Arran

Posted on 30th April 2019 by NomadWarMachine

A quick trip over to Arran at the weekend with Flora McPuffin. She had a lovely time seeing all the diverse birds over there.

Pheasants

A pair of pheasants
Birds
A shelduck and a swan
Oyster Catcher
An oyster catcher
Heron
A heron
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The Future of Learning

Posted on 17th April 2019 by NomadWarMachine

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.” Dewey, Democracy and Education.

I’ve been thinking a lot about resilience recently.

Not as the ability to spring back up when knocked down (though that can be a good thing).

But as the ability to adapt, to look at a new situation and think about how one can apply one’s existing skills.

resilience (n.)
1620s, “act of rebounding,” from Latin resiliens, present participle of resilire “to rebound, recoil,” from re- “back” (see re-) + salire “to jump, leap” (see salient (adj.)). Compare result (v.). Meaning “elasticity” is from 1824.

There’s no jobs for life now, we are frequently told. Bring on life long learning.

Transferable skills.

Graduate attributes.

Resilience.

Buzz words.

Life long learning is an attitude.

, , .

The future of learning is networked.

A post for OpenBlog19

We say more about this on the LTHEChat blog

Posted in #CLMOOC, Learning, University | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Good enough

Posted on 14th April 2019 by NomadWarMachine
Disco ball


Disco ball flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

I was asked this week how I write. Quickly, I said – in odd moments snatched whenever I can find them. I try not to think too much about what I’m writing – I scribble words on scraps of paper, I doodle on the scribbles and scribble some more.

I try not to worry about choosing perfect words and phrases – I often use square brackets to remind myself that parts need polishing – that the words I have scribbled there are placeholders. But, when I finally sit myself in front of a word processor and force myself to type up all the scribbles, I often find that those temporary words are fine.

Of course I do revise what I write – over time, as I edit, I will refine what I say – add to it, delete parts -but often the parts that I wrote as placeholders turn out to be good enough.

Being “good enough” is very much the ethos of the remix culture of DS106 and CLMOOC. We don’t mind about things being perfect -though we appreciate and value skill, expertise etc. they are not the only sorts of things we value. As I write up my PhD thesis I think about this, and wonder how to link what I am discovering about my affinity networks and maker spaces into something that I can use in HE.

Posted in #CLMOOC, DS106, Editing, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

National Unicorn Day

Posted on 9th April 2019 by NomadWarMachine

Today is National Unicorn Day. Yes, really. Some of you might know that the unicorn’s Scotland’s national animal. And in these dark, uncertain days, I think we need a miracle to see us out of Brexit, out of te UK, out of austerity.

Here’s our national animal standing proud on the steps of our Uni chapel.
Happy Unicorn day, all

Lion and Unicorn Staircase

Posted in HE, Photos, Scotland, University | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Web Ring

Posted on 7th April 2019 by NomadWarMachine

Some folk were sad that G+ died recently. I can understand that – while I always struggled to navigate there, others had made it their home.

Greg offered a solution – a web ring and a planet – are you there yet?

Posted in #CLMOOC, Online learning, Uncategorised | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Phew

Posted on 29th March 2019 by NomadWarMachine

I’m patting myself on the back

Tentatively

Today I submitted my draft findings

For the last month I have been too busy writing about my affinity space to play in my affinity space

Now I have time to breathe

Hurrah

Posted in #CLMOOC, Online learning, Peer interaction, PhD, Researcher Journal | Tagged | 2 Comments

Making time

Posted on 23rd February 2019 by NomadWarMachine

However busy I am, I try to make time for two daily rituals – one the DS106 Daily Create, a daily challenge open to anyone to participate as they wish, the other a Daily Doodle prompt I’ve been following for some time with my CLMooc friends. I glory in all my tools – my pens, my crayons, my paper, my inks. Old friends and new friends, as Terry says. Micron pens to outline (sometimes with a pencil first). Crayons for familiarity – I have so many sets of crayons. Here I try to take a picture, but my helper wants in on the act:

Quite right, why take pictures of Sharpies, when I can stroke a cat.

Posted in #CLMOOC, DailyCreate, Doodles, DS106, Uncategorised | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Onnotation

Posted on 14th January 2019 by NomadWarMachine

I see everybody’s annotation. I applaud Terry’s innotation. Here I raise you all with my onnotation.

How I did this:

  1. Screen capped Terry’s post and saved it to my PC
  2. Drew a canary bird and scanned it to my PC
  3. Opened both in GIMP
  4. Cut around the tweety bird with the lasso tool
  5. Pasted as a layer into the screen cap image, positioned where I wanted it and exported the image with a new file name
  6. Moved the tweety bird and repeated, again changing the file name (onnotation1, onnotation2 …).
  7. I did this six times in total.
  8. Closed all the windows
  9. Opened all of the (six) images of bird-on-blog that I had saved as layers
  10. Exported as gif, tweeking the settings to get the animation to the speed I wanted (I chose a 200 millisecond delay).
  11. Saved to my PC.
Posted in #CLMOOC, #DigiWriMo, Doodles, GIMP, Learning | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

A picture is worth 1000 words

Posted on 6th January 2019 by NomadWarMachine

150 words

If a picture is worth 1000 words, I reckon I am giving you 150 words worth in the above image.

How I did this:

  1. Opened GIMP and found an image I liked from my files.
  2. Used Filters – Render – Patterns – Grid to impose a grid on the image.
  3. Dragged the width up so there were exactly 4 rows of boxes
  4. Used the rectangular tool to make it a 5×4 grid
  5. Opened a new window and pasted this in as a new layer
  6. Used the lasso tool to cut out 3 squares (proportion: 150/1000 words)
  7. Opened a new window and drew a 5×4 grid in above
  8. Copied the part of the image I had selected with the lasso  tool and added as a new layer
  9. Exported
  10. Uploaded to Flickr
Posted in #CLMOOC, #DigiWriMo, Flowers, Learning, Online learning, Peer interaction, Photos | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Word limits

Posted on 5th January 2019 by NomadWarMachine

word limits

Busy days – holidays ending, a conference to prepare for. Not enough space to write. Still, I watch the conversations from the sidelines. Words constrain, words are constrained.

How many words are pictures worth? Nick’s post inspires me. I try to draw (above) what’s in my mind’s eye.

Bookshelves

I look over at my bookshelves to see if I still have a dictionary. I do, and am amused to see Nick’s book next to it. Serendipity again. Sorry, Wendy – I don’t feel like making  a word salad today.

Posted in #CLMOOC, #DigiWriMo, Learning, Writing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment