Maren Deepwell

Search results for: “postcard”

  • Happy World Postcard Day!

    Happy World Postcard Day!

    World Postcard Day, celebrated annually on 1st October, might be a marketing initiative launched relatively recently, but it’s a great excuse to write a postcard, and thus I am on board!

    Regular readers will know that I am an avid pen pal, not only when it comes to family and friends, but also in my coaching and leadership work. For several years I even ran a postcard based leadership coaching service, AKA Long Distance Leadership Postcards 🙂

    Positive Feedback by Post

    One of the activities I designed around Postcards is called “Positive Feedback by Post” and it’s exactly that: a short, positive message you hand-write and give or send to the recipient.

    Write about as much as might fit on an actual postcard, and simply focus on something that’s made a positive difference:

    “Thanks for making me tea yesterday when I was really tired. I really appreciate it.”

    “You speaking up in the meeting helped me find my own voice. Thank you!”

    “You stepping in when things got busy saved the day. Cheers!”

    Why not give it a go and write a small piece of positive feedback yourself. I bet you are going to make someone’s day 🙂

    Why keep writing?

    I’ve been a pen pal since my school days, when our school offered an International pen pal scheme to take part in. Ever since then, I’ve stayed in touch with friends made on holidays, colleagues met at conferences, long time friends and my family, too, through postcards and letters (and sometimes even parcels!).

    In fact, I have boxes of correspondence collected over the years. I keep birthday cards and everyday letters, and I usually keep the envelopes and stamps, too.

    In a life lived in a distributed world, it helps me stay connected, and to keep those connections meaningful. One postcard or letter equals many digital interactions, that’s for sure.

    And I also love the pace of writing and thinking a little more slowly.

    So here’s to World Postcard Day! Long may postal services keep delivering our mail.

  • Love letter: envelopes, postcards, stationary

    I have collected all kinds of stationary, envelopes and postcards for about three decades and recently I have returned to my habit of sending mail, sending letters more often. I collect books about it, I have folders of postcards that I started collecting in the 1990s, a few that I love, a few that are souvenirs, a few that are waiting for just the right moment, just the right person, just the right occasion to be sent.

    • Envelopes (sketch)
    • Welcome to the Envelope Inn
    • Envelopes (book cover)
    • Envelopes (book page)
    • Envelopes (book page)
    • … und Tschuss (postcard)
    • Miss you (postcard)
    • Norwood Cemetery (postcard)
    • Biscuit (postcard)
    • The Cure (postcard)
    • Athens exhibition (postcards)
    • Adventures in Stationary (book cover)

    And there is so much interesting history in the development of reading and writing tools, in the history of postal delivery, the postcard and the letter. In a world where handwritten messages, physical letters and postcards become rarer each year, it’s good to pause and reflect on the joy of these material things.

    Nice to CC you by @visualthinkery is licenced under CC-BY-SA.
  • Newsletter, October 2026

    Newsletter, October 2026

    Hello and Happy World Postcard Day! As I am writing this month’s newsletter, the new academic year is in full swing and I am enjoying the quicker pace of work and projects:

    On the podcast, I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Dr Glenda Cox about open practice and leadership, drawing on her experiences as UNESCO Chair in Open Education and Social Justice.

    In other podcasting news, I’ve recently started co-hosting a new show together with Alexis Block, called Faces of Reclaim! We’ve just recorded the first few episodes and these are absolute gems of open practice and open platforms.

    Also, preparations for my session at the ALT Annual Conference in Cardiff this month, and the Ascilite Conference next month are gathering speed.

    The most read post of the past few weeks has been a reflection looking back at my CEO Days, which I really enjoyed writing.

    Fresh podcast episodes

    Find us on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Castsor via RSS Feed .

    Recent blog posts

    Have a good month… and as always, thank you for reading.

  • Adventures in Analogue II

    Adventures in Analogue II

    This seems to be the time of year when I blog about my adventures in the analogue world. Most of my work and much of my friendships are happening online in some form or other, so this is post is about the things that are happening offline, in the analogue world I treasure.

    A photo of my painting desk, with work in progress, a book about learning how to paint, colours, paletes.

    Painting

    I started painting a while ago, and mostly focused on seascapes to begin with as that is where most of my inspiration comes from. On a summer trip to Oxford however I picked up a book promising “Art in 15 Minutes” and ever since I have been learning how to paint with the help of its projects with great joy. I would not normally choose the motifs or the colours the exercises focus on, but I am learning much about mixing colours, working with shadow and simple perspective. As you can see in the photo above, the small, postcard-size canvases I use fit very well with the templates in the book, and so I paint away happily most days. It’s a very relaxing activity, but also fuels my creativity no end.

    Landscape view of Taff valleys near Cardiff
    Photo of the view from a local woodland path towards the sea.

    Running

    Since the Vancouver Half Marathon in early May, my running distances have decreased, but I have kept a steady training schedule of 3-4 runs most weeks. I can’t say that it’s been particularly easy given conditions haven’t been particularly helpful, but I am very proud to have kept going after that big milestone race I was training for over a long period.

    Parkrun has made a welcome return in my schedule, and I am very grateful for several local community events to choose from every Saturday.

    A photo of books, cards and stationary which I picked up on a recent visit to Hay-on-Wye.

    Reading

    Reading has been A LOT of fun this summer. I have read too many historical naval novels (thank you, Patrick O’Brian) and also a lot of other fun reads, whilst failing most of the time to track them as I had hoped to do this year.

    I catch up on the app I use every now and then when I remember, but by then I have likely moved on to new books already. Some recent highlights:

    • We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune: An original story-telling voice and an end of the world scenario spin a tale of an existential road trip. I loved it.
    • wild things by laura kay: a summer romance read with a wonderfully diverse cast of characters that I spent a very happy afternoon devouring.
    • The Secret World of Weather by Tristan Gooley: my current read, and absolutely fascinating. I stood in the nearby rugby field with a compass, checking which direction the wind came from and watching the cloud. Highly recommended.

    I’ve also been re-reading Richard Osman’s cosy crime books in anticipation of his new one coming out. Joy.

    Postcards that arrived this month

    Pen Pal

    One of my lifelong hobbies is writing letters, and over the years I have had many pen pals. Some come and go, others stay for many years. My mother must be my most long-standing postal correspondent but I have a few friends with whom I have sent many letters, cards and small parcels back and forth across continents and oceans. It may be out of fashion (and many postal services are creaking), but it brings me much joy and connections.

  • 25 years of ILTA: a salute to #EdTech26

    25 years of ILTA: a salute to #EdTech26

    This week has been such a joy. I had high expectations and was looking forward to returning to ILTA’s annual conference AND giving my paper on inspiring open edtech case studies I’ve been working on wit Jim Groom and Reclaim Hosting. It’s been 10 years since Jim and I first met at the OER Conference in Edinburgh, and it means a lot to me that our continued work together has resulted in us attending this beautiful conference together in Dublin this week (plus, I got to enjoy his the tour de force that was “Ohhh Blogging is a Place on Earth“).

    Edinburgh had a significant presence this week, including a brilliantly inspiring keynote by Dr Ben Williamson from the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. He presented cutting edge research on edtech futures and left me feeling thoroughly inspired with lots of reading to do! The keynote line up of the entire event was stellar, as became immediately clear when Dr Abeba Birhane from the AI Accountability Lab kicked off the first morning. Her concluding thought, AI in education = commercialisation of a collective responsibilities, posed a welcome challenge to participants, to focus on that collective sense of responsibility, which pervaded the whole event. Prof. Felicitas Macgilchrist, the third keynote, was maybe my personal favourite, and her ethnographic approach to exploring Edtech as infrastructures of feeling really resonated with me. The brilliance of the keynotes was matched by the warmth the Co-Chairs and Conference Committee brought to all the plenaries and social events. The uniquely Irish welcome and mirth I’ve long loved about this event was palpable and welcome indeed as we explored some of the darker visions of technology in the classroom. Incidentally, I saw both Co-Chairs, Kate and Rob, present their own work as part of the conference, which only underlined how much their leadership put the ethos of the event into practice.

    With seven parallel streams this year’s ILTA conference was busy indeed, and I came away inspired and with many notes and links of resources to explore. It’s nearly impossible to pick out highlights and yet for me there’s a moment that stood tall (forgive the pun) amidst the others. The Gasta sessions, always a highlight at ILTA and wonderfully vibrant and energetic under the inimitable leadership of Tom Farrelly, featured an unforgettable 4 minutes and 20 seconds delivered in an understated manner by Ian Linkletter in his Gasta: Standing tall in the face of tech giants. Suddenly, at twenty past five in the afternoon, when energies are usually low, the room turned silent and the atmosphere intense. I’ve never seen anyone, anyone, get a standing ovation after four minutes on stage, and yet I stood with the crowd of participants clapping loud and long for someone we all admire with awe. It was a moment to remember, to inspire – and to prompt each one of us to stand tall for what we believe in.

    There were many more moments that will stay with me, including a fabulous conference dinner, and a lively debate “Big EdTech is getting worse (exactly as planned)” to bring the conference to a close. I’m full of energy for small edtech, slow edtech, open edtech, fragile edtech, messy edtech and the people who make all of this happening, the learning technologists, the educators, the researchers… in short, all the folk of ILTA.

    It’s always a good sign when a conference makes you blog before, during and long after its days are ended and I can’t imagine a better compliment. So this is my salute to ILTA and its beautiful community! Long may you continue to support and celebrate each other across Ireland and beyond.

  • The beautiful long tail of (un)social media

    The beautiful long tail of (un)social media

    I really like this recent article by John Naughton on how social media has turned unsocial. In it he shares some interesting figures about the declining proportion of users, particularly younger adult users, who post on social media sites and the increase in consuming content passively, scrolling mindlessly.

    It echoes with my own use of these platforms, both in terms of my personal posting habits and my ability to reach and connect with others. Things have changed, that’s for sure. And yet I am one of the lucky web generation that experienced the age of social media and blogging that built real personal connections and friendships, many of which still persist.

    Never has that been more apparent than on a recent trip to Canada, a holiday which gave me the opportunity to catch up with many friends first made on social media, through conferences and collaborations. In many cases it’s been many years since we last saw each other in real life, hugged and shared food, and we keep in touch sporadically via letters and postcards, or old-fashioned family facebook posts or indeed on signal and wherever else.

    We shared travels tips and subsequently visited many eateries and vinyl shops and beaches recommended by friends. It really made the trip so much more special, and led to sharing many photos and travel updates along the way.

    A photo of the Tacofino taco truck in Tofino.
    A photo of the Tacofino taco truck in Tofino.

    We collected stickers, now proudly covering my suitcase, from as many places as we could, and it reminded me of my laptop that likewise used to be covered in stickers from conferences (it still is, I just travel a little less nowadays) and how I used to collect and send stickers from events on to friends who couldn’t make it. Once we had a regular ‘black market’ for Bryan Mather’s beautiful creations between the edtech lady pen pals of the world.

    I may not like what many mainstream social media platforms are turning into today, and I will continue to try and connect and engage via federated social media, but I am most grateful for the connections that I made in the before times, and all the beautiful friendships that have resulted from them.

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