Maren Deepwell

Author: Maren Deepwell

  • ETUG keynote preview: You are more than a data point.

    Next week I’ll be joining ETUG’s 25th anniversary conference, and I am really looking forward to contributing what is promising to be a very special event. The schedule for the conference looks great and there’ll be plenty of opportunities for everyone to engage, including VConnecting and no doubt a lot of tweeting throughout. It’s a privilege for me to be able to travel all the way to Canada (my first trip to that part of the world). I’ve been following conference preparations from afar as I have been writing my talk for the second day of the conference, which is on National Indigenous Peoples Day, which will be marked by a special smudging prior to the start of the conference programme.

    Here is what my talk is going to focus on:

    What I’ve always been interested in is how we, as human beings, relate to the world around us, and in particular our relationship to technology. For me, there is no better context than education and lifelong learning to explore how that relationship is evolving as digital technology becomes more pervasive in our lives. My keynote will challenge the perception that the ‘march of the machines’ is moving us to a future in which we are all just data points, gadgets or messy human problems that need to be solved by technology. 

    In my case… that’s a starting point for mapping my professional identity:

    Focusing on the conference theme about people and technology, I am going to focus on three things in this talk: First, I am going to question how we can develop a more mature, reflective, a more critical perspective in our professional practice and why that is important.

    I want to focus on some of the sticky points around ethics, student consent and data literacy and our role in addressing them. This will lead me to examine what skills and capabilities education technology professionals need in order to tackle those questions and last I am going to look at the role of technology in our efforts to make education more equitable for all.  

    I’ll post the slides & a transcript of the talk next week, but for now, have a look at what’s in store on the conference website.

  • Virtual Teams: Stickers, “I love me” walls, CPD and travel (also, this is really about recruitment)

    Hello and welcome to this month’s special podcast edition post on leading a virtual team. In this post (cross-posted here) the two of us, that is Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) and Maren Deepwell (@marendeepwell), continue our series of openly sharing our approach to leadership.

    If you are new here, you can catch up on earlier posts and podcasts or find out more about ALT, the organisation we work for as senior staff. We really appreciate comments and feedback and welcome questions or suggestions for future posts.

    This time we’re talking about how we recruit new staff, what it’s like to carry out a virtual selection process and how that led to interesting reflections on what it means to be professional as a home worker in a virtual team and how we approach professional development.

    Our podcast is embedded below or you can listen on SoundCloud.

    May

    Maren: we’ve been recruiting for two new team members recently and the virtual recruitment process has been a really positive experience. People often ask me how it works to recruit wholly online and in this post I’d like to share some of what we do. From the outset, recruiting for home-based roles gives us a much wider pool of applicants to choose from, and often more experienced candidates, too. We include details of how we work as a virtual, distributed team of home workers in the job description, and this time we included it as part of the practical test in the selection process, too. We conduct the application and initial short-listing process in the same way as you would for traditional roles, we meet online to agree a short-list and then invite candidates to take part in an online test. The practical element is conducted in our G Suite environment to give candidates a practical insight into the role. Likewise, the interview is conducted via Google Hangouts Meet. In one instance all the candidates we interviewed were already home workers and we included questions specifically about home working in the interview. I felt that those questions worked extremely well and led us to learn more about each candidate but also to establish a rapport about some of the challenges you can encounter. Did you find that those questions worked well? Was there anything in the answers that stood out for you?

    Martin: I think the process worked well. A surprise to me was how considered the responses were to our question around homeworking. When we asked ‘Have you had any experience working from home previously? Can you expand on the main challenges you’ve encountered and/or perceive?’ a common response was to highlight to issues like isolation and maintaining boundaries between work and personal life. Previously I’ve seen questionable headlines like ‘Half of the UK workforce to work remotely by 2020’ and whilst I don’t expect we’ll even get close to this figure I get the sense there is a higher proportion of the workforce who have worked remotely either full-time or parttime. It’s useful at this point to also make a distinction between working remotely in a solo capacity and working remotely as part of a distributed team. This is where as part of the interview process I feel we got a better insight into whether the candidates would potentially work well in our team as responses revealed the skills they had beyond personal awareness. As part of this we also asked out candidates how they deal with change in the workplace. Given my role in supporting ALT’s infrastructure an aspect that always comes to mind is how our team deal with the continual updates to G Suite and our other web services. Was there anything from the interview processes that has inspired you or identified new opportunities?

    Maren: One of the things that has inspired me was gaining insight into how home working is a factor in job selection. It was interesting to hear whether and if so how specifically being home based motivated candidates. The most obvious differentiator is no longer being constrained by location (which in our case was Oxford before we were a virtual org, which really limited our pool of applicants as Oxford is one of the most expensive places to live in the UK). Instead of applying for a job because it’s local, a far greater proportion of applicants selected by what they are passionate about and/or have experience in. Also, many more applicants had considered how the job would fit into their work/life balance and career progression and the questions around home working helped articulate that. As a small independent employer we can offer great opportunities and unique benefits but not the same as a large company could. On a personal level, I learnt a lot from how during the recruitment process we as a team express what we do and why we enjoy it. Questions like ‘what’s a typical day like?’ or ‘what do you find most rewarding?’ prompted us to share a perspective that we don’t often dip in to. I find it shifts my own point of view, allows me to see things in a new way, which after over ten years in the organisation is always a good thing. I am wondering…  if I was applying for my job now, what question would I ask the panel. If you were in that position, what would you want to know?

    Martin: There were some great questions and like you I enjoyed talking about what working for ALT is like. I’ve been racking my brain to put myself back in the position of one of our interviewees and what I would ask. After over five years with ALT I’m struggling to remove some of the tacit knowledge of the organisation and how we operate to come up with some questions. One of the themes from our recent selection process was candidates asking about CPD opportunities. As you mentioned we are a small independent charity so there are some constraints on budget. Even with this in mind I’d say there is a strong culture for learning and supporting each other. As a small organisation it feels like we can also engage in CPD activities in a less formulaic fashion. For example, rather than going on an equality and diversity course my own CPD has recently involved looking at and talking about equality in Learning Technology. Given the nature of what we do there are also lots of opportunities to learn from our members. Only last week I was able to attend a workshop hosted by the University of Edinburgh on the emerging use of Jupyter to support learning and teaching. Given the variety of approaches to CPD that we have it can sometimes be hard to articulate. Are there other approaches we have to CPD you think we should highlight?

    Maren: … well, as you’ve brought us on to talk about CPD, I’ll add that I’ve been playing with the idea of postal CPD activities for virtual teams recently. The idea came out of an article I read about the value of focusing on positive feedback and I came up with a postal activity called positive feedback by post. I really enjoyed the change of pace doing something by letter brought with it in contrast to the CPD I usually do which is often event based or online. Personally I think we as a team have exceptional CPD opportunities through the resources and support our organisation provides for things like mentoring and training, through working with Trustees and Members, time to travel and also support for internal schemes like CMALT. But for now, I’m busily dreaming up things delivered in the mail. It’s nice to get something tangible delivered to you by letter rather than email or instant chat when you’re part of a virtual team.

  • Discussing (gender) equality in technology and education at the University of Sussex

    Recently I was invited to take part in a seminar on ‘Technology and Education: opportunities and challenges for equality’ organised by the Technology Enhanced Learning Team at the University of Sussex. Here is what the seminar was about:

    Technology has always played a significant role in education – whether it was the fountain pen and printing press of the past or today’s mobile devices, online study and immersive technologies. It cannot be assumed, however, that technologies will offer equal opportunities to all or that there is equality in all the spaces where technology and education meet and interact. As new technologies are increasingly adopted within educational contexts, now is a great time to think about the challenges and opportunities for equality.

    For this TEL seminar we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Maren Deepwell (Chief Executive Officer of the Association for Learning Technologies) and our own Mary Krell (Senior Lecturer in Media & Film Studies) to speak about the opportunities and challenges they see for equality in the ways that technology and education come together.

    Dr. Tamsin Hinton-Smith (Senior Lecturer In Higher Education) will chair the seminar and join Maren and Mary for a panel discussion of the ideas raised and audience questions.

    The day was really interesting and you can watch the videos from the seminar, access the slides and find out more about the speakers and chair on the university website.

    My contribution focused on gender equality but our conversation was much wider, focused more holistically on all types of inclusion and diversity, what progress we have made and how much there is still left to do.

    I was really inspired by the creative, thoughtful and visionary Mary Krell, whose thoughts on the limitations of technology as well as its potential resonated with me and my own thinking around how technology isn’t always the best way to engage, enable or empower learners.

    Similarly, Tamsin Hinton-Smith spoke eloquently and passionately about teaching training and development with a focus on equality and from a feminist perspective, providing insight into what the university is already doing and where further work may be done.

    The TEL Team also has a podcast (definitely recommended listening) and I enjoyed taking part in recording a session, in particular as some of their regular questions really made me think: what’s your favourite keyboard shortcut (my answer here was CTRL + F and also CTRL+/ CTRL- to zoom in/out) and what app can’t you live without (for me, sadly, that would be text messages).

    #femedtech skateboard visual
    Soup up my deck by @visualthinkery is licenced under CC-BY-SA.

  • Positive feedback by post: what happened next…

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

    In a recent post on positive feedback I talked about how to use positive feedback for personal & professional development. As I wrote the post I had an idea to try out a new approach to giving and receiving positive feedback in a virtual, distributed team: I made a template and sent an envelope to each of my colleagues in the post, enclosing a piece of positive feedback from me to them, as well as templates, envelopes & stamps for them to send each other positive feedback. That way, I hoped, we would each receive several pieces of positive post in the mail over the next week or so.
    If you’d like to have a look, here is the CC-BY template I created.

    So, what happened next?

    Writing and sending feedback

    I really enjoyed the process of printing, folding and making each envelope to send and in particular writing the feedback by hand. I hardly send or receive any personal letters and putting pen to actual paper made this feel special.

    Writing solely positive feedback, rather than including constructive criticism like I would for a performance review, felt liberating.

    I wasn’t sure what to say, at least initially. Or how much to write or what to focus on. But looking back at the original article that prompted me in this action, I tried to find something that I felt had made a big difference and why. Once I got started, there was a lot I wanted to say.

    Once I had written everyone’s feedback I put the envelopes in the post and I didn’t keep copies.

    You’ve got post!

    The following week I told my colleagues about the project, shared the blog post I’d written and everyone started to wait for their letters to arrive.

    As a distributed team we only rarely receive physical materials, mostly equipment or printed materials. My last letter from work was a tax certificate. Sending and receiving mail that we all knew would contain only good news made a difference.

    We send each other secret santa presents by post, and sometimes souvenirs from conferences or thank you presents, but it’s a rare occurrence to get those, so a special delivery like this is noteworthy.

    And it wasn’t just a single person, i.e. me, sending something to everyone one way. Instead, everyone sent a letter to everyone else (our team being small enough for that to be practical).

    You also never quite knew when a letter would be arriving and for remote workers post and parcel deliveries (mostly for other people) are a common feature of work days. But getting something just for yourself makes for a welcome change.

    Reflection

    Creating, distributing and receiving small moments of positive feedback was a very worthwhile exercise.

    Firstly, it made me focus on the positives more and once I did, there seem to be more of them!

    Secondly, it was useful to practice receiving positive feedback. It is true that it feels more powerful when not accompanied by negative feedback at the same time. Making space to absorb positive feedback meant that it stayed with me a lot more than it may have done otherwise.

    The reaction from colleagues to both the method and the focus of the exercise was also positive.

    A cpd task, which we as a team set every month, that focused not on learning new stuff or improving something, but on recognition for what is good, what we do well, proved a joyful experience and a relaxing one, too.

    As well as practising receiving positive feedback we all had the chance to articulate something positive to each other and that, too, felt worthwhile.

    P.S. Maybe it’s time for further thinking about postal projects for distributed teams… .

  • Positive feedback by post: on open practice and reflecting on your ‘best self’ in a virtual team

    I recently came across this article in the Harvard Business Review on how to use positive feedback for personal & professional development. The article points to a tool/service but in itself contains useful pointers and ideas explaining why positive feedback is important, how to give/receive it and reflecting on why this may be difficult:

    ‘Most people are well-attuned to critical feedback; it is jarring, threatening, and emotional, and as a result, quite memorable. In contrast, it is often easy to let positive reflections on our actions subtly slip us by. Lingering in the glow of praise can also feel uncomfortably immodest. It therefore takes practice to savour moments of positivity and to hold them in your memory.’

    In my experience that certainly rings true and I found the suggestions the authors make for practising helpful. They come up with five steps:

    • Noticing positive feedback, including creating a space where you can save it, like an email folder or pin board;
    • Asking questions, teasing out exactly what it is about what you did that made a positive impact;
    • Studying your success (personally I don’t like this phrase, but the idea is sound), reflecting on what you did and how/why you succeeded;
    • Practising enacting the most positive aspect of yourself, making space in your day to day work where you can see the positive impact you have on others, or on the organisation;
    • Share positive feedback with others, establishing giving and receiving positive feedback more firmly in your practice.

    One of the things that really stood out for me is the prompt to reflect on what I did well, what made a positive impact, rather than reflect in order to improve, focusing on what I could have done better or to gain a more critical perspective. I don’t think I habitually make time or space to focus exclusively on positive feedback although I receive quite a lot of it.

    That brings me to another point, which is how this sits within open practice. There are many upsides for me to being an Open Practitioner. It often brings with it a lot of valuable input from others, interesting ideas, suggestions for how to develop, sharing their perspective etc. But it doesn’t (for me) make for the most comfortable space in which to share praise or reflect on positive feedback. I can express a balanced perspective, i.e. including things that went well alongside things that could have gone better, but there’s always a sense of vulnerability when I write about a success because someone might well respond to point out flaws, mistakes or their own personal negative experience. In a leadership role especially it’s common to express positive achievements in such a way that there’s always room for contrasting views. And that doesn’t create the right kind of space for focusing on positive feedback alone.

    I’ve also come to realise that positive feedback means more to me when it’s given in private. Sometimes I receive heartfelt praise, sent to me personally rather than shared publicly and often the tone and content of feedback like is more meaningful for me. It matters that someone took the time to send positive feedback specifically, thought about it enough to feel the need to share it with me. I try and do this myself regularly and what I say and write to individuals personally differs from what I would say when praising them in public. Even within a small team, praising someone has meaning for all who are present, whilst personal positive feedback can be worded to be more relevant to the individual alone. It’s not an aspect of my practice that I feel can easily be translated into the open – but maybe that is something worth thinking about.

    Next: Positivity by post

    Given that I work in a virtual team, positive feedback generally comes in digital form. But I want to try and create something very tangible to test out some of the ideas I’ve discussed above and here is how: I’m going to send an envelope to each of my colleagues in the post, enclosing a piece of positive feedback from me to them, as well as three feedback slips from them to each of us and envelopes to send those to each other. That way, I hope, we will each receive some pieces of positive post over the next week or so. Positivity by post, if you like. I’ll report back on how it turns out.

  • My first Creative Commons Summit (in 10 Tweets)

    This year I was able to take part in the Creative Commons Global Summit alongside my colleague Martin Hawksey, and it was a fantastic experience. I have long been involved in the Creative Commons community and various activities but this was my first visit to the event which is at the heart of it all and I was met with real warmth and welcoming acceptance. The creative and joyful atmosphere of the conference, from the handmade designs on the badges to the samba music playing throughout the museum conference venue conveyed a sense of celebration and joy at this meeting of so many in the Commons but also motivated to pull up your sleeves, get stuck in and do plenty of work (and there was A LOT to be done).

    One of the strands I followed throughout the conference was around gender equality, visibility and leadership starting with Kelsey Merkley’s session on the UnCommon Womens project and later in a powerful keynote during the opening evening and running throughout all three days.

    I also had the privilege to take part in some of the VConnecting sessions organised around the event, opening up the conversation to those not able to attend in person and I really enjoyed meeting participants from all across the globe in that manner as we sat in corridors and next to lifts, supported most capably by both online and onsite buddies (thanks Ken & Christian!!) who made it possibly for us to talk all things open across time zones and continents.

    I also really enjoyed the more creative side of the Summit and I met makers and artists as well as platforms (Hello, CC-Create) that had never heard of before, opening up completely new perspectives on how art, music and design function in the Commons and how big an impact openness in these contexts can have from delivering education to making tools more accessibility and affordable.

    As well as talks around creativity and equality I was able to participate in a number of sessions and workshops around digital literacy, staff development and copyright literacy, including this particularly fun session in which I learnt a lot of new things about copyright:

    And one of the highlights of the final day was a critically inspired panel about AI (maybe the first conference session on the topic that didn’t leave me frustrated or angry) very elegantly facilitated by CC’s CEO Ryan Merkley:

    The final highlight for me was that Martin & I were able to share some of the developments that are happening in our community with the Summit. It was a real privilege for us to have our proposal accepted and we really enjoyed our sessions and were really grateful for the interest & questions it stimulated:

    Many custard tarts were eaten, there was rain, fog, wind & plenty of sunshine, there were many useful conversations, resources & ideas shared and I am taking back a lot of inspiration as I join on last VConnecting session from Lisbon Airport.

    CC Summit, I certainly hope to be able to join in again another year and thank you for a wonderful experience.