Maren Deepwell

Author: Maren Deepwell

  • Openness Reimagined… from How to Who

    Openness Reimagined… from How to Who

    Originally published on the altc blog, 22 May 2026.

    In June this year two conferences take place that celebrate important milestones in Open Education and Learning Technology: the Irish Learning Technology Association’s annual EdTech Conference, 3-4 June in Dublin, celebrates its 25th anniversary under the theme EdTech You: Digital Learning From How to Who. Just a few weeks later the OER26 Conference convenes at the Open University in Milton Keynes, to focus on Openness Reimagined: Continuity, Change and Shared Vision and celebrate several anniversaries, including 20 years of OpenLearn and 30 years of the Journal of Interactive Media in Education. 

    As a big fan of both conferences and their communities, between which there’s plenty of crossover, I am fortunate to attend both this year and a deeper dive into the themes of both events prompted me to reflect on the crossover between the themes, and how each of these events may act as a catalyst for action and for hopeful change across sectors. 

    The ILTA Co-Chairs, Dr Rob Lowney and Kate Molloy, and the organising committee, pose the following questions: 

    • “We invite you to join us in a conversation that asks: 
    • Who was, is and should be the people of your/our Edtech community? 
    • Who was, is or was missing from conversations about digital pedagogies ? 
    • Who are we designing for (or against) in EdTech, and who is missing?”

    For me, these questions relate closely to the wider context and the challenges it poses which are at the heart of OER26 led by Dr. Robert Farrow and Dr Beck Pitt: 

    “Openness has expanded participation, reshaped practice, and challenged assumptions about who education is for and how it should be delivered. Yet openness is not static. It evolves alongside the social, political, and technological conditions in which it operates. The rapid development of AI systems, platform-based infrastructures, shifting policy environments, new economic pressures, and renewed global debates about equity and justice are reshaping the terrain of open education.” 

    In both themes I see a call to (collective) action, a sense of urgency that care and connection should help determine the shape of things to come, rather than allowing technological imperatives to set the agenda. In addition, the milestones being celebrated reflect decades of valuable expertise and experience, of knowledge about the “how” of innovation in both open education and learning technology, and the invaluable work of (often volunteer) reviewers, contributors and collaborators. 

    Times may feel more uncertain than ever, and this is precisely why events like this, organised by member organisations in partnership with universities and volunteers, are so important: they open up space for reflection and discussion, galvanise action and help build new alliances and collaborations. 

    So here’s to you, OER26 and EdTech 2026! Like hundreds of fellow participants, I very much look forward to celebrating the milestones, swap stories and share inspiration come conference week!

  • My newsletter is moving!

    My newsletter is moving!

    From June you can choose to receive news from me in new ways: 

    I’ll continue to share coaching resources, event updates and more, and hope you’ll continue reading and connecting with me in these ways. 

    Since I started the newsletter in 2023 it has grown in new and wonderful ways, and I am excited about it’s new chapter.  

    If you take no action, and you are currently subscribed via the original email list, you won’t be receiving news from me from now onwards and your subscription details will automatically be deleted. 

  • 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.

  • Rest and Resilience. CPD for Uncertain Times

    Rest and Resilience. CPD for Uncertain Times

    Earlier this month I joined forces with Lou Mycroft for an AmplifyFE webinar hosted by ALT. The theme we have picked is rest & resilience, inspired by both Lou’s work on radical rest and my work relating to building healthy hybrid leadership capabilities for uncertain times.

    Working with Lou is easy as breathing, because Lou is such a prolific facilitator. It’s always a joy to work with someone who is THIS good at making collaboration easy, who makes everyone feel welcome and who has a gift for explaining complex concepts in such a way that you can relate very easily. It was such a joy!

    Lou’s one of the people behind an innovative Instagram Magazine called Fusion, and inspired by our session I’ve submitted an article, which will hopefully be published in the summer.

    The recording of the session is now available to watch and you can also access the slides with links to the resources we discuss:

  • Reclaim’s Women’s Showcase

    Reclaim’s Women’s Showcase

    I’m super excited for this blog to be featured in the Reclaim Hosting’s Women’s Showcase! The showcase was organised by Alexis Block, in celebration of Women’s History Month, and features a whole host of inspiring examples of projects and initiatives. I was particularly taken by the Feminist Digital Center, co-curated by Dr. Julie Shayne and Denise Hattwig (University of Washington Bothell) and The Hub Blog, created by Autumm Caines, Belen Garcia, Carla Veccholia, Chen Wang, and Jessica Riviere (University of Michigan–Dearborn) and… I also discovered a new project I had never come across before: SNC Kid Books – A Collection of Stories, created by Krissy Lukens (St. Norbert College).

    I made my submission more to show my support for this initiative than expecting to be included, so it was particularly nice to have my blog featured alongside these amazing projects. Thanks, Alexis!

    Here’s my shout-out from the showcase:

    About the Project: Last but not least, we couldn’t not include our very own Maren Deepwell in this showcase. Maren has been blogging for nearly 20 years, and her site is a beautiful example of what it means to truly own your space on the web (something she’s been championing alongside us for years).

    Her blog is more than just a collection of posts, it’s a record of her thinking, her leadership, and her journey over time. We love this one not just because it’s part of our community, but because it reflects the heart of what we’re all about: showing up, sharing your work, and building something that’s entirely your own. Maren writes, “My blog is my domain on the open web and its an important part of my identity, my practice and my leadership approach… I started blogging as a student… Little did I know that less than 10 years later I would become the CEO of the leading professional body for Learning Technologists in the UK, and that blogging would become a key component of my leadership in service of that community of thousands of members. Now that I run my own small business, my blog has become even more important in sharing my work, archiving my experiences and celebrating milestones – I’m blogging #4life”.

    As our fearless leader Jim Groom likes to say, “Blog or Die!”. We’ll soften that just a bit, but the spirit holds: having a space to write, think out loud, and share your experiences is at the core of what we hope everyone builds here at Reclaim.

    Maren’s Blog is built on Reclaim’s Shared Hosting service using WordPress.

  • Blogging about keeping a blog (or revisiting the Neon Flaneuse).

    Blogging about keeping a blog (or revisiting the Neon Flaneuse).

    It the end of the UK tax year, and I have spent most of this week on end of year paperwork. Fortunately, this blog post is not about that. Instead, I am returning to my favourite topic: blogging about blogging, or more precisely, blogging about keeping a blog. (The two are tangentially related, as my quarterly Director’s Report for my own business has a section about talks and events in it, which I was trying to complete when I noticed that, to my horror, I had yet to start the 2026 section of my archive page. So I fixed that as quickly as I could. Phew.)

    I’ve previously written about why I think keeping an archive of my activities is so very helpful, not just for report writing, or compiling my newsletter, but in the longer term, to help me set goals, find strategies and reflect on my career journey. I’ve been working on a post about professional journalling, which I am hoping to publish next week as a follow up to this one, but this one isn’t really about writing, but more about having a domain, a home on the web, that I’ve kept and that I have added to for nearly twenty years. It really helps put things in perspective.

    It also helps me sift and focus on what matters and what I am happy to leave where it is. For my purposes I don’t just want to have a record of everything I do or rely on automated processes or bookmarks. Instead I find great utility in the process of finding, evaluating and sifting the information. It’s like panning for gold. You sift through the water and find flecks of gold, gold dust that is then added to the vault and over time it compresses into bars (maybe that is overstretching the metaphor, plus my metal work memories remind me that gold bars are cast not compressed). You get my drift.

    Often I learn things or see things I didn’t at the time of an event I spoke at or an article I wrote, and the process of finding the details, adding them manually to a page on my blog and then seeing the list grow each year is valuable to me (even though many of the links to things may break over time). What I gleam from the process increases my strategic and executive capabilities greatly and yet when I describe the process it sounds rather quaint. As if I haven’t discovered tools or services that could do all of this for me. I guess my sense is that I need to be doing it, to engage in the practice of sifting, recording and reflecting, otherwise there is no value in it for me.

    There is a children’s book I am very fond of, it’s called Momo and it was written by Michael Ende (who also wrote The Neverending Story), in which a tortoise saves a girl from ‘grey men’ trying to take over the world with machines, and it’s the slow, meandering pace of the tortoise that renders them inconsequential (and thus invisible) to the ever rushing crowds around them. It feels like a very timely story to revisit. The process of keeping a blog, of adding to my own archive, is, metaphorically speaking, my version of the meandering pace of the tortoise, that which keeps me safe from the destructive rush of digital productivity and gives me time and space to think and imagine. Maybe it is time to revisit the Neon Flaneuse.