Watch out – Weeknote #52 – 28th February 2020

Monday was a wet and windy day, as it has been over the last few weeks. I was on leave on Friday, so as it happens I spent Monday clearing out my inbox.

Tuesday I was in our Bristol office attending our own Metamorphosis event. This is our version of TEDx without the TED branding.

There was some lovely talks and I did my own on a piece of family history.

In the afternoon I attended an ideas workshop on innovation. Innovation is defined as new or different, but it isn’t defined as been better that was there was before. We often forget that sometimes people don’t like innovation and innovation doesn’t automatically always mean better. Actually most of the time innovation for a lot of people is rarely better. Sometimes it’s worse than what was before, most of the time it’s just different.

I was reminded of this blog post from last year that I wrote on innovation and digital.

Digital should be a choice…

Thursday I was back at our Bristol office for TNE 4.0, a joint event between UUK and Jisc.

​Technology can play a key enabling role in the delivery of high quality, equitable and accessible TNE, addressing issues such as assuring connectivity, accessibility of digital content and the digital skills of students and staff. There are also risks associated with digital dependency, cyber security, intellectual property, the unbundling of the education experience and the impact of TNE on the environment.

I did a couple of sketchnotes about the event.

TNE 4.0 Sketchnote

There were some interesting talks about how technology and digital can improve the international student experience.

I saw this tweet about the Intelligent Campus Guide that I wrote when I was working on the Jisc Intelligent Campus project.

The guide covers the why and how of the intelligent campus space, incorporating ethics, strategic drivers and the learner voice.

In a similar vein I saw this tweet about occupancy at the libraries at the University of York.

I blogged on the Intelligent Campus blog on how things were done there in 2017.

Greta Thunberg was in Bristol on Friday, so to avoid the crowds I worked from home.

Yes, the crowds did make a mess of College Green, but this tweet I think sums that up beautifully.

Image by chrisjmit from Pixabay
Image by chrisjmit from Pixabay

The Evening Standard reported on how a woman in London has become the first person in the UK to be arrested using a new live facial recognition system rolled out by police.

Woman, 35, arrested in UK first after new live facial recognition cameras rolled out

A Met spokesperson said: “Officers arrested a 35-year-old woman at approx 5.30pm for failing to appear at court in connection with a serious assault on an emergency service worker. “The arrest was made by officers who reviewed an alert from Live Facial Recognition technology identifying her as wanted by police.”

Despite reservations about facial recognition, it looks like the London Met are going to continue to use the technology.

This weeknote is the culmination of a year of weeknotes having started my new role at Jisc just under a year ago.

So one day into the new role and I hope to use weeknotes to reflect on my new role and the work I will doing in this space.

I have found keeping notes a challenge some weeks, but I have also found it an useful reflective tool on what I have done each week, what I have learnt each week, but also what I have shared with others as well.

I am intending to keep doing this.

My top tweet this week was this one.

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