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Category: stories

Crowns and cartographers: equality in the imagination

I have been reading a lot of stories recently and two of them in particular really inspired me: Frogkisser by Garth Nix and The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. Both are beautiful reads suitable for younger readers as well, but that shouldn’t put you off. Both books take you on adventures, in one case following the perilous journey of a cartographer’s daughter across an unexplored floating island, in the other the footsteps…

Where my imaginary artificially intelligent friend goes on holiday

In 1995, when I first read Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs, I was fascinated by the ‘machine’s subconscious’ diary entries that cover pages and pages of the book. Outside of science fiction it was my first encounter with ideas of artificial intelligence and machines that may dream one day. As someone who has written in their various journals near daily for three decades I was particularly interested in the relationship between what’s inside the main character’s head…

#RaceForLife – this year we are a mother + daughter team

In spring 2016 I started running to raise funds for Cancer Research, to give something back to those who extend my mum’s life and run my first 10k. One year on and we are celebrating another year together by participating in a 5k charity walk. I’m also doing some 10k runs and hopefully my first half marathon later this year, but this one is something we want to do together. Last year I was aiming…

Reflecting on what’s important… randomly

I miss having a rhizomatic course to participate in. This kind of post of professional and personal reflection feels like it would have been appropriate for that kind of sharing space. In the absence of a course however, this is ‘just’ a rather random post. I’ve recently thought a lot about what’s important. Three very different things,  a work project, a TV programme and a new network, have come together in my head and it’s an…

My #EdTechRations outtakes

I recently wrote a post about contributing to a new book edited by David Hopkins called Emergency Rations #EdTechRations . Not everything I wrote made it into the final version and I wrote quite a bit about how I work in addition to describing the things I can’t do without. So below is my contribution with additional comments and images that shows what it looks like as work in progress. When I wrote the intro I thought about…

The Future of Education in the House of Stairs…

I am looking forward to participating in the OEB Midsummit in June. Speakers have been invited to provide a quote about the future of education and you can read what others have written already on the event’s website (click on a speaker’s name to see their quote). Whilst I was thinking about what I might say, I read through what the others have written and one quote from Audrey Watters is “I’m afraid that the future of…

1, 2, 3, 4… 5 years as CEO: a new series of posts begins here

Part of my focus in this blog is on sharing my approach to leadership as an open practice. This is my fifth year as chief executive of ALT, the Association for Learning Technology (if you want to find out more about ALT, visit the website) and over the next few months I will be writing a series of posts – each one reflecting on one particular aspect on my experience and work. I’ve been wanting…

#ilta2016: Two #edtech days in Dublin

Last week I took part in EdTech2016, the annual conference organised by the Irish Learning Technology Association. It’s definitely worth visiting the conference platform for a wealth of resources and presentations and reading some of the Twitter conversation #ilta2016  or viewing the TAGS Explorer archive. While I was invited to attend the event on behalf of ALT (and you can access the slides from the talk I gave jointly with Martin Hawksey on Slideshare) it was…

You are #neverweird – thanks for a wonderful listen @feliciaday

Having finished reading/listening to a new memoir by Felicia Day – You are never weird on the Internet (almost) – I wanted to note my thanks. So here goes: I’ve never met you, Felicia Day, but I am grateful to you for adding your voice to the story of the Internet, of gaming, of women working in tech-focused industries and for sharing your story of incredible achievement against many odds. It’s inspiring to read how…