Maren Deepwell

Tag: #altc

  • 2021: getting ready to return to work

    2021: getting ready to return to work

    I am still on holiday, which I am grateful for. The past year left me exhausted and by the time I finished work in December I was ready for a break. Nearly three weeks in and I have recovered some much needed energy and my sense of humour 🙂

    With little let up from the pandemic and the impact on my working life continuing to increase, I feel it’s time to level up my preparation for the year ahead.

    I usually write review/reflection posts at the end of the year, as I did for 2020 (post 1 and post 2), so this is the first of three posts that are looking ahead to this new year.

    In this post, I share what I focus on to prepare to return to work, starting with practical, well-being focused actions I am taking.

    1% more comfortable

    My yoga teacher used to prompt me to think of ways in which I could be 1% more comfortable, for example by putting a cushion under my head or stretching out my legs. So I am setting about making my work space more comfortable, even just a bit:

    • I have a prism and I have set that up on the window sill to cast a rainbow on the wall and ceiling on sunny days. It’s a small thing, but something fun and creative that takes up little space and keeps surprising me;
    • I have a mug with a cwtch, or Welsh hug, on it, which is a small change but makes me smile and it reminds me to drink more tea/water;
    • Thanks to a click and collect service at a small independent plant shop here in Cardiff, I am starting the year with some new work plants:
    New growth and blooms

    A better daily routine

    In the run up to Christmas, things got so hectic, I didn’t manage to stick to much of a routine outside of just working every hour that I could. It’s not sustainable nor is it necessary for me to work such long hours and so I am practising a better daily routine.

    My asthma plays havoc with running in these cold temperatures and I don’t like running in the dark, so although I am going to make an effort to get regular exercise, it’s not a daily commitment I feel I can keep just now.

    Instead, I am going to combine things with some help from a mindfulness app I like (Calm) to set a better balance for my working week:

    • Lunchtime walks to get that all important daylight;
    • Short bits of guided meditation or breathing exercises before I start the day, so I have at least 10 min of calm before I look at my inbox;
    • Some gentle yoga and stretching a couple of times a week;
    • Keep writing.
    Candles help me on the mat

    Investing in my work space long term

    I have been working from home full-time for a couple of years now, so I had a good set up before the pandemic. That said, I moved house in March last year and I am soon going to move again from temporary to more permanent accommodation and that gives me an opportunity to rethink my home office.

    In my current office I still have filing cabinets that I bought in the 1990s, which have been through school, university, art school and decades of working across different countries. Maybe it is time to move on from some of these and invest in a new set up for the kind of professional practice I now have.

    Having a dedicated work space at home is a relative privilege in these times of crisis – and I am fortunate to still have a good job that I love. In order for me to do that job as well as I can, and after a year of having some very temporary, make shift solutions for my work space, I feel this is the time to invest some time, money and effort into making my next home office as pleasant as it can be. To provide me with a little more comfort, inspiration and joy in 2021.

  • 2020 – My year in blog posts, on radio and in drawings

    2020 – My year in blog posts, on radio and in drawings

    I have already written an EdTech end of year post, 2020 #altc – The year forged in fire, so this one is looking back at things I have blogged about this year… in around 30 posts this year.

    This year, I have blogged less about the conferences I have contributed to and the talks I have given, but fortunately for most of them there are slides or recordings available:

    Selected talks from 2020

    Image

    Virtual Teams blog posts

    I have also continued to blog together with my colleague Martin Hawksey about all things leading a virtual team. Given that this was the year of the great migration to home working, this series has been more relevant than ever before and I am glad that we were able to keep blogging through the ups and downs of 2020.

    2020 – pandemic posts

    2020 – regular posts

    • Virtual Teams: moving parts – This month we start our third year as a virtual team and we talk about the ups and downs of moving house as home workers, how to give yourself a break during times of upheaval and supporting each other.
    • Virtual Teams: The heartbeat of a virtual team – This month we are talking about Slack, scheduling team meetings, and how our use of technology and different tools affect the rhythm of our work as a virtual team. 

    This is the final blog post I wrote for our series this year:

    VIRTUAL TEAMS – THE FINAL EPISODE AND… KEEPING BLOGGING!

    Blogging as the Neon Flaneuse

    At the start of the year, in the early days of January, I started a creative project to get drawing and thinking more, blogging in a non-work capacity about all kinds of things: you can have a read here.

    On the #ds106radio airwaves

    Not much blogging, but I could be found on DS106 Radio most Sunday evenings this year alongside friends from Canada, Tannis and Anne-Marie, playing tunes and chatting about edtech, lockdown living and femedtech.

    It’s been great to connect with people all across the world via online radio and I am super grateful that I have been able to discover and connect with this community during 2020.

  • 2020 #altc – the year forged in fire

    I have been struggling to write any of my usual ‘year in review’ posts. I couldn’t find the words. But this evening I feel inspired and that is thanks to the community I work with, and whom I have shared much of this week at ALT’s Online Winter Conference.

    It’s been a year like no other in Learning Technology and one throughout which the professionals I work with and that ALT represents have moved right into the heart of keeping education going… when family tech support moved up to a whole new level and a year in which we have all faced our own Everests.

    No matter who you are or what your context is, wherever you may be, this year has forced us to face difficult moments and I find that rather than share my thoughts on the keynotes I have given and listened to or the research published, I want to focus on the compassion and care I have met with.

    From sharing resources during the early days of the pandemic to supporting each other in practical ways such as weekly webinars, everyone has done their best to get through the year and make the most of the opportunities we have had. From changing policy with initiatives like the Open COVID Pledge for Education to developing new practice in teaching and assessment, it’s been a year of firsts.

    To me, it’s been so important not to compromise on the values and professional principles we share even if in terms of practical execution ‘good enough’ has had to suffice.

    I have huge admiration for all the Learning Technology professionals who have helped moved everyone online in the great online pivot… and then worked even more to make a new academic year possible… and then worked some more to ensure that the direction we are heading in is shaped by the expertise and know-how they bring to the table.

    Kudos to you all. Those of you who are still standing, those of you who are having a well earned break and those of you who have prioritised caring for your families and loved ones and taken a step back from work.

    It was a very special privilege for me to join ALT’s President Dave White in presenting a symbolic community award to all and every Learning Technologist today… and that includes you! Congratulations!

    We at ALT work day in day out to champion professional recognition and advancement for those who have contributed so much to this year.

    There is a lot more work ahead, and I am looking forward to getting stuck in to new ethical frameworks, assessment practices, CDP and more in 2021.

    For now, there is a need to pause and reflect and be proud of what’s been achieved and I hope that today and this special community award contributes to that much needed moment of reflection and celebration.

    Fittingly, the award being forged in the fire of 2020, it will become an enduring testament to what’s been accomplished by us all this year across sectors here in the UK and beyond.

    To you all, I wish all the very best for what I hope will be a peaceful end to the year.

    Here’s to a better 2021… and I am looking forward to seeing Learning Technologists go from strength to strength at the heart of learning, teaching and assessment.

    In the meantime, I am going to avoid video calls, put wellies on and head into the great outdoors to walk the dog 🙂

  • Virtual Teams – the final episode and… keeping blogging!

    What is it like to lead a virtual team? What are the high points? What are the challenges?

    For the past three years we have been chronicling our experiences in a series of monthly blog posts and podcasts and collecting them on our blogs.

    Martin will be leaving ALT in January 2021 to move onto new adventures and if you would like to contribute to Martin’s virtual leaving card (read: spreadsheet), please contribute them via this Google form .  We are also planning a farewell karaoke special for the end of January, so get ready to practice your #TunesForHawksey. 

    I am excited about our last podcast and looking forward to a conversation with Martin talking about working from home, virtual teams and what we learnt in the process 🙂

    I feel this is a great opportunity to reflect not only on our approach to leading virtual teams, but also the process of conversational blogging itself. Blogging about blogging 😉

    There is a lot of inspiration for blogging just now, things that I’d like to blog about such as… our awesome Sunday Specials on ds106 radio:

    And also catching up on a lot of conferences and conference chats that I have been able to take part in recently:

    and also about some of the exciting projects that I am currently involved in at work…

  • How we survived a pandemic: Part 5 – Virtual team meeting ice breakers from the ALT Staff Team

    This is a conversational blog post (cross-posted here) between Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) and Maren Deepwell (@marendeepwell). We are using this approach to create some space to think together in ‘unprecedented times’. 

    This month’s post is a bit different from the usual, as we celebrate a team effort of inventing ice breakers for our weekly team meetings, which take place for an hour every Wednesday morning. We’ve got everything from “share your four-legged friends” to “lockdown recipe swap” to “pandemic playlist” to “humble brag” to “Pictionary Jam” and more.

    Thank you to our colleagues Jane, Fiona, Debbie and Emma-Jane, for giving us permission to share these ideas in the post for this month.  

    September!

    Maren: Since the start of July we have been rotating chairing our weekly team meetings. We have a shared document that we use as an agenda and each week we ask someone to volunteer to chair next week’s meeting. I have been delighted by how much everyone has contributed to our weekly meetings, bringing their own personality and style to the proceedings and I feel this new way of chairing the meetings has been an excellent addition to the way we work. One of the things we have started doing is ice-breaker activities to start the meeting, and I look forward to them each week. In this post, we are going to share examples of these starting with animal corner: For this activity we were asked to “share your four-legged friends here if you have one, or any animal that makes you smile!” . Another favourite of mine was to ask everyone: “What has been your favourite recipe discovered during lockdown?” through which is discovered Freezer Vegan Breakfast Burritos and Ottolenghi – Feta and oregano fries! 

    Martin: Rotating the chairing has been a lot of fun, particularly seeing how others bring their personality to proceedings. My favourite activity has to be “Musical Mayhem” where we shared a link to “whatever song or piece of music that makes you feel alive !”. This ended up with a very eclectic mix of songs and also gave a sense of what made our team tick, covering tracks from the Bee Gees to N-trance. As well as pets, food and music the ice breakers are also nice ways to catch up with how everyone is generally doing. As the second wave of the pandemic comes crashing down on us, whilst increased measures don’t impact my homelife as much as they do for others, the knowledge that while I rarely have friends over to see us, knowing that currently we can’t feels a little suffocating. Making the start of team meetings more variable I think has ultimately created some very rich and fun social engagement. Have you got any other favourite ice-breakers and what do you think the impact has been?

    Maren: It’s been interesting to see how little tech is needed for a very effective activity. In many cases a verbal prompt or question such as sharing box set or movie recommendations or finding out which Hogwarts House you belong to (our team includes someone from every house…) has stimulated rich conversations for everyone in the team. One aspect of our shared activities, comparing plans for an upcoming Bank Holiday weekend in August, for example, is that we learn more about each other’s local contexts. That might be a simple thing like sharing what the weather is like or indeed whether there is a local lockdown where we live or something a bit more personal, like what the kids are up to, which parent is having a birthday and what treats someone is planning on baking. I found out about a new kind of pizza oven as well as learning more about how two of our colleagues who are doing PhD are getting on with that. Each weekly activity has helped us combat cabin fever and the fact that we all miss each other. Since we become a virtual team in 2018 this is the longest period any of us have had without seeing someone they work with every day and that is a big deal! Talking of big deals… you provided a prompt for a team meeting in August that sparked some really great conversations – do you remember? 

    Martin: Ah yes the “Humble Brag” activity where I invited our team to share “a thought or memory that you go to for virtual air punches?”. There were a very interesting range of responses to this, which like “Hogwarts House” stimulated some nice conversations. Afterwards I did however feel that this was also a bit of a tricky activity as it perhaps forced people to reflect back on a time when the world was in a very different state, particularly given examples included things like flights and organised running events. Perhaps reminiscing isn’t such a bad thing … I don’t know, thoughts? Whilst tech hasn’t been the focus of these activities where it has been used has been a lot of fun. One of more recent activities was “Pictionary Jam” where we had a round of pictionary each drawing on a Jamboard (an interactive whiteboard app available in G Suite). I’ve only used Jamboard a couple of times in the past so the activity was also a fun bit of CPD to learn about this tool together. Plenty of other whiteboard tools for others to try this out and if a Pictionary game isn’t handy there is a website for that at http://wordrawapp.com/online_generator.html. With our colleagues showing off such great chairship and ability to find fun and interesting activities I feel increased pressure when it is my turn to find something for the start of our meetings … or is that just me?  

    Maren: For me it’s the other way round. I hadn’t realised how much work and thought I had to put in chairing the meeting week in week out and now I feel less pressure as we are jointly working on making each meeting work. I also think everyone is gaining more insight into why it’s important to prepare and actively take part. It’s up to us as a team to make our team meetings work and I have been delighted by the result of rotating who leads the meeting. I hope that it will help everyone realise how much each individual is achieving as well as how much progress we are making as a team, and that is especially important just now, with things being so uncertain. As you say, it’s not always a wholly positive thing to compare the here and now to previous experiences, and this new way of running team meetings feels like a positive addition to this year instead of being a slightly less fun version of a face to face meeting we may have had before. But now that the pressure is on… and I think it’s your turn to chair next week’s meeting… what have you got in mind to wow everyone 😉

    Martin: Well for our weekly family video calls (pre-covid they were voice only) lately we’ve been having a quiz. As part of this the winner is quizmaster the following week. As I aced the Scottish trivia quiz last week it’s my turn to come up with the questions. I’m feeling a little reuse coming on, my call with my parents being an opportunity to test drive a set of questions for the team. Whilst our team icebreakers have also been mostly low tech inspired by our ‘Pictionary Jam’ I thought it would be nice to try out one of our partner organisation tools, particularly if it is something we want to use at the ALT Online Winter Conference. To that end having looked at the Vevox quiz tool and the recent leaderboard feature I think it might be interesting to dip back into the competitive streak within our team … what can go wrong.

  • Home-worker… care-work… self-care.

    Home-worker… care-work… self-care.

    Last year I wrote a post about how working from home can lead to doing a lot of housework. I reflected on how working from home made me feel like I had been landed with all the domestic and care work and I explored ways in which I reclaimed a better balance.

    A year on, and several big life changes later, seemingly everyone is now working from home and finding any kind of balance is an even bigger priority.

    Working from home in these turbulent times poses some unique challenges for sure, but many of the issues I encounter are already familiar, they have just been amplified by what’s happened.

    Home-work/life balance

    A year ago, avoiding doing too much or unnecessary housework seemed like a big challenge and the strategies I used were simple: setting aside time to do chores rather than doing them as I see them, learning to ignore things that aren’t urgent, reminding myself of sticking to my working hours… . Just now, I need these strategies more than ever, because everything that’s happening in the world of educational technology seems urgent and there is an emergency all of the time.

    Sticking to my working hours, not trying to do more than I am able to handle… making my work space as good as it can be. Sounds easy but all of these are hard to actually stick to.

    I have bought myself some new plants, bringing a bit of the outside world to my work space and I am adjusting my set up to suit the different seasons. I have moved my desk closer to the radiator for example… 🙂

    I was permanently home-based before this year, but even as a permanent home-worker I need to find ways to be effective as a CEO as my circumstances change and adapt to what is happening in the world around me. This year, this means being consistent about unplugging myself from work.

    When it comes to technology sticking to working hours is even more key for me, because there is never a time when the emails and notifications stop. So I stop them. I have a dedicated screen on my phone for work related apps, so I don’t see them when I am not working. I switch off push notifications. I don’t have work emails on my phone and if I do want to log in I need to manually type in a very long complicated password. For me, that is an effective deterrent.

    Whilst I haven’t found a way to set an out of office for DMs, I effectively provide one for myself, in that I copy and forward DMs that come in via various platforms when I am not working to my work account.

    Care/life balance

    A few years ago I was a carer for my mother, who has cancer. Fortunately my mum is well just now, but for a number of years juggling being a carer and working as well as having a life was a difficult balancing act.

    This year, there is a large volume of different kind of caring needed, and I find myself struggling in spite of my good intentions.

    I am really heartened by the absolutely amazing things so many people in educational technology have been doing day in, day out. I see you, I support you, I salute you.

    In my own way at work and beyond work I have done what I can to contribute to those efforts and I am grateful to be part of communities that make such a positive difference to so many in a very difficult time indeed.

    I care. And there is a limited amount of time, energy and brainpower with which I can act on and express that care.

    So I need to prioritise and take a step back from being online and present every day, every week. This is an instance where I won’t permit the blurring of my work life and my life outside of work further.

    I had a week off work last week and a week largely off social media. And that made for a good, healthy change. There is a crisis. But sometimes it just has to wait and be contained within its boundaries.

    Home-work/self-care balance

    I read an interesting article this morning which explored how people who live in Nordic countries mentally prepare for the literally darkest times of the year and there is one paragraph of the article in particular that resonated with me:

    Surrounded by Norwegian positivity, Leibowitz soon found her own mindset shifting; she learned to love long walks with a headlamp to guide her path. And rather than yearning for sunlight, she came to appreciate the “soft, peaceful” appearance of the city in the darkness. “When it was snowing, I would always try to go out and enjoy the fresh snowfall.”

    And that got me thinking about what the equivalent of a fresh snowfall will be for me as a home-worker this winter, as I continue to work through this crisis in the colder, darker months and return to localised lock downs here in Wales, which will restrict all aspects of my life.

    Here are my initial ideas:

    • make a point of having at least 1 walking meeting outside each week, talking on the phone;
    • learn how to look after my office plants better and learn more about them;
    • protect my boundaries between work and care work and me time, to guard against burn out;
    • try lots of different herbal teas;
    • avoid scheduling meetings so that I can still get out for 1-2 long walks in daylight each week;
    • give myself permission to have a duvet day when I really need it.