Oh what bimonthly now?? Yeah that’s really not good enough…
OK … visits to other institutions … so far these have been
An online identity workshop (for the Rhizome project)
A visit to a disaster management roleplay gaming event (at a police station in Ashby)
The HE Academy for feedback on their work with JISC
2 days at the EMERGE final event
Trip to Aber for the DIVERSE committee meeting
What’s really neat is that I was asked to attend all of these - yup - people actually want me to go - the downside is that I really felt I was away too much - I’ve already turned down two things for March because it was getting in the way of work. After a while you realise you can’t spend your time networking, you’ve got to do some work to be worth networking with.
Next … writing …
I took a week off to get some writing done and managed to complete two papers a book chapter and most of another book chapter. I also got to go to the SGARG writing retreat and contributed to four of the bids that were being written.I still can’t get over the experience of people actually asking me for advice on their submissions, cool. The bid I’m leading on is a European bid due in at the end of March. Still a while to get it done, but running out of time.
Getting stuff written at weekend or on research days is proving tricky, other stuff just gets in the way. Still, I am managing to get some research done on the PhD - a visit to Middlesbrough College on Monday to record some interviews with students about their experiences of Second Life. I’m not sure how well it went, my questions just seemed to be too vague once I got to ask them. Possibly needs a rethink at some point.
Projects are going OK
The Theatron project is looking really strong now - that’s taking up some of the time I should be dedicating to the PhD, but it’s all to the same goal in the end. The audio feedback project and COWL projects are off the ground, they should start firming up soon. The TheatreBase bid is going in. Anyone who wants to know more about this, please contact me - yeah right like anybody actually reads this.
EC-related stuff
Mad dash around at the last minute to get the CU Online induction sorted, apparently everyone thought everyone else was sorting it. Also done a couple of Open Days, helping out with the clickers. A couple of times though people have seemed to think I’d be there to respond to enquiries whenever they wanted to get in touch. I’m working on training everyone out of that. I’m not here 9 to 5 for tech support, usually I’m out. People seem to associate being in the office with being busy and being out of the office with slacking off. In fact I’d say the truth is the opposite way round. I’m also working out how to integrate Tricaster into the EC range of technology. Well actually I know how to do it, ask Emily in SIGMA to do it all :$
Also helping out with links with Hibernia College, hopefully we can find useful ways to collaborate.
I think that’s a run down of the main things. Rest of the week is bid writing, helping with an HEA consultation and some meetings.
As ever, if any colleagues want to know more about any of this stuff, can think of ways this might help their work or vice versa, or have comments about the direction the work is taking, please get in touch. If I don’t hear from you I’ll assume I’m doing fine and carry on as normal.