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Category: art

From Record Store to ReclaimPress.

I feel very lucky to continue my work with the awesome team at Reclaim into summer, and this month I have bagged myself one of the best pieces of work going: a conversation with Bryan Mathers all about that unique vinyl aesthetic and the brand new venture that is ReclaimPress. Over the last 10-12 years I have had the privilege of collaborating on many projects with Bryan, and I deeply appreciate his listening skills, his…

The outlook is… meticulously informal

The recent launch of ReclaimEDU has got me blogging… always a good sign.  Now, working with the team at Reclaim has many perks, one of which was to learn more about this new offering before it was even launched. Jim talked us through it in the way only he can, and although I am learning more about the technology that makes this all possible what really did grab my attention immediately was the artwork.  I…

Happy Hybrid Halloween… or the spooky side of virtual working.

It’s my third week as a hybrid organisation of one, and I am enjoying the new working routine! It’s very busy and also tiring to have so many new things to deal with each day, but it’s very much what I was expecting. What I am missing at times is of course the colleagues I have worked with for many years, and in a more abstract sense, a bit of fun and interaction that comes…

Blogging is my sketchbook: reflecting on the creative process and open practice

When I was a young teenager, I asked my parents for a (mechanical) typewriter for my birthday so that I could type my journal, plays and poetry – on coloured paper mostly. I didn’t have the internet. When I was an art student, my sketchbooks had pockets, windows, some smelled of strange colours or oils I had tried out, some trailed plaster dust or were covered with fabric. I also had a blog filled with…

Making stamps.. with remixable thinkery

I’ve been taking a more playful approach to making something online this week, experimenting with new ‘Remixable Thinkery’ that Bryan Mathers has been working on as part of his Visual Thinkery projects. Have a look at the sandbox and a gallery of what others have created to date http://sandbox.wapisasa.com/ . I had a go with the stamp template and tried out different remixes, including uploading photos, resizing/recolouring the text and moving things about. Having a…

From marble to MOOCs… snapshots from my path to Learning Technology

I’ve been continuing my project of uploading a LOT of images to Google Photos and some of these are scans or photos of drawings and artworks I made (Google isn’t great at recognising what the drawings depict but I am not entirely sure whether this is due to my inexpert drawing or insufficiently sophisticated algorithms). Before I started working in Learning Technology and before I did my PhD in Anthropology I trained and practiced as a…

Open CPD, Visual Thinkery, art school: my week made me think

This post is inspired by two things I did this week: first, taking part in Wednesday’s @LTHEchat on the topic of Open CPD with Chris Rowell and second, reading my weekly delivery of Visual Thinkery in Saturday’s newsletter. Both are highly enjoyable, interesting and rewarding so if you haven’t already I strongly recommend you take a look. Both of these activities made me think about being online and what I do when I am online.…

Drawing my way through my #cmalt portfolio

Compiling my portfolio for submission for CMALT,  ALT’s peer-based accreditation scheme, has been a long term project. Originally I started in 2011, but I didn’t complete it. Now I am close to finishing and planning to submit my portfolio (finally). As part of the process, I have made drawings for each section of the portfolio, usually one per section. The first few drawings I made close to a year ago, but I am still adding…

#rhizo15 week 2: Situationist learning maps?

Contributing something #rhizo15 is part of my ongoing effort to become an open practitioner. This week’s topic, learning is a non-counting noun, made me reflect on how my own ideas of how we can count, measure or track aspects of learning developed. Unlike most people who spent a lot of time in Higher Education my experience of studying and later infrequently teaching at university didn’t involve many written exams or a set curriculum. First Fine Art…