About a year ago I left Twitter (or X), a decision based on concerns about the platform’s increasingly toxic environment. The decision was right, and has been borne out by the recent far right riots in the UK, where misinformation, outright lies, and the way in which the platform as allowed racists and nazis to…
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short content: a post or status update with just plain content and typically without a title
Some small thoughts on climate change.
Working in Higher Ed we often despair of the way people ignore the warning signs of climate change, we work at dispelling the misinformation of climate deniers. But when we are told that Gen AI is contributing to climate change, we shrug our shoulders and carry on. The energy and water consumption of AI technologies,…
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Push the Narrative Back!
“Why won’t you let us innovate?!” “You are holding us back!” “If we have to do the things you say, we won’t be able to change anything!” “You’re wrong, we’re right, and we are going to ignore all your concerns!” “Disabled Students will just have to make do with the content they can access!” It’s…
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ACCOUNT SUSPENDED: YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE
Some Background Yesterday was remembrance Sunday in the UK, as always it falls nearest the the 11th of November. I am sure people know, but the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th Month was the time at which “the Great War” ended. For over 100 years in countries around the world the…
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Dave Cormier, Musk, and Climate Change: A review of “Learning in a Time of Abundance”.
Back in June 2023 Musk Tweeted What has this tweet, and climate change got to do with Dave Cormier and his new book? Let’s start with Cormier’s Book. I’m oversimplifying his arguments, but essentially he argues (very well) that we are living in a time of information abundance. This means that it can seem that…
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If you set a minimum standard…
… that’s what they’ll strive for. I was recently asked how I would change something to make the accessibility elements more in line with inclusive principles. The honest answer is I don’t know. The problem is that the purpose of the thing was to get people to change things, to change practice or technology etc. And…
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(Not) Writing with an AI
This is not a post about AI per se, it’s about my writing process. I was chatting to a colleague this week about the tool of the moment, ChatGPTn, they were expressing that it was beneficial for them, because faced with a blank piece of paper they struggle to start. I get that, I have…
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Accounting for the climate in digital capability: initial thinking
Right now in the UK we are focused on climate change. Why? Because we just broke previous temperature records – we hit 40°C– for colleagues in the US, that’s 104°F. I’m not going to debate climate change here; it’s real and if you think it isn’t you’re an idiot, or you’re an idiot and you’re…
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Zoom and Room: hidden labour
We need to recognise the labour involved in these emerging practices; existing teams are great at making things happen, making it feel possible, and making it as simple as they can for those of us who are experiencing it as users. But if the practices are to be embedded and widespread, that extra labour needs to be recognized and accounted for. People often can’t just turn up and flip a switch. And those who are told it’s just that easy are being sold something. In some institutions I am seeing a lot of recruitment in learning design and technology enhanced learning roles, in some I am seeing restructures with no overall increase in numbers, and of course some are either not changing or even reducing their numbers.
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Chasing Unicorns: how the EdTech Unicorn Pin came to be
Three of us sat together at “yet another edtech conference” we were probably listening to a wild-eyed techno-solutionist deliver an “ode to the new LMS”, or newly converted academic to the cult of VR, or it may have been the “and now a word from our sponsors” session, where another company starts telling academics how…
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