Category: Journal

Esports in education

Some 20 years ago I started a gaming club in the college I worked in using a couple of games consoles.  It quickly grew and changed from a leisure activity to something a little more competitive with matches set up to find the best gamer.   Fast forward 20 years and esports is now a significant business but in my opinion it hasn’t yet developed the foothold in schools and colleges that it deserves.

I suspect a big part of this is that many in schools still look at esports as “gaming”, as a leisure activity involving simply playing computer games and having fun.    I don’t think this does esports justice as it doesn’t take into consideration some of the key skills which esports has the potential to develop in students.

Strategy

Most of the esports games involve students working in teams and therefore, like in conventional sports like football, there is a need for strategy.   Will the team go all out attack, or sit back in defence?   How will each player help the team to succeed?     The development of match strategy and also the refining and adjustment of this strategy in game is key to a successful esports team.

Communication

Linked to the above is the importance of communication.   Esports competitions can be rather frenetic with a need for team members to share situational and strategic information efficiently at speed.   A team which effectively communicates both prior to and during matches is much more likely to succeed.

Teamwork

As a team sport the importance of team work is key in esports.   An effective team is likely to be more successful than the sum of its individual players.    Each player needs to be able to work with the others in the team, appreciating their needs and their situation within the game before working towards the success of the team as a whole.

Competition and Sportsmanship

Again, as in traditional sports, esports competitions allow students to develop the skills needed to manage challenges and difficulties as presented by a competitive environment.    They can help students develop resilience plus the all important sportsmanship skills in dealing graciously with both victory but also defeat.

For me esports is an important addition to schools or colleges activity programme and even to their academic provision through the likes of the recently launched esports BTec qualifications.  

One closing note though, I do continue to see esports competitions and involvement being dominated by male students;   It would be nice if we could encourage more girls to get involved.

2020, the year with the pandemic

It’s been a year that I don’t think anyone will be forgetting in a hurry.   In my 26 years working in education, including my 4 years training, I have never experienced anything like it.  As such am hoping my review of 2020 might be something I find myself looking back on at some point in the future.   2020, the year with the pandemic.

The year started of normally with January including the usual BETT event that I briefly attended, plus an EdTech conversations event which I had the privilege to speak at.   I must admit I enjoyed the EdTech conversations event in particular, with my visit to BETT a little bit rushed plus, to be honest, I now find BETT to be similar year to year and lacking in any new ideas.   Obviously, my journey to London had its usual missteps and calamities as seem to regularly befall me when I travel by train.  This almost goes without saying.

In March I found myself in Birmingham speaking at the Digifest event.  This was an excellent event with the signs of the pandemic just starting to show in hand sanitising stations and the lack of the usual handshake welcomes at the conference.   Will admit my presentation was far from my best however overall, I found the event to be both useful and interesting.This is definitely an event I would like to revisit.

As we approached the half term, in school, we had to accelerate our training and support for staff in relation to using Microsoft Teams as it became likely that schools would be forced to close.   Teams had been identified as the key tool in continuing to support learning during lockdown, allowing resources to be shared but also supporting synchronous lessons.    Thankfully we had already started using Teams mainly in an administrative capacity for teaching and support departments, so we already had some training resources plus understanding as to how to use Teams.    For me personally, it made me glad that I had been pushing for moving to the cloud and to Office 365, as it put us in a position to quickly move to online teaching when the lockdown kicked in.   It does make me believe, in education, we need to be braver about our decision making and pursuing what we believe to be the right direction.   Too often decisions are overthought and overanalysed to the point that no action, and therefore no progress is made.   Yes, education is important, yes we want to avoid making the wrong decisions, but if 2020 has proven anything it has proven we cannot predict the future, so we therefore need to braver and avoid being paralysed or slow to progress, and focussing too much on predicting and planning in minute detail in an unpredictable world.   Only then can we provide students with the skills, the knowledge and the character traits needed for the future.

And in late March the lockdown did just that, kicking in, and forcing a move to online teaching and to remote working.   It was strange finding myself at home day in day out, working from my PC with the only social contact outside of the family being via Teams video calls.   This period highlighted that working from home was possible and even beneficial in some situations, however also highlighted that equally face to face interactions are beneficial and even required in other situations.   From a teaching point of view, I still believe face to face is the best way to deliver teaching and learning, however that this can be augmented and supported through the use of technology, online teaching and online learning.  Its about finding a balance.

The period from March to August was hard, as we ran with a reduced IT Services department, supporting teachers delivering online teaching largely from their own homes.    It was made harder by the lack of the social interaction which would normally occur in our office, where members of the team would support and encourage each other, and occasionally have a laugh.    Remote working didn’t quite provide for this and it made everything feel that much more difficult and draining.   Additionally, working at home without driving too and from work led to the distinction between being at home or at work, being eroded.   This led to work bleeding into home time, and also a difficulty for me in turning off in the evenings and on taking time for myself and for family. Will be honest and say I previously have always struggled with turning it off, however the pandemic and working from home only amplified this issue.

August was meant to see our long-awaited family trip to the US, something we had wanted to do for a large number of years and something we had finally booked to prevent us once again missing out.   Sadly, despite booking and making the plan concrete, Covid19 had other ideas and the trip never happened.   This was a big disappointment.

September saw the launch of the new academic year and getting students back on site but where there would be occasions where some students would be attending lessons online.   This was the birth of the “hybrid” lesson.     For me this was also a return to more regular teaching as I took on a couple of year 9 classes in addition to my lower 6 sessions.   September as the start of new academic year is often a very busy period but this year it was significantly busier and more challenging.  

During September I would receive an unexpected offer in relation to a new job role.   It would be weeks and weeks of exploring the options, of stress, of will we or wont we as the opportunity would have once again taken me and my family abroad.   The idea of a return to expat life was definitely appealing however the context of a global pandemic was far from ideal.   This was one of the most difficult decisions I feel I have had to make in recent years however having considered my family I eventually decided the option in hand was a great option however sadly presented itself at the wrong time.  It is interesting, when looking back to my pledges at the start of 2020, I mentioned seeking a new challenge and this would certainly have been it;  Sadly this therefore was the right opportunity but clearly at the wrong time.

September also saw me undertake a challenge to complete 100km of running within the month as part of an online group.   Must admit am really happy with myself for managing to complete this challenge as it meant running 5 or 6 days within each week.   This was way more in terms of health and fitness than I had achieved before so I am very proud to have been able to stick at and complete the target.  Sadly, I then let things slip in October and November however I again started to run in December and hope to build up once again into 2021. 

October saw me come down with a cough and temperature which instantly got me worried re: covid19.  Thankfully the NHS testing service was excellent and I quickly got a test and my results back, indicating a negative;   It was a common cold rather than the corona virus.   It still took it out of me and led to a couple of days off ill.   I suspect the stress of the job offer and the cold/wet mornings running throughout September all played their part in me coming down with a cold and my resultant lack of energy.

As we progressed into November and December I was involved in an esports project to try and launch an interschools competition among independent schools like ours.   Its all in its infancy at this point, with a small number of schools planning to partake in the initial pilot however am hoping that after a successful pilot in the spring term it may be possible to grow this project.   Esports is something I am passionate about as there are many opportunities out there for our students, plus this area is only going to grow in the coming years.

November also saw the introduction of a puppy to the family. This was another things which had been discussed for many years but for which I was reluctant. With everything that has happened I relented and Ziva joined the family initially a shy puppy before becoming the devil dog she now is.If it can be ripped to shreds, scratched, eaten, chewed, etc, then it has been, and all while maintain a cute, butter would melt in my mouth outward appearance. Am not sure if we are training the dog or she is training us.

Christmas has now came and went and as I am my son have often reflected, it didn’t feel very Christmasy this year.   I suspect this is due to the year as a whole lacking some of the normal markers of a year such as a holiday away or the clear distinction between working and being on holiday;   Its not very different when your working day involves being at home all day, in the same way as your holidays, with little options available for activities due to lockdown.

2020 for me was meant to be about balance or at least that what I decided when I wrote my pledges back in January.    Looking back 2020 has been anything but balanced.   Its been crazy, its been frantic and ever changing.  Its been some year, a year which looking back seems to have disappeared in a blur, its been the year with a pandemic in it.    I suspect things will be different as we move into 2021, with some changes for the better however others less so.    This is a year I don’t think I will be forgetting anytime soon.

2020, the one with the pandemic!

Roundtable event

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being involved in a little virtual roundtable event titled “The Future of Education is here, Take learning and teaching to the next level” sponsored by Logitech.

The event focused on education, the changes brought about by Covid19 and the future of using digital tools within education.   I found the discussion quite interesting particularly given I was representing an independent school while others involved represented universities, business schools and also Logitech, thereby providing a reasonable diverse range of participants.

My main takeaways from the event were:

Culture

Culture was mentioned on a number of occasions including by myself.    The culture in educational institutions, particularly in relation to technology, changed over the lockdown period and into the new academic year.   There was more sharing and collaboration both within schools, colleges, etc but also between them as we all sought to find solutions to the myriad of challenges presented to us through lockdown and then in a hybrid teaching environment.   There was more positivity and agility, with greater willingness to try new things where maybe previously some minor issues would have been identified as justification for not trying something new.

It is important as things progress, and maybe as things move towards a greater degree of normality, whatever that may be, that we try to retain this culture of positivity, of agility, of trying new things, being brave and of sharing what works and what doesn’t.

Web cam culture

This is related to the wider organisational culture issue above and was something I hadn’t given much thought to however something we very much need to consider.   What is the culture in the digital space?   Do our students turn their cameras on or leave them off?    Do staff meet face to face or, even now where things are largely back on-site, are meetings more or less carried out from offices, with interactions online only, even where offices may only be a short distance apart?    What are the implications of this growth in web conferencing and the corresponding reduction in face to face meetings, or even in the occasional corridor interaction enroute to meetings?    There are lots of human issues which have or may arise as the result of covid19 and the sudden growth in work or learn from home.  

Digital Divides

Discussion regarding digital divides initially focussed on device access with universities in particular referencing the difficulties with students accessing from different devices ranging from laptops or tablets to students simply using their phones.   Those students with limited or no access to a device which could be used for accessing learning content were also discussed.   From here though, the discussion broadened to other divides such as access to Wi-Fi or available bandwidth, other users wishing to use devices, confidence and skill in using digital platforms, teacher pedagogy in relation to digital tool use, etc.    It was clear that digital divides are a significant problem, one with many different interrelated layers.

Privacy and Security

Unintended consequences were mentioned early on in discussions.  Covid19 had educators rushing to find the best solutions to continue the learning of their students outside the classroom with IT teams rushing to support educators as best they could.   As such it is likely some decisions reached in the interests of continuing learning may not have given sufficient consideration to security and/or privacy.  We now need to start unpicking these decisions and the potential implications.   We need to consider the platforms we are using, how they are be used, how they are configured and how this all relates to privacy and security of student and staff data.

Conclusion

One thing was clear in the discussion, that it isn’t just a case of returning back to the way schools, colleges and universities were in Jan 2020.   Equally its not a case of all change.   The reality is that the way things were had its advantages and disadvantages the same as the new normal which was adopted during lockdown.   It isn’t a case of either or.   It is a case of finding a “new balance”; a phrase one of the attendees at the roundtable event used which I think sums up the situation. Each organisation needs to revisit its aims and establish the new balance which it feels is most appropriate for its own students, staff and community.

Two weeks of remote working

Its now been 2 weeks of working from home so I thought I would share how I am getting on.

For some time I have discussed with my IT team about making us of opportunity to work from home more often however few have taken me up on this, and personally I haven’t taken up my own offer very often either.    I found myself wondering why would team members come in to work, travel to and from work, when they could actually sit in the comfort of their own homes and work from there?

The last two weeks have given me some answers to the above question with two factors in particularly sticking out.

  1. Work has an ebb and flow about it, be that the specific meetings, the movement of students between lessons or the school bells. There are also the longer term ebbs and flows and sports events on Wednesdays, weekly assembly and head of department meetings on Mondays.   There is an inherent structure in these ebbs and flows.   Now I am working at home I am finding it difficult to keep track of where I am within each day and also to keep track of where I am in the week.   The last two weeks have disappeared plus I have often found myself wondering, “what day is it?”.    I suppose the answer to this challenge is to build a new structure at home, however I don’t think this is as easy as it sounds given the previous structure for me personally was built up over 20 years working in schools and colleges.
  2. Humans are social animals. We want to be around other people and to interact whether this is formally in meetings or informally discussing the football results in the morning or as you pass someone’s desk.   Now video conferencing helps in allowing us to communicate but it simply isn’t the same as real life face to face contact.  It also needs to be scheduled whereas our normal day to day interactions include many incidental conversations as you walk to the staff room or to a meeting.    These meetings and discussions were never planned but their existence added to the rich colour and uniqueness of each working day.   Working from home doesn’t quite have this same social dynamism.   I am not sure how we might address this issue, and I think randomly video calling staff across school might be a little strange or even creepy.

Now it may be that as more time passes and I become more used to working from home that I miss the issues above less and less.   Or maybe I will find solutions to allow me to address these challenges while still working remotely.

Would be interested in how everyone else is finding this work from home experience?

 

Human behaviour: some thoughts

I haven’t shared a journal style blog in a while and what with the way things are I thought now might be a good time to get some thoughts down on paper (or screen!).   Its day two for me of working from home [or at least it was when I wrote this], having been in work all last week but then developing a cough and temperature over the weekend leading to me taking the decision to stay at home.    This decision was far from simple, or at least felt much less simple than it should have been.    My thinking was that I had a little bit of a cough but it most likely was from my run in the cold earlier in the week.    I was looking to justify to myself how it would still be acceptable for me to go into work.   I didn’t like the thought of leaving my team to it, to them working in the office at my request on Monday but without me being there.   This felt like a betrayal of my team and therefore I needed to find a reason or justification which would make attending work acceptable.  My initial thinking paid little consideration to the potential impact I might have had going into work or to the signal I would be providing the team, showing them that it was ok to behave heroically and attend work in spite of illness, personal wellbeing and the potential risk to others.

The issue of risk to others is one that particularly interests me and possible the issue which helped me eventually make the correct decision to remain at home.    In thinking about this risk, the concept of near-misses and remote-misses in relation to the World War II bombing came to mind.    Heading into World War II psychologists were worried about the significant impact on mental health which widespread bombing of London would have.   There were fears that society would collapse.   The reality was far from this, as people came together and developed a community spirit and resilience, almost the opposite behaviour as to what was expected.   As psychologists sought to understand what happened they came upon the concept of near and remote misses.    A near miss meant a person physically felt a bomb go off and saw the aftermath in the dead, including friends and relatives.   These people suffered psychologically and often physically from bombings.   Remote misses referred to those people who heard the bombs fall and saw the damage to building but who did not experience any direct loss or see injuries and deaths first-hand.   The vast majority of Londoners fell into the Remote Miss category.   For these people, they were spared and may have seen themselves as lucky, and with each subsequent bombing they survived they felt more and more lucky, and even invincible, each subsequent bombing reinforced their belief that bombs didn’t impact on them.   It is through these people that the community spirit and resilience built despite all the death and destruction across London during the bombing.   Taking this idea and applying it to the Corona virus we have near misses in those who either contracted the virus or have loved ones who have contracted it, and even died from it, but we also have the remote misses in those who haven’t contracted the virus, or had mild symptoms or even who are infected but asymptomatic but who were aware through the news, social media, etc.   The remote misses, like in London, significantly outnumber the near misses and through this and the sense of invulnerability or “it won’t happen to me” which may have developed, may have been behaving counter to the guidance being offered by the government.   As such “social distancing” wasn’t being adhered to as it wasn’t important, or at least wasn’t perceived to be important.   To be clear, the concept of remote misses helps to explain behaviour but it doesn’t excuse it.  For me, in understanding behaviour and my own thinking, I was better able to question it and arrive at what I consider the “right” decision.

The other factor which eventually led me to the decision to stay away from school was the potential that my own behaviour might model for others my expectations.    If I would consider going into work more important than my own health and the potential risk to colleagues, then this communicates to others what I consider important and therefore what I expect of them.   Even if I verbalise the importance of everyone looking after their own health first, if I had gone to work this would have provided an indicator counter to what I had spoken.    I realised I needed to be conscious of the non-verbal cue my attendance, complete with a cough, would send.

Social media posts have been quick to condemn those who didn’t adhere to social distancing guidance however I am not sure such condemnation serves much purpose.   Now to be clear I am not condoning those flaunting government advice however I do think it is important to at least to try to gain some understanding as to how certain behaviours occurred.    Online for those occupying the moral high ground, their decision-making processes look simple and flawless.   These people knew what was right and acted accordingly.   Or at least that’s what social media would have us believe.    The reality I suspect is not so simple or at least for me it isn’t, as the decision to not go into work with what I considered a minor cough, a decision with a hopefully obvious “right” behaviour, caused me to stop and think and to wrestle with my own thoughts.

As it was, I stayed home, doing what was the right thing.   Hopefully the next time a similar dilemma arises I will also do the right thing, however for now I am more conscious of how easy it is for us as human beings to consider, to rationalise and justify, but despite this still manage to arrive at the wrong answer.

 

You can read a little about direct hits, near misses and remote misses here.

7 years of blogging!

It was 7 years ago to the day that I started writing this blog.  It is amazing how time has flown.   2013 now seems like a distant memory and an age away.     In terms of distance my location in 2013 is around 7000 km away.   I remember being sat in our villa in Al Ain in the UAE, sat on the bed in the bedroom watching TV but with my laptop to hand when I suddenly decided to start a blog and to share thoughts and ideas with the world.   I think part of the driving force behind my decision to start a blog was wanting to share some of the content I had used, or was intending to use, in presentations.   I also wanted to try and give back to the education community having previously been happy to make use of others’ blogs, and of social media, to get ideas and resources from.

2013
Late 2019

Since then I have shared a variety of content and have found myself revisiting why I was sharing.   This marks my 273rd post.   My focus continues to be to share ideas with the hope that someone will find it useful or maybe even insightful, but also to share things for myself to help me better reflect on my thinking processes and outlook when looking back from some point in the future.   I suspect it is in providing insight to my future self where my blog has been most successful.

2013
Late 2019

I look a bit older (and am a little heavier and greyer in hair) now however I continue to enjoy discussing and sharing ideas in relation to education and EdTech in particular.   I therefore look forward to continuing to find time and to share ideas and I hope that for some at least it proves to have some value.

 

 

 

Reflections on hosting a TweetMeet

On the 21st Jan I did my first Microsoft TweetMeet as one of the hosts.  I have been involved in previous TweetMeets as a participant and have also hosted a couple of non-Microsoft TweetMeet, however as I posted previously (read here) a Microsoft TweetMeet is slightly different.

The first thing I will say is that I couldn’t believe how quickly the hour disappeared.   One minute I was sat waiting for everything to begin and the next minute the final summary tweet highlighting the topic and date of the next tweet was being sent out.

During the hour the discussion was thick and fast with several people to reply to or retweet all with a video chat running in the background as a back channel for hosts.  This back channel ensured that we were all kept to the correct timings for each question even although we had been encouraged to make use of buffer to schedule the main questions so we could focus on our replies and retweets.

I picked up a number of good points from participants to the event plus enjoyed the online interaction which was fast paced and to the point.   It was also interesting seeing differing viewpoints being put forward from different school contexts and different countries.    In addition, the preparation ahead of the TweetMeet itself was carefully managed through a OneNote of support materials and timelines plus occasional messages from the organizing members sent via Microsoft Teams.  This all made for an interesting process including reintroducing me the functionality of both Wakelet and Flipgrid.

Overall it was an excellent experience in preparing, with the other hosts, for the event followed by the TweetMeet itself.  It was a fun experience, albeit the time disappeared quickly.   It is certainly something I would be interested in being involved with in the future.   I would also heartily recommend it to anyone who is thinking about getting involved as a host but is unsure.  And to those hosting the Microsoft TweetMeet on the 18th Feb, focusing on AI in education, I wish good luck!

 

 

EdTech Conversations and BETT 2020: Reflections

Another year another BETT and guess what?  Once again, I failed to learn from experience and decided to make my way down via train and once again it went wrong.  This time it was simply my first train being late leading to me missing my connecting train.  This had the same concertina impact as I experienced last year leading to me rushing around.  Maybe next year I will learn?   Third time lucky?

On top of this, as I was visiting the EdTech Conversations event at the London Design and Engineering UTC first, I found that the google location for the venue actually took me the wrong way.  Thankfully some helpful students were on hand to assist and point me in the correct direction plus we had a good chat regarding the architecture course the two lads were studying.   One consolation was that at least I decided to take the DLR to the event rather than choosing to do what Ty Goddard had suggested was a 10min walk from BETT to the UTC;   Clearly according to a few audience members who had accepted Ty’s guidance, the walk was significantly more than 10mins.

Now my reason for being at the EdTech Conversations event was to present on School Tech Strategy.   On reflection I think my session was a little bit of a rambling so I must admit to being disappointed with myself.   In addition, I had technical issues with my wireless pointer, something which I should have checked before setting out.    That said, I hope those in attendance understood what I believe to have been my main point in the need for all schools, educators, support staff, etc to work together more, share their experiences, ideas and thoughts and take a more collective approach to education in general.   We all have different views, ideas, experiences, contexts, etc and together we are infinitely stronger than trying to go it alone and often re-invent the wheel.

In terms of the other speakers, who presented in a more professional and polished manner than myself, I found Emma Darcy and her discussion with Ty very interesting discussing. I particularly liked her mention of preparing students for “jobs of the future” which fits with my views in the needs to do more in relation to digital citizenship.

I think my highlight from the event would be Laura Knight who despite expressing she didn’t quite agree with my “journey” idiom, went on to say so many things I agreed with.    I loved her focus on the human aspect of strategy in presenting her EdTech leader superpowers and the need to be ambitious, fearless, to find simplicity and to be relentless.    I think the human aspect of EdTech and of strategy in general is often overlooked but given it is people who generally enact strategy we should in fact have people at the forefront of thinking.

Also, another highlight was Mark Steed.  Now I have heard mark speak on a number of occasions, but his 6 lessons were particularly interesting.   Like Laura Knight he mentioned the need to focus on people, adding to this regarding a focus on training.   He also highlighted that although his strategy appears to have been very successful it wasn’t without errors.  I think this is an important message in that in reviewing others strategies and approaches it almost always looks like a straight line; they were here then did X and Y and got to there.   The reality thought is that there would likely have been lots of wrong turns, mistakes, problems so its more like they did A, B, C, D, E and A and B didn’t work, C had to be adjusted and became F, and eventually they got to X and Y and success.   I think this is what I was trying to get across with my journey idiom however I don’t think I was successful in this.

Overall the EdTech Conversations event was fun and useful, and I look forward to more discussion-based events like this in the future.

As to BETT, after all my rushing around I only ended up with a couple of hours in BETT so can only offer a rather superficial view.   Sadly, this view is that the event generally seemed very much the same as it has in every year I have attended since returning to the UK.   If you had a specific stand or vendor to see, then it would be useful but if you are seeking to browse or to find innovative ideas then I think you would have been disappointed.   This at least was my initial view on reflecting having returned home.     A few days have passed this then I have reflected a bit more and I can see how BETT can be seen as very worthwhile now.   It isn’t in the EdTech conference which the event is, or in the stands of technology vendors.    The strength in BETT lies in the fact the event draws educators and EdTech leaders from across the country and across the world together for 4 days and in the networking this brings.    On hindsight, even in my brief visit, I ended up at one stand where I had conversations with a number of EdTech leaders and as a result came away with plans to connect further and explore ideas and also issues and problems.   But from this comes a question: Can we stimulate the same networking opportunities without the massive cost to vendors to be present at an event like BETT?  A cost they ultimately pass on to their customers; schools.

 

Hosting a TweetMeet

I am currently looking forward to being one of a number of hosts for a Microsoft TweetMeet due to happen on 21st January focusing on the topic: “Devices for Student Success”.   The event promises to see educators from all over the world sharing thoughts and ideas in relation to educational technology and in particular how to bring about success through using iPads, laptops, MS Surfaces, Chromebook, mobile phones or other mobile devices.

I have been involved as a participant in previous Microsoft TweetMeets looking at topics such as Future Skills contributing my thoughts and ideas to the questions posed.  In my experience the discussions are vibrant and fast paced, and I have come away having enjoyed the experience.   As a result of the above I have been eager to get more involved however previous TweetMeets have fallen at times when I have been unable to allocate sufficient time to make hosting worthwhile.   As such it wasn’t until now that I have been able to get more involved and become a host.

I have also previously hosted twitterchats and my initial expectation was that TweetMeets would be very similar and in some ways they are however TweetMeets, in my view, are much more structured and organised.   There are a whole set of resources for use in preparing along with tasks for each of the weeks running up to the TweetMeet itself.  This includes a OneNote notebook with a breakdown of activities for each week leading up to the event, suggested tweets to share along with images and also guidance on using the likes of Wakelet, Flipgrid and Tweetdeck among other apps.   I have found this to be very useful indeed.    It is also interesting, in the run up, getting to know the other hosts and getting their thoughts and experiences in relation to the topic in hand.    Preparing your own Wakelet and Flipgrid video and then sharing these with the other hosts helps to build the team of hosts ahead of the event itself.   I must admit I have always struggled with creating videos of myself however I enjoyed the process of creating my Flipgrid which you can view here.

At this point the event is now less than a week away and I am looking forward to the discussion.  It is also quite apt to have a discussion regarding devices just prior to the BETT conference beginning and at a time where in my own school we are currently exploring the devices options which are now available.

For those considering getting involved in future TweetMeets, I heartily recommend it however I do note that to get the best out of the experience you will need to be willing to dedicate at least a few hours per week leading up to the event.   Like a lot of things, you get out what you put in.

I look forward to the Tweetmeet on the 21st Jan at 6pm GMT, and hope you are able to join us.

 

 

Pledges for 2020

It’s that time again to make some pledges for the year ahead.    I think it is important to document this to give the older me, in a years’ time, something to look back on.   I have long accepted that memory is far from accurate and therefore there is a need to keep a record.

So, what do I want to achieve in 2020?

As it happens, I already have a few plans in place for the year ahead, so this seems like a good place to start.

2020 sees me planning for a memorable family holiday significantly out with the standard break away we have had over the last two years.   My hope is this trip will be filled with memories but also will provide us something to look forward to for a fair part of the year, plus will open up our horizons to considering where we can visit in future.   As a family we are creatures of habit, visiting the same places rather than exploring new locations; This is something I would like to see change this year.

Another plan for the year involves me presenting at DigiFest in March.   This is something I want to try and do more of, whether this is presenting at events or contributing to online events, etc.   I want to collaborate and contribute to the #EdTech , #DigitalCitizenship and #Cyber sectors more actively in the year ahead.    Additionally, I want to try and establish at least one group of interested individuals to engage in discussion around one or more of the above topic areas.

Exercise is something last year I improved significantly upon, getting to the end of CouchTo5K.   I would like to repeat this feat in 2020 and consider how I might build on this, although to be honest I will be perfectly happy if I can at least match my accomplishments from 2019.

I would also like to repeat my reading target in the year ahead, aiming to read at least 12 books during the year.   This is something I have achieved in each of the last few years however this year I would like to see how I can make use of my reading to inform and support my professional development more.    As such I want to spend time this year drawing together the strands and ideas from the various books I have read.

My main target for 2020 is going to be one of reflection.   I need to reflect and think carefully about what I want to achieve.   This is very much related to my questioning of my aim to be “happier”, a target I set myself at the start of 2019.   I now question whether such a target was constructive to me as an individual despite sounding like a well meant and aspirational target.    Is my focus too much on the future and past and not sufficiently looking at the moment and the now?    But linked to this if I spend to much time reflecting on the past I may miss out on opportunities in the present.   I suspect this will be hard for me to consider however seldom is anything worthwhile easy to achieve.

Another target for me is to seek some sort of new challenge.  Am not at this point sure what that new challenge is.    My initial thoughts focus on establishing some sort of discussion forum or group and growing it, such as the #DigitalCitizenship group I mentioned above.  Another thought revolves around either starting to regularly podcast or videocast; I have thought of both in the past but never took it much further than simply considering.   I suspect this is partly due to both being slightly outside my comfort zone, however anything that is likely to be a challenge is likely to be at least slightly outside you comfort zone.   Given this, it may be that establishing a video or pod cast maybe something for me to take on in 2020.

Last year I summed everything up, in terms of what I wanted to achieve, with the word Balance and I think this is something I will stick with.    Balance between personal and work, between reflecting and living in the moment, between relaxation and (positive) stress, etc.  Everything is very much about establishing a balance which you are happy about and which allows you to enjoy life as it happens;  As that famous saving goes, “enjoy life now, this is not a rehearsal”.

And so my pledges for 2020 are set…….game on!