Author Archives: NomadWarMachine

Penfriends

Posted on 25th September 2015 by NomadWarMachine

When I was a teenager I had two pen friends – one in Paris and one in Berlin. I wrote them painfully dull letters in excruciating French and German and received  equally dull letters back from them. My heart sank … Continue reading →

Posted in #CLMOOC, #rhizo14, #rhizo15, MOOC | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Being vulnerable

Posted on 19th September 2015 by NomadWarMachine

I’ve had so much fun over the last 18 or so months. Ever since I happened upon rhizo14 and then discovered other such events I have been making the most wonderful friends. I’m not going to list you all – … Continue reading →

Posted in #rhizo14, Love, Rhizomes | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments

Not virtually connecting

Posted on 15th September 2015 by NomadWarMachine

I was at a loose end.  I spotted my pals. “We’re going to do a Hangout”, they said. “Want to join in?” I didn’t, really, but I perched at the end of the sofa. The hangout started. I waved. They … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, Online learning, Peer interaction, Rhizomes | Tagged | 7 Comments

Squinting sideways

Posted on 13th September 2015 by NomadWarMachine

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:– We murder to dissect. (Wordsworth, The Tables Turned) I often used to feel that doing analytic philosophy was like pulling the legs of a spider … Continue reading →

Posted in #rhizo14, #rhizo15, Learning, Rhizomes, Wittgenstein | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Rhizocats

Posted on 12th September 2015 by NomadWarMachine

This week we presented at ALT-C, a fairly large (about 500 delegates) annual conference which was held in Manchester this year. Maha has already blogged about us all meeting there, so I won’t repeat that – but I do have … Continue reading →

Posted in #rhizo14, Conferences, Learning, MOOC, Online learning, Rhizomes, Social Media, Technology | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Virtually connecting, but missing the real connections

Posted on 7th September 2015 by NomadWarMachine

I’m presenting at ALT-C this week. I was really excited about it – my co-presenters are part of my rhizo14 folk and I never thought I would get to meet them. But a bad thing seems to have happened. Somehow, … Continue reading →

Posted in Conferences | Tagged | 18 Comments

What’s the point of feedback?

Posted on 3rd September 2015 by NomadWarMachine

I recently had a conversation with some other academics about the whole marking, assessment and feedback parade that we go through in HE, and the NSS student survey results, which always score lower for feedback than for other areas. We … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, Online learning, Teaching, Technology, University | Tagged , | 1 Comment

When is a pilot not a pilot?

Posted on 29th August 2015 by NomadWarMachine

Student pilot Jean McRae of Homosassa: Tallahassee, Florida flickr photo by State Library and Archives of Florida shared with no copyright restriction (Flickr Commons) Recently we’ve been running some software pilots in our unit. Although I am sure that some … Continue reading →

Posted in Online learning, Technology, University | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Vicarious learning

Posted on 24th August 2015 by NomadWarMachine

If we think that tutorials and seminars are an important part of the campus based learning experience, then how to we replace these when we are designing and delivering online courses? One way might be to use virtual classroom software … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, Online learning, Peer interaction, Teaching, Technology, University | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

WYSIWYG

Posted on 17th August 2015 by NomadWarMachine

There’s a new challenge going around – watch a short video and write a bog post tying what you have seen into something about education. So Whitney sent me this one about the Landfill Harmonic, who make musical instruments out … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, Teaching, University | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments