Tag Archives: apple pencil

The lights are on – Weeknote #202 – 13th January 2023

Monday I was working from home, spent some time planning for the week ahead. I spent much of the week up in London attending meetings in our Fetter Lane office.

I published a blog post about university spaces and wellbeing.

Could we use space utilisation data to support wellbeing? As students frequent and move about the campus, the spaces in which they study, learn and relax can have an impact on their wellbeing.

Had a meeting about some potential sessions at Jisc’s Digifest that I may present on.

Wednesday I was part of a meeting talking about risk. I have participated in risk meetings and importantly risk mitigation many times over the years. I remember undertaking a risk assessment on the external hosting of our VLE. I was asked by an auditor, what would we do if the server room in London (which hosted our VLE) flooded. Well we would switch to the alternate servers in Wiltshire. I was then asked what would we do if that server was taken out as well. As a group we decided that if both London and Wiltshire were taken out, then we would probably have more important problems to worry about than if the VLE was running or not. Though, if that did happen, we could restore the VLE from a backup on our own servers and get it running again that way.

On Thursday we had our Quarterly Leadership Team Away Day, much of what was taken up with a conversation and discussion with our CEO about the strategy, planning and moving forward.

Friday I attended the DfE HE Sector emergency planning liaison group where we discussed the potential impact of blackouts and cyber threats. I have written before, in October, about the potential impact of loss of power on student learning.

So how do students do online and digital learning without electricity or even connectivity? The news is full of stories on the possibility of winter blackouts as the energy crisis continues to hit home. With the continuing prospect of restrictions in gas supplies across Europe, there is a strong chance with a extreme cold spell in the UK that there will be power rationing. This means that some parts of the UK will be dark. Students will face learning without light, power, heat or connectivity. What can universities do to prepare for this potential likelihood? How can you deliver high quality online learning without power or connectivity?

In the post I explored some of the preparations that universities might want to consider if there was going to power outages.

At the time of writing the risk is low, so we are unlikely to see blackouts.

Jisc published a comment about ChatGPT and assessment.

ChatGPT and its ability to produce high quality essays with minimal human input has created a flurry in the UK education sector and many are questioning whether this signals the end of the essay as a primary mode of assessing learners.

One of the (now not so) little people got a new 10th generation iPad for Christmas. He asked if he could borrow my first generation Apple Pencil to do some drawing on his iPad. Having purchased an USB-C to Lighting adapter from the Apple Store in Bristol to connect a first generation Apple Pencil to a 10th generation iPad, I think there might be a problem with the pencil. It seemed to be failing to hold a charge, despite being connected and fast charging from the 10th generation iPad. Reading the web it looks like that as I haven’t used the pencil in a while, the battery has died. Though I had given up hope, my son hadn’t. While I was away for work, he tried once more to charge the pencil, and low and behold, it charged up, it paired and is working well with the 10th generation iPad.

It’s alive I tell you, alive!

My top tweet this week was this one.

Drawing some pictures at #altc and beyond

Keynote: Bonnie Stewart – The new norm(al): Confronting what open means for higher education

Over the last few years I have been, rather than taking notes in the keynotes (and other sessions) at the ALT Conference #altc drawing pictures. This is sometimes called sketchnoting.

My sketch notes are really for me, rather than other people. The process of sketching allows my to digest for myself what is been talked about and demonstrated. The sketch note provides me with a mechanism that provides a process for my interpretation of what is being said and what I understand from the talk. The process of sketching engages me in the talk in ways in which note taking does for others, or conversing on the Twitter. They are not done for other people, if other people find them useful then that’s just a bonus. Having said that I do share them online, through Twitter (and Flickr).

Continue reading Drawing some pictures at #altc and beyond

Drawing at #altc

CB_ALT_WED_38 https://flic.kr/p/XRVcwY CC BY-NC 2.0
CB_ALT_WED_38 https://flic.kr/p/XRVcwY CC BY-NC 2.0

I spent the last week at the ALT Conference in Liverpool where I listened and participated in a range of sessions on learning technologies. As I did the previous year I did manage to make some sketch notes of the keynotes and some of the sessions. I was using the iPad pro, Paper by 53 and an Apple Pencil.

My sketch notes are really for me, rather than other people. The process of sketching allows my to digest for myself what is been talked about and demonstrated. The sketch note provides me with a mechanism that provides a process for my interpretation of what is being said and what I understand from the talk. The process of sketching engages me in the talk in ways in which note taking does for others, or conversing on the Twitter. They are not done for other people, if other people find them useful then that’s just a bonus. Having said that I do share them online, through Twitter (and Flickr).

Quite a few people came up to me to ask what I was doing, what app I was using and if I was sharing them. I had similar questions on Twitter as well.

Continue reading Drawing at #altc

Sketch noting at #altc

One thing I did at last year’s ALT conference was some sketch noting and I am hoping to do something similar at this year’s conference.

Last year I was using the iPad pro, Paper by 53 and an Apple Pencil and I am expecting to use the same technology again. My original sketch notes were done with a single colour pen. When I moved jobs I invested in some Stabilo colour pens and a notepad and got some more interesting results.

One thing that I will be doing is preparing the canvas in advance, so that once the talk starts I can get straight into the writing, drawing and painting.

Continue reading Sketch noting at #altc

Top Ten Technologies of 2016

These are technologies that I actually use, they exclude web tools and services which I do a separate top ten for. They are generally tools that make my life easier, more efficient and more productive.

Here are my previous top tens from 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011201220132014 and 2015.

The tenth technology is my current workhorse computer is a Dell Latitude E7250 laptop running Windows 7, which is reasonably reliable, has a decent battery life.

Ninth is my new(ish) Canon printer the MG7752.

In eighth place is the iPad pro, which I like for the big screen. It’s an iPad, just bigger. Though the Apple Pencil adds a new dimension and I have found that aspect useful for sketchnoting.

Seventh place is the Apple TV which allows me to stream video from the Mac or my devices. Once I have fibre I expect it to be even more useful.

Sixth place is my Sony TV, which I am using a lot now for streaming video from services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and BBC iPlayer. As with the Apple TV, with fibre it will be more useful.

The tech in fifth place is the Polaroid Pogo Printer. This complements my manual note taking and allows me to add images, slides and diagrams to my notebooks. Now getting on a bit, it still has a place in my workflows.

MacBook Pro is number four. A really nice laptop that is fast, has a excellent retina screen and a great OS.

My iMac is in third place. Big 27” screen and still fast despite being a few years old now. Also a wonderful retina screen and a greatOS.

Like last year, 4G is my number two, having unlimited data on the phone means you don’t worry about streaming video, browsing web pages or uploading images to sites like Flickr. Only downside is that sometimes Apple (and others) restrict what you can do to wifi only, and as my home wifi is significantly slower this and I have unlimitedd data, for me this makes no sense.

In first place is my iPhone 6S Plus, A great phone, with a great screen and made really useful through the 4G connection. I like the camera. Having played with the iPhone 7 in an Apple Store I much prefer the physical home button of the 6S. I know not everyone likes the large screen of the Plus model, but I find it really easy to use, however the size can be a little cumbersome.

So that was my top ten technologies of 2016.