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Monthly round-up March 25
(Teilo was my writing buddy this month) I’ll say this for Trump and Musk – when they make things go to shit, they make things go to shit fast. It seems strange to think of the world order back in January, that seems like the 1970s now. Like many people I’ve been divesting myself of support for American billionaires. On a regular basis we already have a network of independent local providers for a lot of products and services. But I’m a lazy consumer often, I admit, and Amazon had become the default for miscellaneous products. Now that I’m eschewing it, I’m reminded of when the web was still relatively…
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Writing and reinvention
(Image shows a Scare Devil from the Nicobar Islands – courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/maggiejones/7142224553) As you might guess from my last post, I’m going through something of an introspective phase at the moment. This was to be expected after leaving my place of employment for 30 years, but I think is also exacerbated by a) my field of ed tech becoming essentially only about AI, which doesn’t excite me much and b) the whole Trumpian dismantling of existing global norms within which I thought I would be operating. This means I’ve been going through something of a reinvention dialogue with myself (and Maren, and the poor dogs). I expect I am…
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What type of blog am I?
I took part in a Reclaim Hosting session as part of the blogging community yesterday. Maren ran the session on How to Get Your Blogging Mojo Back and Lee Skallerup Bessette gave a fascinating talk on her blogging history. One topic she raised was a thorny one that many of us have wrestled with in the blogging area. And that is, whether to have specialised blogs or an all-encompassing one. Lee talked about how she had established different blogs for swimming, knitting as well as ed tech. Jim Groom stated that he made a decision early on that his blog would be a big messy bucket for everything he was…
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Don’t go west
Maren and I had booked a trip to New York in May as our wedding present to ourselves. Neither of us have ever been there and we had a fun itinerary lined up. Last week we cancelled it. We were going to meet up with friends, and missing out on this is the part that hits the hardest. The reasons for cancelling are muddled but contain elements of the economic boycott, safety concerns and ethical considerations. On the economic side, this seems like a practical step in response to Trump’s trashing of trade agreements. Safety wise, although planes seem to be crashing with increased regularity, and the current border control…
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Feb 25 round up
(With Maren Deepwell and Tom Farrelly at the Education After the Algorithm seminar at DCU) As I mentioned in a couple of posts, I gave a keynote in Dublin this month. I was also the examiner on an excellent PhD about the impact of the VLE on mental wellbeing. So, I’ve been keeping my academic hand in. It’s an odd time to be an academic. Mind you, it’s an odd time to be anyone. Part of what you do as an academic is attempt to find the truth. I’m aware that often there is not one single truth, and conclusions can vary depending on context, but in general, research, writing,…
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Van Morrison and the Cashback opener
In a desperate bid to outfox AI I am endeavouring to create links between seemingly disparate topics, just for the sake of it. Today, the completely obvious connection between the opening tracks on Van Morrison’s albums of the 70s and learning design. Buckle up. Van’s Cashback Openers I’ve been listening to a LOT of Van Morrison recently. I’m not sure what started it, but I’ve been down that rabbit hole for a while now. Van is both an incredible musical genius and an incredible misanthrope. It is one of the perpetual gifts and mysteries of the creative act that great art can come forth from people who you wouldn’t want…
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AI, ecosystems and metaphors
(image is a Bryan Mathers sketch of my keynote) As I mentioned in my last post, I gave a keynote at the Education After the Algorithm conference in Dublin last week. It was a thoughtful, engaging event, congrats to Eamon Costello and all involved. A screencast of my talk is below. I concentrated on two metaphors, which I’ve blogged here previously, namely DDT and the introduction of rabbits into Australia. My intention was twofold: to highlight how the information ecosystem may be prone to some of the similar impacts from AI agents as these environmental ecosystems were to the introduction of these outside agents; to demonstrate the utility of metaphorical…
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AI and rabbits
For my upcoming keynote at the Education after the algorithm: Co-designing critical and creative futures symposium in Dublin, I am exploring metaphors relating to ecosystems and AI. I’ll blog the whole talk after the event, but one of those metaphors I am using is the introduction of the European rabbit to Australia. The background During the 18th and 19th centuries, the European rabbit was introduced into Australia primarily as a food resource and for hunting activities. There is a myth that the subsequent explosion of the rabbit population can be traced back to one single introduction, that by Thomas Austin in 1859. An English settler Austin wanted to establish a…
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January 25 Round-up
After 3 long years, January has finally ended. On the personal front it’s been going well. Now that I don’t have as many meetings, I decided to shift the ‘vibe’ of my room from ‘home office’ to ‘vinyl lounge’. This involved the inevitable trip to Ikea, and purchase of the favourite of vinyl collectors, the Kallax unit. It’s interesting to note the manner in which the change in the physical set-up alters your behaviour. We used to have our records split across three rooms, but now they are all gathered in The Vinyl Lounge (please say this in an appropriately sonorous tone), I find myself playing a lot of different…
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Blogging is back, take 183
But is it safe? Maren and Jim over at Reclaim are starting a blogging community, so it feels like the 2000s again. Get a Northern Voice conference going in Canada someone, before it becomes part of the USA! I don’t really need encouragement to blog, but if you do, Maren has some advie on getting your blogging mojo back. I’m trying not to do that thing of linking everything to “current events”, but I do feel that having your own platform, your own voice, community and identity when so much of that is controlled by people you wouldn’t trust with a glue pen, does add extra currency to blogging. Brian…
