For the past three years I’ve been trying to share a photo a day on the blipfoto site. The first year I tired I missed a few days, and last year just one. Thisyear I have actually managed to post a picture everyday.
In the grand scale of things this isn’t a particularly amazing, life changing feat, but for me it has become a really enjoyable habit. My photos (or blips) are more personal reminders of each day. Some are mundane, some include shoes, some are actually quite nice photographs. Together they are a visual record of the past few years for me, my visual diary if you like. They are an increasingly important part of my digital presence/ identity. I’ll be writing more about that next week when I have my work head back on and have had more time to think about my holiday periscope adventures.
I am going to continue to try and share a picture a day, but in the meantime I’m raising a glass to my achievement this year and wish everyone a happy and peaceful New Year.
Towards the end of December last year I decided not to do an annual round up/review type of post and instead write about my dream scenario for the coming year. Re-reading the post I realise that it could be my recurring annual end of year dream. I don’t think there is much I’d want to change if I was writing the post today. So maybe I should just let it become like a (classic) Christmas song and re-publish it every year . . . enjoy.
So this is the time when a lot of people are making predictions, sharing their views on developments and trends over the past year. When ever I read these posts, I tend to get a sense of plus ça change plus ça la meme chose. So I’m not going to critique any of these reviews instead I’m going to share with you, dear reader, what I can remember of a dream I had last night about what my end of year post would be.
I don’t know if you have ever listened to Tenacious D (stay with me on this) on one of their albums they have a song called The Best Song Ever. It’s a cautionary tale of a rendezvous with the Devil, writing “the best song ever” or words to that effect, forgetting almost all of it the next morning but having the frustration and knowledge that they had indeed written the best song ever – if only they could remember the killer riff and the words. This post may be a bit like that . . .
continue reading here . . . or just watch this video
We’re moving offices this week but in between packing boxes and recycling I’ve been having a bit of an ALT shaped week.
This week ALT launched its annual survey (if you haven’t already please do fill it in, it’s a great barometer for what’s actually happening in the UK education sector). Concurrently it has also published a strategy update highlighting the progress the organisation is making in terms of its strategic goals. I wrote a blog post to help the launch of both, and I just want to highlight again the great work that the ALT full time staff and all its members do.
On Wednesday I represented ALT at a CLA FE Copyright Masterclass at the Lowry in Salford (not Manchester). I opened the session with a talk about OER and open education. This was followed by some very informative talks by the BUFVC, The Intellectual Property Office, CLA, and ERA. All of these agencies have a wealth of material that can be accessed by the education sector, and it was great to see the support that they are all giving the currently quite battered FE sector. I was particularly impressed by the Cracking Ideas site from the IPO – I think most of us could use those resources to help our students and ourselves become confident about IP.
A couple of other things have caught my eye and hopefully I’ll have time to have a proper look at them over the weekend. Audrey Waters has begun her annual top trends in ed tech review. Audrey is always worth reading and the first in this years series is no exception, I look forward to the rest of the posts. Remember you can subscribe to HackEducation and help support Audrey’s work. A great gift idea for all ed-techie’s out there.
The Open University has also just published its 2015 Innovating Pedagogy Report. I’m haven’t read it yet, but I am intrigued by stealth assessment and embodied learning. Hopefully I’ll have time to do a more considered post on it in the next couple of weeks, once everything has been unpacked in my new office.
