Identity work in an online professional community

As a nice start to the New Year I have an article published in Human Resource Development International on professional identity and identity-work in open online communities. The article is available here and the abstract reads: Defining Human Resource Development (HRD) as either a scholarly domain or field of practice is widely recognised as problematic. This article investigates … Read more

On theory

A sociogram of my Facebook network

"The idea that one can trace the causal connections of any events without employing a theory, or that such a theory will emerge automatically from the accumulation of a sufficient amount of facts, is sheer illusion." — Friedrich Hayek — Hayek_Quotes (@HayekQuotes1) August 10, 2018 Worth repeating, especially in relation to ideas that ‘big data’ … Read more

My future research areas

In preparation for a meeting, I identified my future research areas in the field of digital education and learning linked with future teaching/ professional development offers. These two main areas are underpinned by the extension of the use of the interdisciplinary methods mix developed for my PhD: (i) in digital education strategy with a focus … Read more

Doing Speculative Research: Knives, Nature and an Ecology of Futures

My notes on a Centre for Research in Digital Education seminar on doing speculative research by Professor Mike Michael. The seminar abstract states: In this paper, I discuss aspects of the rationale behind speculative research, and list a number of possible techniques for its doing. By way of illustration, I focus especially on mundane technology … Read more

Micro-Learning and Learning Analytics to Improve Student Self-Reflection

With Dr Christopher Cheong from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Chritopher’s work is concerned with how we enhance students’ experiences of learning and how they can become better engaged and motivated as they self-regulate their learning. He is based in the School of Business IT and Logistics.   These rough notes were taken during the presentation to … Read more

PhD handed in!

The minor amendments have been completed, the thesis has been printed and bound and handed in! I’m now starting on drafting papers from the thesis but meanwhile, here’s the final abstract: Distributed online discussion events in social media are increasingly used as sites for open, informal professional development, knowledge sharing and community formation. Synchronous chat … Read more

Patterns, approaches and systems to support teachers in designing for technology-enhanced collaborative learning

These are a few notes and reflections on a research seminar hosted by the Research Centre in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh with Prof Yannis Dimitriadis from the University of Valladolid, Spain. This seminar discussed approaches to design for collaborative learning using digital technologies – either in a blended classroom or wholly online. His  research … Read more

Near Future Teaching Collider

I attended a Collider event as part of the Near Future Teaching project at the University of Edinburgh. The project is about addressing questions on what should the future of teaching look like in both universities in general, and University of Edinburgh specifically. What social, cultural and technological trends will come together to drive new … Read more

Creating Living Knowledge: the Connected Communities programme and what it tells us about university-community partnership

These are my notes from a Digital Education Seminar at the University of Edinburgh by Professor Keri Facer on the Connected Communities research programme. As ever with these posts, my record is partial and bias and possibly includes some inaccuracies (but not on purpose).  The seminar was opened by Prof Sian Bayne to introduce Keri as Professor of Educational and Social … Read more