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What type of blog am I?
I took part in a Reclaim Hosting session as part of the blogging community yesterday. Maren ran the session on How to Get Your Blogging Mojo Back and Lee Skallerup Bessette gave a fascinating talk on her blogging history. One topic she raised was a thorny one that many of us have wrestled with in the blogging area. And that is, whether to have specialised blogs or an all-encompassing one. Lee talked about how she had established different blogs for swimming, knitting as well as ed tech. Jim Groom stated that he made a decision early on that his blog would be a big messy bucket for everything he was…
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Don’t go west
Maren and I had booked a trip to New York in May as our wedding present to ourselves. Neither of us have ever been there and we had a fun itinerary lined up. Last week we cancelled it. We were going to meet up with friends, and missing out on this is the part that hits the hardest. The reasons for cancelling are muddled but contain elements of the economic boycott, safety concerns and ethical considerations. On the economic side, this seems like a practical step in response to Trump’s trashing of trade agreements. Safety wise, although planes seem to be crashing with increased regularity, and the current border control…
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Feb 25 round up
(With Maren Deepwell and Tom Farrelly at the Education After the Algorithm seminar at DCU) As I mentioned in a couple of posts, I gave a keynote in Dublin this month. I was also the examiner on an excellent PhD about the impact of the VLE on mental wellbeing. So, I’ve been keeping my academic hand in. It’s an odd time to be an academic. Mind you, it’s an odd time to be anyone. Part of what you do as an academic is attempt to find the truth. I’m aware that often there is not one single truth, and conclusions can vary depending on context, but in general, research, writing,…
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Van Morrison and the Cashback opener
In a desperate bid to outfox AI I am endeavouring to create links between seemingly disparate topics, just for the sake of it. Today, the completely obvious connection between the opening tracks on Van Morrison’s albums of the 70s and learning design. Buckle up. Van’s Cashback Openers I’ve been listening to a LOT of Van Morrison recently. I’m not sure what started it, but I’ve been down that rabbit hole for a while now. Van is both an incredible musical genius and an incredible misanthrope. It is one of the perpetual gifts and mysteries of the creative act that great art can come forth from people who you wouldn’t want…
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AI, ecosystems and metaphors
(image is a Bryan Mathers sketch of my keynote) As I mentioned in my last post, I gave a keynote at the Education After the Algorithm conference in Dublin last week. It was a thoughtful, engaging event, congrats to Eamon Costello and all involved. A screencast of my talk is below. I concentrated on two metaphors, which I’ve blogged here previously, namely DDT and the introduction of rabbits into Australia. My intention was twofold: to highlight how the information ecosystem may be prone to some of the similar impacts from AI agents as these environmental ecosystems were to the introduction of these outside agents; to demonstrate the utility of metaphorical…
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AI and rabbits
For my upcoming keynote at the Education after the algorithm: Co-designing critical and creative futures symposium in Dublin, I am exploring metaphors relating to ecosystems and AI. I’ll blog the whole talk after the event, but one of those metaphors I am using is the introduction of the European rabbit to Australia. The background During the 18th and 19th centuries, the European rabbit was introduced into Australia primarily as a food resource and for hunting activities. There is a myth that the subsequent explosion of the rabbit population can be traced back to one single introduction, that by Thomas Austin in 1859. An English settler Austin wanted to establish a…
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January 25 Round-up
After 3 long years, January has finally ended. On the personal front it’s been going well. Now that I don’t have as many meetings, I decided to shift the ‘vibe’ of my room from ‘home office’ to ‘vinyl lounge’. This involved the inevitable trip to Ikea, and purchase of the favourite of vinyl collectors, the Kallax unit. It’s interesting to note the manner in which the change in the physical set-up alters your behaviour. We used to have our records split across three rooms, but now they are all gathered in The Vinyl Lounge (please say this in an appropriately sonorous tone), I find myself playing a lot of different…
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Blogging is back, take 183
But is it safe? Maren and Jim over at Reclaim are starting a blogging community, so it feels like the 2000s again. Get a Northern Voice conference going in Canada someone, before it becomes part of the USA! I don’t really need encouragement to blog, but if you do, Maren has some advie on getting your blogging mojo back. I’m trying not to do that thing of linking everything to “current events”, but I do feel that having your own platform, your own voice, community and identity when so much of that is controlled by people you wouldn’t trust with a glue pen, does add extra currency to blogging. Brian…
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Socialist AI
(Image – Life is sharing, CC-BY some geezer called cogdog, who he?) I’ve been reading Brian Merchant’s Blood in the Machine recently. It’s an engaging account of the Luddite rebellion, which is well researched and told, but what really brings it to life are the direct comparisons he makes with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the mill owners, who use technology to accrue capital in the hands of a few, and take agency from working people. The fact that “luddite” is a derisory term instead of championing people who fought for their livelihood and humanity is a victory of those same entrepreneurs. Anyway, as was the intention of the book, it…
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Room 101 for 2025
Maren celebrated the 101st episode of her podcast recently, and I was the invited guest. We riffed off the idea of Room 101. If you don’t know this it borrows the idea of Orwell’s Room 101 which contains your biggest fear, which was converted into a light entertainment radio and TV programme where people nominate pet peeves to go into Room 101 so we don’t have to experience them anymore. Going into the new year we volunteered what we would like to put into Room 101 for 2025. Here were my options: Anything “bro” – I was watching the US coverage of the election back in November, and I knew…
