Maren Deepwell

Category: things I like

  • Small celebrations

    Small celebrations

    A month of sharing what matters.

    Last month I wrote a post about feeling frustrated with a sense of never achieving enough:

    I am embarking on a month of celebrating daily success: every day I am going to note a success and I am going to share it publicly to help hold myself accountable.

    It doesn’t matter to me how big or small a thing it is, from getting out of bed to finding five minute of peace to have a cup of tea, finishing a report or responding to a difficult email. It all counts.

    The kind of successes I want to celebrate and remind myself about are things that matter in my life day in, day out. I am not looking to mark achievement of the organisation I run or evaluate my performance. I have other places and processes for that. This is really about finding some balance in my own perspective.

    To start with, I am going to share a success from each of the past few days, back to the start of the month, and after that I’ll post each day and share what happens.

    https://marendeepwell.com/?p=3466

    Did it work?

    I posted a list of anything that mattered to me, something I felt was important or achieved from the 1st until the 31st July. I posted nearly every day, mostly on Twitter and Instagram and I really appreciated comments from people who shared their own small successes with me (thank you!).

    What I shared falls into a couple of categories: work (7), personal wellbeing (8), work/life balance (7), family (6).

    Most helpful for me was to gain a sense of achieving what’s important to me on any given day, and reflecting on what that was. As I mentioned in my original post, one aim for this exercise was not to be too focused on formal achievement at work, and instead to take a more wholistic view of my days.

    Sharing a success each day felt quite cheerful, and often my daily calendar reminder prompted me to see my day in a different light.

    I also found it fun to see what others were sharing or read the comments and DMs.

    My list of successes

    • 1st July: I went to the beach
    • 2nd July: I completed stage 2 of coach training
    • 3rd July: I ate well
    • 4th July: I cleared my inbox after a week off
    • 5th July: I blogged
    • 6th July: I sorted out a lot of family admin
    • 7th July: I published this post 
    • 8th July: Today’s success is to get work, pro-bono work, family support and life admin all to a place where the weekend can begin… with a long walk.
    • 9th July: today’s success is resting & spending the day largely offline
    • 10th July: picked a new colour to paint my home office
    • 11th July: got a lot done despite the hot weather
    • 12th July: Progressed three big governance projects
    • 13th July: reported the successful outcomes of a project that started in Feb ‘21
    • 14th July: today’s success is to get to work 45 min late… after waking up to domestic & canine chaos.
    • 15th July: had a lovely lunch with a friend
    • 16th July: processed my week with a largely offline day
    • 17th July: signs of growth on the office plants
    • 18th July: –
    • 19th July: got a deckchair in my office
    • 20th July: I did A LOT of work
    • 21st July: cleared the decks at work ahead of a week of family care & support
    • 22nd July: some editing on the book
    • 23rd July: slept till 8:00am
    • 24th July: had a calm and relaxing day
    • 25th July: parental move day 1
    • 26th – 29th July: more parental move
    • 30th July: rested and had fun
    • 31st July: slept until 7:50 am
  • A love letter to #DS106radio emergency broadcasting

    A love letter to #DS106radio emergency broadcasting

    Tomorrow’s the big #ds106 #ds106radio marathong and I can’t wait for 24 hours of broadcasting on my favourite radio station.

    I came late to this great endeavour and only really got into DS106 Radio in 2020, when my friends Tannis and Anne-Marie and I started broadcasting every Sunday throughout lockdown from Canada and the UK respectively. If you’d like to get a flavour for what we got up to, then head over to this post from July 2020 or hear us chat about it in this video Hope on the Airwaves from the OERxDomains21 Conference in April 2021.

    I got a lot from this and many other ’emergency’ broadcasts on DS106 since March 2020. I listened hungrily to voices of distant friends and colleagues, who were sharing their own trials and tribulations along with a varied and inventive playlist of tunes both old and new.

    Last year was a year of loss for many and one of the things the broadcasts have given me a renewed appreciation for, is how each individual in their particular is contending with a whole lot. The pandemic might have stopped many activities across the globe, but it certainly didn’t feel like a break for anyone working in EdTech.

    Anne-Marie and Tannis got me through some of the roughest patches of a very difficult year and we found some respite from the demands of being an adult woman in pandemic times through our collaborative playlists.

    Ladies, thank you for the laughs and tears and love. See you on the airwaves.

  • Reclaiming… my morning run

    Reclaiming… my morning run

    In 2019 I ran three Half Marathons. Last year, I barely ran over 200 miles in total.

    Life happened

    In contrast to many people who started running during the pandemic or upped their miles, I had no energy to keep up with my usual training. A combination of various illnesses and injuries, two house moves and a lot of personal stuff to sort out on top of a very hectic work schedule conspired to keep me from getting miles under my belt. Then the arrival of a lovable and bonkers puppy in March and she has taken up all my outside hours.

    I used to run a lot to get outside, and one of the things I enjoyed the most was to see the sun rise, to feel the seasons change and to move on my feet through the landscape. I do more of that now than ever before, and two doggies to walk means that I get many, many walking miles in. But until the puppy is old enough to join me on my morning jog, I need to find some extra time to fit in running around other things.

    A new motivation

    I started running in 2016 after a few very hard years of my mum fighting cancer. Starting with the first 5k and 10k fundraising races, I got the running bug big time. It never mattered to me that I was quite slow even when I trained hard and then when I got diagnosed with asthma running in the winter months turned into looking like a snowman under many, many layers with an inhaler in my pocket.

    I still kept running because I enjoyed it, to improve my mental health, to cope with stress.

    My life is less stressful these days and my mental health has improved a lot, and I no longer need to prove to myself that I can be a runner. I have medals and t-shirts that show that I can.

    And yet. I really miss my morning runs. I miss the peace it brings to be out early in the day by myself, to have the head space to think about things, plan my day and connect with the world outside of my work laptop.

    The beach at Oxwich Bay (picture) was the deciding factor. It would make an excellent run (at low tide) and I felt inspired. I may not have that bay close by, but I do have a river, forests and canals to jog along.

    Following my feet

    This morning I headed out, and it was glorious. Two miles of joy and contemplation. I left my phone at home. Training for the next Half Marathon is going to get underway without an app or tracking just now. I just want to get out there again and enjoy my morning run.

  • From #MayVinylChallenge to #JuneEdTechChallenge

    This month I have been enjoying playing along with the #MayVinylChallenge (thanks to Simon Horrocks, who helped me discover it), which I think was set up by the Founder of Women in Vinyl, Jenn D’Eugenio. As a side note, Women in Vinyl sounds like a great group and reminds me a lot of #FemEdTech.

    So… I sure I am not the only one who is looking for a bit more fun just now, and I am glad to say that fellow vinyl enthusiast and #altc blog editor David Hopkins is game to take inspiration from this community challenge and create our very own #altc community #JuneEdTechChallenge!

    Get ready to play along from 1 June… 🙂

  • #femEdTech: my fourth year as a guest curator

    Hello!

    It’s my privilege to reflect on my fourth year of volunteering as a guest curator for 2 weeks for @FemEdTech.

    If you haven’t come across it before, I encourage you to:

    The last time I curated the account was just over a year ago, in February 2020. In this post, I wrote about my experience, and the humanity I found in our hashtag, our network. Things had changed enormously since May 2018 when I first volunteered, and also March 2019, my second time as a guest curator.

    Each year, I used my time as a guest curator to reflect on how much our community had developed and grown and it is no different this year – and yet everything is different.

    No time, no energy

    Having time and energy for projects such as this, however important, has been impossible for many since the global pandemic we are still facing began. So if you are one of us who has struggled to keep your head just above water, above a cloud of depression or if you are bone-tired from home-schooling, care or just breathing, then this is especially for you:

    We hear you, we see you and you are just as much part of our community when you can’t engage as when you can. You are welcome here no matter how.

    There is no need to apologise or explain or feel guilty. If you made it through the past 12 months then that’s enough and I salute you.

    Equality matters.

    In these times of crisis, what we care about is important and seeing how many people have taken action to address inequalities in their own context is truly heartening. From fighting digital poverty to championing open knowledge sharing through initiatives such as the Open COVID Pledge for Education, the work everyone has put into supporting each other has been amazing.

    As we prepare to celebrate International Women’s Day 2021, which is something that I care about, I have been reflecting on the theme for this year: choose to challenge (#ChooseToChallenge).

    A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day.

    We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.

    From challenge comes change, so let’s all choose to challenge.

    https://www.internationalwomensday.com/theme

    There is a general call to action, to raise you hand, show your support and solidarity, and that is what for me curating the FemEdTech Twitter account is all about.

    Yes, full social, economic, and political equality for women, particularly in Learning Technology, is not the only challenge I want to work for, but it is one that I care about enough to make time and get active.

    So on this #IWD2021, if you can, join us on the #femEdTech hashtag and share what you #chooseToChallenge.

    P.S…. oh yes, and radio

    If you’d like to hear three women who have spent a year of lock down Sundays being silly and supporting each other via chat and tunes on the radio, then you are welcome indeed to join us on 7 March for an International Women’s Day Special radio show on DS106 radio.

  • Drawing 2020 – a bit of strategic ‘visual thinkery’

    Earlier this year, I blogged about that I feel I am starting a ‘new job’ as things have changed so much over the past year… so this week on Friday I am having a strategy away day, pandemic style.

    CEOs often get asked what success will look like in 3, 12 and 36 months. Asking yourself that question is a useful way to get your own thoughts in order and prioritising short, medium and long term goals.

    Often, the kind of success measures or KPIs you’d include range from internal to the organisation to external stakeholder groups, from local to national to international. That’s the kind of thing an Impact Report is made for and that is important – but not helpful for me just now.

    I am looking to re-imagine, to re-assess and to start from a blank page. Cue a bit of drawing and colouring…

    Putting pen (and brush) to paper

    I find it helpful to start with a blank page and the first thing I drew was a little flag, planted at the start of the year. It marks the launch of ALT’s (then) new strategy for 2020-25 (…best laid plans etc).

    From there, it was a story of firsts… the first pivot online… our first ever fully online OER conference… the first time that we ran an event with 1,000+ registered participants, and the first ever time that we had to fully refund hundreds of paying delegates AND the first time those participants donated nearly £10,000 to help cover the losses we were making.

    The first time that we drew up an emergency budget and plan just two months after setting the first ones… the first time we made an emergency strategy and held an emergency Board meeting.

    In June we held our first ever fully online AGM with in-house voting. And in July, ‘business as usual’ included open calls for volunteers, editors, committee members – all for activities which were changing continuously.

    Our first ever online Summer Summit took place in August, the first ever fully online awards short-listing process in September and the start of term saw us provide a second wave of support webinars, resources and care for an increasingly exhausted membership, preparing for an academic year that would be like… no one knew.

    In November we launched our first ever CMALT Accelerator workshops and in December the Winter Conference saw our first ever online Awards Ceremony and first ever Community Award to every Learning Technologist.

    By the end of the year, we had also published 49 new research papers, double the average number and the first time that we reached such a high number of publications.

    A year of firsts – pandemic style.

    Doing this drawing, sitting and thinking, letting my pen guide my thoughts, is incredibly helpful. It allows me to see beyond the KPIs and budget columns – and these don’t feel terribly meaningful anyway in a global pandemic context.

    What does feel meaningful to me is the picture I have in my head of the past year. A picture of an agile, learning organisation where everyone contributed to us achieving a lot of successful firsts.

    I also see thousands of professionals whom we have supported through the ups and downs of 2020… from sharing open resources and offering full scholarships to running support webinars and providing much needed CPD.

    I like the idea of last year being a year of firsts and as well as all the bad stuff, there are a lot of positives to take with us.

    The next blank piece of paper is going to be for 2021. A year of… ?

    What success for ALT looked like… in 2020