Monthly Archives: September 2015

Penfriends

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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