Clematis

Posted on 2nd June 2018 by NomadWarMachine

Clematis

I cannot improve

‘pon the glory of these blooms

Shining in the sun

Posted in #CLMOOC, DailyCreate, DS106, Flowers, Garden, Photos, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Postcard doodles

Posted on 31st May 2018 by NomadWarMachine


It’s been a busy month, and inevitably I’ve not done everything I planned to. But one thing that I have done over the last couple of weeks is to start doing my daily doodles on postcards. Of course, because I sometimes find times to doodle at work and other times at home, I only have half my stack here. But here’s some of the ones I like from this month – now safely stashed away to send in the future.

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Academibot

Posted on 17th May 2018 by NomadWarMachine

Today’s Daily Create was inspired by a TED talk I watched the other day.

Here’s my take on a useful robot 🙂

*Disclaimer – my job is really not this bad

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Postcard questions

Posted on 15th May 2018 by NomadWarMachine

Time flies, especially recently. But today I came home to find  a card from Kevin, and that prompted me to sort through my collection and write some to CLMOOC friends.

Our theme this month is questions, and as I thought through some to write on my cards I felt myself relax and forget about all of the marking that looms.  Kevin asks a good question:

I wonder …

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Be More Kind

Posted on 13th May 2018 by NomadWarMachine

A timely earworm for me this week as I am marking philosophy exam scripts. The lyrics are actually about our broken society, but the title of the song speaks to me as I try to decipher scrawly handwriting and make the best sense I can of the jumbled thoughts written under pressure. Education could, and should, be more kind, in my opinion.

This semester has been particularly hard, with the strike action and weather leading to lost teaching time – and the need to be lenient yet fair while marking seems all the more important. This way of assessing students doesn’t seem at all kind to me.

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Shetland

Posted on 30th April 2018 by NomadWarMachine

Back from a quick weekend break to Shetland. The views from our hotel window in Lerwick was amazing:Niall spent a lot of time looking at divers and working out what they were:

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We didn’t see many Shetland ponies, but here is one:

Shetland pony

No puffins, either,but many, many fulmars:

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and a bolshie seagull, waiting to cross the road:

Who are you looking at?

Lots of sheep:

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Hundreds of guillemots:

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And, as we headed back to the airport, we had to wait as the air ambulance crossed over the road:

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A beautiful place for a short break:

Shetland

Posted in Photos, Scotland | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Don’t kill the messenger

Posted on 26th April 2018 by NomadWarMachine

It’s no surprise to find that Jeremy Hunt is talking rubbish again this week. In a Guardian article we hear that he is proposing a universal social media limit for every child. Sound good? Maybe – except that there’s no evidence to suggest that this policy is necessary.

Politicians – pfff. Not worth wasting typing time on. But there’s an undercurrent here (of course) about controlling the masses, and I suspect Hunt and his cronies are trying to attempt to control our non-state-controlled means of communication. Of course social media can be misused, but the frequent dissing of social media, and the emphasis on studies purporting to show how social media is bad for us, in one way or another, just annoy me. Social media is so important to me – it’s how I communicate, participate, and learn. I was reminded of this earlier when Verena asked the following question:

Like anything else, it depends how it’s used. But don’t kill the messenger if you find others using it badly. For some of us, it is our community, our affinity space, our home.

Posted in Learning, Online learning, Social Media, Teaching | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Loveday

Posted on 8th April 2018 by NomadWarMachine

Spring is coming, finally. It’s been a hard winter and I think the blooms are 2-3 weeks later than last year, but looking out at my garden I see an explosion of forsythia blooms, and our narcissi and daffodils are cheerfully poking up under our fruit trees. Last October, when I was down for one sister’s 50th birthday, my youngest sister and her daughter gave me a pack of Cornish daffodil buds called “Loveday”. I don’t mention this much, but that’s my middle name (dad’s Cornish, and when mum was looking for names for me she came across this as a Cornish name). I never expect too much from our bulbs – what with the frost and the squirrels, but so far four have bloomed. Here’s one – I think it’s beautiful.

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Alchemy

Posted on 4th April 2018 by NomadWarMachine

For the last few weeks I’ve been watching a plan unfold, from the initial glimmering of an idea to glorious technicolour explosion. Moshie took our brief – to design an alchemy lab – and stunned us with her beautiful, detailed drawings. Niall worked his magic and turned these 2D drawings into a 360 degree VR lab. Kevin put together a Thinglink and populated it with the images and all of the submissions. Wendy did some H5P magic and lots of other stuff. We (Wendy, Kevin, Todd and I) put out a call for people to select icons (taken from the lab drawings) and submit an object back to us based on various themes, and are thrilled that there are about 50 of these now displayed in the lab. But you don’t want to sit here reading about it, do you – come and look around the lab for yourself. If you have a VR headset, you can use that for the immersive experience, but it also works on mobile or desktop. At the end there’s also an opportunity to get involved in some remixing, so if you’re feeling left out, here’s your chance to join in.

Image by Moshie

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Happy Easter

Posted on 1st April 2018 by NomadWarMachine

Today, as part of the drawing challenge some of us are participating in, I made a gif. Happy Easter, everybody.

Posted in #CLMOOC, GIMP | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments