Maren Deepwell

Author: Maren Deepwell

  • OER22: On the road again

    OER22: On the road again

    Wow. It’s really happening. This time, we are hitting not only the virtual but also the physical road again in order to journey to the OER Conference. OER22 here we come!

    The last time the OER Conference took place as planned as in Galway in 2019, and since that time, three years ago, no edition of this very special event has gone to plan. In 2020, OER20 pivoted online with less than two weeks to go, and became very much a pandemic conference. In the crisis mood of those early days of the pandemic, OER20 became a free event with refunds winging their ways across the globe to participants who suddenly had a lot more to worry about than a cancelled conference.

    Helloooer CC-BY Bryan Mathers

    When I look back at the posts and reflections from that year, it really hits me how much the world changed for all of us, and for this event as well. Our small staff team worked wonders to make this one happen.

    In 2021 we did plan to hold OER online, and then decided to join forces with the Domains Conference from Reclaim Hosting, bringing two communities together for what turned out to be… a journey into the wonderful unknown. OERxDomains21 was born.

    Title image from the OERxDomains21 programme

    I organise, speak at and go to a lot of different conferences of all shapes and sizes. Each conference has its own way of working, and there are some big differences between them.

    The OER Conference feels to me very much like a labour of love. It has its own voices, its own way of interpreting the criteria for peer review, its own priorities of what is important and what is not.

    I have had the privilege of being involved in organising this event since 2015 and in that time I have learnt much about the generosity of the people who shape this event, their shared passion for open education and the values that connect them.

    Inspired by the OER Conference I became an open practitioner and an open leader myself. I joined the community that this conference supports here in the UK and increasingly in other countries, too. Through the OER Conference I made connections with others who lead important work in this space, and I am grateful to be part of an expanding network, a community that is coming together again this week.

    We are coming together in person and online to recharge and re-connect. To share, learn and discuss. I am so excited to see friends, colleagues and new acquaintances in person and online. For those who are unable to take part, there will be a lot of OER Conference goodness openly shared and disseminated after the event, adding to what is now a substantial collection of videos and resources.

    Let there be penguins!

    As you may have noticed by now, the GO-GN Penguins have taken over OER22 for this year, and they are truly everywhere, both online and in the physical world. I recently shared a True Story of how a Westminster meeting led to… penguins. I am deeply grateful to the creative, collaborative and collegiate minds at Visual Thinkery and at GO-GN for helping us bring this year’s event to life with these penguins centre stage. Usually I am more of a shoe(tweet) sort of conference goer, but I must admit that the penguin theme defeated my shoe selection… so I went a little overboard and decided to go fully ‘on brand’ in a different way for OER22.

    A photo of my hand with painted nails, one of which is an image of a penguin

    … and there is a session, too

    In the last bit of the programme on Thursday, I am excited to actually get to lead a session in the programme! Long-time colleague and friend Lauren Hanks, Director of Operations at Reclaim Hosting and one of the Co-Chairs of last year’s edition of the OER Conference, and I, are getting together to reflect on the connections between open education and open approaches to online collaboration and work.

    Title slide for our session: Open in action – building connections in virtual teams.

    As leaders of virtual teams, we want to critically examine what lessons we can learn from open approaches to learning and teaching and how we can use that knowledge in an increasingly virtual workplace.

    This session builds on a recent episode of the Remote Work Show on DS106 Radio, in which we started to unpack some of this (recording to follow).

  • Reflecting on different modes of working

    As part of my work on the Leading Virtual Teams book, I have been careful to define what is meant by terms describing different ways of working. It’s taken me a while to bring the various terms together, and to reflect on their meaning not just now, but also before the advent of digital technologies and more widely available, reliable, high speed internet connections.

    In my childhood days for example, selling Tupperware from your garage was a popular way for women to work from home alongside bringing up children, for example, and that didn’t involve Zoom calls or being online at all.

    Similarly, there are many industries in which distributed working (i.e. across a number of different geographical locations) or working remotely (away from a central location such as a campus or corporate HQ) has been commonplace well before we had the capacity to take much of our “office” with us in the form of a laptop or even mobile device.

    Graphic showing an overview of different Modes of Working - CC-BY by Dr Maren Deepwell, Leading Virtual Teams (2022) Home working: The practice of working from home. Whilst frequently associated with working as part of distributed teams or online nowadays, home working has not historically been associated with use of digital technology. Hybrid working: Working both at home from at the office. Employees have the flexibility to work away from the office for some days each week, for example working three days per week in the office and two days a week at home. Working as a Virtual Team: A blend of all other modes of working characterised by: Digital workflows and communication tools, no physical location, a permanently home-based workforce, and workplace policies that reflect the needs of a virtual organisation. Distributed working: Working across a number of locations. Distributed working across number of locations such as different campuses or offices, usually independent from each other and with their own local workforce. Remote working: Working away from a central hub. Remote working can encompass home working, but employees may also work from other locations that are remote from a central hub (such as a campus or HQ).
    Graphic showing an overview of different Modes of Working – CC-BY by Dr Maren Deepwell, Leading Virtual Teams (2022)

    One of the key themes of the work I have been doing is reflecting on how the way we work impacts on us. More specifically, I am interested in how different modes of working impact on particular aspects of our lives such as physical and mental health, work/life balance or a sense of connectedness.

    Inspired by my coach training, in which our coach trainer recently asked us to practice with a coaching tool called Wheel of Life, I have adapted this coaching tool to explore different ways of working such as working from home, hybrid working,
    distributed or remote working and working in virtual teams and reflect on how the way you work impacts on you and your life.

    Here is one example focused on hybrid working:

    Example of a wheel adapted to reflect on hybrid working

    Each wheel contains eight sections, including one which is blank for you to add your own category. I have been experimenting with what categories to include based on the research I have undertaken, and the mix of what’s included changes for different modes of working.

    For hybrid working, you could reflect on and score:

    • Home working environment
    • Work/life balance
    • Physical and mental health
    • Care and family responsibilities
    • Socialising with colleagues
    • Commute
    • Office or campus work environment
    • and… a category of your choice

    Here is another example that I have completed for working as a virtual team:

    Example of a wheel with scores adapted to reflect on working in a virtual team

    In this example, I have added a lower score for “Virtual socialising with colleagues” and high scores for areas like “work/life balance” and “home working environment”.

    Try out this resource

    You can download this resource and use it or adapt it to better suit your particular needs.

    If you have any feedback or comments, I would love to hear from you. Contact me.

  • Coach in training

    Coach in training

    In January I officially started my coach training in order to become an accredited coach, an ICF Associate Certified Coach, via Katie Linder’s Higher Ed Coach Training. Having completed the first part of the course, I am about to start the next one, which will focus on coaching fundamentals in a deeper way.

    The notebook pictured above is my celebration, a gift to myself for taking this next step along the path to getting formally credentialed.

    The coach training includes formal assessment, and it’s been a while since I last had to write an assessed essay or undertake an exam! I found the experience really positive however, and appreciated that we had a number of assessment options to choose from.

    One of the options I didn’t pick was to develop new coaching tools, and whilst I didn’t do it for the assessment, it has inspired me to start designing some new tools to try out and share with my fellow coaches.

    Coaching practice

    What’s most rewarding for me about coach training is working with clients. I really enjoy working together to reflect, set new goals and find out what the next step might be. Some of the tools I have been working with include writing a personal mission or vision statement (in one sentence), which is harder than it sounds.

    I tried it out for myself, and it prompted interesting reflections for me. If you’d like to have a go yourself, start with your goal and values and try to express these in one sentence.

    Curious about coaching?

    I currently offer prop-bono coaching and discounts for paying clients as part of completing my coach training. All coaching with me includes:

    • Exploratory conversation
    • Coaching plan
    • Six 1-hour coaching sessions (online)
    • Coaching resources

    If you are interested in coaching, get in touch to arrange a free 30 min conversation to find out if coaching with me is a good fit for you.

    1-to-1 Coaching package: £210 for six sessions (normal price £420)

  • Virtual Teams Book – Monthly News, April 2022

    Book news

    BOOM! This month I am excited to share that I have completed the first draft of the book. It’s actually more like draft no. 3, but up to now I hadn’t ever written the conclusion, and now I have. 

    Now my 48,570 words or ~160 pages of work in progress have been shared with internal reviewers for comment and feedback until early May 2022. If you’d like to help review the book, please let me know and I’d be happy to share the complete draft with you. 

    There is still a lot of work to be done, but reaching a point at which I have a complete book feels like a great milestone. 

    Coaching update

    In very exciting news I finished the first coach training course this month and thus I am a step closer to getting formally accredited as a coach. One of the things I am working on is a set of coaching style questions to help reflection on leading virtual teams… so watch this space for more updates soon. 

    Remote working radio… with special guest Lauren Hanks

    I am very much looking forward to doing a special remote working radio show this month, with a special guest, in order to share current thinking in the run up to session we are hoping to run at the OER22 Conference in late April… join me and Lauren:

    Wednesday, 13th April 2022
    14:00 BST
    on DS106Radio

    As this is a special episode, you can expect more conversation and fewer songs.. (and unfortunately no special requests).

    Writing buddy update: Posey has helped me think through finishing the complete draft.
  • Not counting books

    Not counting books

    For many people who inspire me, counting what they read is a thing on a personal or professional basis. Just like the ‘read 100 books in a year’ challenge, many of my friends and colleagues track, share, catalogue and analyse what they read. And I enjoy their reflections. I often find inspiration in what others read, and I have bought many books on the recommendation of a friend who loved it.

    I enjoy it when others share their reading habits, but I don’t track what I read and I’ve been wondering why. Here are my thoughts:

    Like sleep, I don’t desire to track what I read. I don’t feel that there is anything I need to know that I don’t already know without quantifying what I read.

    Since I started being able to track steps, I feel like untracked steps aren’t real. Given that I leave my phone at home a lot, my digital step count does not reflect reality at all, and thus all the ways in which my devices could be ‘helpful’ or ‘insightful’ doesn’t really work. I find it mildly annoying, but not enough to start tacking a device everywhere I go. I really don’t want reading to follow that pattern.

    I read a lot, and counting how much wouldn’t act as encouragement to read more.

    Across different media (print, audio and digital) and several different platforms I would need to track my reading manually, which seems tedious. I am sure there is an app that can help… but then I would have to keep that up to date.

    Sharing headlines like ‘this week I’ve read six trashy romance novels!’ or ‘my bedside table is drowning in sci-fi’ would be of no interest to others.

    I love books, I love reading, I always have. I always read for enjoyment first and foremost no matter what the subject matter. Somehow tracking it would make it feel like work to me. Like I need to have goals, or consider whether what I read reflects all the things I should care about. I would probably start to self-censor.

    One of the greatest pleasures in my life is getting lost in a story for hours or even days at a time. Sometimes I walk around reading, because I can’t put the book down. Those times are precious to me and personal. I am not sure what I would want to share that would be meaningful to anyone else.

    Enjoy your reading (and please keep sharing your recommendations so that I can read more).

  • Talking about ethical approaches to Learning Technology during Digital Universities Week

    This week I am chairing a discussion about ALT’s development of a framework for Ethical Learning Technology with a wonderful line up of speakers: ALT’s Chair, Professor Helen O’Sullivan, Javiera Atenas whose work helped shape the framework and our President, David White. Each will bring a different perspective to the conversation, helping us explore why taking an ethical approach to digital education is important for leaders, professional and academic staff and, first and foremost, students.

    Programme entry

    Since it’s initial launch in September last year, ALT’s Framework for Ethical Learning Technology (FELT) has continued to develop with input from Members and the wider community. The first part of the work is that we are collecting case studies and examples of policies from across sectors to help establish a baseline of practice and also of gaps in practice, of questions or problems to which we don’t have robust answers as yet. The second part of the work we have focused on is the development of resources that help individuals and teams translate the framework into practice. The first resources, our FELT Reflective Self-Assessment, launched at the end of 2021:

    You can use this assessment tool to reflect on a particular project, a new tool or platform or you can use it to focus on a particular aspect of your work. We encourage all Learning Technology professionals to undertake this self-assessment to reflect on their professional practice in relation to FELT’s four core areas. Based on the outcome, you can then move on to complete individual sections focused on particular aspects of your practice. The self-assessment is mapped to the CMALT accreditation framework and this is indicated throughout the assessment. 

    https://www.alt.ac.uk/about-alt/what-we-do/alts-ethical-framework-learning-technology/felt-resources

    These resources form the start of our efforts to put the framework into practice, and the session this week will enable us to share these more widely as well as exploring why it’s important in different contexts.

    As many of us are emerging into some sort of post-pandemic way of working, we need to make some space for considering the ethical dimension of digital practices in our strategies and the FELT framework can offer a practical starting point for exactly those conversations for institutions, teams, with students and with industry.

    … and returning to in person conferences

    Like many, I am just about to make my first steps back to in person conferences. It feels like closing a loop, the “what I last did two years ago” loop. Part of my role as a CEO is to represent my organisation and share the work we do and the voice of our Members on the best possible platforms. For the past two years, that has been a lot harder than it used to be, and there is a whole dimension of networking and influencing that has been absent from much of my day to day work during the time of online only events.

    Like many, I have mixed feelings about the return of travelling for work, partly because here in Wales we continue to have more restrictions in place than is the case in England. But mainly I am grateful to have the opportunity to represent my organisation again, to have the option of generating engagement (and income) through running events both in person and online and, most of all, to reconnect with colleagues who inspire me and who contribute to my enjoyment of my work.

    Given how much of my professional practice is online, I know what really, really great virtual work looks like. I experience it every week. And I also know how much effort and time and resources it takes to make it happen, and that relatively few people have either the skills or the set up to make it work consistently.

    So I am looking forward to returning to the comparatively ‘easier’ way of connecting in person. And, in just over a month, to dancing with penguins…