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Maren Deepwell Posts

Analogue v digital. Non-fiction reading for April

My favourite read for this month has to be The Revenge of Analogue by David Sax. Although this book was published nearly ten years ago, and some of the research it is based on would have been changed by the pandemic, I found it a really inspiring read. I love all things analogue from stationary and paper notebooks, to sending actual letters in the post and listening to vinyl records, and I have read a…

Reclaiming our socials: SUNY Digital Learning Conference 2024

Last year’s experiment in the fediverse, Mission Mastodon, helped me onto a new path to reclaim my social media presence. At the time, I was contemplating what best to do in the face of the demise of Twitter and the fragmentation of my networks. Add a career transition into the mix, and a couple of new professional communities, too, and you will understand why I spent more time than before trying to find a way…

Behind the scenes of Digital Leadership

‘Digital Skills for Emerging Leaders’ is a new micro-credential course from the Digital Learning Institute that I am working on together with the amazing Lynne Taylerson. It’s a super project to be involved in, and it’s extra special for me as I get a change to collaborate with Lynne outside of our other favourite project: AmplifyFE. Usually we work on this kind of project at a distance, using the kind of digital skills we talk…

Walk’n’coach into summer

When I first started coach training, I set myself the goal to offer walking sessions for my clients. My thinking is that pretty much all of my favourite coaching and mentoring conversations happened when walking, either outdoors or pacing up and down in my office. I like moving whilst thinking, and I like talking and walking… . I take walking meetings, and walking catch ups, so walking whilst coaching feels like a natural extension of…

Six months of gold dust.

Today feels like a milestone day. The clock’s have changed here in the UK, it’s the last day of the first quarter of the year… spring is underway (if still a lot wetter than I’d like) and I am freshly returned from an inspiring week in Cork at the OER24 Conference. It’s also been six months now since I started working in my new ventures, over a year since my departure from ALT was announced……

OER24: Blogging is the way… open is the way

I am still in Cork, Ireland, as I write this post, feeling both tired and elated after a wonderful week at the OER24 Conference. My first time attending the conference as a delegate was a great experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The Co-Chairs, Dr Gearóid Ó Súilleabháin and Dr Tom Farrelly from the host institution Munster Technological University (MTU). led a fantastic effort together with ALT’s team headed up by Kerry Pinny, and the…

OER24: The sound of Open Practice in social media wilderness

I am REALLY looking forward to OER24 this year, not least of all because I get to share the stage with Martin as we present out (first ever) short talk on podcasts and radio. If you are curious what we’ll be talking about, you are in the right place: Read a short summary of our talk How do you share open practice and foster innovation in Open Education in the age of social media fragmentation?…

Finding my podcast voice

It’s been 18 months since I first launched my podcast, and this academic year I have stepped up the pace with a new episode every week. 65 episodes later… I still enjoy the process of making the podcast and it’s been very, very useful for my professional practice. It’s also a (for me still relatively) new way to sharing my work and I have tried to find the right tone in this medium, tried to…

What happens to our senses in the hybrid workplace?

When I was a research student I came across David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World, an ecological philosophy book. At the time, I was deeply interested in phenomenology, and as part of my research in Anthropology I was learning much about how human beings relate to and experience the world. Specifically how we relate to the world through our senses as embodied beings. From the articles and…