http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org A weblog from the Netskills frontline... Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:23:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en You don't get very far in life if you can't read, right... but, assuming you can read, can you really read?!  What if the pressure's on and you have to read - and understand - fast ... Are you up to the task? Last month I attended a staff development workshop ... http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org/2010/03/06/rapid-reading-eyeing-up-the-words/ Isn't technology fantastic when it just works? But on the flip side, isn't technology infuriating when it leaves you frustrated and resigned, thinking "why the **** doesn't this just work"?! As someone whose job it is to enthuse new users of the benefits and advantages of technology for their working ... http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org/2009/12/02/roam-free/ So what happened?!  This blog started (reasonably) well... but then no new posts for well over a year!  :-S I'm not sure I know the exact answer, but it lies somewhere between me, my personality type, the changing nature of my job and the not insignificant emergence of Twitter.  When ... http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org/2009/11/18/blog-off/ Last week I was at the second Next Generation Environments Conference at Aston Business School, Birmingham. (Was it really only last week!?) It was an interesting, enjoyable and social event, and here are a few of my thoughts/reactions... The set-up for the conference was excellent. As someone who's been involved in ... http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org/2008/05/09/reflections-on-the-next-generation-environments-conference-2008/ I was fortunate enough to go on a trip to Cuba last October. What a fantastic country; such warm, friendly people with a thirst for life and incredible resourcefulness, fabulous and varied scenery and an abundance of Mojito! Before setting off i'd arranged to visit La Universidad de Oriente in Santiago ... http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org/2008/05/06/learning-to-love-snails/ I've run our Writing for the Web (WFTW) workshop a number of times over the last few weeks, in Dublin, Edinburgh and Huddersfield. All three were excellent days, each taking its own natural course and ending up completely different to the suggested blueprint in the workbook. Last week I was ... http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org/2007/12/20/know-your-audience-when-writing-web-content/ I must've been living a charmed life. Either that or this workblog is a curse!? Up until last week all of my journeys as a Netskills trainer over the past two and a half years have been relatively straightforward. I haven't suffered horrendous delays, the feared connecting bus between stations, ... http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org/2007/11/23/travellers-tales/ Life is fast: "oh, when will I have a free weekend?" Work is fast: "when will I ever get the time to sort out my inbox?" The internet is fast and getting faster and more available: janet, broadband, wifi, gprs. But it definitely pays to slow down every now and ... http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org/2007/11/22/taking-advantage-of-the-slow-lane/ So i'm up and running... my workblog is live and I have my first comment - thanks Hector! I've been thinking about setting up this workblog for a while; I started thinking about it more seriously after the JISC Services Skills Day in Oxford in September, where I was finally convinced ... http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org/2007/11/15/laying-down-the-rules/ Hello all ... well, only me actually right now! ;-) Before I dive headfirst into the world of blogging, here's my reasoning for setting up a workblog. I definitely have concerns... concerns shared by lots of new bloggers i'm sure. Am I diligent enough to keep up a blog? Will anyone read ... http://whaa.jiscinvolve.org/2007/11/15/so-im-a-blogger-now-why/