Week in Review – Jan 24 and 31
As it was bound to happen, I missed getting to last week’s review, but sometimes the things we do don’t fall into tidy week long chunks. One of the things I’ve learned about myself is that I’m a perculator…if I’m working on something complex or something that involves synthesis, I have to think and read a lot before anything progresses to a writing stage. As someone who loves to cross things off a list, this is more than a bit frustrating, but I’ve come to understand it as part of my process. The plus is that usually I don’t have to spend a ton of time on drafts…one or two rounds and it’s usually good to go.
Research
I did some more work on pulling together a BC research webinar series.
I’m just about done pulling together a research advisory/working group to look at how to build capacity and measure OEP impact in our institutions here in BC.
We had a very productive ISAT research team meeting, and outlined a divide and conquer approach to data analysis and other next steps.
Facilitation goodies and planning
I discovered that Tracy has a very fun blog and has captured how we did a BCcampus appreciation event all online. (It was a great way to know more about each other at BCcampus and a valuable technique for bringing together distributed teams. )
Tracy and I did some more work on BCAIU workshop planning for a strategy session with VPAs about online learning (strategy and online learning are my 2 favourite things, plus I get to be a Tracy facilitation apprentice).
I worked with Leva on some open practice ideas that we are planning to undertake this year, and evolving those into plans.
I began experimenting with time blocking. I’ve been a bit bewildered – as someone who has been a project manager and had a busy admin job for 10 years – as to why I’m struggling to stay on top of my list right now. I realized that my move back to project work that extends over months requires a different workflow and some different tools, so I’m working on that right now. I need to map out months, not weeks and find a way to simultaneously compartmentalize and connect pieces of my projects. This is very different from having a weekly list of meetings and to-dos and then spending the additional time putting out fires, which sums up at least 5 of my last 10 years.
Indigenization
We’ve got a book club going around a theme of Indigenization at BCcampus and this week we started with Thomas King. I caught his first Massey Lecture on audio and it is well worth the listen.
Related – I’ve been trying to learn more about indigenous pedagogy, so jumped on this UNESCO publication on How Indigenous pedagogy can benefit everyone when it found its way onto twitter.
Other Stuff
Did some OTESSA reviews (late, but done).
I wrote a thing about my femedtech quilt pieces and then got those in the mail.
I got to talk with Bonni for her Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. The offline chat was even better than the on the air chat, and what a delight to be asked to be part of it (her podcast has had over a million downloads already! Amazing!).
Separate from BCcampus work, I spent a day in Victoria with some great people at Royal Roads in a design sprint for a graduate degree in Climate Adaptation. The program is going to adopt openness, so we spent the day brainstorming open activities and learning from the MALAT redesign to openness. There were lots of highlights to this day, but the dinner that was prepared by one of the team members using Alison Roman’s cookbook was unforgettable, and I’ve since grabbed a copy. The chocolate chunk salted shortbread cookie recipe is on the webs, and I can tell you that the hype is real.
For fun, this post on maps writers create as part of their imaginary worlds. I was a total map nerd as a kid and may have created one or two imaginary ones myself so this was a delight.
And…January is OVER. Thank goodness. Moving on.
