Author: Maren Deepwell

6 years a CEO… the soundtrack

This morning my least favourite social media platform reminded me of a post from 6 years ago, and it linked back to this announcement from 2012, written by Martin Oliver, then Chair of ALT, about my appointment as CEO of the Association.

Since then, I have written many times to Members to report on progress and together with others shared the work we do, which I am very proud of. But this post is more personal, not about me representing ALT as an organisation. Because as I found out in the last six years, being a CEO is all about who you are and the people you work with.

To celebrate making it to 6 years as a CEO, I am going am going to share the top tracks from the soundtrack of the last 6 years and the reasons for why I love these songs:

Harder Than You Think by Public Enemy
Good for running, good for getting out of bed and a potent reminder that the example I set, the work I do, does make a difference (even if it often is…. harder than you think).

Manic Monday by The Bangles
Needs no explanation really, not many weeks manage to start with anything else. This is a proper 80s reminder to have fun, work hard and hum along of things get really tough.

Theme tune from Star Trek – The Next Generation
With Captain Picard being my all-time hero and the crew of the Enterprise and their adventures shaping most of the metaphors in my young mind, there is not a lot that I don’t imagine in terms of what’s happening on the Enterprise.

Picture of You by The Cure
I used to follow the band along on tour when I was a teenager and I have every one of their albums. They are my favourite band and this song I like to listen to when I stand on a new stage, looking around a big, empty auditorium for the first time. Also works great on train journeys… a song to make me feel at home no matter where I am.

Lost in the Supermarket by The Clash
Living in London for over ten years, I came to identify with this song a lot. Also, it’s The Clash.

15 Step by Radiohead
I never knew that Radiohead was Oxford’s ‘local’ band before I lived there and as I am terrible at recognising people’s names and faces, I never spotted any of them in town. Of all their music, I love this song in particular.

I went to see Midnight Oil play live in London last year and when the floor and the roof and the walls and every body was vibrating with the beat of the drums I was reminded that as human beings we are made to experience the world with all our senses. This is part of what you don’t see.

27/02/2018
Open leadership: self assessment and self care

One of the things I did this week was to help test a diagnostic tool, which is part of the work Mozilla is doing on open leadership. The questionnaire had lots of questions helping me reflect on my approach to open leadership, how I support and empower others, but one question in particular made me pause:

The question asked me to indicate (I am paraphrasing here) how often or to what extent I practice self care to enable myself to be creative, compassionate, enthusiastic and so forth as an open leader. It was phrased in a way that didn’t feel familiar to me, so I had to sit back and think a bit longer on what answer I could give.

I’ve learnt a lot about how important it is to find the right balance between being busy and resting, thinking and getting things done and yet it’s something that, like many other people, I can struggle with at times.

This week is a good example because it’s been so busy, and had so many big deadlines in it, that it takes quite a lot of effort not to loose sight of that balance. So as part of my week I have been having a daily play in the visual thinkery sandbox that Bryan Mathers has set up and that I blogged about recently, making a stamp a day as a mini creative project. Making something, even if it only takes five or ten minutes, and stretching my creative muscles, thinking about something in a different manner, is a good way of resetting my brain and taking a break from a hectic schedule.

It’s a small step in the right direction and a bit of creative, making fun. It is also an important part of finding the right approach to open leadership for myself. It’s given me a new idea to try and capture a more holistic approach to professional and personal development for my upcoming appraisal, to reflect the different aspects of what it takes to be a leader.

16/02/2018
Making stamps.. with remixable thinkery

I’ve been taking a more playful approach to making something online this week, experimenting with new ‘Remixable Thinkery’ that Bryan Mathers has been working on as part of his Visual Thinkery projects. Have a look at the sandbox and a gallery of what others have created to date http://sandbox.wapisasa.com/ .

I had a go with the stamp template and tried out different remixes, including uploading photos, resizing/recolouring the text and moving things about.

Having a play with lots of different options is a lot of fun and I found the interface easy to use and intuitive. I tried it on mobile and desktop browsers and found it easier on desktop, but both worked.

I tried out a range of images, including drawings, like this one which I made for an online conversation on Twitter around concepts of belonging and digital citizenship last year.

Having spent a lot of time waiting in the post office in recent weeks I was inspired to try and make a stamp collection sheet with my newly created stamps using powerpoint.

11/02/2018
How to share credit and praise yourself… reflecting on the value of (deserved) recognition

Recently I have been spending a lot of time writing references, quotes and feedback for colleagues. And I found it easy to talk about their achievements, to praise their outstanding qualities and to describe how they made a difference. It’s easy to do when it’s for someone amazing, it’s easy to do when it’s not yourself you’re writing or talking about, I find.

But then I read something others or I write about ourselves, about our own achievements and what we have made happen and the tone is completely different. There are whole sentences of qualifying statements, there are plenty of “I feel that…” and “I may argue that…” to soften the tone. There are references to other people and their work, acknowledgements of contributions and so forth. Whether it’s for personal or professional reasons, plenty of us struggle to find a way to give ourselves the credit we deserve (self-promoting egomaniacs need not read on…) . And whilst I obviously do not advocate taking credit if you don’t deserve it, it is important to be able to accurately recognise the importance of your own work and its impact on order to develop more mature, reflective professional practice.

In my experience that’s not a gendered phenomenon, and can definitely apply to high achieving individuals as well. Plenty of brilliant people find it hard to accept praise, argue their own cause or believe in their achievements.

Since I was awarded CMALT, I keep writing updates to my portfolio and as part of that process (and beyond it) I am trying to improve how I apply this in my own practice and I have come up with a couple of rules for myself:

Acknowledge contributions: in my case nearly everything is a shared undertaking. So I start by giving credit to my collaborators, to everyone’s who has contributed and say thank you.

Mention my own role: once I have acknowledged what others have done, I also describe my own work, what I made happen, what I achieved.

Reflect on impact: whether it is good or bad, I reflect on the difference what we or I did has made. It’s a useful opportunity to ask for feedback, to acknowledge lessons learnt, to bring achievements into perspective.

Accept praise: genuine praise can be hard to accept, particularly from people whose opinion you value. Some people love being applauded, others don’t feel they deserve the credit. Accepting praise is a skill like any other and I find it is important to remember that sometimes others can see more clearly when we deserve it. If they make the effort to bestow upon you, accept it.

Hopefully this approach will help me find the right balance between sharing credit, celebrating what I do well and getting and giving others the professional recognition we deserve.

06/02/2018
Trying out new online courses: GDPR and online engagement

I have been trying out new online courses, starting with a Futurelearn course ‘Understanding the General Data Protection Regulation‘ which many colleagues are also taking part in. I am a Data Controller and responsible for my organisation’s compliance with the GDPR framework when it comes into force, and this course forms part of our way to becoming compliant.

I have been taking part in the course mostly by reading and absorbing the material rather than discussing/exchanging ideas with other participants – I have plenty of debate around these issues in other contexts.

The course is clearly structured, easy to follow and has plenty of references and articles to follow up on specific issues further. I found the video component of the course, which is usually more engaging for me, less interesting in this case. I found I prefer to read the more detailed articles and lists.

After one more week of GDPR, I am really looking forward to starting a completely different kind of course, the upcoming ‘Engagement in a Time of Polarization‘ run on edX led by Delia Deckard and Bonnie Stewart. The course is described as follows:

How can we work together in a society where our communications channels have become so polarized? Can we engage in active, effective collaboration in a media ecosystem designed to make money from driving us apart?

This two-week course convenes a conversation on participatory engagement models, and on building understanding and relationships even within the very real limits of contemporary social media. The course will enact the same participatory ideas it explores, and will feature input from leading voices in media literacies, disinformation, and polarization. Participants can engage on their own time and in real time, and if they wish, can build towards action in their local communities.

The focus of this course closely relates to some of the work I do day to day, in particular around enabling engagement in online communities at scale, supporting effective open, online governance and reflecting on the skills required to participate.

It’s also a topic I am interested in for my own practice, and I am looking forward to learning more about how debate gets polarized and how we interact online.

04/02/2018
Re-post #altc: What we have been up to… an update from the Chair and Chief Executive of ALT

Together with the Chair of ALT, Sheila MacNeill, I wrote this update on the work we have been doing and we published this on the #altc blog recently:

Dear Members

A year ago we launched ALT’s Strategy 2017-2020 and since then we have made great progress putting our shared values into practice and working together to meet our aims.

We reported to Members and stakeholders from across sectors in ALT’s Annual Report [PDF] and at the AGM in September. Since then much has happened and so we are are now sharing more of what we have been up to:

Sharing research & practice

2017 had a strong programme of events sharing research & practice in Learning Technology and making our independent voice heard in the UK and internationally. The OER17 Conference in London in April, our first Annual Conference to be held in Liverpool in September, the 4th Online Winter Conference in December; and throughout the year local Members Groups meetings brought professionals together to critically discuss topics such as next generation learning environments, micro accreditation and learning analytics.

Reaching new Member milestones

As our new strategy clearly states, we are greater than the sum of our parts. In 2017 we celebrated two membership milestones; the 400th CMALT Award and the growth of overall Membership to over 3000. This increase in numbers is making our voice in policy development stronger than ever before. The decision to keep our membership fees frozen for a third year has also paid off as increasing membership allows us to maintain and expand all of our activities. The more members we have, the more we can do for and with our community

Increasing impact

We continued to worked hard to increase the impact of Learning Technology for public benefit, establishing a new publishing partnership between ALT and Open Academia for our journal, Research in Learning Technology. Alongside the journal, the #altc blog flourishes and ALT’s Open Access Repository has had a mini renaissance, enabling Members to publish and deposit research and reports, such as the guide to working with startups in Learning Technology. All ALT’s publications continue to be edited by Members and reviewed by Members just like our peer-review for events and awards.

New pathways to accreditation

Over the past five months we have led a major consultation, Pathways to CMALT, with Members and the wider community. We want to expand the CMALT accreditation framework to provide new pathways to professional recognition for: Learning Technology professionals in the early stages of their career, for those for whom Learning Technology is only part of their role and also for senior professionals in management, leadership or research positions. Pathways to CMALT is the largest innovation project ALT has undertaken independently since the ground breaking ocTEL online programme. This year will see this exciting new project scaling up to include further mappings beyond the Jisc Digital Capabilities framework, the UKPSF and the Blended Learning curriculum.

Looking ahead to 2018

That brings us to what’s coming up in 2018, when we celebrate ALT’s 25th birthday! This is a special year for us as an Association and as well as new accreditation pathways and the first ALT Research Awards we’ll be working together across sectors and countries to achieve greater recognition for and representation of our Members.

Join us in making this year even more impactful for our community, help spread the word to more Learning Technology professionals and share what we have achieved as a community.

04/02/2018