The poetically named Teaching Block One is now in full swing. Everyone is busy. Everyone has freshers flu, or we all do at least.
My bit of my team is gearing up for online courses and online marking. A team we are working with, who I thought planned to do a lot more of what they were doing last year, turn out on closer inspection to mean by that they would like to do a whole range of things, more complicated things. This will be fine, and it is not their fault at all, but it’s ... a teachable moment for me I guess.
We had detailed and careful conversations with them about their use of technology, helped them decide and supported them, but didn’t then involve ourselves when they had conversations about what should happen next year. Then came a kind of chinese whispers… there should be a term for the way information about what technology is and how it works is gradually distorted in large organisations as chains of people who don’t have the full picture (and maybe have taken hold of bits of other pictures) describe it to each other.
Anyway, I should have stayed more involved and at least kept repeating some of the key messages, as they were - in retrospect - bound to be forgotten once the initial discussions were over and they were no longer relevant.
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My working pattern now makes it easier for me to go along to PM Studios for their lunchtime talks, and I’ve seen a couple of fantastic ones recently.
Last Friday it was Awais Rashid talking about using a cooperative game to explore professional / organisational cybersecurity strategies. The game is Decisions and Disruptions. Fascinating project and a great talk.
Before that I saw Chloe Meineck talking about the work of her design agency, which focuses on mental health and wellbeing. She talked in detail about her Music Memory Box and Trove projects.
I loved the projects, in part, for their non-digital interfaces. There’s something magical about physical objects doing the kinds of things that we expect screens to do. Life is so saturated with screen time, and this week I read was yet another report on the negative effects of screen-time.
When we introduce technologies, should we be measuring how much screen time and sedentary time we are adding to how many people’s lives, what that’s replacing, whether that’s justifiable?
The best technologies are the ones that make things happen in the real world. Painful and poisonous as I’ve found the level of debate on social networks recently, I love them still because they’ve allowed me to meet real people in the real world, to go along to events I would likely not have known about otherwise, to organise and connect with other people in my street, my kids’ classes, at my work.
Meineck’s work was inspiring. She seemed to have a very genuine insight and connection to the people she was designing for. That wasn’t talent or disposition alone. She talked passionately about listening to people, understanding what they feel they need, involving them in generating the ideas, co-creating in the design process. I’m thinking again about my lack of connection with our students, even with our academics. The relatively minimal interactions I have with everyone outside my team, because we are so busy and so are they. And I *hate* wasting people’s time. And it’s hard working honestly and openly with people because you can’t hide your mistakes or the gaps in your knowledge. But that contact is so important.
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(On titles - couldn't see a way to use Black Bob's Hamburger Suit or Wives of Great Men so I've skipped right ahead - I hope anyone who has a clue what these are about will excuse me.)
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