We start with the hallway.
�Download transcript (.srt)
0:00
0:02
0:06
0:08
0:12
0:16
0:19
0:22
0:26
0:31
0:34
0:36
0:37
0:39
0:41
0:42
0:45
0:49
0:51
0:54
0:59
1:03
1:07
1:10
1:13
1:16
1:18
1:21
1:24
1:27
1:30
1:35
1:36
1:38
1:40
1:47
1:48
1:53
2:00
2:05
2:07
2:09
2:11
2:14
2:20
2:27
2:31
2:38
2:44
2:51
2:55
2:59
3:14
3:19
3:28
3:30
3:34
3:38
3:42
3:54
3:59
4:02
4:07
4:10
4:14
4:18
4:22
4:28
4:46
4:48
4:52
4:55
4:58
5:04
5:07
5:12
5:17
5:22
5:25
5:30
5:35
5:41
5:45
5:48
5:54
5:59
6:04
6:08
6:10
6:16
6:22
6:26
6:31
6:35
6:42
6:47
6:50
6:51
6:54
6:58
7:02
7:06
7:13
7:19
7:24
7:28
7:33
7:37
7:41
7:47
7:55
8:00
8:07
8:13
8:20
8:25
8:31
8:38
8:41
8:46
8:48
8:56
9:00
9:05
9:10
9:14
9:20
9:23
9:29
9:36
9:40
9:47
9:55
9:59
10:06
10:11
10:16
10:19
10:23
10:28
10:33
10:39
10:44
10:46
10:50
10:56
11:00
11:04
11:06
11:12
11:20
11:27
11:32
11:38
11:44
11:48
11:53
11:56
11:58
12:03
12:06
12:08
12:13
13:32
13:57
14:00
14:03
14:05
14:06
14:09
14:14
14:19
14:24
14:29
14:32
14:34
14:41
14:45
14:51
14:54
14:57
15:00
15:04
15:05
15:06
15:07
15:09
15:10
15:11
15:12
15:13
15:15
15:20
15:21
15:24
15:27
15:29
15:32
15:34
15:35
15:37
15:39
15:41
15:43
15:45
15:48
15:50
15:51
15:53
15:54
15:57
15:59
16:01
16:07
16:11
16:14
16:15
16:18
16:20
16:26
16:27
16:27
16:28
16:30
16:37
16:41
16:46
16:48
16:52
16:55
16:58
16:59
17:02
17:04
17:07
17:09
17:11
17:14
17:16
17:17
17:18
17:20
17:22
17:24
17:31
17:37
17:42
17:44
17:45
17:47
17:48
17:49
17:53
17:55
17:57
17:59
18:01
18:04
18:07
18:08
18:10
18:14
18:16
18:17
18:20
18:22
18:24
18:27
18:28
18:29
18:37
18:40
18:45
18:47
18:51
18:54
18:57
19:02
19:05
19:07
19:09
19:14
19:18
19:21
19:23
19:26
19:29
19:31
19:35
19:37
19:45
20:04
20:09
20:12
20:16
20:18
20:21
20:23
20:28
20:31
20:36
20:39
20:41
20:43
20:47
20:50
20:51
20:53
20:56
21:01
21:04
21:09
21:12
21:14
21:16
21:20
21:22
21:25
21:30
21:34
21:37
21:42
21:47
21:52
21:57
22:02
22:04
22:08
22:10
22:14
22:16
22:18
22:19
22:22
22:27
22:28
22:29
22:33
22:35
22:37
22:38
22:40
22:44
22:48
22:49
22:53
22:55
22:56
22:59
23:01
23:03
23:07
23:09
23:13
23:18
23:20
23:21
23:24
23:26
23:28
23:29
23:30
23:32
23:34
23:37
23:39
23:44
23:46
23:49
23:51
23:53
23:56
23:59
24:02
24:05
24:07
24:10
24:11
24:13
24:15
24:21
24:24
24:30
24:33
24:37
24:39
24:42
24:45
24:47
24:52
24:53
24:58
24:59
25:01
25:03
25:05
25:08
25:12
25:15
25:17
25:20
25:22
25:24
25:28
25:29
25:32
25:34
25:35
25:38
25:41
25:44
25:45
25:49
25:52
25:57
26:00
26:02
26:03
26:07
26:10
26:12
26:14
26:17
26:18
26:20
26:21
26:24
26:27
26:29
26:34
26:36
26:38
26:40
26:42
26:45
26:48
26:50
26:52
26:54
26:56
26:58
27:00
27:02
27:04
27:07
27:11
27:15
27:16
27:18
27:20
27:23
27:24
27:28
27:29
27:31
27:33
27:34
27:36
27:40
27:42
27:46
27:50
27:55
27:58
28:04
28:07
28:12
28:14
28:18
28:20
28:20
28:21
28:23
28:24
28:26
28:27
28:28
28:30
28:31
28:33
28:35
28:38
28:44
29:25
29:32
29:38
29:48
29:51
30:05
30:17
30:20
30:43
30:46
31:11
31:13
31:15
31:18
31:19
31:21
31:22
31:24
31:26
31:28
31:31
31:34
31:37
31:38
31:40
31:43
31:47
31:52
31:57
32:01
32:05
32:05
32:09
32:12
32:14
32:16
32:19
32:23
32:26
32:27
32:31
32:34
32:35
32:38
32:40
32:42
32:44
32:46
32:47
32:52
32:55
33:02
33:06
33:08
33:10
33:15
33:19
33:20
33:24
33:26
33:28
33:30
33:35
33:37
33:39
33:43
33:46
33:48
33:52
33:55
33:57
33:58
34:00
34:07
34:11
34:14
34:18
34:19
34:26
34:30
34:33
34:36
34:39
34:44
34:46
34:49
34:52
34:53
34:58
35:01
35:05
35:07
35:09
35:14
35:18
35:20
35:22
35:25
35:27
35:29
35:32
35:33
35:38
35:39
35:41
35:43
35:47
35:49
35:51
35:55
35:57
35:58
35:59
36:02
36:04
36:05
36:08
36:11
36:15
36:17
36:19
36:20
36:22
36:23
36:25
36:26
36:29
36:31
36:33
36:35
36:37
36:39
36:50
36:55
37:02
37:09
37:20
37:25
37:31
37:37
37:40
37:43
37:49
37:54
37:59
38:05
38:11
38:19
38:24
38:30
38:35
38:37
38:38
38:42
38:45
38:46
38:48
38:50
38:52
38:54
38:59
39:00
39:01
39:03
39:06
39:07
39:10
39:11
39:13
39:14
39:16
39:19
39:24
39:26
39:29
39:31
39:34
39:35
39:37
39:40
39:43
39:48
39:51
39:54
39:57
39:59
40:01
40:02
40:04
40:06
40:09
40:11
40:15
40:16
40:17
40:18
40:22
40:23
40:25
40:27
40:29
40:31
40:35
40:37
40:38
40:39
40:41
40:43
40:44
40:47
40:49
40:50
40:53
40:54
40:55
40:56
40:58
40:59
41:00
41:03
41:06
41:07
41:09
41:10
41:11
41:13
41:14
41:15
41:17
41:19
41:23
41:24
41:26
41:31
41:34
41:36
41:37
41:38
41:40
41:43
41:44
41:46
41:47
41:51
41:54
41:57
41:59
42:04
42:07
42:09
42:12
42:14
42:15
42:17
42:19
42:20
42:22
42:24
42:27
42:34
42:39
42:46
42:50
42:51
42:55
42:57
43:03
43:06
43:08
43:11
43:14
43:16
43:18
43:20
43:25
43:29
43:31
43:36
43:39
43:42
43:44
43:46
43:47
43:48
43:50
43:51
43:56
43:59
44:02
44:04
44:06
44:07
44:12
44:14
44:16
44:19
44:27
44:31
44:38
44:41
44:47
44:57
45:00
45:05
45:10
45:13
45:15
45:18
45:24
45:30
45:33
45:36
45:37
45:39
45:40
45:42
45:50
45:54
45:57
46:01
46:06
46:09
46:15
46:20
46:26
46:31
46:35
46:41
46:43
46:46
46:47
46:50
46:53
46:54
46:57
46:59
47:01
47:06
47:12
47:18
47:23
47:26
47:30
47:36
47:44
47:49
47:53
47:54
47:56
48:01
48:04
48:05
48:07
48:08
48:09
48:12
48:22
48:28
48:29
48:30
48:35
48:37
48:40
48:48
48:51
48:57
49:04
49:06
49:13
49:26
49:38
49:45
49:52
49:59
50:08
50:16
50:23
50:31
50:34
50:37
50:41
50:48
50:52
50:56
51:05
51:15
51:20
51:27
51:40
51:42
51:48
51:54
52:10
52:18
52:30
52:32
52:40
52:49
53:07
53:16
53:25
53:43
53:52
54:19
54:28
54:37
54:46
55:08
55:10
55:15
55:20
55:22
55:27
55:32
55:34
55:39
55:46
55:50
55:57
56:01
56:07
56:12
56:19
56:25
56:28
56:34
56:39
56:42
56:45
56:46
56:48
56:50
56:52
56:53
56:54
56:58
57:03
57:10
57:14
57:19
57:25
57:29
57:33
57:46
57:50
57:55
58:02
58:06
58:11
58:17
58:21
58:25
58:38
58:42
58:47
58:54
58:58
59:03
59:09
59:13
59:17
59:25
59:29
59:33
59:37
59:41
59:45
Well, we start, presumably we start outside the front door.
I wouldn't imagine.
What are we doing?
So, welcome into our big tech mansion.
Let's explore what's in the rooms.
I can't believe we finally found it.
It was quite a lot of work to dig the map out
and find our way along that long winding road to this place.
It's taken us only, what, 20 years to get here?
Something like that.
Something like that.
Incredibly, we're finally here.
So, what are we going to find?
What are we going to find?
Well, hopefully our audience will help us find stuff
because it's up to them to really decide what route we're taking through our mansion.
We'll play you a song.
During that song, you'll have the opportunity to vote online,
either via Mastodon or via the chat
to let us know whether you want to take the right door or the left door.
And we'll walk through the door and we'll let you know what we'll find behind the door.
It's almost a little bit like Alice in Wonderland.
So, we'll drink something and we'll get bigger
and we'll eat something and we'll get smaller or something like that.
Yeah.
We should introduce ourselves, though, as well, shouldn't we?
Oh, come on, it's all in the programme. Do we have to?
We could. We could do. Yeah, fair enough.
Who are you? I've never met you before.
Never met me before, but you're going to go down the corridors of a dark house with me
and hope for the best.
I'm scared.
So, I am Don Pates.
I am a Senior Educational Technologist at City St George's University of London.
Who are you?
Who am I? I am mostly known as eLearningTechie on Mustardal
and if you want to vote, you must find me on eLearningTechie@must.to.
My passport says Janina, which is a name I really hate,
so let's stick with eLearningTechie.
So you don't use it?
No, I just try to avoid it as much as I can.
I honestly don't know what possessed my parents.
And I'm an Innovations Officer in Digital Education at UCL in London.
So, two London learning techs wandering through the...
The abyss of our last 20 years.
The abyss of our last 20 years of life in higher education and learning technology.
And whatever dusty doors this mansion will open for us.
So, shall we play a song and let our audience vote for the next two-ish minutes
on whether they want to take the left door or the right door?
Well, while we're standing here in the hallway, I think that's a very good move.
Let's do it.
Standing in the hallway, trouble coming my way
He called me on the telephone, guess I'm gonna be alone
Ooh, ooh
Where did our love go? Where did it go?
Love is such a puzzle in this great big world
I'm good to you, but you're bad to me
Gotta try to lose, gotta try, gotta lose this misery
Tried to do it your way, you wouldn't leave me halfway there
Ooh, ooh
You used to say you loved me, now you just sit and stare
Ooh, ooh
Where did our love go? Where did it go?
Love is such a thing in this great big world
I'm good to you, but you're bad to me
Gotta try to lose, gotta try, gotta lose this misery
Ooh, look at that. They chose the dining room.
It's a very good start.
Yeah, it's a very good start. And look, somebody's laid out the table. Fancy.
It looks like they're expecting a party here.
Who knew that the old mansion still threw parties?
I talked about Alice in Wonderland earlier. I mean, I hope it's not a door mouse in the teapot.
Or worse.
But I mean, it's fantastic really to start in the dining room because summer camp, right?
Hang out with all your friends. And I'm really sort of excited that we're part of this, to be honest,
because I love our edtech communities and, you know, from all over the global,
these cool people talking about interesting stuff.
It's mind-blowing, basically, because I really, really thrive on that stuff.
I used to spend, for example, I used to spend like a large chunk of my annual holiday budget
just traveling to Austin for South by Southwest Interactive, and that was still cool.
Nice. Something I've never managed to make it to.
Sounds like it's too late to me.
Well, let's just put it that way. The last time I went, which was 2015, I think,
it became a meme of don't pitch at me because it was overrun with startups
and everybody was just pitching at each other rather than having fun conversations,
which is not how it started. So I haven't really been since.
It's just not worth the cost anymore.
Wasn't that where Twitter kind of first started gaining currency?
A lot of things started there and really broke through.
Lots of little products, Foursquare, for instance, like the first year I went,
Foursquare was a big thing and there were lots of scavenger hunts everywhere across town.
So for those who don't know what South by Southwest is, it's basically a massive festival
that comprises interactive gaming, music, there's a film festival.
There are so many parts to it and it just takes over the entire town of Austin, Texas
for the better part of March, usually.
Nice.
And it's just completely mayhem. But it used to be so great because there were
like thousands and thousands of like-minded people and you could talk to anybody
and have the most fascinating and interesting conversations.
And of course, really cutting-edge stuff as well. So if you're a technologist,
it was a really inspiring and wonderful place to be and the parties were fantastic too.
The other thing that I really enjoy and where this whole community theme really fits in
are the hackathons and game jams and all those kind of things.
Because I used to love participating, I still love participating in those
because I've never won anything, but I've always met so many cool people
and learned so much in the space of a weekend.
You find interesting ideas and that sort of stuff, doesn't it?
And you just learn so much as well in the process because you're so focused on
achieving some kind of prototype by the end of the event that, yeah, time just flies past.
Really exhausting events, but well worth the time, I would say.
And that inspired me so much that for the last 10 years, I've been running an annual hackathon at UCL.
And it's open to anybody. It's open to students, staff, alumni, anyone who wants to come along,
collaborate on a project for a weekend. We usually set some loose themes and have lots of side things going on,
games and sessions, like workshops and bits and pieces.
And it's always really good fun. And next year is our 10-year anniversary, so there'll be cake.
That's incredible. That kind of reminds me about a conversation that we spent some time at
at MozFest several years ago, didn't we?
We did. And how long was that ago? Five years? Six years?
Was it 2018 or '19?
I can't remember. I just remember sitting on the couch at the end of MozFest, knackered.
I'm still talking, I'm just watching everybody else enjoying themselves.
And we decided that evening we were going to do something to collaborate.
And it's only taken us all this time to finally do it.
Several years later and sort of global crises and all that kind of stuff.
But we got something together in the end. It wasn't a sort of MozFest for higher education,
but it's a radio show, why not?
Absolutely. You know, small starts. We've got to start somewhere.
The somewhere that I started in this sort of slightly similar space,
I never got anywhere near as glamorous as Austin, Texas.
But I remember going to a bar camp event that was running in Brighton.
I live in Brighton. And these bar camps were my first...
I think they must have come out of Silicon Valley in the first place as well.
And they were my first introduction to the idea of an unconference,
which for anybody that's not attended an unconference is generally a gathering
where you don't really have an agenda other than what people choose to bring to it.
You kind of make the agenda up on the spot.
People share ideas and skills and that sort of stuff.
And we had one that was in the fourth one in Brighton,
which was what I was still teaching at the time.
And it was run in the old library, which had been taken over with people
making dinosaurs out of junk that sort of looked through the window
and there were big holes in the floor.
And it was probably a health and safety absolute nightmare.
I decided that I had to give something because I was sitting around
listening to all these things that I'd never even thought about before.
And in doing so, in turning up there, I had to contribute something.
So I opened up a conversation.
I'd been toying with... this was 2010, I think.
I'd been toying with whether to release my photos that I had on Flickr
under a Creative Commons license and basically give my intellectual property away.
And at the time, it felt like such a decision to make.
So I just opened a conversation about should I give my photos away for free?
And I came out of it going, yes, I will.
And it was the beginning of a journey into, I suppose,
open practice on the web that just taught me so much.
It was, yeah, fascinating.
I love those kind of events.
Shall we have a look what our audience want to explore next, maybe?
That sounds like a good idea. I think it's probably time for a song then.
I think it's time for a song.
Okay, folks, left door or right door?
You choose.
- Well, thank you listeners.
You have sent us into the library.
It's quite dusty in here.
Has anybody actually moved any of these books
at all for ages?
- I bet there are some really good ones on the shelf.
- So let's pull this one off, the shelf.
So this is a book called "The Manifesto for Teaching Online".
Looks quite an interesting one.
This is a book that was written by people
from the Centre for Research and Digital Education
at the University of Edinburgh.
And without even diving into the book itself,
the manifesto is printed on the cover.
So each provocation is listed.
And then I think they must go into great detail
in the intervening pages.
So let me pull a couple of these out,
these provocations and...
- Yeah, share, share.
What does it say?
- Let's see what you've got to say.
Okay, so I'm gonna go to the bottom.
- My dear.
- Bottom of the page here.
- You're asking for trouble.
- Yeah, yeah.
And let's see where it leads you.
Don't succumb to campus envy.
We are the campus.
- Well, we are the campus.
You know, our campus can be anywhere.
I totally agree with that.
I don't think we need all these fancy campuses.
- No, no, it's a people thing, right?
The people make it.
- Absolutely, I think so too.
I think it's the people, yeah.
- Oh, that was nice and easy.
All right, so here's another one
that should be fairly easy to respond to.
Can we stop talking about digital natives?
- Oh God, please, no.
(both laughing)
The shudder, the shudder.
Oh.
- That one reminds me a little bit.
- I'm not even gonna say anything about that.
I'm just glimmering green in the face there.
- It reminds me a little bit of when I was teaching GCSE IT
and finding that my students who were, you know,
teenagers 15 years ago,
and who would have fitted very much
into that digital natives demography,
they very much needed teaching.
- Yeah, I don't think that's so uncommon.
- Okay. - What's next?
What's next?
What have you got? - What's next?
Shall we go, okay.
Online courses are prone to cultures of surveillance.
Visibility is a pedagogical and ethical issue.
- Do you know, I think the same works physically.
There was just this article just last week
about presenteism and the consequences of that
in the workplace and the stress that that's causing.
I don't think that's necessarily an online issue.
And we can make it an online issue,
but, you know, I think it plays in both directions.
- That's a very good point.
So I'm thinking about this,
just the swipe card that I put in my pocket
when I go into work,
and how many traces of myself I leave
whenever I go into a building.
(laughs)
- Yeah.
Oh, and it's surveillance everywhere.
The WiFi you log onto, you know,
where does that data go, that traffic?
- Okay, so let me throw one or two more in.
A digital assignment can live on.
It can be iterative, public, risky, and multi-voiced.
- Risky, eh?
- Risky, risky.
And then there's CrowdStrike.
Mm.
(laughs)
That's all I'm gonna say about online being persistent.
- That's true.
So I think very risky there.
- No, but I mean, seriously,
online doesn't necessarily live on either.
The amount of file formats that die
and stuff that doesn't work, you know.
- Link rot.
- Link rot and all those things.
So it sounds nice that digital lives longer,
but actually look at all these old books
we're finding in this library
and they've been here for a long time.
- Yeah, it's been here an awfully long time.
It's gathering dust.
And do you want one last one?
One last page.
- Yeah, go on.
- Okay, so openness is neither neutral nor natural.
It creates and depends on closures.
- That reminds me,
and I can never get the quote right completely,
but it reminds me of the Tom Stoppard quote
from one of his plays about an exit
being simultaneously an entrance to something else.
And that's always stuck with me
because I think it's so clever and it's so true
that every exit is an entrance
and an entrance is simultaneously an exit.
- It's something that's so simple in a way,
but also quite profound as well.
For something to be open,
something else has to be closed.
- But I mean, it's doors, right?
So shall we find another door?
- That sounds like a good idea.
All right, that means we're calling on all these systems.
- Take us in a different direction, don't we?
- So audience, left or right?
♪ Don't tell me you don't know what love is ♪
♪ When you're old enough to know that time ♪
♪ When you find strange hands and feel sweat ♪
♪ And talk like a dreamboat ♪
♪ Turns out to be a footnote ♪
♪ I'm a man with a mission ♪
♪ Two or three additions ♪
♪ And I'm giving you a long look ♪
♪ Every day, every day, every day ♪
♪ Every day I write the book ♪
♪ Chapter one ♪
♪ You didn't really get along ♪
♪ Chapter two ♪
♪ I think I fell in love with you ♪
♪ You said you'd stand by me in the middle of ♪
♪ Chapter three ♪
♪ But you went up to your own tricks ♪
♪ And kept us far by the sea ♪
♪ And I'm giving you a long look ♪
♪ Every day, every day, every day ♪
♪ Every day I write the book ♪
♪ The way you are ♪
♪ The way you talk and drive ♪
♪ It hits me in the lap ♪
♪ You follow my paragraphs ♪
♪ All your noncommittals and your ♪
♪ God dang remarks are ♪
♪ Captioning here in the quotation marks ♪
♪ I'm giving you a long look ♪
♪ Every day, every day, every day ♪
♪ Every day I write the book ♪
♪ Every day I write the book ♪
♪ Don't tell me you don't know the difference ♪
♪ Between a lover and a fighter ♪
♪ With my feminine and my electric typewriter ♪
♪ Even in a perfect world ♪
♪ Where everyone was equal ♪
(static)
- We're going to the kitchen next.
What's cooking in the kitchen?
Something smells nice, can you smell that?
- No, that's not that.
- Smells like cake, someone's making cake.
- Cake, yum-yum.
- You know, I don't know about you,
I don't know about you,
but I really love experimenting and cooking and baking.
And it's never according to recipes.
It's kind of just a little bit of this
and a little bit of that,
and a little bit of eye measure.
And it usually works out, which is quite miraculous.
I mean, I'm the first one to be surprised half the time
that the stuff is edible.
- So what have you concocted?
- Oh, I concoct things all the time.
I don't give them names.
I mean, it's vaguely based on other things usually,
but I do that in my job too.
You know, I'm a very experimental person
and I usually throw things together
and play with tools and play with formats
and push boundaries as much as they'll let me.
And I'm very fortunate that I have some colleagues
who are equally kind of up for fun
and who've got some really great ideas.
And they know to come to me because I'm the one,
the crazy one who says, "Yeah, let's do that.
Let's try that."
- Let's push that boat out.
Let's try it.
- Let's try that.
And so I kind of live my life
by the sort of Bob Ross approach to life, you know,
be courageous and just have a go at it
and make the most and celebrate those happy accidents.
An example of this is like,
there was this time,
and this links nicely with summer camp actually,
funnily enough.
Yeah, there was this time where a colleague of mine
and me, we tried to persuade our IT department
that, or our institution generally,
that Domain of One's Own would be a really great idea
and a really good place for our students to explore
and gain technical skills.
- That's almost seamless.
It's as if you're on the radio.
That segue.
- See, almost as if I'd planned it.
And so there was an opportunity to present this stuff,
but we only had a set amount of time and small tables.
It was an event of, you know, conference event type thing.
And so it wasn't like a big presentation
to explain the concept of Domain of One's Own
to as many people as possible in one room,
sort of like a World Cafe type thing, setting.
So a PowerPoint presentation
would have been completely impractical.
And also totally not my style.
So I spent a couple of weeks,
or more than a couple of weeks,
learning how to make pop-up books.
You know, the kind of books that you open up
and then things jump out at you and stand up
and you can move things and shift things.
- I got a, there was an Alice in Wonderland pop-up book
found its way into my household as well.
Just to keep on the Alice theme.
I don't have no idea why.
Tell me about the pop-up book.
- No, I mean, there is nothing more to say
other than I felt that that was a really good way
of sitting around the table
and me telling story time about Domain of One's Own
and just going through the various different sort of,
I can't remember, but so many years ago,
I can't remember what exactly was in the pop-up book,
but people really loved it, you know.
But I took that initiative to learn pop-up books
for a presentation.
But I didn't stop there, pop-up books, you know.
And so, so 2016.
A few years later, a colleague who teaches Python
to master students approached me,
and we were having coffee and we were talking,
and he goes, "You know what?
"I'd really like to do an escape room for these students."
And I went, "That sounds like a good idea, let's do it."
And then on second thought, it was like,
well, it's probably not so ethical
and not allowed to lock students in a room.
(laughing)
- It's tempting sometimes.
- Yeah, it is so tempting.
But so what did we do instead?
My colleague sorted out some puzzles
for them to solve in Python,
and I spent about six weeks with cardboard
all over my floor making puzzle boxes
and lock boxes out of cardboard
with sort of lots of different compartments
and as a prototype.
I mean, obviously, this was just the first prototype,
but it just went down like a storm.
It was the first iteration was so hard,
nobody could solve it.
(laughing)
And we iterated on it a few times.
And then unfortunately, the pandemic interrupted us.
So we couldn't, we ran it only once in the end
because, you know, pandemic.
So that was a shame.
We tried to do sort of a version that ran online,
but combining the coding with what we had
in terms of tools for, you know, it was challenging.
We haven't given up completely yet.
We're still kind of thinking it through,
but the setup was quite complicated.
But this is the sort of fun stuff that I experiment with.
You know, I'm really getting grossed
and look at each kind of problem in a,
like, where can I push it?
Where can I do it?
Sometimes also without technology.
Sometimes for me, learning technology
doesn't have to be about digital.
It can be a blend of things or do something.
- Well, I was just thinking as you're saying that,
I mean, that's kind of one of the perhaps unusual things
about this line of work is you do get to do things
that are kind of quite unexpected, quite unusual
and sort of somewhat outside of the,
outside of the sort of standard way of doing things.
- Yeah, definitely.
I think an open mind and creativity helps.
- Should we invite our listeners
to make some creative choices themselves?
- Yeah, let's do that.
Go on.
Well, creative choices, you know,
you've got left and right really.
(laughing)
Get creative with that.
- How creative can you get?
Yeah.
Try and find a different way to vote.
Maybe that's one way.
- Oh, please don't encourage them.
This is difficult enough.
(laughing)
You have about two minutes-ish with the next song.
(upbeat music continues)
(upbeat music continues)
(upbeat music continues)
(upbeat music continues)
(upbeat music continues)
(upbeat music continues)
(upbeat music continues)
(upbeat music continues)
(upbeat music continues)
(upbeat music continues)
(sad trombone)
- Well, it's a bit noisy in here.
We found our way into the garage.
- With some oil and paint and stuff.
- Yeah, exactly.
It's a...
What are they making in here?
Goodness me.
- I don't know, could do with tidying up.
- Yeah, stuff all over the floor.
And it's noisy, a bit stinky,
but I bet they make some interesting stuff in here though.
I bet there's something or other that comes out of here.
- Well, you'd hope so.
I mean, it is a garage after all, you know.
- Huh, sort of reminds me a little.
So my first week at Citi,
I had one of our engineers came up to me
and told me about this lovely new projector
that she'd had installed in one of her engineering labs.
And the fact that there wasn't any computer connected to it.
- Oh no.
- Oh yeah, we've got a really lovely screen,
nice projector, but there's nothing to project on it.
And she said to me,
do you think you could help me find a way
to connect my iPad to it wirelessly?
And it's just about, God, 10 years ago now.
So the things weren't quite as well developed
as they are now.
And this was basically the first challenge
that I was given in this line of work.
- Oh no.
(laughs)
- You know, luckily she was quite understanding
'cause I didn't have anything immediately in place
or in my back pocket that I could say,
yeah, yeah, sure, we'll just put this cable in here
and off you go.
So that kind of set me off on a journey
of trying to find a way to
facilitate sharing mobile devices
to a common screen, wireless screen,
which back when we started looking into this,
was quite difficult to do.
So I ended up getting to know some of our AV technicians,
our network manager, really sort of digging into the weeds
of this kind of stuff.
Speaking to different people in the sector,
making things, trying to get them
to make things differently
so we could just get this done.
We tried out lots of, you know,
I sort of built these coalitions of people
that were interested in wireless screen sharing
and we tried out lots of different tools
that people were sort of, you know,
wanted us to try out for them.
And in the end, I got somewhere with,
it took me about two years to find a,
I didn't know whether it was gonna be software
or whether it was gonna be hardware,
but in the end we found a box
that would do what we were looking for it to do.
And we got it installed.
It was kind of, it was like plugged into the,
it was kind of Velcroed onto the project,
it was in the ceiling, I think.
And they had these iPads in these big metal cabinets
and sort of charging points that were locked down there.
And it was brilliant because, you know,
finally carry the computer around,
you know, the iPad would be anywhere she liked.
And as if by magic, whatever was going on on the screen
was actually there on the projection screen as well.
We ended up using it as a portable camera
and, you know, all these sorts of things.
- Very cool.
- So yeah, that was a lot of tinkering.
Lots of different tools.
Any particular tools you found yourself in tinkering with
that have taken you in some directions?
Aside from cardboard.
- Well, aside from cardboard and books and paper and stuff,
I do occasionally indulge in electronic things as well.
No, honestly, it kind of depends a little bit
on the task at hand.
And I mean, I've got a little bit of a reputation
as the person that people come to
when they need a tool for something
because I've got an incredibly well-organized
list of bookmarks.
No, not just a list, lists of lists, folders and folders.
And it's all neatly organized, you know,
I've got like a tools folder
and then there is underneath that subfolder
for audio tools, video tools, these tools, those tools.
I mean, ask me anything.
- How sterilely sensible.
- Well, you know, but this is why I'm so,
I'm quite quick at finding solutions.
And sometimes, you know,
you think outside the box, really.
I mean, in your case, a projector box.
- Yeah, exactly.
A little bit of Velcro.
- A little bit of Velcro.
- Well, should we use that as a stepping off point
to get our listeners to send us into another room?
- Yeah, and send us your tool suggestions.
You know, what are your favorite tools?
We'd love to learn some more tools.
I mean, I can bookmark some more tools.
- Yeah, yeah.
- If I can get some for you, that would be quite nice.
- Yeah, and I think, you know, after messing around
in this garage, I need to wash my hands anyway.
I think we need to get out of here.
- Yeah, that's a wise move.
Yeah, let's get some of this,
some of this oil off these fingers.
(laughing)
(dramatic music)
♪ Last night your shadow fell upon my lonely room ♪
♪ I touched your golden hair and tasted your perfume ♪
♪ Your eyes were filled with love the way they used to be ♪
♪ Your gentle hand reached out to comfort me ♪
♪ And then came the dark and you were gone ♪
♪ You were gone, gone, gone ♪
♪ I had too much to drink last night ♪
♪ Too much to drink ♪
♪ I'm not ready to face the light ♪
♪ I had too much to drink last night ♪
♪ Last night ♪
♪ The room was empty as I staggered from my bed ♪
♪ I could not bear the image racing through my head ♪
♪ You were so real that I could feel your evenness ♪
♪ And when you raised your lips for me to kiss ♪
♪ Came the dark and you were gone ♪
♪ You were gone, gone, gone ♪
Ugh, finally.
Let's get this ickiness off.
And you know what?
Ickiness always reminds me of buzzwords.
Educational buzzwords and bullshit.
And it's like, ugh.
You know the sort of stuff where you hear it
and you just immediately want to wash your ears out
with bleach, you know?
You feel like you need a shower.
I've compiled the top 10 of my favorite icky buzzwords.
A top 10?
A top 10.
And I'm going to give them to you.
Like you gave me early on those provocations.
Oh, I see.
Am I going to feel soiled when I hear them?
We're in the bathroom, dear.
You can take a shower afterwards.
Okay, that's good.
I'm in a good place for that.
So my top 10 of icky buzzwords,
a top 10, in 10th place, micro learning.
Micro.
I mean, why not just call it blink and you missed it learning?
I mean, you know, honestly.
You're just so hot out with your microplastics.
I don't know.
You learn or you don't, right?
It's so micro you blinked and missed it, clearly.
I blinked and missed it when that definition came up.
In number nine, gamification.
Everything has to be gamified to sound.
Yeah, slap a leaderboard on it and a goofy animated owl
and you'll be speaking that for a language in no time.
And the next thing you know, it's engagement.
Oh, God.
Do you know what?
Yeah, engagement should have been on this list.
I don't actually have that on my list, you know?
So that would be 9A, engagement.
Engagement and gamification.
It's kind of like horse and carriage, isn't it?
Number eight.
Do you want to know what number eight is?
Go on.
Learnings and trainings.
Okay.
Who even says that?
Well, people do say that.
Unfortunately, people do say that.
And the linguist in me can understand that language,
if all the rest of it, and it's faster to say trainings
than it is to say training sessions.
I mean, come on.
Really?
Is that really necessary?
There are some contractions that just shouldn't be contracted.
Yeah, exactly.
It's a contraction too far.
As is the next one, I think.
Number seven.
Scaffolding.
What is this?
University or building site?
I mean, seriously.
That's going to kick me up.
It's going to kick you up.
Well, ha, ha.
Boom, boom, boom.
So, yeah, that's another one of my favorites.
Number six.
Number six is even better.
Oh, go on.
Do you want to hear it?
I dread to hear it now.
Go on.
What's number six?
Edutainment.
[Laughter]
I mean, I'm always up for making learning fun, but, you know.
Yuck.
[Laughter]
It's almost trying to demean it, though, really, isn't it?
It just makes me queasy.
Teacher is performer.
Yeah.
Not even that.
It's like a cheap clown show, to be honest.
It sounds weird.
Number five.
Oh, God, are we going into the top five?
Are we going into the top five?
Well, these are my personal top five, so your top five may be different.
We can have your top five afterwards.
Student life cycles.
Such a bean-counter term.
Could we make this any more dehumanizing and sad and gray and beige?
It's like seriously.
From application to alumni.
There you go.
The whole sausage factory.
Exactly.
It is like a flipping factory, and I hate it.
Yuck.
Number four.
We mentioned them earlier.
The digital natives.
Ah.
Just because you've been born in a world that computers exist doesn't mean you know how to use them.
Yeah, well, luckily that term is, you know, almost dead, I hope.
It kind of occasionally comes back up, but, yeah, digital natives, be gone.
Educational myth-making.
Number three.
Thought leaders.
Have you ever been a thought leader?
No, my thoughts don't need leaders, they just lead me.
It's one of the big reasons why I don't like looking at LinkedIn.
It's just so icky.
It's like all these thought leaders and gurus and blah.
You know, honestly, I don't need anybody to lead my thoughts.
My thoughts are pretty independent, thank you very much.
They're pretty well-led already.
They lead themselves.
I dread to think what we've got coming close to topping the charts.
Centers of excellence at number two.
It's just another bullshit term, you know.
I would personally, you know, I'd love to consign that one to the bin.
I would love to see more centers of good enough, quite frankly.
Can we have a center of mediocrity?
Not mediocrity, but good enough, you know, good enough.
Come on, let's be more positive.
Centers of good enough.
Yeah.
A center of that'll do.
That'll do.
You know, not pretentious and trying to aspire to things that we'll never achieve anyway.
We're all realistic, right?
And my absolute number one.
Come on.
Hyflex.
That.
It sounds like a sugary, disgusting breakfast cereal to me,
and it just leaves me feeling so icky.
I really need a shower now.
The first time I came across the term hyflex,
I remember Googling it and coming up with a result for an industrial rubber glove.
Yeah, that's the rubber glove it should be touched with and handled with.
Which is maybe the kind of thing that you would use to clean your bathroom.
Yeah, clean that hyflex away.
So, OK, so while we're in the process of cleaning, before we get out of here,
can I also choose to flush learning styles as far down as we can?
Flush those.
And also while we're in the process of flushing, I'm going to put Uber for education,
and education is broken, down the cistern as well.
I think just to throw a couple away.
That sounds fantastic.
Let's just flush them all down the loo.
I just hope they're not going to block anything up in the process.
I think it's time to find ourselves out of here.
Yeah, just a quick shower, and then, you know.
What are we doing next?
Let the audience decide.
Let them decide what we're doing next.
Absolutely.
We'll see you in two or three minutes.
That's right.
Oh, rubber ducky, you're the one.
You make bath time lots of fun.
Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of you.
Vovo vo dee oh, rubber ducky, joy of joy.
When I squeeze you, you make noise.
Rubber ducky, you're my very best friend, it's true.
Oh, every day when I make my way to the tubby,
I find a little fellow who's cute and yellow and chubby.
Rubba dub dubby, rubber ducky, you're so fine.
And I'm lucky that you're mine.
Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of you.
Hey, rubber ducky, would you like me to scrub your back
with my nifty little scrub brush?
You would?
Okay, how's this?
Hey, you want me to scrub behind your ears?
Oh, I see.
You don't have any ears, do you?
Well, how about your tummy?
Scrub his little ducky tummy.
Oh, he's ticklish.
Oh, every day when I make my way to the tubby,
I find a little fellow who's cute and yellow and chubby.
Rubba dub dubby, rubber ducky, you're so fine.
And I'm lucky that you're mine.
Rubber ducky, I'd like a whole pond of rubber ducky.
And I'm awfully fond of you.
So I am delighted that our listeners,
after all of that journey through the filth that we encountered
in the bathroom, have decided to send us out into the garden.
It's beautiful out here.
So much nicer, yeah.
I need it, but after that dusty mansion with the dusty library in there.
Oh, it's a nice fresh air.
Can you hear the birds?
I can.
That's beautiful.
Beautiful.
So what's growing in your garden?
Well, there's an item that I took from the library that I've still got in the back pocket.
Which I'm going to dust it down a little bit.
There we go.
And have a look.
So this is Martin Weller's book, Metaphors of Ed Tech.
I'm going to flick through this.
There's some quite interesting ideas in here.
So one of them that I really like, which I think chimes with being out here in the garden,
is the idea of rewilding.
So for anyone who's not familiar with rewilding, there's an example that Martin's book uses,
which is the Knapp Estate in Sussex, which is where I'm usually spending my time.
Sussex, that is not the Knapp Estate.
This was an old farm that the owners decided to let it run wild.
And found that it brought so much diversity of life back to letting nature take its course.
And Martin brings this idea of, you know, we look at that as an alternative to the kind of monoculture you find in a lot of farms.
And he draws this as a metaphor with what we do with things like the virtual learning environment
and how the VLE is sort of comparable to a kind of agricultural monoculture.
Makes the case that, think about borrowing from the idea of rewilding,
which would mean things like reintroducing the diversity of the open web a little bit back into learning.
You can imagine how, rather than, you know, although that would mean people wouldn't all get the same experience.
And, you know, there'd be some sort of, some areas end up as weeds and dead ends,
but you get a lot more richness and diversity and many more sort of fascinating options going down that particular route.
I think that's an interesting one to explore.
It is an interesting one to explore.
I would say, is the web really as diverse as it once was?
It sounds like a very nostalgic web of the, you know, the geocities era of the web where it was a little bit of a wild west.
And you look at it now, it's all beige and beigeification really.
I mean, beigeification is one of my favorite new terms.
Where everything is so sterilized and, you know, formatted and neat boxes to put your comments in.
You know, TikTok and all those kinds of platforms that are basically empty containers for people to fill with stuff that fits into exactly those containers.
So, I don't know. I'm skeptical. I'd love to get back to that wild web.
But is that really feasible? And is it really maybe, maybe the Fediverse will help us? I hope so.
I can't remember who said it, but somebody mentioned the web is basically five websites with screenshots of each other.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, it's a nice idea, but, you know, the web has kind of moved on a little bit from there.
Well, that doesn't mean it can't move again. And let's hope. Let's hope.
That's one of the things that I've always taken as an understanding about the Internet or the web, which is how we mostly tend to experience and understand the Internet, is that it always evolves.
It's never something that stays the same or stays stagnant.
And as long as it remains in some way participative, then I am sure it will continue to evolve.
Let's hope so.
Thank you.
Take me outside, sit in the green garden. Nobody out there, but it's okay now.
Bathe in the sunlight, don't mind if rain falls. Take me outside, sit in the green garden.
I'm a butterfly on the wings of a butterfly. High as a tree, tall, down again.
Put my bag down, taking my shoes off, walking the carpet, green velvet.
Bath in my garden like we used to. Bath in my garden like we used to.
Take me outside, sit in the green garden. Nobody out there, but it's okay now.
Bathe in the sunlight, don't mind if rain falls. Take me outside, sit in the green garden.
Take me outside, sit in the green garden. Take me outside, sit in the green garden.
I'm a butterfly on the wings of a butterfly. High as a tree, tall, down again.
Put my bag down, taking my shoes off, walking the carpet, green velvet.
Bath in my garden like we used to. Bath in my garden like we used to.
God, have you seen the time?
Yes, it's about time we left this space, isn't it?
I think it's getting late. I think we should pack up and just maybe wander down the garden path.
It's been an interesting exploration.
It's been an interesting journey and it's been an interesting time to look back really,
on all the different highlights and some of the lowlights.
Lowlights aside, I've certainly enjoyed it.
I've had a whale of a time. Really good time.
So I've got a closing question for you. What kept you going in this field all this time?
How come you're still a learning technologist after all these years?
I think it's the variety of stuff and the opportunities.
There are so many opportunities if you're willing to take them, if you're willing to take that risk,
if you are willing to find the colleagues, the right colleagues and surround yourselves with the right network.
There's so much creative stuff and so much fun you can have in that job.
But it takes courage and it does take a bit of oomph, you know, energy.
Sometimes it does take a room full of cardboard boxes, sometimes too.
Sometimes it does.
And you also have to be prepared that sometimes it's not always going to work.
Obviously, you have to be quite comfortable with failure. That's true.
Well, it's been a pleasure exploring this house with you.
Yeah, likewise. We should do that again sometime.
Let's.
Shall we play one last song?
I think so. Yeah, let's do it.
All right. Thank you for listening.
Bye bye.
Bye.
This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here. Huge success.
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Aperture science.
We do what we must because we can.
For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead.
But there's no sense crying over every mistake.
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
And the science gets done and you make a neat clunk of the people who are still alive.
I'm not even angry.
I'm being so sincere right now.
Even though you broke my heart and killed me.
And tore me to pieces.
And blew every piece into a fire.
As they burned it hurt because I was so happy for you.
Now these points of data make a beautiful line.
And we're out of data. We're releasing on time.
So I'm glad I got there and think of all the things we learned for the people who are still alive.
Go ahead and leave me.
I think I prefer to stay inside.
Maybe you'll find someone else to help you.
Maybe Black Mesa.
That was a joke. Ha ha. Bad chance.
Anyway this cake is great. It's so delicious and moist.
Look at me still talking when there's science to do.
When I look up there it makes me glad I'm not you.
I've experiments to run. There is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
Then believe me I am still alive.
I'm doing science and I'm still alive.
I feel fantastic and I'm still alive.
While you're dying I'll be still alive.
And when you're dead I will be still alive.
Still alive.