Week in Review – Jan 10
Well, coming back after a couple of weeks off was a bit harder than I thought it would be. First, here’s what the last couple of weeks looked like.
I got a new pair of snowboard boots (first pair in 20 years!!), the kind with fancy turny things that tighten them so I don’t have to do up laces. I tried them out on a spectacular – and well timed for lots of fresh powder – week with the family at Silverstar.
The RWA (of which I’m a new member) imploded. The romance writing industry has notoriously privileged white, female and straight and the industry and the association has basically turned a blind eye to this for a long time. As of this week, the annual conference (which I had planned on attending) is in jeopardy as 2 major romance publishers have decided to pull out. It’s high seas drama and there’s lots of interesting commentary by smart people on Twitter. To put it in education terms, imagine AERA imploding, with board members, president and executive director resigning, sponsors pulling out and you have the context for the scale of this.
I completed the Year Compass. I highly recommend it if you are feeling like reflecting on your past and future year, but if you are considering it, the 3 hours it recommends are definitely needed and doing it with someone who knows you well might help.
I read a book about creating content plans – the target audience for this are solopreneurs but the process could be adapted to storyboarding a course rapidly. I used the worksheets to create a content plan for a blog series and found it really helpful. It was a good reminder to look beyond my usual sources of info and be open minded to learning new things.
Related to the above point, I continued to explore how affiliate marketing, bloggers/side hustlers, SEO, and affiliate marketplaces are an ecosystem of influence that I didn’t think was possible. Ed tech, online learning, and higher ed are not immune from this. I’m taking notes, and it’s quickly becoming a sort of ethnography of this whole world so maybe this will be my Airport Book that I write eventually.
I’ve been exploring podcasts as courses. The HVAC School combines podcasts with quizzes, tips and resources on its site. The Side Hustle School is a 10 minute or less daily podcast that is experimenting with a Classroom format, bringing listeners case studies, Q&A and weekly assignments for the next year. I’m following along for the experience and connection of this design to the broader lifelong learning ecosystem.
And in the category of completely random things I did on Xmas day, I wrote a tweet thread about my fave SE Hinton books.
And then it was back to work. This week felt like a 101 baby steps. I started with a list of 9 things, ended with a list of 14 but managed to cross off 10 and add another 9. So it was that kind of week. Rather than share the whole laundry list here’s a couple of the bigger things of interest.
I met with Rajiv to plan a open education research webinar series that will precede an Open Education Research Institute being organized by KPU. Since Josie did a great webinar series last year on accessibility, I’m learning from her on how she made it so successful.
I worked with Tracy on preparing a one day workshop for BCAIU on strategies for collaborating around online learning.
On the research front, I began preparing a blog post about our institutional OEP self-assessment tool to help communicate more broadly what this collaborative research is all about and some preliminary themes that are emerging.
And I started following and reading with so much interest the incredibly well crafted and reader friendly blog posts from Brenna Clarke Grey at TRU who is leading us through a Digital Detox conversation. I don’t know how she manages to skillfully pull together all the threads of so many complex things and help us make sense of it in an easy to read narrative.
I’m feeling a bit stressed about not having started my #femedtechquilt piece yet, but it’s drafted and just needs materials. Meanwhile, some wonderful photos of completed pieces are coming in through Twitter, and I’m constantly amazed and inspired by the talented people in our community.
This week there was some great stuff being shared, and here’s a few I caught.
First, I LOVE the use of graphic novels for teaching tough topics, and After Maria is a wonderful example gets at the psychosocial impact of Hurricane Maria on a Puerto Rican family. It’s a quick read, and you won’t be the same after exploring it.
The Noun Project released a collection of icons representing women in professional roles.
2 Comments
Pingback:
Pingback: