Travel and Speaking
Kin and I (and my mum) have been in the UK all week. We’ve been to Midhurst, Bletchley Park, Coventry, York, Newcastle, Oxford, and back to Midhurst again – almost all places I’ve never visited before. (And it’s been almost 25 years since I was in Oxford.)
I spoke at ALTC and at Newcastle University. (Links to the notes and slides are below.) I’m overwhelmed with how well my talks were received, particularly the keynote at ALT. (I storified some of the tweets.)
Next week: London and Hermosa Beach
Hack Education Writing
Editing Educating Modern Learners
- Lessons for Leaders from LAUSD by Bruce Dixon
- Building a Mission and a Vision that Matters by Will Richardson
- EML Newsletters (1, 2)
- What You Should Know This Week: Celebrity iCloud Hack
Other Projects
The first episode of the Writing Education Technology podcast is now available. (Honored to have been Erik Marshall’s first guest.)
I find it challenging to stay up-to-speed on emails and social media while traveling. So there were probably other things I was meant to do this week. Oops.
Reading and Viewing
I haven’t been doing any reading while on the road, and now I’ve got a bunch of new releases lined up for the flight home. I did watch Castles in the Sky, a BBC drama about the development of radar. The timing was quite nice as I mentioned my grandfather’s work on that project as part of my ALT talk; and we’re heading to the RAF Museum tomorrow to view his papers.
Family and Friends
I convinced my mum to time a trip over to the UK with us so that we could both visit her mum together. (My granny is now 97 and while her physical health is good, her mental health is not.) It’s been super to have my mum to drive Kin and me around. We’ve stayed several nights at my aunt and uncle’s house in Midhurst. (I hadn’t seen them in 8 years.)
And of course I love coming to the UK because I get to see so many friends as well as family. Both Coventry and Newcastle were stellar for that: David Kernohan, Martin Hawksey, Martin Weller, Josie Fraser, Sheila McNeil, Catherine Cronin, Jonathan Worth, Doug Belshaw, Suzanne Hardy, et al.
Meanwhile, back in the states: my friend Noel Jackson has been on my mind all week. After a whirlwind performance on Twitter of “excitable speech,” he found himself “Section 12’d” by his employer, MIT. More on this story to come…
Image credits: Audrey Watters and The Noun Project