Weeknote 01/2018

Open Thinkering Weeknotes, Moodle, work

So here we are! The first weeknote of 2018. You know the drill.

This week I’ve been:

  • Celebrating the New Year. I spent Christmas at home with just my wife and children, but we went down to Devon to the in-laws for New Year and had a great time.
  • Redesigning Thought Shrapnel, which is now not only a weekly newsletter, but also a blog! I think you’ll agree that Bryan Mathers did a great job with the logo. Read more about that here. You can become a supporter to show your appreciation for this work, and to ensure it continues!
  • Returning to life as an employee! As I mentioned before Christmas, I’m leading a new innovation project for Moodle. This involves working for them four days per week, and I can do so from home (with a bit of travel). So in a sense, lots has changed, and nothing at all. Note I’m still doing some consultancy, mostly through We Are Open co-op.
  • Meeting with Moodle colleague Tom Murdock about various things.
  • Introducing myself on the forum for the upcoming Learn Moodle Basics course. It’s been a few years since I used Moodle, so I thought I’d get back up-to-speed along with Mary Cooch and the community!
  • Working a short week due to New Year’s Day on Monday. My ‘Doug day’ (or, more likely, ‘consultancy / admin / catch-up-with-all-the-things day’) is likely to be Fridays, most weeks. This time around it was full of admin and my children begging me to play with them instead, — as they don’t go back to school until next week.
  • Sorting out various things as Secretary of the Executive Committee for 6th Morpeth Scouts.  I’m trying to streamline some stuff around meetings, calendaring, etc.
  • Facepalming at Dell, who want to charge me over £900 to fix a my less than one-year old XPS 13 laptop which has a threaded screw in the base. This is causing it come apart near the screen. As a result of their greed and poor customer service, I’ve used duct tape to patch it up as best I can, and bought a £60 battery to resurrect my Lenovo X220. I prefer the keyboard on the latter anyway, and in fact I’m using it to type this!

  • Writing:

  • Redesigning Doug Belshaw’s Thought Shrapnel

  • Thinking about social logins and identity on the web
  • Why I didn’t go on ‘Belshaw Black Ops’ at the end of 2017

Next week I’m at home all week, and celebrating my daughter’s birthday towards the end of it. I’ll be in London twice this month, the week after next for a co-op meetup, and then the week after that, I’ll be at BETT on the Friday.

Photo taken by me on New Years’ Day at Branscombe beach, Devon.