Tag Archives: end of year review

Remembering Eventedness – Weeknote #235 – 1st September 2023

A shorter week this week as there was a Bank Holiday (in England).

I had planned to be in our Bristol office and even visit our London office this week, however due to some mechanical issues with my car, I spent the week working from home.

I had my Q4 review for 2022-2023, I do find that these weeknotes are useful in preparing for those kinds of meetings. I did reflect that I haven’t been doing much writing in the learning technology space, so for next year I am planning to do some more researching, thinking, and importantly, more writing.

I spent time preparing for ALT-C next week, my presentation is on Wednesday and I am chairing a session on Thursday. Due to a variety of reasons and compounded by the car problems, I am having to sort out some logistical issues.

I also attended an internal Jisc briefing on ALT-C, there are quite a few Jisc sessions at the conference, as well as two stands and some afternoon tea.

On Wednesday 30th August there was an #LTHEChat hosted by the ALT-C 2023 co-chairs, Santanu Vasant and Lawrie Phipps. I had initially planned to participate, but in the end, I went to the cinema instead. So the following morning I did some responses to the prompts from the chat. I thought though I would expand on some of my answers to the different questions in a blog post to go beyond the character limit on the Twitter.

What was your first experience of learning technology in a work setting?

How do you define learning technology? I used a laptop in 1992 to create learning materials using Aldus PageMaker. Does that count? 

If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change in learning technology?

What has always frustrated me has been the focus on consumer technology fads or jumping on the latest bandwagon.

What’s been your biggest achievement in learning technology to date and why

I still think what I did at Gloucestershire College in changing the culture and approach to the use of technology in the organisation. Approaching it from a holistic whole college approach. Lots of small steps from everyone. Anchoring the change.

Which ‘next big thing’ that didn’t quite take off do you most remember?

I probably have a list….

What would be one piece of advice you’d give yourself in the past about learning technology?

It’s always about the people. Always.

Which talk, presentation, workshop or person do you remember from previous ALT Conferences and why?

There is one talk though that has stuck in my mind and even many years later was from ALT-C 2020 and was given by Dave White.

I did think that this process was useful in preparing for ALT-C next week.

The medieval lecture

I have been looking at learning spaces, so spent some time reflecting on ideas for learning spaces thought leadership and content. The focus on interdependencies and the compromises that flexible learning spaces bring to the student experience. I made some notes and planning for a blog post on the flexible learning space compromise.

I have been planning a Leadership Masterclass – Operationalising your Strategic Vision session that I am delivering later in September.

My top tweet this week was this one.

Shorter – Weeknote #73 – 24th July 2020

A shorter week as I was on leave for a couple of days.

Over the weekend I published the thinking and an expanded textual version of my  presentation to the University of Hertfordshire, where I talked about the possibilities of technology, and the ethical, privacy and legal aspects of said technology.

Monday saw my end of year review meeting. These weeknotes have been useful in remembering what I have been doing and where. Blogging not just weeknotes, but also about events I have attended or presented at also helps in preparing for these kinds of things. Even if you don’t publish them as I do, maintaining some kind of record over the year helps with preparation for reviews.

tree trunk
Image by Picography from Pixabay

I am working with colleagues on the Learning and Teaching Reimagined project. We are looking at undertaking various activities, as well as publishing some definitive guides for leaders in relevant areas.

One of the key aspects, which we are ensuring is recognising that though the technological challenges and issues do need to be addressed and resolved, one of the core issues is looking at the pedagogy in using technology to deliver learning and teaching, remotely and online. As demonstrated with my series on translation, it is often easier to translate existing physical face to face practice into online version, but this loses the nuances of that physical delivery, whilst ignoring the affordances that online and digital can provide.

exam
Image by F1 Digitals from Pixabay

I found this opinion article on the Guardian on facial recognition interesting and relevant.

As students sit their exams during the pandemic, universities have turned to digital proctoring services. They range from human monitoring via webcams to remote access software enabling the takeover of a student’s browser. Others use artificial intelligence (AI) to flag body language and background noise that might point to cheating.

In my work on assessment I did research and look at digital proctoring. Most universities realised that the technology, despite the protestations of the companies involved, was unfair and could negatively impact on wellbeing. There were also concerns about the validity of such proctoring. Universities have also recognised that not every student was in a space, have the connection or the right kind of device to enable them to participate in said remote exams.

I wrote up my thoughts in this blog post.

Someone shared this excellent XKCD comic on the Twitter.

XKCD have a wonderful perspective of some of the key issues of the day and this diagram looking at the risks of Covid-19 along with risks of non-Covid-19 activities did raise a smile in me.

My top tweet this week was this one.

What have I been doing? – Weeknote #72 – 17th July 2020

Last Friday I delivered a presentation at the University of Hertfordshire Teaching & Learning Conference. There was some really nice feedback from delegates at the conference.

Really hard to gauge feedback when delivering via Teams and all I can see is my Powerpoint presentation screen. Twitter at least gives me some insight to how it was received.

https://twitter.com/HelenBarefoot/status/1281569959785766913

https://twitter.com/HelenBarefoot/status/1281568050085601280

It would appear that my blog post on the main Jisc website was picked up by academics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.  Continue reading What have I been doing? – Weeknote #72 – 17th July 2020