So it would appear after discussions last week that I am going to be leading a taskforce.
I have spent a fair amount of week looking at how universities are dealing with assessment it’s a varied world out there.
I also spent much of the week in calls and conversations.
The previous week I had five such calls in my calendar, though I know I did more than that. This week I had nineteen in addition to ad hoc conversations with people.
Normally in a weeknote I would discuss the different places I had been and what I was doing each day. In this locked down environment I am finding the days are merging into one blur of activity. My weeknotes may start to reflect that.
Great cartoon from XKCD on Covid-19.
I was saddened to hear of the death of Jack Schofield, one the real greats of tech journalisim.
This is so true and reminded me of those heady days not just in the 1990s but also in the early days of social media.
Back in the early 90s, those of us at European universities used to do our Internet/ Web stuff early, before the US woke up and swamped the trans-Atlantic pipe. The current situation, where web conferencing tools descend towards unusability in the afternoon, feels quite similar.
— Paul Miller (@PaulMiller) April 2, 2020
I have been reminded today of this blog post I write some time ago.
Starting with solutions is not necessarily the best place to start.
Dig a little deeper to identify the real problem.
It was this blog post from Chris Thomson on innovation reminded me of this.
The pressure is there to find innovative solutions to the various problems this presents us with. Because we are in a crisis and the stakes are high there must be a temptation to go for the low hanging fruit, to innovate in ways where we can tackle fix the symptoms instead of addressing the conditions that brought them about in the first place.
My top tweet this week was this one.
24% of all deaths from Coronavirus in the UK were in the last 24 hours….
41% were in the last 48 hours
49% were in the last 72 hours.
82% in the last week…This is really scary.
— James Clay (@jamesclay) April 1, 2020