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Maren Deepwell Posts

My CEO’s report to ALT’s Members, August 2018

This is a re-posted from the #altc blog.  Dear Members As I write this we have just one month to go before the largest event we organise each year, our Annual Conference. This year, as we celebrate 25 year of ALT, there is much to look forward to and this report covers some of the key developments across the Association. Your voice #altc #altc25 First, I wanted to draw your attention to an ongoing project…

Special podcast edition: Reflecting on the first six months leading a virtual team

This is a joint post with Martin Hawksey (cross-posted here) about how we, as senior staff, lead our organisation to adopt virtual operations. You can read previous posts in this series here. We’re six months into our journey and in this special edition we look back at the highs and lows, share practical things we’ve learnt along the way and take our conversation from post to podcast to help us reflect and look ahead. Maren:…

Crossing the Meridian: on stories and ideas

This week I had a really interesting conversation about how to communicate ideas and what role stories play in that. Shortly afterwards I crossed the Meridian Line in London and it made me think about all the different lines that connect our planet and us to each other. Networks, infrastructure, data… we often visualise the connections in a linear fashion. And most stories, too, follow that patterns, they have a beginning, middle and end, reaching…

Virtual team, face to face team day: putting our blended approach to the test

This is a joint post with Martin Hawksey (cross-posted here) continuing the story of how we, as senior staff, lead our organisation to adopt virtual operations. You can read previous posts here. June Last time we discussed how we used GDPR as an opportunity to strengthen how we work as a virtual team. Since then we had our first face to face team day, an important milestone in creating a blended approach to running a…

On a tangent to leading a virtual team… going on holiday

This blog is mostly about the work I do, and things I find interesting. But, as a Learning Technologist in a leadership role, I think a lot a lot about work/life balance even if I don’t share much about my life away from work on this platform. The current series of posts written jointly with Martin Hawksey in which we take an open approach to leading a virtual team has prompted me to reflect on…

Don’t think you are brilliant? Exploring the full colour spectrum of reflection.

Last year I wrote a post called Don’t think you are brilliant? Think again… and in it I shared my insights from being an assessor for CMALT, ALT’s peer-based accreditation scheme and how I observed that reflecting on practice can help you realise your own strengths and gain a sense of achievement. Since then, I have assessed a lot more portfolios and also explored those shared by other Certified Members (thanks for sharing!) and I…

Opportunity knocks: Using GDPR to strengthen virtual teams

This is a joint post with Martin Hawksey (cross-posted here).  If you have missed our earlier posts we encourage you to revisit the beginning of the story of how we, as senior staff, lead our organisation to adopt virtual operations. May This month we discuss our approach to GDPR, evolving virtual working practices and the importance of explaining the reasons for new procedures as part of implementing them. Maren: We at the end of a…

Beyond advocacy for change – developing critical & open approaches in Learning Technology #LTHEchat 116

I’m excited that we have been invited to contribute a topic to the #LTHEchat, the weekly Learning and Teaching in HE chat created by the community for the community – Wednesday 8-9pm. It’s the only tweetchat I regularly participate in, although mostly in “listening mode” and I find it a very useful forum. Below I have re-posted the description of the topic coming up this week: #LTHEchat 116: Beyond advocacy for change – developing critical…

Messy metrics and beyond: strategy & practice in measuring impact of research in Learning Technology

The titles of the posts in this series are getting longer and longer so it will soon be time to wrap it up. Here is where I am up to with this project: Post 1: Researching alternative ways of measuring impact in Learning Technology Post 2: Which direction to take… researching alternative ways of measuring impact in Learning Technology Post 3: The quality of metrics matters: looking ahead to #EdTechIE18 I started with reviewing recently…

The quality of metrics matters: looking ahead to #EdTechIE18

I am really looking forward to taking part in ILTA’s upcoming conference, TEL Quality Matters – People, Policies and Practices, 31 May – 1 June at IT Carlow. You can see the full programme here http://programme.exordo.com/edtech2018/ . Working with ALT’s new strategic working group for the development of the Open Access journal Research in Learning Technology, I have been working on understanding more about alternatives to the established Impact Factor for independent Open Access journals generally and…