Maren Deepwell

Author: Maren Deepwell

  • Keynote: 4th Annual Further Education Technology Forum and FELTAG, six years on…

    This week I am looking forward to contributing to the 4th Annual Further Education Technology Forum in London. It’s a great opportunity for me to spend a day learning from and listen to colleagues who work for FE providers and I very much value the practical insights that the day affords me.

    This year, due to some fortunate circumstances beyond our control, I am delighted to speak together with Bob Harrison, whom I have known and worked with ever since I became chief executive of ALT in 2012. Bob was one of the first people to engage with me as a new arrival to a then brand new ministerial consultation group. Amidst all the politics that I as a newcomer was largely unaware of, Bob was always ready to listen, to learn and to change his mind – three qualities that I have since only encountered rarely in such contexts and together we contributed first to FELTAG, then to ETAG and to every policy development regarding Learning Technology in FE since. We share a passion for what FE is all about and our closing keynote comes under a heading which gives us scope to explore all the key issues, entitled as it is ‘Re-Invigorating the FELTAG Agenda and Discussing the Edtech Strategy- Evaluating Progress To Date and Discussing Priorities Going Forward’.

    Like Bob, I have spoken at this annual conference before and in 2016, when the world was still a different place, I wrote this talk: Group, Action, Technology, Learning, Empowerment, Future… FELTAG inside out. In this talk, there were a few key moments that still ring true three years later:

    • FELTAG Report (2014) http://www.feltag.org.uk/

    And my concluding thought then was this: It has been over a century since Thomas Edison predicted the demise of books in schools and his predication has failed to come true. It’s also been over three years since that first meeting of the FELTAG group. We are now beyond FELTAG, we are finally living the future that’s always been just beyond the horizon and that’s a lot of responsibility for each of us.

    A year later, I focused my keynote talk on Talking about #FELTAG: keynote on workforce development in Learning Technology. The talk focused on very practical and urgent needs identified in relation to two key sector needs: Digital Skills development in the workforce and Accreditation fit for a (digital) purpose? In FE Week, I concluded “that FELTAG set out, .. that ‘digital technology was not the end goal in itself’. … As an action group we [FELTAG] set out how Learning Technology can help meet the increasingly challenging demands in Further Education. Not primarily for economic or political gain, or indeed to the benefit of the employers, providers and developers involved. It’s the learners and the diverse constituency they represent and the contribution they make that is at the heart of the system. The kind of transformation you can witness in Forth Valley College and beyond demonstrates what’s achievable against all the odds. Against all the bleak headlines of recent months and years, it left me with a note of hope for the work we do as professionals across the UK and the future of FE(LTAG).”

    That still rings true now.

    Then, last year, against an increasingly dark FE landscape, my keynote looked at FELTAG – 5 years on: what more can we do and this time I took a more critical look at what progress we had made:

    Now, this year, in a year which has seen strong activism and advocacy for the sector, strong political engagement on behalf of colleges and the whole vocational education system, I want to try and focus on two things (and you can access my slides here): first, to share some very practical resources with my audience to share the particular expertise and knowledge from the community I serve, the Members of the leading professional body for Learning Technology in the UK. A community whose Members are increasingly taking on more responsibility and more senior roles as organisations recognise that they need the kind of specialist skills and insights that Learning Technology professionals have in order to take effective decisions about how to use technology for learning, teaching and assessment.

    One of the resources I will share is a new, expanded framework for professional recognition. Developed with the input from many of our accreditation Members and peer assessors, this framework provides pathways to peer-assessed accreditation for Learning Technology professionals in the UK and internationally. It includes core competencies and core principles of professional practice as well as guidance on ethical considerations and reflects the broad range of professional roles that require an increasingly specialist Learning Technology expertise.

    Another new development to share in relation to the accessibility and inclusion agenda at the heart of the Department for Education’s Edtech Strategy is a growing set of webinar recordings and resources hosted by ALT in collaboration with the Further Higher Education Digital Accessibility Working Group (FHEDAWG). The series now includes topics such as ‘Inclusivity by design in Virtual Learning Environments’, the ‘Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) explored with policy makers’ and ‘Digital Accessibility as a right’ and all recordings and content from the sessions is freely available to all.

    The other issue I want to focus on in my talk, is that Learning Technology and by extension being a Learning Technology professional, is inherently political – and our role is to not only manage the risks involved for staff and students, but to face up to some of the big questions that using technology in education at scale brings with it: issues around privacy, transparency and the well being of learners. We need to continue to focus on access, inclusion and equity. We need to acknowledge that the skills required to tackle such questions goes far beyond digital literacy or even data literacy and I want to champion the role of the Learning Technology professional in that endeavour.

  • Unsettled… a very personal blog post

    On Friday, on my afternoon off, I went to my local library to use their Android device to apply for permission to settle in the UK.

    Ironically, I live in West Oxfordshire, David Cameron’s former constituency, and whilst that means that I am often surrounded by people in 4x4s viewing ‘affordable’ new homes starting at £580k, it is the kind of place that postcards of the Cotswolds often feature: yellow stone cottages with roses growing over front porches, rolling hillside, imposing country estates and so forth. It’s the kind of place many people dream of living in when they think about living in the UK.

    Everyone at the library was extremely helpful and as I stood in front of a plain wall holding a flashing phone in front of my face to scan my features and prove my identity, it suddenly hit me. The enormity of what I have been avoiding for years: having to apply for permission to settle in a country that I moved to in 1997 and that I since have lived and worked in. Brexit. Gulp.

    I moved to the UK when I was 17 because I am a huge Anglophile and I was looking to build a life in the places I dreamt of, I read books and listened to songs about. First in London and later in Oxford I got to know the country, the people and the culture and I love much of it. From joining a cricket club to raising money for British charities, supporting my local co-op and even researching London’s cemeteries for my PhD I have always felt at home here. At work I even represent a voice for the UK or UK education policy at times, I have been part of “UK trade and investment” missions and for over a decade I have been introduced countless times as “Maren Deepwell, from the UK”.

    Whilst I have passed every language and cultural test you need to pass in order to apply for British citizenship and a couple of times came quite close to applying to become a British citizen, the cost involved and time without a passport was always a barrier and as a German and EU citizen I never really saw the need. It would have, in my mind, simply meant to swap being a German EU citizen with being a British EU citizen, and so the years passed whilst I paid British tax and national insurance, got a British mortgage and pension and married a British citizen. It never occurred to me that there would come a time when being a British citizen would no longer mean being an EU citizen and now I am glad I didn’t apply – I would have never willingly swapped being an EU citizen for being British.

    Growing up as I did after World War II in Germany, the European project has always been a foundation of my identity. Whilst I can see that a structure like the EU brings with it many difficulties, the cultural, social and personal significance of being European for me is huge. Being born in a country which has Germany’s history helps to instil in you a respect for the past, a deep commitment to tolerance, community and cooperation no matter what.

    I have a deep connection to British history and culture, read enough poetry and listened to enough music, to value the ideas and ideals embodied in this beautiful and unique part of the world. I know it’s not perfect, but it’s been my home for 22 years no matter what.

    After signing every petition and voting in every election I was eligible to, whilst working hard to be a productive member of society, I now wait with a multitude of others, for the outcome of my application. I reflect again on how significant Brexit is, how much it puts into question so many aspects of my life and livelihood that I have had guaranteed as European citizen since I was born. The British Government is evaluating whether it wishes to grant me permission to remain and settle in my home – and that leads me in turn to consider my position, leaves me in a deeply unsettled place.

    I don’t often publish this kind of post but this time I will. This is my domain, and I want to make my voice heard.

  • Virtual Teams: The perfect blend? Bringing the skills of distributed teams to face-to-face events (special podcast edition)

    Welcome to this month’s post (cross-posted here) in which we, that is Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) and Maren Deepwell (@marendeepwell), openly share our approach to leading a virtual team.

    This time we talk about how we as a digitally and geographically distributed team connect face to face and why we think a blended approach is important. 

    New here? Catch up on earlier posts, podcasts or find out more about ALT. 

    August

    Maren: from the outset our approach to running a virtual team has been blended. In these posts we’ve talked about face to face team days, conference meet ups and even cpd by post – all examples of how we blend virtual working with ‘real world’ elements. What I’d like to talk about is why it’s so valuable to share some coffee & cake in person from time to time – to build relationships, communication & collaboration. I don’t think meeting up in person in itself is enough though. Over the last ten years I’ve come to realise that the more I prepare for a meeting and share my thoughts and expectations with whomever I am meeting, the more I get out of the time spent together. In my case, my former line manager, my mentor and every Chair I’ve reported to as CEO have been distributed remotely and rare face to face meetings have been precious. In order to make the most of them, I reflect on how things are going, how I feel, beforehand, so that I am better able to convey what I want to say when I am meeting someone in person. I’m curious about how that can also apply to conferences or other events. This year I was fortunate to meet many Canadian colleagues I’d never met before in person and I spent a lot of time chatting with them online in advance. I received travel tips & help preparing for the trip and it really made a big difference to how well the trip went and our ability to work together easily once I arrived. I think what I am getting at is that often people assume it’s the physical proximity that makes the difference in communication or collaboration and I’m keen to explore why it’s more nuanced than that. Some of the most important communication in my experience has been entirely online and depended more on the effort and engagement of those involved than their location. And yet… you can’t beat working alongside someone for learning new keyboard shortcuts. I realise that is a small thing, but it always reminds me that there are some things you miss out on in virtual working. So that’s my opening for this month’s podcast. What do you want to talk about? 

    Martin: Having just delivered our biggest annual face-to-face event with over 450 attendees joining us for our Annual Conference the benefits of physically coming together is at the forefront of my mind. This is one of the few times of the year when we come together as a team. The conference itself is usually over a year’s worth of planning and there are as you can imagine a lot of moving parts. The majority of the conference preparation is done as a distributed team and we’ve previously talked about how this works as a virtual team. Something that I thought really clicked together this year was our team communication during the event. As part of the conference we had to manage the attendee experience across multiple venues. To do this effectively, our team is spread across the conference site. We have a very detailed run plan so you generally know where each team member is going to be at a particular time, but to coordinate things we have a group Google Hangout chat channel. With this we can share how the conference is going, note any issues, answer quick questions or highlight the need for refreshment/breaks:

    We’ve previously tried to use Google Hangouts chat as part of our events administration, but this year was the first time I felt it really worked. There were a couple of reasons I felt this worked better this year, in particular, given we use Google Hangouts chat in our day-to-day activity we were all very familiar with this tool and how to use it. Another important factor was that this was the first year we also took the time to make sure we could access the chat regardless of whether we were on a Chromebook/laptop or using our mobile devices. Often when Virtual Teams are discussed it feels like you are always arguing against how it compromises operations. In the case of our Annual Conference our experience of working in a distributed team I feel actually greatly benefits us.

    Maren: that’s an interesting point. Initially I suppose it was mostly the other way round, ie existing relationships or knowledge made it easier to establish an effective virtual working environment. As this is our second year as a distributed team I think you are right about our virtual working practices becoming a benefit to working together face to face. I’ve really noticed the difference in my own mindset, I no longer feel like I haven’t seen a colleague for a long time when I see them in person. Instead our last virtual interaction ‘counts’ in my mind. That makes building relationships a lot easier, because you are not starting from scratch every few months. Another factor that has changed is mandating what’s required and what is optional. When we set up virtual operations we offered a lot of choice in terms of which platforms, tools or devices to use and the first two years have helped us, as a team, determine what is essential for effective operations such as the instant chat on different devices and what’s up to the individual, such as personal to do list formats. Delivering events has been a big part of helping us figure that out. The other big factor in such a small team is having a sufficient number of people present to check whether your idea of how things should run actually works. When there is only two or three people engaging it doesn’t work as well. In a small team one individual may represent 20% of the overall team and so everyone’s actions have a big impact. For example, for me personally that makes a big difference when it comes to sharing priorities for upcoming catch up meetings. Initially I was happy for everyone to choose a format but over time I realised that it takes too much time to switch between all the different tools for lists that are shared and having a common format also means that we all learn from each other’s practice, like the keyboard shortcuts I mentioned earlier. 

    Martin: As our team has grown I can see the benefits of having standardisation. As part of my role I support the implementation of our infrastructure. This includes the physical purchase of equipment as well as supporting staff with how to use it. Broadly the technology we use is fairly standard with a mix of Windows laptops/desktop and Chromebooks. Generally where practical we repurchase the same product or a similar product from the manufacture. This makes things easier so for example in the case of Windows laptops we have variants on the Lenovo X200 series so I know how the software Lenovo provides to manage device hardware generally works. The same is true for Chromebooks and we currently predominantly ASUS Chromebook Flip C302s. It means I generally know what USB-C hubs to buy as well which monitors have suitable connections and adjustments. As I’m not a day-to-day Chromebook user an area I struggle more is shortcut and command keys but luckily we’ve got a good cross-section of experience in the team now so if I can’t help there is generally someone else who can point us in the right direction. An area I’m often left in the dark with is iOS (for the last decade I’ve been exclusively using Android based devices). At ALT, we don’t have a policy of providing mobile devices to staff, the exception being our events manager. In the case of our recent Annual Conference it meant when one of our team asked how to install Google Hangouts chat on their iPhone I was completely lost, but fortunately as you are an iOS user you were able to help. The desire for a standardised provision is likely to be the wish of every IT manager in the land, in a distributed team it perhaps becomes more important because remote support of physical things becomes much harder. Similarly, I can see why having a common format for catch-ups means time better spent. 

  • Messy human problems… blogging about Gettin’ Air with Terry Greene and a bit of #LTHEchat

    A few weeks ago I recorded an episode of Getting Air with host Terry Greene. This excellent podcast series is focused on all things technology-enabled and open learning practices and I was delighted to join Terry and really appreciated the opportunity to have this conversation. If you haven’t discovered this podcast for yourself, browse through the episodes and you are sure to find a conversation that is not to be missed… starting with the recent one featuring Audrey Watters, oh and Jim Groom, and Mia Zamora, and Autumm Caines… well, I think you see where this is going. There are 78 episodes to choose from, so get stuck in.

    https://voiced.ca/gettin-air/

    Terry started out the conversation with a question about the work I do and what ALT does: “So, tell if I am misunderstanding what ALT does, you try to solve messy human problems with technology, is that right…?” and that made us laugh as well as giving us a humorous way into talking about empowered professional practice in Learning Technology. But the question has stayed with me ever since, partly because I come across so many examples each day, of people trying to do or more often promising to do, precisely that.

    Heart…
    In the podcast, one of the things we talk about is community and the commonalities organisations like ALT and ETUG have. We talked about what gives communities or events a ‘heart’… . One of the things many try to do is to build sustainable communities of practice without giving any thought about what they are for and whom they are made up of. For example, when organisation A wants to disseminate its projects or organisation B wants to market its new products or organisation C feels it would be of strategic benefit to demonstrate its sector engagement then more often than not a community of practice, preferably a sustainable one, is the answer. Sustainable in this context means that it is being used as long as the funding lasts, rather than that there is a long term commitment to support it for the benefit of its members. And as with other free services the old “if it’s free you are the product” rule applies here, too. The messy side of this is that actual communities of practice need a lot more than that to become sustainable: things like a viable value proposition for its members, a purpose, a code of conduct (whether explicit or implicit), a business model that members understand and have a say in, ability to adapt and change, room for different voices and different views… and ways to grow and change over time. Such undertakings are all about people not the platform, they need a heart, however superficial that may sound, to really survive and thrive in the long term.

    Things you need to know…
    Terry and I talked a lot about professional practice and what it means to be a Learning Technologist or work in Open Education and one of the things that stayed with me is that there is a lot more you need to develop your professional practice than you can learn from a ‘3 minute video’. I use the video as a metaphor for a lot of the quick fix, tick box exercises in professional development that I come across again and again. These have headings like …”all you need to know about…” or “improve your teaching in 3 simple steps…” and so on. In a twitter chat (the special #altc edition of the LTHEchat recently) one of the questions that we discussed advice for new professionals and here are some of my favourite answers:

    There were many more examples I could have included here, and I suggest if you have a look yourself on the #LTHEchat hashtag – but one thing is clear is that professional practice is a lot more messy and complicated and interesting than can be captured in bite sized chunks.

    One of the things I reflected on afterwards was how easy it was to have this conversation with Terry. Although we have never met in person and most of our interaction previously has been online through VConnecting, Twitter or blog posts, I felt we had a really good rapport. Terry had done a lot of reading and I had done some listening and between us we established enough of an understanding to have an interesting conversation about things that matter to us, that interest us, and we ended up in some unexpected places, including cemeteries. Terry made an effort to engage with my work beyond the headlines and wasn’t afraid of getting into the messy creativity that lurks below.

    Thank you, Terry 🙂

  • A personal #altc preview: Edinburgh or virtually, here we come 🙂

    It’s nearly September and since 2008 that’s meant that – at least in my world – it’s time to get ready for ALT’s Annual Conference. It’s an exciting time of busy preparations, 101 things to remember and, importantly, shoes to line up to pack for the week ahead (those of you who know about #shoetweets will understand).

    Remixed with the Fabulous Remixer Machine

    As ALT’s chief executive my role in the conference run up is all about strategy, income generation, academic review procedures… in short, there are A LOT of spreadsheets involved and reports to write. It’s rewarding work and very important to ALT as a membership organisation. But there comes a time, and that’s today, when my thoughts turn more to what attending the conference would be like if I were a delegate… which sessions I would like to go to, whom I’d like to see speak or catch up with.

    So here is my personal #altc preview, if I was attending as a delegate, either virtually or in Edinburgh:

    In some ways I attend the conference virtually every year, because so much time is devoted to the conversation on the #altc hashtag. I really enjoyed reading what’s in store on social media and online this year in this post by Lorna Campbell. I particularly liked this bit:

    The ALT Conference has always had a really lively and engaging social media presence, which draws in participants from all over the world. I’m delighted to help facilitate this as part of ALT’s social media team, along with partners in crime Rich Goodman (@bulgenen), from the University of Loughborough, and photographer Chris Bull (@chrisbull1980).  My role is to livetweet the conference keynotes from ALT’s official twitter account @A_L_T, while Rich will be tweeting Chris’ photographs, which really capture the buzz and energy of the conference.  You can see Chris’ pictures from last year’s ALT Conference on ALT’s flickr channel, and in keeping with ALT’s strategic commitment to openness, they’re all Creative Commons licensed.

    That sent me down a rabbit hole of looking at photos from previous years and reminded me how much sessions like the Assembly Meeting, the Annual General Meeting and the CMALT Ceremony as well as the Learning Technologist of the Year Awards help make the conference the wonderful experience it often is. So these sessions are definitely in my calendar:

    My other plan for engaging with the conference, and other events I attend, is to try and find sessions about which I know very little and go to those in order to discover something new. In that spirit, the following session also get included on my #altc calendar:

    Last, I am planning to take some time to spend in the exhibition at the ALT Stand meeting Members. In my first year, when I didn’t know anyone, I was greatly relieved to be seeing some friendly faces, to be made to feel welcome and to have people to talk to who shared what their day to day work was like. A few years on and I still find sitting at the stand and listening the best use of my time for much of the conference. I might also have some #femedtech stickers and badges on me… 😉

    I’m also going to try and join into some of the remote activities like VConnecting and look out in particular for blog posts starting to flood in now that the guest posts written in the run up have concluded in a lovely welcome from the Co-Chairs.

    So, Edinburgh or virtually, here we come. This may be the calm before the storm, but I feel there is a fair (conference) wind blowing and that is something to be celebrated given the times we live in. For whatever joy, inspiration and enthusiasm next week holds in store, I think we are going to need every ounce of it in the year ahead. And maybe we will raise a ‘wee dram’ to that #altc.

  • Re-post: HUMANITY OF DATA.. #ALTC

    This post was originally published here http://femedtech.net/published/humanity-of-data-altc/ .

    Nice to CC you by Dr Maren Deepwell CC-BY-SA

    Inspired by this post by Frances Bell and the upcoming ALT Annual Conference I have been reading up on a this approach for “aspirational metrics” D’Ignazio & Klein (2018) use for their forthcoming book Data Feminism, and in particular their thoughts on the humanity of data, which I’m quoting below:

    We acknowledge the humanity of data

    We recognize that the transformation of human experience into data often entails a reduction in complexity and context. We further acknowledge that there is a long history of data being “all too often wielded as an instrument of oppression, reinforcing inequality and perpetuating injustice,” as the group Data for Black Lives explains. We keep these inherent constraints in mind as we write, attempting to introduce context and complexity whenever possible, and acknowledge the limits of the methods we discuss as well as their strengths.

    It’s of particular interest to me as I’ve talked a lot about gender equality in the last six months and ever since I have added graphs and tables to the talk, people have listened a lot more closely. There’s a lot to be said for having tangible, measurable indicators of progress or even lack thereof when it comes to talking about topics like gender inequality in the workplace, but I also worry that by focusing on the charts and graphs, on the data, we don’t do enough to acknowledge what’s being lost in the analysis. At least I don’t feel like I’m succeeding at putting something like the approach outlined above into practice the way I think it should.

    Partly, I believe, that is because it’s much easier to create a dialogue when the conversation is less personal and as a result less confrontational. It’s much more possible for most people, in this case for most men, to talk about recruitment targets or percentage point increases than it is to witness the narratives that in this context women may share about their everyday experience of discrimination or harassment.

    When we create visual representations of our human experience, in this case of women working in learning technology, much of what the authors call the complexity and context is reduced to commonality. In order to communicate the scale of the challenges we face we must reduce our individual stories to let’s say a single headline. A headline that grabs your attention, that conveys urgency and relevance.

    And yet…

    Whilst I know that there are big advantages to using data and data visualisations to tell this kind of story, and I am an avid reader of work that helps us chart and address the gender data gap, I think that it also helps to depersonalise the problem. Charts are rarely labelled ‘me and you’ if you know what I mean and it’s far easier to feel that the problem is somewhere else, someone else’s responsibility… rather than right here in this room and cause for personal action.

    That then is my hope for our conversation at the conference this year and for the values we share: that we will use whatever communication methods are at our disposal  to make more people feel that they have a role to play in fighting for gender equality (in learning technology), and further, that it is each and every one of us that needs to take some personal responsibility to make that change happen.