Tag: london

What I Read in 2022

Another good reading year albeit not quite as prolific as last year. 41 books read in total, and nearly all for the first time. And once again, supplemented by thousands of news articles, opinion pieces and blog posts.

Book cover of The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.
Book cover of Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.
  1. Eliot, T. S.: The Waste Land1 and Other Poems
  2. Gaiman, Neil: Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
  3. Gaiman, Neil: Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House
  4. Gaiman, Neil: Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country
  5. Gaiman, Neil: Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists
  6. Grahame, Kenneth: The Wind in the Willows (r2)
  7. Orwell, George: Down and Out in Paris and London
  8. Pratchett, Terry: Pyramids
  9. Russell, Willy: Blood Brothers (r3)
  10. Seneca: Dialogues and Essays
  11. Shakespeare, William: Julius Caesar (r4)
  12. Shakespeare, William: The Tempest (r)
  13. Simenon, Georges: The Cellars of the Majestic
  14. Simenon, Georges: The Judge’s House
  15. Simenon, Georges: Signed, Picpus
  16. Simenon, Georges: Inspector Cadaver
  17. Simenon, Georges: Félicie
  18. Simenon, Georges: Maigret Gets Angry
  19. Simenon, Georges: Maigret in New York
  20. Simenon, Georges: Maigret’s Holiday
Book cover of Maigret and the Minister by George Simenon.
Book cover of Maigret Sets a Trap by George Simenon.
  1. Simenon, Georges: Maigret’s Dead Man
  2. Simenon, Georges: Maigret’s First Case
  3. Simenon, Georges: My Friend Maigret
  4. Simenon, Georges: Maigret at the Coroner’s
  5. Simenon, Georges: Maigret and the Old Lady
  6. Simenon, Georges: Madame Maigret’s Friend
  7. Simenon, Georges: Maigret’s Memoirs
  8. Simenon, Georges: Maigret at Picratt’s
  9. Simenon, Georges: Maigret Takes a Room
  10. Simenon, Georges: Maigret and the Tall Woman
  11. Simenon, Georges: Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters
  12. Simenon, Georges: Maigret’s Revolver
  13. Simenon, Georges: Maigret and the Man on the Bench
  14. Simenon, Georges: Maigret is Afraid
  15. Simenon, Georges: Maigret’s Mistake
  16. Simenon, Georges: Maigret Goes to School
  17. Simenon, Georges: Maigret and the Dead Girl
  18. Simenon, Georges: Maigret and the Minister5
  19. Simenon, Georges: Maigret and the Headless Corpse
  20. Simenon, Georges: Maigret Sets a Trap
  21. Simenon, Georges: Maigret’s Failure

Rather than set out any specific goals for 2023 in terms of how much to read and what to read, I am simply going to aim to read every day and follow wherever the literary-nose takes me.

  1. Having only read excerpts previously, I felt I should read the poem in its entirety given that 2022 was the centenary of its publication. I ended up reading it several times to fully digest it and did so with the support of this detailed hypertext version, which complemented the copy I had bought for Kindle, perfectly.[↩]
  2. ‘r’ indicates re-reading[↩]
  3. Re-read for work.[↩]
  4. Also re-read for work.[↩]
  5. Maigret and the Minister and the following two novels, Maigret and the Headless Corpse and Maigret Sets a Trap, have been the most engrossing Maigret stories yet.[↩]

TeachMeet Moodle

tmmoodle

Today I gave a presentation to fellow Moodlers at the first ever TeachMeet Moodle which was organised by Dan Humpherson (@MoodleDan) and was hosted at Heythrop College in Kensington, London. The Meet kicked off at 11:00 with speed “dating” networking followed by a series of excellent and varied presentations.

The Twitter hash tag for the event is: #TMMoodle.and you can see a complete archive of the tweets here. All the details about the Meet can be found here, including a list of attendees, presentation titles and discussion topics.

Below is the recording of my presentation: Blended Learning: How Moodle changes the learning inside and outside of my classroom. Thanks to Leon Cych (@eyebeams) for recording all of the presentations.

[Update]: The video of the presentation is no longer available.

And here are the slides I used in the presentation. I did overrun a little but I don’t think anyone was too upset by that! 🙂

During my presentation I briefly discussed my belief that Moodle brings the ‘learning spaces’ of the campfire, watering hole and cave into one place, blending them together. My understanding of these concepts represent my response to reading David D. Thornburg Ph.D.‘s ‘Campfires in Cyberspace’. You can read it here and see an extensive mind map that I created exploring the ideas put forward by Thornburg here.

Presentations of note:

After dealing with a few technical issues, Gideon Williams (@gideonwilliams) used Prezi to show a wide variety of plugins that help improve the functionality and interactivity of Moodle. This really hit home as I am always looking to improve the way that I use Moodle. (See the video here.)

The other presentation that struck a chord was delivered by Dai Barnes (@daibarnes) who showed off some fab moodling at St Benedict’s School. Their VLE looks great and is used really well by a member of their Music department. Great results from a teacher being encouraged to experiment with Moodle. (See the video here.)

Honourable mentions also go to Miles Berry (@mberry) for his presentation about using Moodle to teach teachers about e-learning (and for being a really nice guy); Daniel Needlestone (@nstone) who kept it light-hearted with his ‘Mallards and Moodle’ presentation; and Helen Morgan (@nellmog) who made a strong case for form being as important as functionallity within a Moodle course. You can see their presentations (and the rest) here.

I would like to say thanks to everyone involved. It was my first TeachMeet and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Anticipating and looking forward to the next one.