No Monday for me in the office this week, well it was Bank Holiday, so my working week started on the Tuesday.

Spent much of the week undertaking interviews for a project we’re doing for a university. I was talking to students about their experiences and what they wanted if and when they get back to campus.

There has been a clear lack of interaction between students, both academically and socially, leading to a lack of familiarity and difficulty engaging.  Another familiar issue, identified by both students and staff, has been the very limited interaction between students. With the main face-to-face avenues for contact, socially or more formally through seminars, are not readily available via the digital environment. This was particularly noticeable amongst first year students, many of whom had very little interaction with their peers. This is clearly a very important part of university life and makes for a less rich student experience.

I have also been writing a report for another university which covers similar issues, as well as the challenges in embracing blended and digital learning.

My new iPad keyboard stroke cover arrived, which was great as the old one had stopped working. I had had a similar issue with my previous iPad as well. The iPad basically doesn’t recognise the external keyboard so spends a lot of time providing me with notifications that it doesn’t recognise the keyboard, which is equally as frustrating as the keyboard not working itself. Now at least I can use my iPad for writing.

We had an away day on Friday, which actually meant spending most of the day in a Zoom call. Now that’s exhausting.

Having said that it was quite a good and interesting day with some useful sessions. I facilitated a session with a DVC which went down well with the HE team at Jisc.

My top tweet this week was this one.

Am I the only person not to watch #LineOfDuty

— James Clay (@jamesclay) May 2, 2021