identity
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The Metaphors Podcast
The last piece of my online identity revamp has been to explore doing a podcast. Yeah, I know, very late to the game. In 2056 I’ll start my TikTok channel. The truth is, I played a bit with them in the first flush of enthusiasm in the 00s, but they never really took for me. I think we all have the social media form that best suits our preferences or talents. Long form blogging is my thing. Audio wasn’t it for me, mainly because I have a fantastically boring voice. I remember doing media training once and after doing a pretend interview in which I felt I had responded like…
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An online presence health check
In my earlier post I was trying to sell the idea that (higher ed related) blogging is experiencing a resurgence. This is partly a justification for myself (and to my line managers), because I’ve been on study leave for 2 weeks. Study leave basically means you have a reason to say no to about 50% of the usual meetings. I’ve been writing a research bid, but I’ve also been using that clearer space in the calendar to update my online presence. This has included: I’m not sure if any of these make much difference, but I would argue (vigorously even) that it is a good use of anyone’s time in…
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Wake up, time to die
via GIPHY Another Twitter demise post, sorry. I can’t even say I’m enjoying the spectacle of Musk making a public arse of himself like it’s a performance art piece. Every day on that site is now filled with posts from him, and about him, even if you try to avoid it. I don’t want to think about Musk. I don’t want to know what other people think about Musk. Like a cryptocurrency convention in Vegas, it’s just not a place I want to spend any time in. This will be the cause of decline far more than any usability or moral stance – there are a lot of spaces to…
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IET, the OU and identity
This week we held a celebration to mark 50 years of the Institute of Educational Technology, and also to say goodbye to a colleague who has been immensely influential for me and IET, namely Patrick McAndrew. I’m going to work both of these together into a post about institutional memory, history and greek mythology. First up, some history of IET. I’ve blogged this before, but in being asked to do a short presentation (see below), I reflected on how educational technology was not some after thought or something that grew out of interest after a few years. It was embedded and deemed essential to the OU from the outset. The…
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Cashback – My blogging year
2018 feels like the year that my blogging had been the apprenticeship for, with the OU crisis at the fore. My most popular post by some way was this one posted the day our VC resigned. It followed on from a semi-viral Twitter rant and subsequent post a couple of weeks earlier. Prior to this life had not been good at the OU, and like anyone sensible who worked there, I began to cast around for opportunities elsewhere. It wasn’t a healthy place to be. But through these posts, and Twitter a new sense of camaraderie emerged with colleagues, students, associate lecturers and wider community. Having a well read blog…
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Annotation & the net conundrum
Annotation tools such as hypothes.is have gathered a lot of interest over the past year, and certainly have a lot of potential in education. It was at Open Ed last year that Jon Becker brought some of the ethical issues to my attention. These tools allow others to overlay annotation and commentary on any site, visible to anyone with that browser extension. It’s not on that site as such, so they don’t need permission to do that. This is great for annotating, say, an article in a newspaper, or a Governmental press release for example. But as Audrey Watters points out, less great if as an individual, you have been…
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Stories and models
I like the posts Sheila and Audrey do which are a round up of their weeks. I’m not sure I’ll do it every week but I thought I’d give it a go, and try to weave together some of the personal and professional things I’ve done this week. I’m actually on leave this week, but have spent most of it working. This raises the whole work-life balance issue of course, but I don’t mind it. I have a generous leave allowance, and being what I suppose is called a knowledge worker, it’s often difficult to exactly allocate work. Also, if I’m honest, there are days when I am officially working,…
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What sort of open do you want?
<Image http://www.flickr.com/photos/42386632@N00/8528725328/ > I've been thinking about openness in education a lot recently (my plan is to write a book on this, more on that later). And I've slowly, probably years after everyone else, come to the conclusion that it's a mistake to talk about openness as if it's one thing. There may have been a time when it was, when all the forms of openness blended easily into one indistinguishable lump, but that's not the case now. Not only are there different aspects of openness, but I'm beginning to feel that some may be mutually exclusive with others, or at least prioritising some means less emphasis on others. What do…
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Open media and the new Stasi
"Trust me, I'm a journalist…" I came across a disturbing story last week, particularly for academics in the UK who use social media. A UK academic who blogs and tweets as Plashing Vole reported that a journalist from the Sun on Sunday had contacted him, telling him they were going to run an article about him. It concerned a few anti-government tweets he had made, in one jokingly making a Nazi comparison. An MP was calling for him to be sacked. In the end they didn't run the piece, but it must have been a stressful few days. This worries me on a number of levels. Firstly, I often encourage…
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Academics and online impact
I presented at the OU’s communications conference yesterday. I was asked to talk about how you create an impact online. I’m always a bit cautious about giving advice on this, as I didn’t (don’t) have a plan, so it’s all been trial and error and messing about. But I guess that is my advice – just get started and try stuff out, don’t wait to go on the “Creating academic impact online with blogs” course, just do it. I was lucky to share the stage with two great OU colleagues. Meg Barker is an expert in relationships, and has a good blog associated with her book Rewriting the Rules. Natalie Starkey’s…
