Maren Deepwell

Author: Maren Deepwell

  • Finishing another year at Oxford

    Finishing another year at Oxford

    This week wraps up another year of teaching at the University of Oxford. Summer is here, and my work with the Digital Capabilities team takes a break over the summer, before Michaelmas Term starts again in autumn.

    For the first time since I started this year had more in person components, including two days of fully in person sessions with cohorts from across the university. Getting to work with such a diverse range of people in a unique institutional context whilst exploring all aspects of hybrid working is great fun.

    Last year, I was focused mostly on Digital Wellbeing in my reflection at the end of the academic year, and although this remains relevant there are now other dimensions of hybrid working that have come to the forefront:

    AI in the workplace: AI-enabled tools and platforms have spread widely and quickly in the workplace. With such a strong commercial motivation, every major tech player has quickly incorporated enhancements designed to improve digital productivity for the user, whilst collecting data and increasing prices for providers. Across the range of responses to the arrival of this type of technology, from enthusiastic early adopters to skeptically cautious users, I have yet to meet the professional who feels less busy, less time-poor or less stressed as a result of using AI. Instead what I have observed is that the pace of digital productivity, increased by time-saving AI applications in particular, is causing overwhelm, burnout and a frantic sense of having to keep up with the pace set by technology.

    Medium term consequences: Also emerging are the now medium term consequences of hybrid working at scale. With the pandemic moving further away and workplace practices and policies becoming more stable, we are able to observe what the impact of hybrid working at scale is for the first time. Even across just one institution, the picture is mixed: some groups have mostly gone back to the office, offering flexibility on certain days, whilst others have gone mostly remote, with a common anchor day to be present on campus. Some groups of staff love working from home, whilst many struggle with overwork and lack of work/life balance. A common complaint is that it now feels like one is “living at work” (instead of working from home) and the accompanying (perceived or actual) expectation of having to be available all of the time.

    Hybrid leadership capabilities: More and more institutions identify staff (and also student) hybrid working capabilities as a strategic priority, and quickly realise that leaders have little capabilities to effective manage and support staff in such a context. This is the area I am most interested in, and where my work is most focused at the moment.

    It’s been a joy to work with Emma Procter-Legg and her colleagues for another year, and I am excited to pick things back up for the start of the next academic year.

    A photo of a cup of coffee, with a unviersity sign and bikes in the background
  • Critical Digital Capabilities for Leaders in Hybrid Higher Education  

    Critical Digital Capabilities for Leaders in Hybrid Higher Education  

    I recently took part in a leadership development programme, Leadership in Higher Education and Artificial Intelligence: A New Paradigm. The programme was designed with an international cohort in mind, and it was great fun to work with leaders from across different countries and from a whole range of Higher Education institutions.

    Photo of the presentation and audience
    Snapshot of me during the presentation and the audience (Source: LinkedIn Post)

    My session was inspired by Global Trends Towards Flexible, Hybrid Working and its Impact for Digital Leadership in Higher Education, a report commissioned by the N-TUTORR National Digital Leadership Network, and which was just publisher earlier this year. It was a great opportunity to share some of the key recommendations that came out of this work and to begin to unpack how these may be implemented.

    This is a complex topic, and there was a lot packed into the talk, so I broke it down into three sections:

    • developing leadership capabilities in critical digital and date literacies, with a focus on frameworks that reflect changing practices in the AI-enabled workplace (or classroom);
    • enhancing leadership skills for hybrid working (and learning) in Higher Education, emphasising the central importance of building trust and balancing the overlap between professional and personal;
    • finding inspiration at a time when everyone is already overworked and under-resourced, opening up a perspective beyond the current hype cycle.

    Given that we ourselves were experiencing Oxford’s city centre in heatwave conditions, I can only applaud the delegation’s energy and interest in engaging with these topics on the final day of their busy programme’s week and before lunch, as well. We had lively discussions which only served to highlight to me how widely our experiences, practices and policies around hybrid working futures vary. And it gave me much food for thought about what else I would like to include in the research for the book I’m writing on.

    A big thank you also to the organisers for making me feel so welcome, and for bringing together a really interesting group of people! If you’d like to learn more, explore my session slides.

  • More gold dust.

    More gold dust.

    In sweltering heat the sun shone through the longest day of the year, and I used the mid year point of the year to reflect on the past six months. Here on my blog the posts and podcasts have been stacking up, whilst over on my work domain coaching, consultancy and courses have been in full swing.

    This post brings it all together, gathering all the gold dust ready for summer and the next six months.

    On the blog

    Over 30 blog posts so far this year, so blogging is going STRONG 🙂

    On the podcast

    I have published 23 podcast episodes so far this year with more special guests, including:

    Talks, articles & events

    Executive coaching and training

    A big thank you to all my coaching clients! I celebrated a milestone earlier this year when I passed 200 professional coaching hours, and I continue to be active in the UK Chapter of the International Coaching Federation. I also had a chance to continue my group coaching and training, including:

    Consultancy

    I’ve updated and exampled the list of projects completed which now has its own page and that has been both fun and really satisfying to accomplish.

  • Long time reader…

    Long time reader…

    I often talk about blogging, but this post is different. This is a thank you to two writers whom I have been following for a long while, and whose work continues to inspire me.

    Julia Harrison

    First up, is Julia Harrison, a North Carolina-based artist, anthropologist, and educator, whom I met when I was studying Anthropology at UCL.

    Julia’s work is all round awesome, and I am a regular reader of her blog, and a great admirer of her creations. From wooden paper bags and jewellery to awe-inspiring public art and furnishings, her domain is a treasure trove of inspiration. You can even join her for a virtual studio visit!

    What I appreciate the most, however, is Julia’s newsletter. It’s semi-regular, and whenever a new edition lands in my inbox I happily read the whole thing. I love the tone and voice, I am always interested to learn about what’s been happening and it balances a great mix of work/art and life.

    Nick Tabone

    Around the same time as I was at UCL, I also worked at Foyles, and London’s melting pot delivered a wonderful group of co-workers including Nick Tabone. Already full to the brim with book and music recommendations then, many of which I still have on my bookshelf and in my record collection today, Nick’s writing has evolved over the years as his life has taken him to become a writer, a sailor, a runner, and a skateboarder.

    I mostly follow his non-fiction, usually written from aboard ship, always compelling and beautiful. And there is a huge amount of poetry and fiction to explore as well, which I strongly recommend you do.

    One day, I hope that copies of Nick’s published books will sit alongside all the volumes he inspired me to read on the shelf next to my desk.

    May the blogging continue 🙂

    Image:  Hat tip by Maren Deepwell is licenced CC-BY-SA 4.0

  • From OER25 to Reclaim Open 25

    From OER25 to Reclaim Open 25

    This year, sadly, is the first time in a long time that I’ll be missing out on the OER Conference. I have blogged (a lot) about this very special event before, including a literal love letter to the conference in 2023, and a postcard from OER24 in Cork last year.

    The line up for OER25 looks fabulous, headed up by two wonderful Co-Chairs, Louise Drumm and Sheila MacNeill, and tantalising keynotes Helen Beetham and Joe Wilson. I would have loved to go to London and join in the fun. Unfortunately some long-standing work commitments mean that I can’t travel… so instead I’ll be following the conference chat online.

    Travel being a little restricted doesn’t mean however that I’ll be missing out on all open educational technology conference fun this year, thanks to being involved in Reclaim Open, set to return in November!

    In the past I’ve not been able to attend Reclaim’s flagship conference in person, but this year it’s happening entirely on the web, on blogs and on the radio, so there’s no need to travel at all to take part.

    I love the retro theme, the look and feel that Bryan Mathers has created for the event, and I am excited about the blogging! It’s an awesome opportunity for the Blogging Community of Practice to get active in the event, too.

    For Reclaim Open, every proposal is a blog post and all accepted submissions on the conference blog which will also be the conference schedule. So, this week submissions are opening, so it’s time to get thinking and writing… and put in a proposal. 1… 2…. 3…. Blog!

  • Keynote: From Analogue to AI

    Keynote: From Analogue to AI

    Keynote invitations don’t come much more fun that the one I was excited to accept for this week: the Open University’s annual conference for its community of associate lecturers and other staff. When I first got the email, I knew I made to make it happen because these are the people I love to work with most!

    This conference, which attracts close to 500 participants and covers two days (in May and June respectively), is a rare opportunity for a very distributed workforce to come together around topic of common interest, which, inevitably, includes AI this year.

    My keynote takes a big picture approach at learning and working and everything in between, and also zooms in on deeply practical approaches to using technology, from analogue to AI. The full title of the talk is Reclaiming the Pace of Digital Productivity in the Age of AI and you can view the full slide deck .

    It gives me an opportunity to sign-post the work of some recent special guests that have featured on my podcast, starting with the Digital and AI Literacies work by Angela Gunder, which really inspired me:

    These Dimensions of AI Literacies were remixed from the work of Doug Belshaw’s Essential Elements of Digital Literacies, whom I was fortunate to speak to recently as well:

    Between these two conversations you’ll get a real flavour of what my keynote is all about. Angela and Doug are really worth listening to – and I am grateful that I was able to speak to them about their work which in turned inspired me when I was writing the keynote.

    Lastly, looking ahead into the future of education, beyond AI even, I included some of the voices I discovered earlier this year when I was in Dublin, for Education after the algorithm: Co-designing critical and creative futures. The event was a symposium for thinking otherwise about critical AI and post-AI pedagogies of higher education as part of the Erasmus+ Hacking Innovative Pedagogies: Digital Learning Rewilded (opens in a new tab) project,c haired by Eamon Costello and featured a wonderful keynote by Helen Beetham.

    I talked about walking, both literally and metaphorically, in my session Critical Cadence, and I hope to be able to share some of the hope and inspiration I gathered at this event with the audience in my keynote, offering some energy and joy at the business end of a very busy academic year.