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Maren Deepwell Posts

Re-inventing Mondays… 2 months in

It’s been a month since I last updated on my progress with the new chapter in my working life, free-lance working life, and my mission to re-invent my week, starting with Mondays. Unfortunately, as I type this, I am still recovering from a cold, and so podcasting is on hold for this week and instead I get to write this blog post. Blogging is, still, where it’s at. Beach/work balance One of the goals in…

Festive Karaoke. Reclaiming online fun…

I love being online, and I love the communities I am part of online. As someone who relies largely on the internet to sustain long distance relationships with family and friends as well as collaborating with work colleagues on a daily basis, I am very invested in my corners of the web. It takes a lot of effort however to keep those spaces good spaces to be in, on platforms like Discord and Mastodon, as…

A year after publication: Leading Virtual Teams

A year ago my book Leading Virtual Teams was published, and I can very clearly remember all the wonderful excitement that led up to the launch, and am still grateful for all the encouragement for this Open Access publication. A year on, and the book, which was initially inspired by the work Martin Hawksey and I did at ALT, has turned into a whole host of resources, two free courses and a podcast which informs…

Stepping away from the screen – a lunchtime digital skills development session

This week I am joining the university in Oxford online for a lunchtime digital skills development session. I am really looking forward to this talk, partly because the topic is a lot of fun and also because I love the format: it’s opt-in, open to all and informal, hence it (hopefully) attracts the kind of folk who are already interested in the topic or need some help. Whatever the case, it’s a win to have…

Leading Virtual Teams Revisited – with Martin Hawksey

This week we are going back to the origins of Leading Virtual Teams! Join us, Maren Deepwell and Martin Hawksey, in this joint blog post and special podcast episode: Maren: Hi Martin! Been a while since we last blogged about leading virtual teams and hybrid working. So… I have lots of questions to get us started: tell us a bit about what your current work set up is like, and what you are particularly interested…

Listen… to the practitioner’s voice

Today is a big day! Together with colleagues from all across the UK, I am heading to London. It’s the Week of VocTech, and the annual showcase of everything that’s happening across the sector. I feel fortunate to be continuing my work as Strategic Lead for the partnership between ALT and the Ufi VocTech Trust even though I stepped down as ALT’s CEO earlier this year. There’re a couple of reasons why: from a personal…

Hybrid Working Habits – It’s a wrap

Over the past four weeks I have run a free and open course all about hybrid working. This week, we are wrapping up the course for 2023, and I’d like to take the opportunity to have a BIG thank you to everyone who took part, and contributed! I love the format of the course, which is podcast cased with new topics released every week, as it allows folk to follow the course at their own…

OER24 – Here we come

It’s a miserable day today in Cardiff. Grey, dark and rainy. Typical November weather. I am sitting at my desk with the light on although it’s only midday. Inside my head however, the sun is shining, at least figuratively, because my first OER24 submission is in! OER24, in case you are new to the conference, is: the 15th annual conference for Open Education research, practice and policy will be organised by ALT, the Association for…

Reclaiming Halloween Radio

Earlier this week I got to join the folk from Reclaim Hosting for a spooky radio extravaganza! Across a couple of different timezones and radio stations, Reclaim Radio and DS106Radio, we ROCKED the airwaves. I love radio as a medium to have fun for virtual teams. It’s super engaging, not screen based, it’s synchronous and at the same time gives everyone space to do other stuff whilst listening. It’s also, when you have a team…