of my Sony Xperia Z Ultra by putting it in the pocket of my bag and cramming it into a locker while I went swimming. I’m going to try and fix it myself.
- Releasing Episode 15 of Today In Digital Education, the podcast I record weekly with Dai Barnes. This week’s episode was entitled Gizoogle ya data.
- Plotting and planning some digital strategy stuff with Chris Kirk.
- Performing some visual thinkery around Open Badges with Bryan Mathers.
- Meeting up with Darshan Sanghrajka for coffee. He’s a fascinating and inspirational entrepreneur with a heart for social justice.
- Made chair of the C&G Open Badges Strategy Group. One of the first things I’ve done is to create a meta-level Trello board to track projects. I found this post on the Trello blog invaluable, and will be writing more on this soon.
- Reading Stoner by John Williams. It’s a melancholic but very moving novel. The writing is on a level with Paul Auster, if not beyond.
- Discussing my pension options with a financial advisor. I was slightly unnerved that I seemed to know more about my options than he did…
- Catching up with Steve Boneham and Andy Stewart. I’ve invited them to my super-secret Slack channel.
- Going for lunch with Jonathan Sanderson. We share a mutual friend in the shape of Vinay Gupta and met in the rather lovely Tyneside Cinema cafe.
- Writing an article for FE Week, planned with and illustrated by Bryan Mathers about technology and culture. I also wrote about Mozilla pushing on with Web Literacy Map v2.0.
- Thinking about how I’m going to structure my week post-September. It looks like I’ll have a day a week open for other clients. I’ve got a few things queued up, but get in touch if you’ve something for me to get my teeth into!
Next week I’m working from home on Monday/Tuesday, then down in London Wednesday to Friday. It’s TEDx Newcastle on the Sunday, which I’m looking forward to attending.
