Penworks.Net

13/01/2023

Why coursework matters

Im thinking about coursework as assignments for degree assessment. Here I’m emphasising why practical real-world orientated coursework is so valuable to students, way beyond the grading process.  Some courses hardly ever use coursework at all, or very rarely, still relying on exams. Stop doing that. I had a feedback session yesterday with a small masters cohort about their impending coursework...

Categories Blog/Learning & Teaching

29/08/2022

The terrible assumptions of digital literacy

This post is about ridding ourselves of dumb assumptions about digital literacy – who knows about tech and who doesn’t. Mostly, all assumptions are wrong, and do harm to how society progresses as a digital community Recently I’ve been dealing with various projects that relate to digital skill and literacies, and am fairly overwhelmed at how many ignorant assumptions swirl...

Categories Blog/Learning & Teaching/PostDoc/Webdev/Work

22/07/2022

Let’s talk about Questionnaires

Why are questionnaires always so badly designed? Why do people think it is easy to put a questionnaire together? This post considers the key problems in an honest, candid way. I see quite a lot of ‘quantitative’ research from various sources, both scientific (positivist) and humanities (interpretivist). I also see various random market research questionnaires about stuff like technology/ apps/...

Categories Blog/Learning & Teaching/PostDoc

06/05/2022

The Challenges of Peer Review

This post is about dealing with difficult peer review, particularly reviewers who are rude and patronising. It’s made up of three posts shared in Facebook and I reproduce largely intact. Dealing with negative peer review is always *interesting* The gatekeeping of academic work by others ‘in the field’ sounds good in theory but in practice can sometimes be an exercise...

Categories Blog/Learning & Teaching/PhD/PostDoc

20/02/2022

Data landscapes, perceived truths

This morning I woke up and listened to the excellent BBC world service documentary ‘Dark Patterns’. It’s 27 minutes of your time, and it’s very much worth it. It will introduce you to, if you’re not already familiar with, the dark patterns of digital interface design. I’ve been teaching stuff about dark patterns for the past few years any time...

Categories Audio/Blog/Featured

03/02/2022

Unwritten Stories of PhD

I write this post to document my own journey a little, and for the benefit of others who think they aren’t good enough, aren’t suitable or are ‘the wrong kind of person’ for doing this kind of thing. That was probably my own self-view. But I am now a Dr, and you could be too. (Longread) I was first pointed...

Categories Learning & Teaching/PhD

21/12/2021

It’s finally Xmas 2021

It’s finally Xmas 2021. We got here. All the covid, PhD, work, projects, hassle and stress are done. Free Christmas cards are here too. Download each set, you get A5 and A6 pre-made pdf for printing if you’re inclined, plus all the images to just email or message to your fabulous friends. There are two sets, a Generative Art set,...

Categories Blog/Featured/Images

22/03/2021

Managing project assets, deliverables and timelines

This post is about managing projects and the documents that come with them, using ad-hoc person-centred solutions. It’s not about Prince2 techniques or other strict top-down approaches. People are often involved in several projects at once and many can be document heavy and involve several people. These scenarios mean we need to find a practical system to manage assets, deliverables...

Categories Audio/Blog/Words/Work

08/02/2021

Selective democratisation of the arts: who needs your book, song, painting? No one, that’s who

When Toni Morrison said ‘write the book you want to read,’ she didn’t mean everybody. (Fran Lebowitz). I recently saw this statement in a social media feed. Momentarily I thought someone had singled something pithy out of the current Lebowitz programme being screened on UK television. But on a quick Google search I realised this is a billion-shared meme. Which...

Categories Blog/Ideas/Words

10/12/2020

Smart Learning really is a thing

Catching up on current happenings in smart urban creative and learning initiatives using digital interactions to engage with place and the city I’m following up again on my continuing academic assertion that situated digitally mediated creativity, perhaps especially writing (aka writing the smart city, hyperlocal publishing, ambient literature, twitterature …) is a real opportunity for learning and engaging with place...

Categories Blog/Ideas/Learning & Teaching