Nothing particularly interesting

This is my first blog of the new term, and is rather conveniently facilitated by the fact that I forgot to pre-order my books at the British Library, and have a rather pleasant wee wait until the real work begins. In fact, getting back to blogging is something which is long overdue – for no other reason that I have found the process of blogging a necessary form of exercise, and this has made me think quite a lot again about the value of social networks for study purposes. I remember once getting some very good advice from a journalist colleague, who said that I should make sure that I write something everyday. Of course, that is never going to happen – but I can certainly testify that if I let myself go too long without writing anything not only do I struggle more to write when I need to, but even my thinking seems to calcify. It is almost as though the process of writing forces us to solidify thoughts in a way which we might not otherwise do – and until we solidify our thoughts they...

When I was starting out in education, I really longed for an exciting range of technological solutions that could engage students from a distance, and encourage online interaction - or what we now refer to as MOOCs. It never seemed to come though, and as the years went by I found myself becoming disillusioned, and later disappointed. My faith in MOOCs as an educational solution wilted. I had believed that online courses could provide a level social playing field for students in a way that no other educational forum could - but when eventually the technology did start to be readily available, it didn’t seem to achieve what it promised. No matter what I did, I could not seem to get students to engage with it. They seemed fixed, rigidly, in a distrust of educational technology, and unwilling to take that leap of faith into the world of discussion forums and online chats. As the years went by, I began to understand why. These students were able to achieve everything tha...

I presume that most of us believe ourselves to be an expert in something.  From particle physics to computer games, from parenting to bomb disposal, most of us spend a great part of our lives focusing on something - and it is impossible to do that without knowing quite a lot about it. As an academic, my own areas of expertise are pretty precise.  I don't think it would be particularly arrogant to suggest that if I were to throw a stone from the coffee shop in which I am sitting, it would be unlikely to hit many people who know more about language philosophy in the mid-eighteenth-century English novel.  Having said that, if I were to throw a stone from here I would probably hit half-a-dozen people who know more about gardening, DIY, mathematics, etc. etc.. Being in Stratford, I am currently fascinated by the people I see with Olympic security badges.  What do they do?  Have I just said 'good morning' to an Olympian?  To a woman who was an architect of th...

Ok. So it seems I have been running the risk of hypocrisy for some time now.  In my capacity as a lecturer to undergraduates I have been espousing for some time the values of the internet and of the wide range of media it provides - not only as a source of information, but as a means of clarifying, sharing, and developing thought in intuitive ways.  This is all well and good, but for all my enthusiasm I have been terrible remiss at using the wretched thing myself. I guess my main problem (and surely I am not the only one here?)  is the whole 'so here I am, what do I say now?' syndrome.  If I were one of my own students, I would be recommending forming study groups.  Writing up thoughts and reflections on classes, or books and chapters read (if they read any).  Either way, there would be a definite purpose to what they were trying to achieve. So what is my purpose? Well, I could argue that my hope is to develop something which might be useful to studen...